In this weeks’ update we have addressed a couple of smaller issues, and implemented some much requested quality of life features. Among other things, there’s now an automation upgrade for the cargo teleporter, and a speed tracking and speed matching mode for ship flight.
Automation for the cargo teleporter has long been on our to-do list but it’s finally here. You can now purchase a teleportation upgrade cartridge at “selected vendors” (LogiCorp, GT Travelling Trade Emporiums, etc.) or print it yourself with a 3D printer.
Once inserted in a cargo teleporter the upgrade cartridge unlocks a new menu in the top right of the terminal, which can be used to set a target location. Once you set the cartridge to “active”, the cargo teleporter will automatically start teleporting resource crates every 6 seconds.
In the cockpit you will find two new buttons on your dashboard. These let you either track the speed of a targeted ship, (up to your ship’s max speed of course), or match the speed of a targeted ship once. With speed tracking mode, your ship will automatically adjust it’s speed to keep it the same as its target. Your ship does not turn automatically though, so this won’t work in battle to keep locked onto an enemy.
The extractor has received two new functionalities, you can now stop mining at any given moment, and you can select which resource should be mined. Which means that you can select a rare resource from an iron asteroid for example, and the extractor will switch to mining that first. Stopping the mining operation destroys any remaining resources in the asteroid.
The refinery has also received the stop functionality, but it will not destroy any resources, instead it will finish its current batch before cancelling the processing command.
Besides functionality tweaks we’re also always working on optimizing the game and fixing bugs. This time we’ve fixed some long standing annoying bugs with the trade terminals and how they interact with drones, fixed the drift to point code for the beacons and defense drones, and resolved a couple of issues with mission resources and refineries, among other things.
Thank you all for playing and see you star side!
-The Split Polygon Team
Patch Notes for IR Beta 0.2.8.00
PS: We will also be streaming Interstellar Rift again tonight at 22:00 CEST (21:00 UTC), in Dev Stream #58 at https://www.twitch.tv/splitpolygon. We'll be talking about the changes in 0.2.8, answer your questions, and also talk about upcoming features in 0.2.9.