Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.
This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.
Important Note
"In this update, tons of stuff is coming together, so it might still be a little unstable. But that's what the beta branch is for anyways, right? Right? Please report all the bugs you can find."
Gameplay
- Added ancient gates to exodus end sectors
- Added camera shake in several situations when ...
- boosting
- getting hit by torpedoes
- a nearby ship jumps into hyperspace
- a nearby ship arrives from hyperspace
- Camera shake intensity can be configured in settings
- Added an animation for ships arriving from hyperspace
- Added a new block shape
Procedural Craft Generator
"We reworked the procedural craft generator to create prettier ships, based on faction styles. Factions can be recognized by their ships and stations now, and each ship/station class has a distinct look. We won't bore you with the internals, just one thing: Yes, you can mod it."
- Reworked the craft generator
- Added distinct styles for ships: Ship (default), Miner, Freighter, Carrier
- Added distinct styles for each station type
- New styles will only appear in newly discovered sectors
- Most aspects of the craft generator are now controllable via scripts
- Players without any saved designs get 5 procedural ship designs of varying size that they can use
Balancing
- Limited maximum hyperspace cooldown to 5 minutes
- Hyperspace cooldown is always at least 5 seconds (instead of 0) to avoid server issues
New Endgame Content
"We feel that after killing the Wormhole Guardian there should be more to do with your time. With this update we introduce new Xsotan ships, a new server wide post-guardian event and three new bosses."
- Added a massive, server wide, regular event in the center of the galaxy that happens after killing the Xsotan Wormhole Guardian
- Added new types of Xsotan
- Summoner: ??
- Quantum: ??
- Adjusted spawn timings of Xsotan Wormhole Guardian
- Added 3 new Endgame Bosses
- Boss Project IHDTX
- The Big Brother
- 5468 6520 4149
Faction Economy
"With this update we added economic factors to factions. Their supply is now finite, depending on faction size and military or economic focus. Players can now drive AI factions to their limits, and see and feel the impact of their actions."
- Factions now have a limited amount of military ships available in a given amount of time
- The amount depends on the faction's size and how aggressive or peaceful they are
- If lots of military ships are available they might send more when sending reinforcements
- Military ships are replenished over time
- Relations now worsen when taking over a sector from an AI faction
- A faction is now considered eradicated if it controls no more sectors and has no stations
- Eradicated factions are marked in the Diplomacy tab
- Factions now rebuild lost stations
- Construction sites are not built in hazard zones
- Each faction has a capacity for building construction sites, depending on the faction's size
- Capacity is replenished over time
- Smuggler Outposts now have spies that uncover data about neighboring factions
- Total stations, military ships and construction capacity are then visible in the Diplomacy tab
- This data is always visible for allied factions
Faction Packs
"Ever wanted to play against the Star Wars Empire in Avorion? You now have the tools to do so."
- Added new type of mod, "Faction Pack"
- Faction packs allow modders to create factions with coherent custom ship and station designs
- Supported ship types: Ship, Freighter, Carrier, Miner, Fighter
- Supported station types: All basic station types
- Size and material are adjusted automatically
- Added combobox to select the type when creating a new mod
Creative Mode Improvements
"We want players to be able to use Creative Mode in a way its name suggests, to try out features and game mechanics. So we added the possibility to quickly change the equipment of your craft."
- Added "Creative Mode Command Center" tab to Ship Window
- Players can add crew, guns, system upgrades, different fighter squads, torpedoes and goods to their current craft
- Relations to AI factions can be manipulated
- Amounts of turrets in building mode are now hidden as they are infinite anyways
Backups
"Since Avorion saves (galaxies) are persistent they tend to become huge, and a normal savegame feature is not possible. We did our best to add a safeguard against losing all your progress (for example after a crash) without taking up tons and tons of hard drive space."
- While playing, the game will now create hourly emergency backups
- You can restore emergency backups from the settings menu
- You should only restore backups in case of an emergency (ie. savegame corruption, by a crash or mods)
- In order to avoid exploits, backup creation can't be manually controlled by players
- (If you really want to mess up your galaxy and then revert it, copy its folder and then go nuts)
- IMPORTANT: Restoring from a backup is not the same thing as loading a save:
- Only player progress is saved during the backup
- When a backup is applied, the galaxy is almost completely reset and backed-up player progress is reapplied
- NPC factions are completely reset on restore of a backup
Client
- Added dimensions preview when placing block templates in building mode
- Improved visuals of hull polarization effects
- Hologram blocks now light up their surroundings
- Reduced overly bright AO lighting
- Added more crash diagnostics to client
Server
- Added a command line option to restore from a backup
Scripting API
- Documentation is now sorted alphabetically
- General documentation improvements
- Added getSectorView() function to Galaxy
- Added setMaterialTier() function to BlockPlan
- Added intersectBeamRay() functionality to intersect beams the way that a weapon would behave
- ShipAI: Added new function setPassiveTurning() to allow an entity to turn and shoot while staying in place
- Made Thrusters component available in scripts: Get / set turning speeds of entities
- Made Torpedo component available in scripts
- Made DirectFlightPhysics component available in scripts
- vec2, vec3 and vec4 can now be constructed with a single value: vec3(1) == vec3(1, 1, 1)
- Several improvements to passing/reading tables to/from engine
- utility.lua: Added multimin/max utility functions
Bugfixes
"As always, bug reports marked with [UBR] are User Bug Reports! Thanks to everyone who reported those, and keep it up, especially now that we're in the polishing phase!"
- [UBR] Fixed an issue where salvagers and miners stopped randomly
- [UBR] Fixed an issue with stacked windows in main menu after changing the language
- Scripting API: Fixed an issue where Server:getPlayers() didn't return anything
- [UBR] Fixed dimensions preview of block brush being numbers like 1.49999999 instead of 1.5
- [UBR] Fixed an issue where "Immune" text would be shown too often
- Fixed an issue where wreckages were duplicated
- [UBR] Fixed a bug when pressing Escape while moving a window
- Fixed missing caption of resource depot
- Fixed missing icon in cargo transport license merchant
- Several smaller stability improvements
- [UBR] Fixed a potential source for regular server hangs
- [UBR] Fixed a rare issue with Building Mode geometry not reloading correctly