Early Access Update Tjugosju (27)
build id: 56F991AF
nornware AB is happy to announce a new update to Space Beast Terror Fright.
Hives / Infestation
There is now an option for "Infestation" (none, more, less). When enabled, the ship will be partially infested by "some kind of secreted resin" that the Beasts have (conceptually) built in order to make the ship more like home (for them). The option controls how far from the airlock the infestation will begin, and hence how much of the ship will be filled with this stuff. The default setting is "less" Infestation.
This feature is purely aesthetic and has no actual gameplay mechanic, but I have found it to be a very welcome addition in how it breaks up the levels and messes with visibility. As it partially encrusts and encases the walls of the ship, you will often find it much harder to aim at Door and Fence controls as these can be submerged. Sentry control panels, due to their slimness, will also often be submerged and thus harder to find and even read.
Power Start Option
There is now an option Power Start that controls whether power is initially ON or OFF in a mission. This is independent of Power Failures settings.
Updated Power Failures Options
More Power Failures options have been implemented, as follows:
- none - Power Failures will not occur.
- 1 / 8 - Power Failures have a 1 in 8 chance of occurring on interaction.
- 1 / 16 - Power Failures have a 1 in 16 chance of occurring on interaction.
- 1 / 32 - Power Failures have a 1 in 32 chance of occurring on interaction.
- 50% @ 30-60 - Power Failures have a 50% chance of occurring at intervals of 30 - 60 seconds.
- 50% @ 60-120 - Power Failures have a 50% chance of occurring at intervals of 60 - 120 seconds.
- 50% @ 120-240 - Power Failures have a 50% chance of occurring at intervals of 120 - 240 seconds.
The default is now 50% @ 120-240.
Battery Changes
Bulk battery charges (on download completion) have been increased:
- The player will receive 30 extra seconds of charge when a download awards an Upgrade.
- The player will receive 60 extra seconds of charge when a download does not award an Upgrade.
Battery charge rates have been increased:
- No Upgrade - 2.5 seconds / second (previously 1.0 seconds / second)
- Level 1 - 5.0 seconds / second (previously 2.5 seconds / second)
- Level 2 - 7.5 seconds / second (previously 5.0 seconds / second)
- Level 3 - 10.0 seconds / second (previously 7.5 seconds / second)
- Level 4 - 12.5 seconds / second (previously 10.0 seconds / second)
New Planner: MiniMazes
This is simply a quarter-size version of Mazes, with all the same options.
Mission Config Persistence
As the mission config options are ever expanding, I have implemented saving of the local party MissionConfig (all Seed, Plan, and Rules settings) in order to let players keep their favorite settings more easily. This works for both Random and Explicit Seed settings. This is currently only supported for local play and not in networked multiplayer, and will store at the same time as changes to your characters are stored (upon mission failure or success).
This also means that the concept of "defaults settings" for how to play the game become quite blurred. It is possible to restore default settings for each Plan or Rule setting by reselecting it from the drop-down list. This data is stored in the same file as your local team characters, so deleting this file will also restore defaults (along with removing all your live characters in the local team):
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\nornware\sbtf\localteam.txt
Appdata file format changes
All data stored by the game in the local user folder have updated file formats. This means that all previous settings and characters will be wiped by this update. Data stored is a follows:
- C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\nornware\sbtf\dead.txt - The list of dead characters shown in the main menu obituary scroll.
- C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\nornware\sbtf\localteam.txt - The current local team, which may include both live and dead characters in each slot. Your last MissionConfig is also stored in this file.
- C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\nornware\sbtf\settings.txt - All settings from the Options screen.
Note that this file format change has made these files much more human readable and eminently more manually hackable using a text editor. Note however that manually editing these files is not supported and is always done at your own risk.
Miscellaneous
- All mission configuration options (advanced config) now have tooltips.
- Gui spinners (for example weapon selection) go both ways, and arrows light up appropriately depending on cursor position.
- Interaction notifications are now the same for both mid-screen notifications and the mission log.
- Finally fixed the ghostly muzzle flare issue sometimes seen in multi-player (both local and networked).
- There is a new option to turn off the aiming reticle. Note that disabling the aiming reticle also completely disables all icon and text information relating to the Aim-Assist upgrade, but the Aim-Assist itself will still function.
- The Beta Armories option has been removed.
- The computer voice that announces the reactor overload warnings / countdown has been updated to be robust to alt-tab as well as pausing the game.
- Infravision has been updated to no longer show emissive light that has been turned off by Power Failures.
- Distance to airlock display (shown during reactor overload) has been fixed to properly do hot/cold distance display (like all other objectives).
- Intermediate difficulty levels have been implemented (easier + and harder +). Tooltips now exist to explain exactly what all difficulty settings entail.
As always, thank you for your support and patience,
/nornware AB c/o johno
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