Release Candidate 0.23.0 - Crew Construction & Resource Collectors

Cosmoteer release candidate 0.23.0 is now available for testing! (See this post for info on how to test release candidates.)

This is the release candidate test build for the long-awaited "crew construction" feature. This is a completely-optional feature that, when enabled, will a ship's crew to exit it and manually perform any desired construction and repairs instead of those happening instantly.

This build also adds a new "Resource Collector" ship part that has four small tractor beams that can pull nearby floating resources and deposit them into any storage within four tiles of the Resource Collector.

There are also a handful of other quality-of-life improvements, balance tweaks, and bug fixes.

Note that there are still a few minor sound and VFX improvements that are planned before the stable update.

Thanks for testing!

RC1:

• Crew can now perform construction and repairs instead of those happening instantly. Any changes made to the ship in the ship designer will prompt its crew (and the crew of any nearby stations) to deliver any required resources to the construction site and then build or repair. This is an optional new feature. - This feature defaults to on for new Career games but can be turned off by enabling the "I Hate Crew Construction" option. - This feature defaults to off for existing Career games but can be turned on by disabling the above option. - This feature defaults to off for Creative Mode but can be turned on by disabling the "Free Build Mode" option in the Creative Mode hamburger menu. (Asteroids always use Free Build Mode.)
• Added a new "Resource Collector" ship part. This is a 2x2 room that has four small tractor beams on top. Instead of pulling in ships, these beams will automatically pull in any floating resources marked for collection and deliver them to any storages within four tiles of the collector. Each collector beam is individually crewed.
• All PvP multiplayer modes now allow ships to be modified during combat if they have the necessary resources, in which case their crews will exit the ship to make the modifications. This is enabled in all official rulesets but can be disabled by the host.
• All PvP multiplayer modes now have a "Resource Loot Drops" option that will cause ships to drop resource nuggets when their parts are destroyed. This is disabled in all official rulesets but can be enabled by the host.
• Roof weapons can now shoot over friendly ships in addition to their own ship.
• Doubled Flak Battery turret rotation speed.
• Weapons will no longer ever target enemy crew.
• All factories that produce or consume ship construction materials now have top hatches from which crew can deliver materials or access them for construction.
• In Domination mode, ships that are below the minimum ship value can no longer capture control points.
• Added a warning in the ship editor that is shown if the ship is missing any vital parts such as airlocks, command rooms, reactors, crew quarters, or fire extinguishers. This warning can be disabled in the settings.
• Marking a part for repair will now allow crew to exit the ship and put out any fires in it from the outside.
• Stations and trade ships will now automatically repair themselves using any available resources.
• Removed the sulfur requirement to build explosive charges and increased the coils used from 4 to 6. (The total credit cost of explosive charges remains unchanged.)
• Using the "Save Attack Defaults" option will now save the angle of attack as well as the distance and rotation.
• When loading blueprints into an existing ship, there is now an option to load the flight direction and attack defaults.
• When transferring resources between your own ships, there are now "restock" options for both the left and right ships, similar to the trade screen.
• The title screen now has a "CONTINUE" button that can be clicked to load the most recent save file. (This is identical to the existing Ctrl+L hotkey. If there are no saves yet then the button will not be shown.)
• Updated the ship construction and repair tutorials with info about crew leaving the ship to perform the tasks.
• Removed the "Automatically Hire Crew" setting as this was mostly leftover from the Classic versions in which crew was purchased instantly. (The game now always behaves as if this setting were enabled, which was the default.)
• The "Share Team Credits" will no longer be displayed in free-for-all games.
• A handful of updated sound effects, including thruster rumble, airlock enter/exit, and shield hit.
• New and updated ships: - Added 4 new Monolith combat ships: Contender, Knave, Quad, and Ternion - Added 1 new Monolith trade ship: Atlas Freighter - Added another Minor Monolith Arms Depot. - Added 14 new Cabal combat ships: Aludra, Bellatrix, Canopus, Cepheus, Dschubba, Flicker Flare, Helioblade, Menkent, Rastaban, Sainted Pyre, Sol Calidus, Starblessed Vow, Suhail, and Vela - Added 1 new Imperium combat ship: Torgos - Added 2 new Imperium trade ships: Guillemot and Murrelet - Added 2 new Fringe combat ships: Crankshaft and Tax Evader - the Renegade has been renamed to Recusant. - Various updates to other existing ships.
• Bugfix: Hailing friendly ships could sometimes open the dialog with the incorrect ship on the right side.
• Bugfix: In PvP multiplayer, the ship icons in the lower-left corner were using player colors instead of friend-or-foe colors.
• Bugfix: In the crew management screen, hovering the mouse cursor over a crew who was delivering to a Missile & Mine Launcher would show the text '&' instead of '&'.
• Modding: Added a 'BlendSpriteGrid' part component that is essentially a combination of BlendSprite and SpriteGrid.
• Modding: Added a base_part_terran_structure.rules file that should be used instead of base_part_terran.rules for any modded structure parts. (It uses different construction graphics/vfx than regular parts.)
• Modding: BlendSprite components now support an IsOperational toggle.
• Modding: Blend sprites now support 'AlwaysBlendWithSelf' to allow blending with its own part even if it doesn't match the BlendsWithCategories.
• Modding: All blend sprites now support RandomDamageLevels.
• Modding: CreatePartWhenDestroyed and CreatePartPerTileWhenDestroyed have been renamed to UnderlyingPart and UnderlyingPartPerTile, but the old names are still supported for backwards-compatibility.
• Modding: Added a new 'CollectNuggets' target type for TurretWeapon that will cause the weapon to aim and shoot at floating resources that are marked for collection. Additionally, CollectNuggets supports an 'OnlyViaBuffed' parameter that, if set to a buff provider component, will only allow delivery of resource nuggets to parts buffed via that buff provider.
• Modding: Added a CollectNugget hit effect that can be used to draw in floating resource nuggets that have been marked for collection.
• Modding: TurretWeapon now supports an 'PreventOverlappingTargets' parameter that if set to true will prevent it from (in most cases) picking the same target as another TurretWeapon that also has PreventOverlappingTargets set to true.
• Modding: TurretWeapon now supports an 'AllowRotationToggle' that can be hooked to any toggle component to determine whether the turret is allowed to rotate.
• Modding: TurretWeapon and FixedWeapon now support a 'ToggleOnMode' parameter that can be used to control when the component is considered "on" when used as a toggle. The valid options are 'WantsToFire' (the default, which is identical to the existing behavior where the component is only "on" when it is actively firing) and 'HasTarget' (the component is "on" when it has a target even if it is not actively trying to fire at the target).
• Modding: 'SourceShipLowCollisions' and 'SourceShipHighCollisions' have been renamed to 'FriendlyShipLowCollisions' and 'FriendlyShipHighCollisions' and will now also prevent the bullet/beam from colliding with friendly ships, not just their own ship. The old names are still supported for backwards-compatibility but have the new behavior.
• Modding: 'IgnoreSourceShipLowLOSChecks' and 'IgnoreSourceShipHighLOSChecks' have been renamed to 'IgnoreFriendlyShipLowLOSChecks' and 'IgnoreFriendlyShipHighLOSChecks' and will now also prevent line of sight from being blocked by friendly ships, not just their own ship. The old names are still supported for backwards-compatibility but have the new behavior.

