Deep Space Battle Simulator News

Until now, most rounds of the game tended to take quite long, and you usually run out of torpedoes and upgrades like that quite soon, and you usually don't have any fighters left at that point as well. This makes the round take much longer, since no one is able to run coordinated attacks anymore, and it makes the rounds less fun.

This is why a new resource points system gets introduced, you gain these points passively, and for killing enemies and repairing your ship. You can then purchase selected upgrades like torpedoes and B2 pods for these points, and you can also buy new fighters if you have free hangar slots as well. The Pilot class receives a big buff in this update as well, they can purchase fighters mid-round for half of their usual price.

Another thing that got improved in this update are the turrets, manually shooting a turret did not make much sense before, but now you have double the usual firepower while manually controlling a turret, and you now can see the turret you are using, making it look a lot nicer.

There are also lots of bugfixes in this update, the bridge screen should now be a lot smoother, your shield energy can not fall below zero no matter how fast you click, the tutorial received some improvements, and the hangars and turrets had multiple issues fixed.


Full changelog:
-ADDED: resource points system, you get 5 points every 10 seconds, and bonus points for killing enemies and repairing your ship
-ADDED: upgrade purchasing station where you can purchase some upgrades mid-round with the new resource points
-ADDED: fighter purchasing station where you can purchase fighters mid-round with the new resource points
-ADDED: "Pilot" class can purchase fighters for 50% of the normal resource points price
-ADDED: you now also gain scoreboard points for killing enemies and repairing your ship
-ADDED: turret viewmodels, you now see the turret you are controlling
-CHANGED: increased fire rates for manually controlled turrets by 100% to make controlling a turret manually more useful
-CHANGED: bridge screen will now reduce its frame rate if your fps fall below 30 (before it reduced the frame rate when your fps were below 60)
-CHANGED: renamed "Heal Drone" to "Repair Drone"
-FIXED: energy sometimes falling below zero
-FIXED: being able to fly the capital ship too far in the tutorial, resulting in the rest of the tutorial being impossible to complete
-FIXED: some ion turret bugs
-FIXED: some bugs related to landing with smaller fighters in hangars

Due to issues with the new capital ship movement, the last Update #19 was reverted to make sure the game was in a playable state and the issues were resolved on the beta branch of the game. Since everything looks fine now, all changes from Update #19 are added back to the game with this update.

Another issue that only affected players that installed the game for the first time in the last few weeks was a weird bug that caused the players mouse to be inverted, resulting in nearly unusable controls. This issue has now been fixed completely. If you have any other issues with the keybindings please try the new "Reset keybinds" option, or contact me.

The Barsk Security Guard got buffed a bit after a recent nerf that was a bit too much, its base HP are now 300 instead of 200. There are also some collision fixes, especially for smaller fighters, and after a recent buff that made them too strong, mines now deal around 20% less damage, and Bombers only come with 8 instead of 12 mines. There are also fixes for repairing not working correctly on Linux and some achievements and steam stats not updating correctly.

Full changelog:
- REWORKED: smaller fighter movement system once again to a much more reliable system
- REWORKED: capital ship movement systems once again to a much more reliable system
- IMPROVED: capital ship collision lag reduced
- IMPROVED: added more realistic acceleration to the capital ship
- BUFFED: increased small fighter laser speed by 50% to make it easier to hit things that go very fast
- BUFFED: increased Barsk Security Guard HP from 200 to 300
- CHANGED: reduced mine damage to 6-60 (before: 10-80) and reduced amount of mines inside the Bomber to 8 (before: 12)
- FIXED: some smaller fighter bugs
- FIXED: players that are not on your ship sometimes appearing on the map (on the right or left edge of the map)
- FIXED: adjusted fighter description speed and damage bars to adjust for the recent changes
-FIXED: keybinding issues resulting in new players having an inverted mouse in some cases

The movement system the game used before this update features nearly instant acceleration for the capital ship and the smaller fighters, making them feel very responsive but at the same time very unrealistic. Another issue was a sometimes inaccurate collision system, that led to huge lag spikes on bigger collisions. I completely reworked the movement and collision systems, so now they should feel a lot more realistic, with better collision response, basically no lag on capital ship collisions, and a much more believable acceleration. To compensate for the lag of instant acceleration, the smaller fighters now can fly up to 80% faster, and they also have a new little warning system that alerts you if an enemy fighter is close to you and aiming in your direction.

There were also some balancing changes you can read further below in full detail, a new "Reset Keybinds" option was added, and lots of bugs fixed, most notable a bug that led to players falling through the floor and a bug that led to the energy of some parts of the ship being set to values far too high.


