Game Update v0.580

We have a huge update this week for Stars End which finally introduces our first version of Territory Capture for the game! The challenge always was to find a way that we could implement base building features into Territory Capture to unite different aspects of the game, and with that we're introducing a new item: Territory Claims.

To takeover a town in Stars End, firstly you need to create or join a clan, which you can do from the UI. Then you need to purchase a Territory Claim from the Exchange on an Orbital Station - placing it in the middle of your chosen town (if it is not already captured.)

This will open up various features in the town, depending on your Clan permission level, such as purchasing Mechs for defenses (they attack any non clan member entering town!) and claiming Tax from Vendors, and also setting up a custom message for the area.

Your build radius covers the entire town. You will also find 2 or more empty building lots in the town to build custom structures. Custom structures can also be built around the Centrepoint POI in the middle of towns to fortify your Claim. Claims can be captured by another clan which takes 10 minutes to capture.

So far we have added capturable towns to Beta Prairie, which consists of Redberry, the largest town and also 4 satellite towns not too far down the road. The prologue has disabled temporarily for this update so we can have everyone testing our the feature.

For those who would rather avoid towns completely and camp in the wild, we still support this via our Makeshift Claim. These are craftable and placeable almost anywhere in the game and allow an assortment of items to be placed in your camp (excluding custom structures which are reserved for towns.)

We anticipate we'll be needing a couple of hotfixes over the weekend with these big changes arriving so let us know if you encounter any game breaking issues! Patch notes below screenshots.

Screenshots

A centrepoint POI before a Territory Claim has been placed. The concrete pads around it are used for building custom structures.

A Territory Claim that has been Fortified

Changelog

Hotfix v0.585

• Deleting a claim now stores the claim in your inventory.
• You can now pickup storage containers, but it will destroy any items inside.
• Pin code issue on doors should be resolved
• Territory Claim custom messages will no longer reset.
• New WoodShack art implemented.
• Big foliage loading optimizations. Moving around a planet should be much smoother.
• Adjustments to some abandoned shacks and fixed bed interactions.
• Optimizations to several buildings

Hotfix v0.583/4
• Fomenko's Fine Dining Diner Upgraded.
• Clayton Mine upgraded.
• Campfire art and effect improved.
• Fixed an error in campfire tooltips.

Hotfix v0.582
• An issue with terrain colliders not generating after travelling some distance should be resolved.
• Fixed a bug in mining
• Empty bottle weight decreased
• Ferry no longer clips through Prairie Orbital Station

Hotfix v0.581
• A bug that occurred in clan creation has been resolved

Update v0.580

This update has required a database wipe.

Territory Capture
• MakeshiftClaim - place a craftable makeshift claim in the world to build a wide assortment of items out in the wild. This does not allow players to build custom structures.
• LandClaim removed.
• TerritoryClaim - purchasable from The Exchange on Orbital Stations and placeable in the middle of capturable villages at the Centrepoint POI. Territory Claims are capturable in a 10 minute timer. They cannot be destroyed. They allow the player to build custom structures on 3 building lots around the town, aswell as building a fortification around a centrepoint POI to protect their claim.
Claims also collect taxes from vendors in town and place 2 mechs on a circuit around the town (taxes and mechs coming tomorrow, almost there!) Mechs will also be colored red and attack any non clan member on sight!
• The 10 minute capture time can be cancelled by the owning clan, and then it starts moving in the opposite direction.
• Claims now allow the storage of custom messages, displayable when you enter the area of on the respawn screen
• Players can spawn at any claim within their clan.
• You must create or join a clan to able to place a claim.
• Red Mech type added - this attacks wildlife plus non clan members
• Ability to purchase mechs added to Claim Management Screen.
• General store vendors linked to claim system and charge 10% tax
• Tax can be claimed by clan owner via the Claim Management Screen
• 4 New Capturable POIs added near Redberry! These are half the size of Redberry and are regarded Satellite towns. For players who want to capture an outpost but avoid the main firefight expected to happen at Ferry Port Towns.
• Dirt roads added around Redberry Satellite towns.
• Reworked create clan to search a list of existing clans, to ensure two clans cant have the same name.

Items
• Crafting items is a lot cheaper now and requires less scrap metal based resources and more iron found in rocks around the system. Includes base building and vehicle components.
• New items: Tarphite and RefinedTarphite which are obtainable from the shire mine and usable in some rare recipes, and also worth a decent amount of coin.
• Cleaned up a bunch of base components data

Melee
• New Melee System (Wood Axe and Pickaxe) - it now uses proper hit detection with Trigger Colliders attached to the blades, with a much more reliable hit
• 'Whoosh' Audio added for using a Melee Weapon (any new audio is placeholder but also not too bad!)
• Hit Audio now implemented for hitting various surface types
• Combat Knife and Machete added
• Combat Knife is craftable.

Vehicles
• New camera movement for land vehicles and some optimizations.
• When entering a land vehicle, it will keep first or third person camera instead of always going to first person.
• Fixed camera bug when exiting and entering again a land vehicle.
• Particle effects improvements in a bunch of vehicles.
• Implemented rear view mirrors on vehicles.
• QuadBike: Mesh and materiall optimizations and improvements, added rear view mirrors.
• New mode for mirrors to render only on odd or even frames.
• Camera doesn't rotate when UI is visible while in FPS in a vehicle.
• Code refactoring: new vehicle camera controllers separated in different classes instead of all being in CameraControl.
• Improved Rover camera movement and now allows rotation.
• Camera rotation speed in vehicles now takes Mouse Sensitivity setting into account.
Adjustments in ground vehicles speeds.
• Fixed passenger interaction with land vehicles.
• Repair Tigon Fighter mission shows the tooltip about reparing the ship after entering instead of after ignition, and the mission complete notification shows after ignition instead of after entering the ship.
• A Vehicle Mission can be specified to complete OnEnter or OnIgnition.
• In an airship, when turning off power, it will also turn off ignition.

Explosions
• Landmine returns as a placeable object, placement in the world expires within an hour, place on your claim to store permanently.
• Organization for explosions (so we have them ready for upgrading!)
• Grenade audio issue fixes
• Grenade now gives proper damage

Environment
• Major Reworkings of Clayton Shire on Beta Prairie, to introduce Territory Capture features.
• Hamills POI majorly updated in Solomans Redemption also with Vendors that apply taxes.
• Redberry Waypoint updated to point to the town rather than spaceport to avoid confusion
• Grass upgraded on Beta Prairie

Waypoints
• Optimizations in text rendering.
• Fixed some occasional errors by WaypointManager due to removing elements in the waypoint array while iterating that array.
• Fixed extra errors in WaypointManager.

Notifications
• Now there's the possibility to set independent duration to each notification in the array.
• Implemented notification colors.
• Transitions and fade outs when notifications disappear.
• Previously, if trying to set more than 5 notifications at the same time, the newer ones would simply be ignored, causing possibly loss of important information. Now they go to a queue, so even if there's maximum 5 visible, they keep being stored and they will be appearing after the top notification vanishes.

Misc
• Several Female animations have been integrated.
• Loading screen tooltips updated for recent changes, plus some new ones added.
• Fixed player weapon network errors.
• Fixed pickaxe not obtaining iron.
• Fixed a network bug in player footsteps.
• Fixed a network bug related to bases.
• Fixed errors in the Foliage Manager.
• Chat optimizations.