RC2:

• RC Bugfix: Deck Cannon bullets (and all modded roof weapons) were colliding with their own ships.
• The Resource Collector now requires a blueprint purchase to unlock.
• The Resource Collector can now fire its beams through asteroids and friendly roof turrets.
• Crew will no longer "steel" resource nuggets from Resource Collectors.
• The Resource Collector's tooltip now mentions that crew will only operate it when there are resources marked for retrieval.
• Modding: Added 'NonFriendlyShipLowCollisions' and 'NonFriendlyShipHighCollisions' to SimpleHit, PenetratingHit, and BeamEmitter components.

RC3:

• Resource Collectors can now deliver to any storage on the ship with an exterior hatch, not just those within 4 tiles.
• When delivering floating resource nuggets to a construction/repair site, crew will now use the "Construct" or "Repair" priority instead of the "Gather Resources" priority.
• The "ALL HANDS LOST" message will now disappear if the player is able to build a ship with crew.
• Fixed resources and crew issues with Small Monolith Trade Station II.
• Changed Crown from tier 2 to tier 3.
• RC Bugfix: Crew were not putting out fires from the outside if the room on fire didn't have airlock access.

RC4:

• RC Bugfix: Crashes with error message "Specified door does not have a DoorConstructionTracker" or "Specified part does not have a PartConstructionTracker".
• RC Bugfix: Crew from outside the ship could get summoned to deliver to a storage with no external hatch even if it had no airlock access.
• RC Bugfix: Crew were unable to help with deconstruction of ally ships in Career mode.
• When marking floating resource nuggets for collection, they will now usually be first stored in storage bays with exterior hatches before being moved to whatever weapon or part wants those resources.