Release Candidate 0.30.5 - Custom Weapon Ranges & Arcs, Balance Changes, New Ships, & Bug Fixes

Cosmoteer release candidate 0.30.5 is now available for testing! (To play this release candidate, you must opt in to test it. Please see this post for info on how to test release candidates.)

This release candidate adds the ability to customize the range, firing arc, and direction of your weapons, adds new ships, makes various quality-of-life improvements, (hopefully) improves balance, and fixes bugs. It also likely solves most of the freezing issues that many players on Linux have been experiencing. (Thanks to all of you who sent in bug reports and logs and helped test the fix!)

Thanks for testing!

RC1 Patch Notes:

• New Feature: Custom Weapon Ranges, Arcs, & Directions:
  • Added a new "Set Range/Arc/Direction" tool that lets you customize the maximum range and firing arc of your weapons, or aim them in a fixed direction. Select one or more weapons, press the button (or Alt+R by default), and then drag the displayed edges.
  • The tool can be used both during normal gameplay and in build mode (where it also supports mirror mode).
  • While the tool is enabled, hold keys for additional modes: Shift for "Edit All" (adjust all selected weapons at once), Ctrl for "Precision" (snap to 0.1 increments instead of 1.0), Alt for "Rotation" (rotate the arc without changing its size), Tilde (~) for "Symmetry" (adjust both edges of the arc at once), and Alt + Tilde to aim a weapon in a fixed direction.
  • Right-click on an individual edge to reset all highlighted edges. Right-click on the "Set Range/Arc/Direction" button to reset all selected weapons.
  • This replaces the old "Aim" button used by Ion Prisms and Chainguns and is now available for all weapons. (To target a Prism on another Prism, use the regular "Target" button.)
  • The Micromanagement and Ion Prisms tutorials have been updated to explain this new tool.

• Balance:
  • Structure:
    • Most bullets and beams now penetrate through structure, retaining 60% of their damage for each structure tile they pass through (down to a minimum of 3%).

  • Ship Physics:
    • Reverted ship drag to its pre-Meltdown Update values.

  • Projectiles:
    • Reduced most projectile speeds by 1/6, effectively reverting to pre-Meltdown Update speeds.
    • Mine and overclocked Large Cannon shrapnel can now be targeted and shot down by Point Defenses and Flak.
    • Hitscan weapons such as Flak and Ion Beams should now find targets more quickly.

  • Heat Mechanics:
    • Heat diffusion now requires a contiguous path between parts.

  • Fire:
    • Fires started by explosions (reactors, factories, missile/mine storage, Ion Prisms, etc.) now start at full strength (1.3%->100%; this was a bug)

  • Armor (all):
    • Removed hidden -25% heat damage resistance.

  • Small Thruster (Overclocked):
    • Increased power usage (0.03->0.09)
    • Increased power generation (0.015->0.0225)
    • No longer generates power while actively thrusting.
    • Reduced heat generation at 100% thrust (250/s->200/s)
    • Now generates heat while generating power (125/s)
    • Reduced the default "Supply Battery" job priority to 1 since Small Thrusters generate their own power.

  • Boost Thruster (Overclocked):
    • Increased heat generation while boosting by 50% (this was already intended but was bugged until now)
    • Very, very, very slightly reduced heat generation while not boosting (676/s->675/s; this was also a bug)

  • Ion Beam Emitter (Overclocked):
    • Reduced damage vs parts (180->150)
    • Reduced damage vs shields (180->120)
    • Reduced damage at max range (100%->80%)

  • Standard Cannon (Overclocked):
    • No longer has a range and projectile speed advantage compared to non-overclocked.

  • Chaingun:
    • Protective shells now have 70% thermal damage resistance when closed.
    • Reduced damage vs structure (600->150)
    • Reduced impulse vs structure (10->5)

  • Mining Laser (Overclocked):
    • Area damage no longer ignores shields.

  • Thermal Resonance Lance:
    • Heat application now requires a contiguous path between parts.

  • Thermal Canister Missile:
    • Reduced applied heat per missile (8500->5000). Capacity is unaffected.

