Deep Space Battle Simulator News

This update adds lots of new content, starting with a widely requested AI crew update, you will now be able to assign your B1 droids to the energy control station, the capital ships helm, and the turret stations where they will assess the current battle situation and take action accordingly, maneuvering your capital ship to safety or a more aggressive position, managing the energy distribution to protect heavily damaged parts or increase firepower to finish the opponents' ship and focus their weak points with the turrets.



The enemy AI also received lots of improvements, utilizing the new AI crew system for themselves as well with all the new smarter decision-making that comes with it.

You will also find a new security station on your capital ships bridge, allowing you to lock down individual doors to protect certain areas or try to slow down attackers without having to lock down all doors on your ship. You can also force droids to check out certain positions if you think enemy players might hide there, and let them guard important spots and even assign them customizable patrol routes that they will follow instead of randomly walking around!



FIghter versus fighter combat also received some love, with fighters being extremely hard to hit due to their high speeds and small size, every fighter now has 2 homing missiles on board, that can be replenished when landing in a hangar. You can fire them at enemy fighters and drones after a 2-second lock-on period, after which they have to evade the missiles with fast turn maneuvers or risk getting hit by it. Bombers also received a small rework based on your feedback, their bombs now have much slower fire rate but greatly increased damage, allowing you to fly multiple bombing runs instead of having to replenish after spamming all bombs at once.



You can now also choose to overload the enemy generator instead of just shooting it, this will not immediately disable it, but instead start a 60-second timer after which the generator will explode, damaging everything nearby as well as the capital ships hull, and then the generator can now be repaired again for the rest of the round, allowing attackers to deal persistent damage to the enemy if managing to invade their ship and hold the generator room for a longer time. To help defending teams, new sentries have been added to the engine, generator, and bridge rooms that the attackers need to destroy before being able to enter the rooms.

There also is a new spectator team that you can select at the beginning of each round, allowing content creators to fly around and have a better view of the action. Spectators can use key shortcuts to jump to certain spots instantly (1=blue interior, 2=red interior, 3=blue capital ship, 4=red capital ship).

There are also lots of new smaller features, improvements, and bug fixes, with better widescreen UI support, looking around in fighter cockpits, a new stairway to the upper levels of the capital ship, and a lot more things you can take a look at below in the full changelog.

If you have any issues or feedback, please let me know!

Full changelog:
-ADDED: new static sentries to the bridge, generator, and engine rooms
-ADDED: "overload generator" interaction, takes 6 seconds, overloaded generator explodes after 60 seconds (this can be stopped by repairing it)
-ADDED: overloaded generator explosion, deals damage to everyone nearby, and massive hull damage, generator can't be repaired afterward
-ADDED: keybinding option for flying up/down
-ADDED: new stairway to the upper levels to the left side of the capital ship
-ADDED: option to add/edit/remove patrol routes to individual B1 robots in the security station
-ADDED: hitmarker for the drone energy beam
-ADDED: functionality to remove droid patrol points again from the security station
-ADDED: homing missiles can now lock onto repair drones
-ADDED: can now set droid patrol points from the security station (additionally to the default patrol points)
-ADDED: can now force the closest droid to a specific location from the security station
-ADDED: security station to the bridge where you can control door lockdowns and droid movements
-ADDED: the ability to lock/unlock specific doors in the security station
-ADDED: looking around in smaller fighters
-ADDED: more windows to the smaller fighter, so you have better visibility, especially downwards
-ADDED: files for windows servers
-ADDED: first, very work-in-progress version for a spectator mode
-ADDED: spectator mode shortcuts (1=blue interior, 2=red interior, 3=blue capital ship, 4=red capital ship)
-ADDED: better widescreen/different aspect ratio support
-ADDED: B1 droids now can control turrets, tries to focus the lowest hull section
-ADDED: enemy AI now uses B1 droids to man all important bridge stations
-ADDED: option to assign B1 droid to ship helm and energy management
-ADDED: functionality for multiple interact options for one item

-REMOVED: view distance option since it now uses a new, optimized system for all players instead of having multiple steps