Full changelog:
-REWORKED: smaller fighter movement system, more realistic acceleration, better collision response
-REWORKED: capital ship movement system, more realistic acceleration, less buggy collision and no more lag on collisions
-ADDED: alert in smaller fighters if there is an enemy fighter close behind you
-ADDED: "reset keybinds" option
-ADDED: B1/B2 droids and Barsk Security Guards now shoot enemy Fireo Droids
-ADDED: Tactical Droid AI will now try to chase your capital ship if it gets too far away
-ADDED: ability for engineers to repair broken doors
-CHANGED: broken door effect now consists of sparks instead of flames
-CHANGED: changed "Auto Pilot" key when controlling the capital ship from the ShootKey (default: LMBT) to the look around key (default: ALT)
-CHANGED: updated the "enemy capital ship" icon in smaller fighters
-CHANGED: lower respawn time on higher life support energy values, but higher respawn time on lower values
-BUFFED: smaller fighters top speed increased by 80%
-BUFFED: mines from the "Bomber" fighter now deal 10-80 damage based on proximity (before: 5-60 damage)
-NERFED: Bomber now holds only 8 mines instead of 12
-NERFED: Barsk Security Guard HP lowered from 400 to 200, still takes no damage if you hit his energy shield
-FIXED: a few hangar doors bugs
-FIXED: reworked energy system to prevent a few bugs
-FIXED: tutorial not progressing after shooting the engine
-FIXED: respawn time display in the energy controls UI now correctly takes damage to the bridge into consideration
-FIXED: bottom turret bars not having the correct colors in the selection screen
-FIXED: Tactical Droid AI can now longer dodge super lasers if their engine is disabled
-FIXED: collision issues after sitting in one of the chairs on the bridge, which could lead to falling through the floor
-FIXED: capital ship still moving after its engine was disabled if you keep holding the movement keys
-FIXED: "Repair Droid" option still displaying on the Barsk Security Guard, even though you cant repair it

As an addition to the recent gun changes, this update introduces a new headshot multiplier for players, hitting your opponent in the head now results in 50% more damage dealt. To keep the time to kill somewhat the same, the overall damage dealt to players was reduced by 20%, so it will take a bit longer to kill players if you only hit body shots, but you can kill them much faster if you aim for their head.

There are also some bugs fixes related to capital ships sometimes still being able to manouver with broken engines, the new revolver being held upside down in third person, and issues with control inputs like looking around, especially for controllers


Full changelog:
-ADDED: headshot multiplier (1.5x)
-CHANGED: removed all weapons damage by 20% to compensate for the new headshot multiplier
-FIXED: revolver being held wrong for other players
-FIXED: quick comm menu displaying wrong message when inside the enemy ship
-FIXED: possible bug that allowed capital ships to keep flying with a disabled engine
-FIXED: potential fixes for looking around not working, especially for controllers

One of the biggest issues with the way the games gun system before was that it only supported the player having one equipment piece at once before, so the player had to drop his weapon if he wanted to pick up a fire extinguisher for example. This resulted in a player being left defenseless if he equipped the fire extinguisher, and lots of default pistols just lying around. The better weapons in the gun lockers were quickly swapped by the players, leaving the gun lockers only with the less useful standard pistols. This update allows players to equip tools without having to drop their weapons, and adds class-specific starting weapons, so you only need to swap your weapon with one from the gun lockers if you want to swap from a close-quarter shotgun to a more versatile rifle for example. There is also a new weapon, the revolver, and brand new animations for all weapons, as well as lots of changes to existing weapons you can find below in the full changelog.






Another common complaint was that some players kept swapping upgrades and turrets their teammates chose for their own preferred choice, much to the displeasure of their teammates. The system where everyone could choose everything was something that works amazingly well if all team members communicate, and allows everyone to take part in the ship customization progress, but it can be ruined by a single less communicative player. I attempted to fix it by giving the Captain of a team the ability to basically have the last work in choosing upgrades, but that did not go far enough with players still being able to sabotage their team with their turret and fighter picks. Now, Captains can choose to prevent any changes from their team, if he feels there is not enough communication. This is disabled by default and can be enabled or disabled again by the Captain of each team.



There also is a new system that kicks players that are AFK for too long, and lots of improvement for keycards, controllers, the server browser and smaller fighters as well as the usual bugfixes.


Full changelog:
-ADDED: reworked weapon system so you can pick up tools like the fire extinguisher without having to swap it for your weapon
-ADDED: ability to drop tools like the fire extinguisher (default key: "G")
-ADDED: Revolver weapon: 60 damage, 75 RPM, 75 DPS
-ADDED: animations to all weapons
-ADDED: ability to change your class ingame, will take effect once the next round starts
-ADDED: AFK kick system (current AFK timer is 10 minutes)
-ADDED: toggle for the Captain to allow/prevent team from making changes to turrets, fighters, and upgrades
-ADDED: dropped keycards from dead players now also can respawn in the crew quarters/cantina so other players can find them again if they dropped at not accessible spots
-ADDED: default weapons for all classes (Crew: pistol, Engineer: shotgun, Ranger: rifle, Pilot: SMG, Officer: revolver)
-ADDED: basic controller support and controller keybind options
-REMOVED: players not being able to sell upgrades when not captain
-BUFFED: Officer now has +20% firerate for manually controlled turrets
-BUFFED: shotgun damage from 5x15 to 5x20
-BUFFED: increased pistol firerate from 75 RPM to 100 RPM and damage from 35 to 40 (43 DPS to 67 DPS)
-BUFFED: Crew class now has +50% firerate for manually controlled turrets (was 20% before)
-NERFED: removed "+20% firerate with pistol" bonus for the Crew class
-CHANGED: added revolver to the gun locker (now holds 5 instead of 4 weapons)
-IMPROVED: keycards dropped by dead players now do not all spawn at the same spot, so it's easier to pick them up
-FIXED: "Repair Droid" option removed from dead Barsk Security Guards
-FIXED: fix for "engine/generator destroyed" alert appearing when enemy engine/generator is broken
-FIXED: mouse being inverted by default
-FIXED: capital ship HP bars at the top of players HUD sometimes having the wrong color
-FIXED: killfeed showing that B1 droid killed somebody when B2 droid killed someone
-FIXED: smaller fighters sometimes spawning inside the capital ship after leaving the hangar
-FIXED: server browser not showing "PvP" tag for PvP servers