• Built-In Ships:
  • Added 16 new Monolith combat ships: Algorithm, Blockchain, Fortbreaker, Hangman, Inquisitor, Kalashnikov, Marshal, Meteor, Project Eilifnir, Project Laevateinn, Project Svalinn, Septadent, Stake Driver, Tercio, Tribunal, Trishula
  • Added 2 new Monolith stations: Large Monolith Arms Depot II, Large Monolith Arms Depot III
  • Added 2 new Monolith defense platforms: Large HE Missile Platform, Large Deck Cannon Platform
  • Added 2 new Cabal combat ships: Flegetonte Minor, Ignis Vorax
  • Added 2 new Cabal stations: Med Cabal Arms Depot II, Large Cabal Arms Depot II
  • Added 2 new Cabal defense platforms: Large Ion Platform, Large HE Missile Platform
  • Added 5 new Imperium combat ships: Aegolius, Athene, Aves, Esarhaddon, Viduidae
  • Added 1 new Imperium defense platform: Large Ion Platform
  • Added 9 new Fringe combat ships: Aragh Sagi, Oghi, Orujo, Quicksilver Skirmisher, Rakija, Shrapnel Kedge, Smokestack, Yesterday's Lie, Zivania
  • Added 5 new Fringe trade ships: Affordable, Barrel's Bottom, Better Than Nothing, Drossbarge, Melquiades
  • Added 2 new Fringe stations: Med Fringe Trade Station II, Large Fringe Trade Station II
  • Added 2 new Fringe defense platforms: Large HE Missile Platform, Large Deck Cannon Platform
  • Added 10 new House Io combat ships: Adrammelech, Andrus, Behemoth, Belphegor, Glasya, Haborym, Labolas, Leviathan, Mammon, Melchom
  • Added 2 new House Io defense platforms: Large TRL Platform, Large HE Missile Platform
  • Added the winning ships from the January 2026 ship design contest.
  • Miscellaneous updates to existing built-in ships.

• Career:
  • Abandoned civilian trade and transport ships may now sometimes be found.
  • It is no longer possible to go into debt in Ironman Mode.

• Multiplayer:
  • The PvP "ring of death" now kills crew.

• Ship Painting:
  • Added 7 new decals: 'fade_straight_triangle_half_empty_2', 'fade_stripe_slant_full', 'fade_triangle_eighth_full', 'fade_triangle_half_full', 'fade_triangle_quarter_full', 'fade_triangle_wedge_full', and 'fade_triangle_wedge_full_corner'.
  • The 'shape_poly_7' decal is now properly centered.
  • Tweaked the 'shape_corner_square_1' and 'shape_corner_square_arrow' decals so that they don't intrude slightly past the diagonal halfway line.

• User Interface:
  • Pressing the "focus" key (F by default) twice will now zoom in on the selected ship, or zoom to fit all selected ships if multiple are selected.
  • Individual resources can now be pinned so that your ship's quantity and capacity of that resource is always displayed in the top-right corner of the screen. To pin (or unpin) a resource, right-click it in the Resources toolbox.
  • The nearby missions HUD can now be minimized using a new toggle. Right-click the toggle to set the number of missions displayed.
  • Mining Lasers and Manipulator Beams now have an "Always Crew" toggle. When turned off, the part will only be crewed when it has a target.
  • Added a hotkey (Ctrl+Shift+C by default) which resets the crew's positions in Creative Mode.
  • Added a setting to require holding the "append selection" key (Shift by default) in order to drag favorite parts and decals.
  • When buying blueprints, hovering over a part's icon now shows a tooltip with that part's stats.
  • Hovering over a crew quarters while assigning crew now displays how many of its crew are assigned.
  • Overclocked Ion Beam Emitters now have a "Lightning Interval" stat.
  • The single-player "chat" toggle is now disabled when the message history is empty.
  • Long resource names no longer overlap their icons.
  • Clarified the tooltip for the "I Hate Exploration" toggle.
  • Fixed the Small and Medium Reactor tooltips so that they don't incorrectly mention increased power capacity.
  • The Japanese translation is now correctly named 日本語 ("Japanese") instead of 英語 ("English").
  • Clarified the Simplified Chinese translation for "Laser Blaster" (激光炮->激光爆能炮).

• Performance:
  • Game asset loading can now run on parallel CPU cores, improving load times. (This was already enabled in developer mode but is now enabled in non-developer mode as well.)

• Compatibility:
  • Removed 32-bit/x86 support. (Steam itself no longer supports 32-bit/x86, and Cosmoteer was actually already crashing on load due to out-of-memory errors, but now it's official.)