-IMPROVED: B2 Attack droid is now a lot smarter when choosing which target to attack, now prioritize players and sentries that block their path or shoot them
-IMPROVED: players that got kicked now get instantly kicked again after rejoining that server (gets reset after a while, so you can rejoin dedicated servers that don't restart)
-IMPROVED: AI capital ship piloting now takes its own hull HP values into account
-IMPROVED: AI capital ship piloting now tries to rotate their weaker hull side away from the enemy
-IMPROVED: AI energy management now takes hull HP advantage/disadvantage into account and tries harder to increase shields on the currently most vulnerable hull
-IMPROVED: capital ship piloting AI now takes its own turret configuration into account, flies closer if it has ion beam turrets
-IMPROVED: capital ship piloting AI now is more aggressive and flies closer if it thinks it has an advantage
-IMPROVED: sentry CPU performance
-IMPROVED: AI turret targeting
-IMPROVED: slight performance increases
-IMPROVED: B1 robot controlling the capital ship now tries to stay within the battle zone limits (if that option is enabled)
-IMPROVED: GPU performance through better mesh culling
-IMPROVED: some other security station improvements and fixes
-IMPROVED: turret selection UI widescreen scaling
-IMPROVED: sentry aiming and targeting systems, so they shoot enemies more reliably
-IMPROVED: sentries now are a lot smarter, can hit enemies that are mostly hidden behind corners
-IMPROVED: teleporter placement

-CHANGED: doubled HP regeneration (still starts 4s after being damaged, from 4/sec to 8/sec for marine and from 2/sec to 4/sec for others)
-CHANGED: tactical droids now can't spawn B1 droids for 10 seconds after one of their droids got destroyed
-CHANGED: the normal player UI now gets removed when spectating
-CHANGED: bomber now needs to reload for 5s after dropping a bomb
-CHANGED: Tactical Droid now no longer respawns instantly

-INCREASED: bomb damage from 100 to 400
-INCREASED: enemy AI now spawns more B1 droids (still scales with AI difficulty)
-INCREASED: crew turrets HP from 100 to 200
-REDUCED: bomber fire rate and laser damage slightly
-REDUCED: bomber HP from 35 to 25
-REDUCED: bridge sentry fire rate slightly

-FIXED: ion beams damaging smaller fighters HP
-FIXED: explosions looping sometimes
-FIXED: phantom hangar gate flying around in space
-FIXED: homing missiles not exploding after running out of fuel (after 10 seconds of flying)
-FIXED: being able to lock onto friendly fighters with homing missiles
-FIXED: landing in a hangar resulting in landing on the already occupied site sometimes, resulting in 2 fighters stacked on top of each other and messing up fighter purchasing as well
-FIXED: turret seats not unregistering players that stop using it correctly, resulting in players getting teleported to the seat if the turret they last controlled got destroyed
-FIXED: potential fix for drone sounds not disappearing with the drone
-FIXED: being able to use abilities in the selection menu
-FIXED: binding crouch not actually changing the key used for crouching
-FIXED: potential fix for "Destroy Generator" UI widget appearing when it's already destroyed
-FIXED: getting teleported to the enemy frigate if it got destroyed and you were flying it earlier in the round
-FIXED: marines rocket firing after he died in the spawn room
-FIXED: station capture progress being displayed in the UI even if not playing on station size
-FIXED: potential fixes for droids not forgetting players correctly
-FIXED: not being able to shoot players sitting in the ship helm seat
-FIXED: hangar door flying randomly alone in space
-FIXED: friendly sentries sometimes shooting teammates
-FIXED: robots sometimes being able to repair overloaded/destroyed generator
-FIXED: potential fix for B1 robot running against a wall after exiting the energy controls
-FIXED: player character sometimes getting shot by droids while in a fighter
-FIXED: B1 robots repairing overloaded/destroyed generators
-FIXED: automatically unpause the game when pressing "keep playing" while having paused the game
-FIXED: homing missiles exploding instantly
-FIXED: AI flying the capital ship too far away from the enemy capital ship
-FIXED: fighter targeting rectangle UI persisting after leaving the fighter
-FIXED: frigates appearing on the radar table, even if no frigates exist
-FIXED: ship status UI issues on widescreen/different aspect ratio support
-FIXED: windows server errors
-FIXED: turrets and droids trying to attack spectators
-FIXED: multiple UI issues introduced with the new widescreen scaling fixes
-FIXED: multiple spectator shortcut bugs
-FIXED: B2 droids/Barsuk droids not moving
-FIXED: bomber showing "reloading" after its dropping last bomb
-FIXED: developer debug binds not being deactivated correctly, resulting in AI commanders spawning for the wrong team
-FIXED: engine not counting as destroyed for the UI widgets when overheated
-FIXED: clicking on map icons in the security screen making the mouse cursor disappear
-FIXED: enemy AI gaining 30 energy if repairing an overheated generator, resulting in total energy over 100
-FIXED: ion beams damaging smaller fighters HP
-FIXED: explosions looping sometimes
-FIXED: phantom hangar gate flying around in space
-FIXED: homing missiles not exploding after running out of fuel (after 10 seconds of flying)
-FIXED: being able to lock onto friendly fighters with homing missiles
-FIXED: landing in a hangar resulting in landing on the already occupied site sometimes, resulting in 2 fighters stacked on top of each other and messing up fighter purchasing as well
-FIXED: turret seats not unregistering players that stop using it correctly, resulting in players getting teleported to the seat if the turret they last controlled got destroyed
-FIXED: potential fix for drone sounds not disappearing with the drone
-FIXED: being able to use abilities in the selection menu
-FIXED: binding crouch not actually changing the key used for crouching
-FIXED: security stations in spawn rooms, resulting in players standing up from one being teleported in one of the spawn rooms
-FIXED: cursor disappearing when closing the pause menu while being in a security station
-FIXED: energy control station UI scaling/overlapping

