Patch 463 is available for PC, Mac and Linux now on the beta branch. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.
Patch Notes
Patch 463 introduces the start of the Gentle Giants story arc to the Alpha One station and opens more of the galaxy for exploration with the addition of the K72 Ice Fields and the ability to warp into orbit around any planet from the galaxy map. Patch 463 also brings a new type of ship, many bug fixes and more refinements to the UI. Player feedback is as important as ever as Terran approaches its feature complete stage later this cycle.
Ship Types
With the 463 patch we have introduced a new type of ship referred to as ‘Vanguard ships’. As with modular ship parts players will be able to unlock additional Vanguard ships through gameplay. Players can choose to fly a Vanguard type ship themselves or design and build their own modular ships to fit their unique needs and preferences.
Unlike modular ships which can only be piloted by a Terran Pilot the standardized Vanguard ships can be flown by any capable crew and fill out the bulk of most fleets. Over the upcoming builds additional ship parts and Vanguard ships will be introduced as well as the ability to hire, employ or recruit both Terran and non-Terran pilots and crews to your fleet.
Space Flight and Exploration
New exploration options are being added to the game, the first of which is the ability to warp to any know point on the galaxy map. For planets or ‘assets’ as a Terran would call them a new ‘Warp To’ button can be found in the upper left of the asset view in your map. In later builds players will be able to interact with the command towers of populated worlds to access services, meet new contacts and pick up new quests and tasks.
Heathen will be expanding on the space flight and exploration aspects of the game over the next few builds in preparation for the next patch cycle titled Vanguard. As always you can watch the Terran Roadmap for all the latest developments or of course the Terran Community of Steam for the latest news.
Technical
Shaders have been updated to improve performance across all APIs (DirectX, OpenGL, etc.), The Vulcan API is still disabled and will fall back to the next best available.
Heathen has started the process of finalizing key systems of the game removing tracing and debugging code. This process should have no notable effect on the game as seen by players but may make for larger patch updates as more files will be changed than usual. This of course will be an ongoing process until final release.
Camera and flight logic have been updated to correct several minor bugs and improve responsiveness and steep angles. Looking straight up or down will still cause the camera to spin quickly, a solution for this is prepped and will be implemented in a later build but should be a fringe case.
Task log has been updated to correct a number of minor issues including display of unselected tasks, mouse lock to centre of screen and the close button not responding to click events.
The warp in and out sequence has been marked for update, there is currently an issue where the players ship will be shown before the camera calculates its starting position. This effect self corrects within the first second or so of play and will be properly corrected in later patches.
Organization view and its reports are in an incomplete stage at the moment. The view should not cause issue with other aspects of the game but the report will not display correct values. Note the Organization view has not yet been updated for the Private and Syndicate organization types and is a work in progress for Government and Corporation organization types.
Organization AI is on temporary hold pending updates to the asset improvement system and fleet management systems. These systems are areas of focus for the team with Heathen’s goal being to get Org AI available in gameplay as soon as possible.
Game
Space flight updates including refinements of Alpha One, addition of K72 Ice Fields and the ability to warp to planet orbit from the galaxy map have all been added in this patch.
Alpha One’s Gentle Giant project and its related story arc are under development with the first task in the story arc available in its early form now. Story arcs are as described a collection of related quests / tasks with a ‘grand reward’ on completion. The Gentle Giant arc is among the smallest and simplest of the planed arcs and will be used to field test the underlying systems in preparation for the next phase of Early Access.
Work is underway around ships both modular and Vanguard. The Fleet manager and its ship editor will be updated to reflect these changes over the next few builds and cannot currently be used to build new ships. Player’s will automatically have the default or ‘starter’ ship when applied.