What's this? Weekly Update 11?! We're on a roll! We've been attacking stability and balance this week, with a lot of effort put into reducing errors on the backend, as well as improving the way enemies, fleets and the AI generals that control them work to provide a much more exciting game to play.
Let's get straight to the good stuff.
CARRIER & ENEMY MOVEMENT
has been reworked a fair bit, meaning they move around each other and around Asteroids much more intelligently, while never overlapping! This was particularly bad for Carriers, as you'd often come across big messy globs made of tough armour and more guns than was fun.
ENEMY FLEETS
have been brought up to spec, and now they more reliably move through the world, choosing different territories to attack and capture, going after them with forces of Drones made up of all enemy types. This makes for a much more dynamic and varied world to play in, and trickles down to every player in some way.
CARRIER CAPS
have been introduced, so each Drone faction needs to capture territory to gain access to more Carriers for spawning in, and even then there's a maximum cap per faction so they can't just dominate.
CARRIER MOVEMENT
has been improved, so now they're more of a threat, but not an unfair one. We've increased their speed, acceleration, and even adjusted how they turn so they should just... move around more. This is to help balance things out, keep them interesting, and ensure that Drone Fleets manage to stick together a little more as they move around the world capturing territory.
ERRORS & STABILITY ISSUES
have been addressed in a big way, meaning you won't see any changes but hopefully you'll feel them. Or rather, the lack of them!
CONNECTION ISSUES
have been addressed too. Now, we don't want you to get too excited as we're not sure that we've addressed the problems for absolutely everyone, but if you've been having problems joining the game, please do follow these instructions to help us figure it out...
PLEASE DO THE FOLLOWING IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO CONNECT:
- Right click on Lazarus in your Steam Library
- Select 'Properties'
- Go to 'Set Launch Options'
- Paste in '+linkProtocol RakNet' (without the quotation marks) and press OK
- Then close the dialog
- Then launch Lazarus and try again
- If after this you still can't connect, hit us up. Seriously - discord, email, whatever it takes, as long as you send error logs and screenshots.
PLEASE NOTE, IF YOU ARE ABLE TO CONNECT ALREADY, THIS MIGHT BREAK THINGS SO DO NO TRY IT.
SHIPS & SYSTEM LIMITS
now behave. For reals. Honestly, the bane of our lives. But no longer. You absolutely cannot equip more Systems than your Ship's build allows. This is great news.
THE ENERGY BAR
is now always full. Sometimes you'd spawn in with your energy bar (the litte blue one) less than full. This will never happen ever again, because we're great.
TERRITORY NAMES & CAPTURING INFO
has been fixed up. Before now territory names & owner information would be wrong, statuses incorrect, just all kinds of misinformation. This was across the HUD as well as on the Map, but it's all fixed now so you can sit with that open and watch as the world turn Yellow, Red and Blue... because you should be helping out, not just sitting there admiring it!
FACTION NAMES
are fixed. No more Apophis This and Apophis That. They're Drones goddamit, and they deserve being recognised as such!
DOCKED DEATH
doesn't happen anymore. Very rarely you'd get slammed by an asteroid while docked. Well, now you're perfectly safe all tucked away in there for as long as you like.
FTUE
has been even more polished. Yup, the returning champion of the updates is still in the mix this week. We're pretty certain the game is 100% bulletproof now, so nobody can get lost or stuck, though we know there are still a few minor bugs so we still have some stuff to do here. We've also added a ton of polish to the tutorial. It's only really relevant for new players, but we want to take care of you!
Next week's push will feature more polish and bug fixes, plus concentrating on bringing the Lazarus Event back into the game. It's been delayed and delayed, but forms such a core part of the loop we want to see how you guys and gals like it. Will the first pass be introduced next week? Who knows, but you should wish us luck anyway.