This update adds a completely reworked space station, it now spawns a lot closer to the capital ships and features 2 hangars that are always open as well as a brand new interior. Inside you can find fighter purchasing stations similar to the ones on the capital ships, and a capture point that allows your team to gain twice as many resource points while controlling it. To play on a map with the new space station, make sure to select the "Station" battle size!



The exterior of the new space station will reflect who currently controls it, with the lights changing between red, white (undecided), and blue. You can also dock a frigate at the lower end of the space station now, allowing you to basically respawn in the space station and defend it or spawn smaller fighters from there. You can now also choose to send B2 Attack Droids to the space station instead of the enemy ship, they will try to take control over the capture point and get rid of any enemies inside. The droids also received multiple improvements, for example, they are much smarter at dealing with enemies hiding/peaking from behind cover.

But be aware that the enemy Tactical Droid can send droids to the space station as well to try and take control over it. Speaking of the tactical droids, numerous changes have been made to the frigates Tactical Droid to give him a respawn time, which makes it much less frustrating to hijack enemy frigates than before, when he would respawn instantly.



There is also a new respawn system in the game now, in earlier versions you always respawned on the last friendly ship you were on, now you can choose between your capital ship and your frigate (if it exists), allowing you to use the frigate as a mobile spawn station for your team to try and take control over the enemy capital ship or the new space station while being docked to them.

The weapons also received some changes, you now spawn with the correct weapon when changing your class in the ship customization phase, and the pistol and the revolver deal a bit more damage now, with the pistols fire rate also being increased slightly. This means they will only have 10% lower damage per second than the rifle or SMG, instead of being 20-30% worse.

Additionally, lots of improvements and bug fixes are included in this update, you can check those out in the full changelog below. Most notably, keybindings now accept "." and "," keys, the "invert y-axis" option should now save correctly, fighter purchasing stations should work more reliably, and the windows of your ship should no longer look weird when flying around with your drone.

If you experience any issues or have any kind of feedback, please let me know!


Full changelog:
-ADDED: reworked space station, it now has interiors
-ADDED: 2 hangars for the space station, allows players to enter it
-ADDED: capture point in the middle of the space station, the team that controls it gains double resource points
-ADDED: new station texture, station changes exterior light colors depending on who controls it currently
-ADDED: option to launch B2 Attack Pods at the space station instead of the enemy ship
-ADDED: B2 Attack droid logic changes so they know how to capture the capture point inside the station
-ADDED: "Station" battlesize, basically "Epic" size but with the new space station
-ADDED: sentry animation
-ADDED: keybinding support for "," and "." keys
-ADDED: some more cover to the space station
-ADDED: crosshair when flying the drone
-ADDED: functionality to dock one frigate at the bottom of the space station

-REWORKED: respawn system, you now can choose where you want to respawn in the death screen (capital ship or frigate, if available)

