The first patch after eXoSpace released to Early Access! So far the release goes well, I see some rather awesome ship designs being created, and get a lot of useful feedback, so thank you all.
Boss Boost
One of the things I am working on now is improving the bosses. The goal if this is to make them less "tanky", and more interesting, for example by adding phases and new mechanics. As a small first step I have updated the Master Thief boss a bit. It is now quite a bit weaker in the hitpoints department, but now periodically launches exploding drones, fires neutron flames in a circular pattern and more.
New Designs
I want to highlight a bunch of really awesome new designs added to the Independent Privateers that you can encounter during your missions. These were made by Kepler:
New Control Scheme
A new way to control your ships has been added: the "Mouse rotates (absolute)" control scheme. This requires a little explanation: "absolute" here means that the keyboard controls (WASD by default) move the ship relative to the screen. In other words: press "W" and the ship goes towards the top of the screen.
Remember, you can cycle quickly through the control schemes by pressing R.
Another addition is a setting for making thruster boost toggle on and off when you press the boost key, instead of only activating while you hold the key down.
As always, a lot more is on the way!
Full changelist
Changes:
Improved Master Thief boss (Deep eXoSpace Starbase): less tanky, more surprises. Improving the bosses is work in progress, so keep your eyes open for the next updates!
Added a number of cool privateer designs by Kepler.
Improved default AI: aggressiveness increases when damaged, slight tendency to avoid edge and nearby friendlies.
Repair boost drop now allows full speed repairs while recently damaged.
Drop attract range scales with ship size.
Show "stardust" when zoomed in to help gauge speed.
Added Salvo 9 missile launcher module.
Added Blue Sun Shipworks and T-Corp factions to Robotic Plague assignments. Added Blue Sun and T-Corp trader encounters.
Asteroid storms now come in varying densities and velocities.
Added a setting for changing the thruster boost control to toggle on and off instead of having to hold it down.
Added new control scheme: mouse rotates, keyboard moves ship relative to screen (i.e. up on keyboard is move towards top of screen).
Added help popup to ship editor explaining some editing mechanisms.
Added news in main menu.
Show workshop EULA if it needs to be agreed to before uploading items.
Balancing:
Starbase core has less extreme armor.
Plasma throwers have higher DPS and lower exotics cost.
Halved unique module drop chance.
Traders have a much higher chance of selling a weapon now, especially if you have few. Reward blueprints are more likely to be a weapon if you have few.
Brawler starting set now has aiming joints, making it much more useful.
Starting encounter now has 3 containers instead of targets, giving some extra starting resources and a (weapon) blueprint.
Bugfixes:
Medium missile launcher used no energy.
Trader hover texts were incorrect or incomplete sometimes.
A design saved in-mission with a unique part could not be loaded.
Next/previous variants for many parts were incorrect.
Clicking on the edge of the "Hyperjump" button did not work.
Mirroring selected parts made rotation inversed.
Angry owners of stranded transport ship did not attack.
Lyrithian ship jumped out, giving an epic module for free.