It took some time to get to full speed after the holidays, but here we are! 3.9 is well underway. This version will be smaller than previous ones, since October was not very productive and I don't want to make it too long between releases. The big new feature of 3.9 will be import/export commerce, but as usual the work started with smaller enhancements.
Room-level aesthetics
Aesthetics refuses to die! I've spin again the idea, this time as a value that gets calculated for whole rooms, and displayed in the building overlay:
It's calculated from the contributions from the room flooring and its objects. Now that this is more visible officers will also require a minimum aesthetic value for their bedroom:
Notice something in the previous screenshot? Yep, graduates do not require a private room anymore. Instead they will just require a basic bed (which now can be made private to an officer) plus an aesthetic value for their bedroom (which is any room the bed is located at). Since basic beds do not assign ownership to their surroundings and can be built in multiples in the same room, this means graduates will happily sleep in barracks, as long as it's a nice barrack. This will solve the issue of having to build huge housing areas for your graduates, which could get quite tedious. Master officers will still demand a private room and will also ask for a high aesthetic value, along with all of their previous demands.
Import limits
Resources that are imported into your station (basically all recipe ingredients) now have a configurable limit:
This means your ships will stop collecting Fruit when your station stock reaches 7500 (this default value is equivalent to 10 stacks). This will alleviate the issues with having to build too much storage areas, and it will be useful when the full import/export economy is in the game.
Clone insurance
Have this super well equipped master level officer that was in the original 6 and you don't want to lose? There's an object for that now:
First you assign an officer to the clone chamber object (only one officer per chamber, as with any other object ownership association). If the officer dies they will immediately spawn inside the clone chamber, at full health, even if the officer was in a ship or exploring a planet. This will also destroy the clone chamber object, but such is the price of insurance. Speaking of prices, it's also very expensive. If you *really* like your officer you can assign them to any amount of insurance objects, giving them as many lives as your cash allows.
Smaller changes
- Optional exclusive fullscreen mode
- Inside the object tool alt click will now also copy the settings from the object, valid for objects that are rebuildable after destroy (factories and pallet-like objects)
- Better spawning areas for some non-violent events, including allowing to spawn inside the station. And better area selection for other events, still spawning at the border but now actively choosing a location close to inhabited areas.
- Shift click with the info tool now allows to add officers to the selection
- New officer sorting option: seniority. Sorts officers by how long they have been part of your staff.
- New officer sorting option: average item level. Sorts officers by their average equipped item level in increasing order.