-IMPROVED: piloting the capital ship now always makes you look straight ahead (instead of looking behind or sideways when entering it in some situations)
-IMPROVED: frigate tactical droid now takes 10 seconds to respawn, instead of respawning instantly
-IMPROVED: tactical droid can now only control the frigate if it's close to the helm
-IMPROVED: sentry turrets now target Fireo droids
-IMPROVED: B2 attack droid behavior against players that hide behind cover on the station
-IMPROVED: B2 attack droid pathfinding a lot smoother on the station
-IMPROVED: your selected class skin now gets saved for each class

-INCREASED: revolver damage from 60 to 70
-INCREASED: pistol damage from 40 to 45
-INCREASED: pistol fire rate from 100 RPM to 120 RPM
-REDUCED: B2 Attack droid HP from 600 to 500

-CHANGED: space station interior color scheme to be less blue and more neutral (since it can belong to both teams)
-CHANGED: station spawn location to have the same distance to both of the two teams ships

-FIXED: teleporters onboard a frigate now get destroyed when the frigate is destroyed
-FIXED: fighters landing in hangars not spawning correctly sometimes
-FIXED: fighters starting from hangars not correctly freeing up the space they started from, preventing new fighters to be purchased on that side of the hangar
-FIXED: spawning with the weapon of your old class if changing classes in the selection phase
-FIXED: not getting kicked out of the frigate helm correctly when dying
-FIXED: not getting kicked out of the drone correctly when dying
-FIXED: windows looking weird when flying with the drone
-FIXED: smaller fighters showing the wrong key to enter a hangar
-FIXED: small hole inside the space station
-FIXED: red teams repair drones being blue instead of red
-FIXED: windows looking weird when flying with the pilots drone
-FIXED: hangar numbers not being consistent on the map, the signs in the interiors, and the destroyed hangar door alerts
-FIXED: invert y-axis option not saving correctly
-FIXED: civilian shuttles turning into military shuttles when landed in a hangar
-FIXED: energy panel right/middle hull shield buttons having no sounds
-FIXED: fighters spawning in the bio lab instead of hangars on rare occasions
-FIXED: some blue upper hangar doors being locked
-FIXED: everything being too bright when piloting a frigate
-FIXED: player sometimes not correctly getting kicked out smaller fighter when dying, messing up the respawn process
-FIXED: capital ship hangar issue that resulted in the wrong hangar slots being registered as free when starting fighter
-FIXED: changing keybinds not updating the UI hints correctly
-FIXED: weird behavior when player is inside a shuttle of a frigate and that frigate gets destroyed while he's still flying around in the shuttle
-FIXED: fighter displays still showing the old key when changing keybindings
-FIXED: rounding errors sometimes resulting in hull descriptions flashing between"-0% energy due to damage" and "no damage" in the energy controls

This update improves the frigates in multiple ways, there are new windows on the bridge and in the hangar area, which got some visual improvements along with the vent area. There is also now first-person flying for the frigates, which works similar to the flying systems of the smaller fighters, and a short-range turbolaser that the pilot can use, which deals quite a lot of damage but overheats very quickly.



There are also some other improvements, most notably fixes for ultrawide resolutions like being able to set your FOV to a wider range of values, settings not being saved correctly when using Linux, and players getting stuck in the communication station of the frigates, The frigate undock lever now also has an outline that is visible through walls while the frigate is docked, to make it easier for newer players to find!



Full changelog:
-ADDED: improved, bigger, and more windows to the frigate
-ADDED: bigger hangars to the frigate with new large windows
-ADDED: first-person cockpit-flying to the frigates, with fighter-like control system instead of having to press a lot of keys at once
-ADDED: frigate undock lever outline while docked (to make it easier for newer players to find)
-ADDED: short-range, front-mounted double turbo lasers to the frigate, controlled by the pilot (torpedo system unchanged)
-REWORKED: settings config system to make settings save correctly on Linux
-IMPROVED: the game now allows a wider range of FOV settings (for ultrawide resolutions)
-IMPROVED: made frigate vents a bit smaller, spinning vents now have 3 blades instead of 4
-IMPROVED: window visuals while moving
-FIXED: skybox being too bright on the "small" battle size
-FIXED: player models getting stuck in the communication stations of frigates
-FIXED: multiple potential fixes for players sometimes spawning in the wrong ship

This update aims to improve fighter versus fighter combat. Before, fighters would be nearly impossible to hit due to slight differences between the location of the fighter on your screen, and the position of the same fighter on the server, especially at faster speeds. This issue should be greatly improved with this update, making dogfights a much less frustrating experience. Additionally, you will now get a little target helper on your screen after aiming at an enemy fighter that shows you where to shoot based on your laser's speed and the enemy fighter's current velocity. It also shows you the hull HP and shields HP of the enemy fighter, so you know if you are actually hitting them.



