Greetings fellow humans!
While the plan was to continue working mostly on the hud that didn't go so well in practice so we have this update that focuses mostly on the new launchers and various changes/fixes.
Neutron Torpedo Launcher X3 Mk 3 & NTB Hornet Guided Missile Launcher
Yes after so many requests (like three or so?) we finally have two guided launcher modules!
NTB Hornet Guided Missile Launcher (the gray one)
Fires 9 short range cruise missiles that do splash damage. They aren't particularly fast, not as effective against shields but they have strength in numbers.
They take 20 seconds to reload.
Neutron Torpedo Launcher X3 Mk 3 (the white one)
Fires 3 neutron torpedoes that do higher damage and go faster than the missiles but still rely on splash damage.
These reload faster with a 10 second downtime after emptying all three tubes.
They also come with a new ability that fires all launchers on the ship that aren't blocked and have finished reloading.
If you lock on to a target (which is automatic for hostiles now) the torpedoes and rockets will seek and destroy them.
You can also fire them unguided if no target is set :)
Station Menus
The station menus got a design overhaul, adopting the new color scheme used for the inventory the the right side panel.
Abandon Ship
Just below the demagnetize button you now have a similar one that only detaches the last placed pod and puts you in control of it, leaving the ship intact as a derelict.
So, essentially a shortcut to removing all command pods manually. Note that the pod still stays in the same place it was attached - so you may need to move yourself out.
Major Changes
Since there's a ton of changes this time around let's go over the most noticeable ones:
Modules are now sold at the same price as you buy them instead of merely 33% of the original. The problems with the old system were mostly that players had to sell too much of their ship when they ran out of cash and had a run of bad luck, plus you can trade in your ship at the build station for the full price which was inconsistent.
Your ship now points at the mouse target by taking into account the distance to it. What this means is that the front of the ship is now correctly pointed at the object under the mouse and miniguns can hit the square reticle every time, instead of just at long ranges. The square reticle does jump around a fair bit because of this however, so we'll likely rework the system at some later date to fix that in some way.
The way the chase camera follows the ship has been changed slightly, so you can always reliably zoom in to just above the top most module (which used to be off by a lot for some ships). The zoom itself now works differently, moving more to the back of the ship instead of up which should be better for smaller and large ships. Overall the change isn't that significant for medium sized craft.
Changelog:
Additions:
- NTB Hornet Guided Missile Launcher
- Neutron Torpedo Launcher X3 Mk 3
- the right side panel now features a new "Abandon Ship" button that detaches the last attached pod and leaves the ship intact as a derelict
- a new "Launch torpedoes and missiles" ability that fires any attached (and not blocked by other modules) guided projectile launchers
- more npc ships
- another row of buttons for the fire group selection window that let you set all modules to a fire group instantly
Changes:
- ships now track the mouse a bit differently, taking into account the parallax between the camera and the ship for close objects; you may notice the switching when the aiming box jumps around which is a bit annoying but you can now at least hit what you're aiming at with miniguns as well
- the camera in chase mode now behaves a bit differently when zooming, following a more linear direction pointed at the rear instead of a polynomial pointed up which didn't make sense at all
- changed some of the explosion and weapon sound effects
- lockon is now automatic when you get close to a hostile ship (but you can still set it manually with MMB as before)
- the station menus have been converted to use the black background + blue border design
- scroll bars now look a bit better
- disabled saving in creative mode (so you don't override your campaign save while we still have only one savefile)
- nerfed the health of Twin Turbo Plasma Turret by about 40%
- linear engine thrust buffed by 25%
- crash damage reduced by 50%
- modules are now sold at full price instead of 33%
- both laser turret projectile speed and lifetime increased
- attachment system mildly improved
- buffed health of all command pods except the B.O.X. Conning Tower
Fixes:
- removed module count from creative inventory (since it's infinite)
- music volume can now be heard and set in the settings menu
- took weed away from chase camera since it was always a bit too high (it tracks the top of the ship properly now)
- modules now scale properly in the inventory and the trade terminal
- ships fit the workshop upload image slightly better
- the load game button clears the current state instead of just loading on top of it
- options menu category name text scaling corrected
- ship spawning tweaked so it looks at ship mass instead of module count when spawning hostiles
- naval guns' ship occupation space has been lowered by one unit
- physical volume of all turrets now registers correctly for cargo space
Known issues as of 1.08:
- Larger ships are rather intensive on performance right now
- Task and chat windows can appear off-screen on large resolutions (2560x1440 and above)
Roadmap
The features we plan on working on soon are these (in no particular order):
- usage volume based energy system (kind of like the one in FTL)
- new quest and chat system
- buildable space stations
- a special system in the center of the galaxy with a massive space station around the supermassive black hole
After that is more or less complete we'll add a bunch of quests to keep you all busy while we tackle multiplayer.
As always, thanks for reading!