Here it is in its full glory.
For full patch notes please visit the wtfrontier development blog
First of all, the version number is now 0.5.0.00 which to us, means that the game is half done. "Half done" is a hell of a claim, so I am going to immediately justify my logic with some explanation, and you can make up your own mind about how close we are to being done. My reasoning is that it's nearly impossible to quantify progress with a number when the number was being recorded before the scope was finalized. Seeing as it's nearly impossible to quantify in any objective sort of way, I've decided to just make stuff up! I figured well, we're about 80% done with the engine, but only about 20% of the content has been released so clearly we need to reach a compromise here. On the one hand the time required to get from 0 to 0.5 was much longer than 0.5 t0 1.0 will take but on the other hand the value added to the customer will be much greater from 0.5 to 1.0 so if you think about it, why would you even care?
Great, so we all agree on the version number, lets move on to the interesting bits.
Patch contents
This patch mostly adds structure, guidance, GUI, and quality of life to an existing game, while fixing that existing game so that it actually runs a little longer between crashing. We have extensively tested this one and we are mostly confident that you won't find it crashing all the time. In fact, in most of our internal full play through tests we never saw a crash at all, and the ones we did find were caused by the careless addition of last-minute content and not due to core engine issues. If you have some sort of insane hardware of operating system setup that you think will instantly prove me wrong, please feel free to immediately ruin all of my plans.
We've tested this one a lot to make sure you can actually play it, and if you have been holding back and waiting for Zero Falls to have a more stable experience I am finally confident in saying that this may be the version you want to try.
The contents of this patch represent the story content of phase 1 and the loot content of phase 1 and phase 2. You can progress through the first part of the story, and you will find some new ships and items. Mostly however this is a polishing update with the new content coming in the form of new systems that are needed for gameplay + story implementation instead of new ships and module unlocks. When we are satisfied with the release state of this patch we will begin work on phase 2 and 3 of the content and story with the intention that you should be able to carry your save game over from phase 1 + 2. If by some miracle our plan works out flawlessly on the first try you might be able to carry this save game all the way to the end of the singleplayer story as we release many future phases of content.
New systems summary
- Pilot mastery adds talent trees for improving your skills with different systems types and different hull types. We have invested a lot of time and programmed mastery points which won't be available until future updates are released because it was a necessary part of implementing our long term plans. Some mastery points will still be added in the future but our system now allows us to do that without breaking saves.
- Interior combat overhaul including animated monsters, flow field pathfinding, and totally overhauled crew weapon effects
- Story progression now a fundamental part of the save format allowing us to make some more interesting quests and design proper loot progression
- A lot of new quests and dialogue events
- A ton of visual and UI enhancements and additions
- A massive amount of bug fixes and optimizations and quality of life improvements. The game runs much faster now and is generally more stable.
Full patch notes
For full patch notes please visit the wtfrontier development blog