You will also notice 2 additional side windows on the bridge, that allow you to have a better view over the battle. There are also some performance improvements to those windows to allow for 3 being displayed at the same time, and some visual improvements like fixing them looking weird when looking up/down.

If you have any visual or performance issues with those new bridge windows please let me know! Also, the "Bridge Screen Disable" option now actually works, so you can disable them anytime you want.

There are also some more improvements and bugfixes, like voice chat not starting or stopping sending your voice, and players not being able to move after spawning in some situations. All classes now also have faster HP regeneration!

Full changelog:
-ADDED: smaller fighter aim helper against other smaller fighters (so you know where to shoot)
-ADDED: smaller fighter info about the enemy fighters HP/shields while fighting them
-ADDED: 2 additional side bridge windows

-BUFFED: increased HP regeneration speed for all classes (starts sooner, and regenerates faster)
-IMPROVED: lime capital ship skin visual improvements
-IMPROVED: bridge window visuals when looking up/down
-IMPROVED: bridge window performance

-FIXED: bug that resulted in players sometimes not being able to move after a new round started
-FIXED: lots of voice chat bugs regarding not starting/stopping voice transmission in certain situations
-FIXED: sometimes spawning in walls in frigate vs frigate mode
-FIXED: leaving the enemy info seat in a frigate not removing the player from the seat correctly
-FIXED: multiple bugs regarding smaller fighter HP sometimes being less than intended
-FIXED: "disable bridge screen" option not working correctly and not saving correctly

This update introduces the first version of the new XP/level system, for every 500 XP you gain for playing the game, your level will increase. How much XP you gain after a round depends on the game mode, AI difficulty, and if you managed to win it.



There are also new character skins you can unlock by leveling up, you can equip them in the class selection screen. The new ship skins can be unlocked similar to the character skins, you can equip them as a free upgrade in the ship customization phase. You can also see your current level progress, your unlocked rewards, and all upcoming rewards in the main menu!



There is also a weekly play event on Saturdays to make it easier for you to find other players to play with, you will also receive double XP while playing on public (non-password protected) servers during Saturdays.

There are also the usual improvements and bug fixes, most notably changes to the respawn system, respawning on a frigate now always takes 8 seconds instead of being dependent on the life support energy of your capital ship, AI frigates should no longer teleport back to their capital ship, the chat looks a bit nicer with players names being displayed in their teams' colors. The AI also received multiple upgrades, they won't shoot friendly teleporters anymore and have an easier time shooting smaller enemies like Fireos when up close.

Full changelog:
-ADDED: XP/level system, unlocking character and ship skins
-ADDED: players level now get shown on the scoreboard
-ADDED: players level now get shown in the main menu, hovering over it will show all possible unlocks
-ADDED: gained XP changes with AI difficulty level, PVE/PVP mode and based on if you won the round, gained XP gets shown after the round
-ADDED: Saturday playevent announcement to the XP gained screen after the round
-ADDED: playing on Saturdays on public (=non-password protected) servers will double your gained XP
-ADDED: team colors to chat messages

-IMPROVED: Barsk aim when shooting at smaller targets that are close to them
-CHANGED: respawning on a frigate now always takes 8 seconds, instead of being based on the life support energy of the capital ship
-CHANGED: reduced damage taken when flying into capital ships, so fighters don't get destroyed instantly on low-speed collisions
-CHANGED: XP is only gained for rounds that took longer than 2 minutes

-FIXED: potential issue that prevented players from hosting games
-FIXED: potential issue that resulted in the AI frigate teleporting back to their capital ship instead of flying there
-FIXED: multiple minor issues resulting in log error spamming and bad server performance
-FIXED: friendly droids attacking your teleporters
-FIXED: using a teleporter would sometimes result in the wrong ingame map being shown