Patch 0.9.9.0 Notes: New carrier gameplay

The carrier gameplay patch is now available! The carrier needed some love for a long time and was usually considered the most boring ship to fly in game (it had the lowest mobility due to being a mobile fortress, so its gameplay was more situational). We're introducing AI squads management to its gameplay like in a simplified RTS game. We wanted to stay away from too much micromanagement so you cannot assign orders to individual ships, only to squads as a whole.

Orders include attacking, escorting, search & destroy and of course (un)deployment and are available in the new orders radial menu (default key: O). A hangar MFD was added to the HUD when flying the carrier, showing the state of ships in every squad. In hangar mode, the 1-9 keys can be used to individually (de)select active squads, while F5 allows to switch the interactive MFD (loadout or hangar). Alternatively, it is possible to switch between MFD modes in the weapons radial menu too (default: RMB).



Also note that a spectator mode is available through the orders radial menu. This allows to quickly observe the battle from a squad's ship's perspective. On escort/protection orders, the AI flies into simplified conic-shaped formations until an enemy enters its attack range. Search & destroy allows ships to select a target individually. Squad ships will always prioritize defending themselves when attacked and may ignore the assigned order temporarily. The only exception to this rule is the emergency docking mode, which forces all squads to come back to the carrier and undeploy as quickly as possible.

The carrier update also comes with a bunch of new upgrades, most of which are dedicated to the carrier gameplay (see the list in the patch notes).

As AI behavior is becoming pretty complex, we have no doubt there will be bugs and strange occasional behaviors. Do not hesitate to report them on the forums so that we can investigate the conditions in which they happen.

While the focus of this patch was the carrier gameplay, it also includes an upgrade to the Interceptor asset (texture optimizations and new skins). As we're entering the last quarter of the year, we're entering the final development phase before our full release. We still have a lot of work to do but in terms of gameplay, the carrier was the last major feature that was remaining to be implemented. We now consider the game to be more or less gameplay feature complete and will start to focus on to polishing the experience, introducing tutorials/training, cosmetic content and the offline sandbox mode.

-Flavien Brebion

• Introduced the concept of Carry Points (CP) in the carrier hangar. The default budget is 30 CP
  
• In the ship loadout menu, added a hangar management tab to the ship panel
  
• In this hangar management tab, you can see the current amount of CP used by all ships in the hangar, and the max amount
  
• Use appropriate buttons to create new squads or delete existing ones. A new squad is initially empty. Click the "add ships" button to open the ships loadout selection panel. Only standard ship loadouts (not user-customized ones) are available
  
• Each loadout has a different cost (typically: 1 CP for interceptors, 3 CP for bombers and 5 CP for corvettes). Select the loadouts you're interested in to add them to the selected squad
  
• In the squad panel, it is also possible to click the up/down icons to add or remove ships of the same loadout, without having to open the loadout panel manually every time
  
• Note that default loadouts names are displayed in green
  
• There is a limit of up to 4 carriers in play per faction, so not all players may be able to fly one at any time
  
• Each squad can have up to 6 ships, and there may be up to 9 squads in the hangar. While this may allow up to 54 ship slots, keep in mind that you'll be limited by the max CP budget sooner
  
• Some upgrades may increase or decrease the CP budget
  
• A new hangar MFD is available on the carrier HUD. Each line shows one squad, starting with its ID number (corresponding to the selection key 1-9) and the current order's target name. Then comes the status for each of the 6 ships slots (the ship icon shows the ship type, the coloring the health status. A red cross is displayed
  if the ship has been destroyed. Finally, on the right side of the line, an icon shows the order type
  
• When the hangar MFD is interactive (use F5 to switch between the hangar MFD and the loadout MFD), the 1-9 number keys can be used to individually (de)select squads
  
• Press O to open the orders radial menu. One or many squads must have been selected. Then select one of the orders to assign to the squad(s). Some order types (attack, protect) will use the current carrier's target to assign as the squad's
  
• Alternatively, it is possible to use the loadout radial menu insteead of using F5 and O. A new entry is available in the loadout radial menu, to toggle the MFD modes. The orders radial menu will contextually open instead of the loadout's if the hangar MFD is selected
  
• It is not possible to (un)deploy squads while in warp
  
• It is possible to replace destroyed ships while repairing the carrier in an allied base's docking bay (this is also partially possible in game via the salvage upgrade)
  