• Bug Fixes:
  • Possible fix for frequent multiplayer disconnects that some players have been experiencing.
  • Possible fix for random freezes on Linux. (Preliminary testing indicates this solves freezes for most Linux players.)
  • In rare circumstances, saved games could become corrupted causing a "Can't modify components while they are being saved" error when loading them. (These corrupted saves should now also load again.)
  • Crash with error message "Tried to spend more resources than we had" in some situations when making ship changes with "I Hate Crew Construction" enabled.
  • Crash with error message "Already doing an FTL jump" in some circumstances when jumping to a different star system.
  • "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" error when loading games that were saved while the player is wanted and there are parts queued for deconstruction.
  • Crash in some circumstances when using "load and replace" with overclocked or thermal parts.
  • Crash when viewing the galaxy map with some rare galaxy seeds.
  • The game would end when reconstructing a ship and losing vision due to fog of war.
  • In some circumstances, crew wouldn't finish ship construction after loading a saved game where construction had already been started.
  • With crew construction enabled, deliberately replacing a part with structure tiles would make those structure tiles un-repairable when damaged.
  • With crew construction enabled, replacing an armor wedge with a structure wedge would cause the structure wedge to also be deconstructed, breaking construction.
  • Crew would "dump" resource nuggets into outer space when canceling a trade or construction.
  • Crew would sometimes get "stuck" at overclocked capacitors that had more than 0 but fewer than 3 stored batteries.
  • Launchers added in blueprint mode could calculate the incorrect "Ship Design Value" for the Launcher and its munitions.
  • Overclocked Deck Cannon penetration impulse wasn't reducing with its remaining damage pool.
  • The TCM Launcher fired its right-hand missile from the center of the launcher instead of from the right.
  • Large Shield arcs were not being blocked properly by megaroids.
  • The fire icon effect would sometimes not be shown.
  • The Battle Helper would ignore the presence of suns, often spawning ships inside of them.

• Modding:
  • Bullets and beams can now be made to apply penetration damage/effects to additional structure tiles beyond just the first hit. This includes a new 'StructuralDamageRetentionPerHit' parameter (defaults to zero).
  • Most rules loading errors will now show the relevant line and character numbers.
  • Added a 'UseContiguity' bool to GridStatusApplication hit effects. ('Traversing' requires underlying parts to be connected.)
  • Added 'UseContiguity' to status diffusion rules, requiring contiguity between two tiles for diffusion to occur.
  • Fixed long load times when mods create long bullet reference trees.
  • Fixed the AddBase mod action not being usable on [] lists inside {} groups.
  • Fixed StatusRemap value modifiers ignoring the 'BaseStatusValue' rule.
  • Fixed issues with 'Interpolated' status value type conversions:
    • 'ExplosiveDamage' hit effects using interpolated values had a much lower chance than intended.
    • 'StatusApplication' hit effects using interpolated values and one or more 'DivideValueBy*' rules for statuses with a non-zero minimum value would divide the raw value.
    • 'StatusRemap' value modifiers using interpolated values and one or more 'IgnoreValues*Range' rules would compare against the raw value.
    • Any 'Status*' value modifiers (excluding remap) using interpolated values and a non-zero 'BaseStatusValue' would interpret 'BaseStatusValue' as a raw value.

  • Fixed Tile/PartQuad effects with a fade-in time of 0 sometimes not being shown.
    

RC2 Patch Notes:

• Custom Weapon Ranges, Arcs, & Directions:
  • The "Set Range/Arc/Direction" tool can now also be used to set the direction that turreted weapons will rest at when they have no targets to shoot at. Drag the dotted arrow line to change it.

• Balance:
  • Weapons vs Structure:
    • Reduced the damage that bullets and beams retain for each structure tile they pass through (60%->50%).
    • Thermal Resonance Lances now use the same minimum penetration damage as other weapons (5%->3%).

• Reduced Railgun damage vs structure (2500->1200).
• Railguns now use the same structure penetration values as other weapons (80%->50% retained per tile, 5%->3% minimum).

• Boost Thruster (Overclocked):
  • Reduced boost thrust (24kN->14kN).
  • Reasoning: Overclocked Boost Thrusters were already oppressive and were made even stronger by the drag reversion. This is a temporary fix until a more holistic solution is implemented.

• Capacitor (Overclocked):
  • Now creates a large heat blast when destroyed (scaled by the number of stored batteries).

• Nuke Launcher:
  • Increased maximum firing arc (200°->360°). The default firing arc remains unchanged.

• Small Thruster (Overclocked):
  • The RC1 changes now also apply to the 2-way and 3-way Small Thrusters. (This was an oversight in RC1.)

• Armor (all):
  • The removal of the hidden -25% heat damage resistance now also applies to armor wedges, triangles, 2x1 armor, and armor/structure hybrids. (This was an oversight in RC1.)

• Ammo, Mine Parts, & Missile Parts:
  • Now only explode when the part storing them becomes scorched, instead of having a random chance to explode whenever they take fire damage.

• Resource Management:
  • When a supplier (such as a factory) is supply-chain-assigned to a storage bay that has no tiles designated for its specific type of resource but has at least one undesignated tile, the supplier will no longer send resources to other destinations it's not assigned to.
  • When a supplier (such as a factory) is supply-chain-assigned to a storage bay, nothing else not assigned to that storage bay will be able to send the same type of resource to it, regardless of whether its tiles are designated for that type of resource. (They were already unable to do so for any tiles designated for that type of resource.)

• Built-In Ships:
  • Added 1 new Imperium defense platform: Large HE Missile Platform
  • Miscellaneous fixes to RC1 ships.

• User Interface:
  • Translation updates for all languages except Simplified Chinese. (That should arrive in time for the stable 0.30.5 update.)

• Bug Fixes:
  • RC Bugfix: Weapon targeting was broken when given fixed- or very-narrow custom firing arcs.
  • RC Bugfix: Multiplayer desync when auto-purchasing resources for construction and different players could afford different amounts of those resources.
  • RC Bugfix: Thermal Resonance Lances were applying heat in a "cross" shape.
  • RC Bugfix: The direction line for Ion Prisms that is shown when adjusting an attack command wasn't getting clipped by its own ship when the prism was given a fixed direction.
  • Using the "Load Ship (Replace Existing)" feature and checking "Also Load Resource Assignments" would clear the existing resource and supply assignments without loading the new ones.
  • Spawning or restocking ships with Processor Factories or Uranium Enrichers would cause them to immediately produce a processor or enriched uranium without consuming any ingredients.
  • In Domination mode, under-construction parts could be "repaired" to completion for free inside the spawn circle. These parts could then be used at zero cost or sold for free money.
  • In Domination mode, restocking resources inside the spawn circle would instantly transfer those resources to any under-construction parts whose construction had been queued when outside the spawn circle.

• Modding:
  • Added an 'AllowVertexContiguity' rule to GridStatusApplication hit effects, which counts parts with touching corners as diagonally contiguous.
  • Added a 'StatusResponse' rule to resource rules.

RC3 Patch Notes:

• Custom Weapon Ranges, Arcs, & Directions:
  • Weapon ranges, arcs, and directions can no longer be edited during gameplay when the ship has no control.

• Balance:
  • Capacitor (Overclocked):
    • Reduced power capacity (72->48).

• Built-In Ships:
  • Miscellaneous updates to existing built-in ships.

• User Interface:
  • Keybinds for non-English keyboards should now more accurately display the actual symbol printed on the key.
  • The key combo used to open the developer menu in developer mode can now be customized in the control settings.
  • Translation updates for Simplified Chinese.
  • The Spanish translation now uses a consistent translation of "parts" (piezas->partes).

• Graphics:
  • Overclocked Capacitors now have an animation when overclocking is toggled, and their stored battery art has been updated to reflect the reduced capacity.

• Bug Fixes:
  • RC Bugfix: Weapons given a fixed direction or a very narrow custom firing arc would sometimes miss their targets.
  • RC Bugfix: Tractor Beams wouldn't shut off when their target moved outside of their custom firing arc.
  • Possible fix for certain "Function does not accept floating point Not-a-Number values" crashes.
  • The Chaingun's "no ammo" indicator was appearing later than it should have after running out of ammo.

RC4 Patch Notes:

• Built-In Ships:
  • Most trade stations have been updated to always crew their Manipulator Beams, which should improve response times when transferring resources and assisting with construction.