• Docked ships that are damaged but not destroyed will repair automatically over time
  
• Squad's ships that are under escort/protection orders will fly in conic shape formation next to their allied target
  
• Damage kills, assist and stats from a squad ship gets credited to the carrier owner
  
• While this is currently not implemented yet, we have plans to make squads, orders and targets selection available through contextual menus in the tactical screen in the future
  

• Fixed AI ships occasionally firing random shots on allies they're escorting (ex.: corvettes on ships they're trying to repair)
  
• Bomber AI from carrier squads are more agressive than normal bomber bots
  

• The ship points distribution curve is now inverse exponential instead of being linear
  
• Our design goal here was to make it faster to accumulate SP if you're low on SP and want to reach the more expensive ships more quickly, but also to help new players struggling with burning their SP on small ships too frequently
  
• Under the old distribution model, players received a constant +30 SP every minute
  
• Under the new distribution model, players receive a variable amount of SP every minute. This amount is high (up to +60 SP) when the total amount of SP assets is low. This amount is about identical to the old number (+30 SP) when the total SP is around the 1000. This amount goes lower than 30
  the higher you go. The minimum amount of SP received is 10.
  
• Under the new model, it takes as much time as before to reach a carrier's cost (2500 SP) from scratch (about 84 mins). It is slightly faster to reach a cruiser's. It is 10 minutes faster to replenish a destroyer's (20 mins instead of 30 mins). It is a few minutes faster for the smaller ships.
  
• One key difference is that the new model uses the total amount of SP assets owned, which is the sum of the SP account and the SP value of the currently flown ship. This should make it impossible to abuse the system by refunding the ship after profiting from a low SP account to earn SP at a faster rate
  

• New upgrade: Detonate (all ships): provides an active ability to instantly detonate all activated MTBs (missiles, torpedoes, bombs, mines) currently in flight.
  
• New upgrade: Launch tubes (carrier): doubles the rate at which ships get deployed, by using the launch tubes system at the sides of the carrier instead of the main hangar. The repair crew and heavy repair field's effectiveness (optionally used) are reduced by 10%
  
• New uptrade: Repair rate (carrier): doubles the repair rate of damaged ships docked in your hangar. Does not replenish destroyed ships (you need to fly back to an allied space station's docks for that). The repair crew and heavy repair field's effectiveness (optionally used) are reduced by 10%
  
• New upgrade: Hangar capacity (carrier): increases by 50% your hangar carry points (CP) capacity. The repair crew and heavy repair field's effectiveness (optionally used) are reduced by 25%
  
• New upgrade: Veteran pilots (carrier): increases the military rank from AI ship squads deployed by the carrier. They originally range from level 1 (RCT) to 10 (MPO) and are deployed with a random rank in that range. This upgrade increases the minimum range to 5 (PO3), making the AI more experienced and agressive
  
• New upgrade: Salvage parts (carrier): recycles 3 wrecked ships of the same class from your hangar into one brand new ship, once per minute. The recycled ship has half hitpoints. The remaining wrecks become unsalvagable. Due to storing extra salvage parts, your hangar capacity is reduced by 15%
  
• Note: all new carrier upgrades require a fairly high military rank (13+)
  

• Fixed abilities that do not consume any type of ammo
  
• Fixed a rare client crash related to projectiles multithreading
  
• Fixed a rare client crash bug that happened when a missile would lose its target the same time it got destroyed
  

• Tweaked the HUD's central information (speed bar, status, target info) max separation to the left/right so that it can't overlap with center left and center right MFD
  
• Fixed a bug which caused damaged guided weapons (missiles/torps/mines) to be displayed with the "damaged" status below their HUD indicator. This now only applies to ships
  

• Updated interceptor asset: optimized UV coordinates and improved the texture/material. It should react better under various lighting conditions, and look less clean than before
  
• 7 interceptor skins are now experimentally available (use "/SetSkin SkinName" in the chat box with SkinName being one of the following: InterceptorScoria, InterceptorHavoc, InterceptorFire, InterceptorBee, InterceptorGold, InterceptorIndustrial or InterceptorMilitary
  
• Added 2 new external camera views (F2) to the interceptor
  
• Reduced volume of rotating turret loop sfx