• Bug Fixes:
  • RC Bugfix: Crash when deleting ships.
  • RC Bugfix: Nukes fired in direct control mode wouldn't home to their target if it was outside their firing arc.
  • RC Bugfix: For weapons with firing arcs greater than 180 degrees, adjusting their resting direction could cause glitches when then changing the resting direction to the other side.
  • RC Bugfix: Overclocked Flak would create multiple shrapnel clouds when its beam passed through structure.
  • Bugfix: Turret weapons wouldn't auto-fire at structure tiles if the enemy ship had any non-structure tiles, even if there are only structure tiles within the weapon's firing range/arc.

RC5 Patch Notes:

• Custom Weapon Ranges, Arcs, & Directions:
  • "Precision" mode (hold Ctrl) now snaps to 0.01 increments instead of 0.1.

• Balance:
  • Small Laser Blaster (Overclocked):
    • Reduced damage (350->200)
    • Reduced power usage per shot proportionally (0.14->0.08)

  • Radiator:
    • Reduced health (4000->3000)

  • Explosive Charge:
    • Can now be detonated even if the ship doesn't have control.

  • Ammo, Mine Parts, & Missile Parts:
    • Explosions caused by stored resources becoming scorched are now much weaker, scaling by the number of full stacks instead of the number of individual resources (20x weaker for ammo, 8x for mine parts, 10x for missile parts; this was a bug).
    • Parts that store these resources internally (such as cannons, Chainguns, missile launchers, and factories) now explode when destroyed or scorched, the same way storage bays already did. (This was also a bug.)

• Built-In Ships:
  • Added 4 new House Io combat ships: Rahovart, Xapahn, Xarpa, Xebelius
  • Added 1 new House Io station: Large Ionian Arms Depot III
  • Miscellaneous updates to existing built-in ships.

• User Interface:
  • Double-pressing the "focus" key (F by default) to zoom in now requires the two presses to be in quick succession.

• Bug Fixes:
  • RC Bugfix: The tooltips for overclocked 2-way and 3-way Small Thrusters didn't reflect the RC1 changes.

• Modding:
  • Added 'DoResourceDeathEffects' and 'DoResourceResponseEffects' rules to resource storage components (both default to true).

RC6 Patch Notes:

• Custom Weapon Ranges, Arcs, & Directions:
  • Holding Shift+Alt while adjusting the direction of multiple Headlights converges them all on the same point.

• Balance:
  • Reduced the starting strength of fires started by explosions from 100% to between 20%-40%.

• Built-In Ships:
  • Miscellaneous updates to existing built-in ships.

• Ship Painting:
  • Removed the RC1 decals 'fade_triangle_half_full' and 'fade_triangle_wedge_full' because they were inversions of existing decals. Ships using them will automatically be switched to the equivalent inverted 'fade_corner_straight' and 'fade_corner_wedge' decals.

• User Interface:
  • Thermal Amplification Pumps and Thermal Dilation Pumps now show a Recommended Crew value.

• Bug Fixes:
  • RC Bugfix: Flak would create multiple shrapnel clouds when hitting structure.
  • RC Bugfix: Tractor Beams wouldn't target a ship whose center was outside their custom firing arc, even if other parts of that ship were inside it.
  • RC Bugfix: The default attack distance didn't take into account weapons with narrow custom firing arcs.
  • RC Bugfix: Thermal Resonance Lances weren't heating parts connected only diagonally.
  • RC Bugfix: Ammo, mine, and missile factories/launchers showed their full "destroyed" visual effects when scorched instead of their "scorched" effects, and factories' scorch explosions weren't scaled by the resources stored in them.
  • Kills caused by heat diffusing between parts weren't credited to the correct player.
  • Thermal Resonance Lances applied heat in the wrong pattern on megaroids.
  • Overclocked Ion Beams didn't correctly check for "splashing" when targeted at Ion Prisms on other friendly ships.
  • Setting or clearing a key/button for a Direct Control Binding didn't immediately update whether the binding option is available in the part's hamburger menu.

• Modding:
  • In order to prevent malicious code injection, the Python code snippets in music and codex rules files are now limited to a very small subset of Python syntax.
  • The 'StatusValue' of ExplosiveDamage hit effects can now be a random range.
  • Fixed blueprint NetworkValueReceivers not correctly combining values from other subnets (directional routes).