Stellar Warfare News

This week some new weaponry has been added. We're also planning a merge of a whole bunch of new features from our testserver.

• Reproduced an issue causing screen resolution settings not being saved at 4k resolution
  
• Identified a new issue with the resolution display value being incorrect. Making a trello ticket of it for @Admiral Atrixsanna to pick up
  
• Changed the shipyard autocannon upgrade to have a burst mode and I have changed its projectiles to have trails
  
• Added The tracker (medium triple burst weapon)
  
• Phiriton Anti Heavy weapon added
  
• Added Atrix his Sanitizer anti building weapon (http://patreon.com/tensegames reward)
  
• Double Barrel Xati added
  
• Decimator anti building weapon added
  
• Added two new default unlocked weapons. The others have to be found.
  
• Added the Sarkuth medium cannon
  

The Vsync issue is now probably resolved. This has been an issue for over 2 years now. At the time I stopped working on it since I was working on the project by myself. And I was already stuck on that issue for 1.5 months. So, instead of fixing it for those few computers in which it became an issue I decided to pick it up again and fix it later. That later is now.

What was the issue?
Some PC players who played CSGO and similar games override Nvidia settings for performance reasons. This includes disabling Vsync or the 'wait on new frame' part of it.
But that very same setting causes an issue in Unity which caused our units and weapons to move and fire faster when FPS was high, and slower when FPS was low. Especially in multiplayer this was unwanted behavior.

For that reason we could not lock vsync ingame, because nvidia overrode it if set to do so. The downside of that was that those with graphics cards or laptops sensitive to high fps had their hardware being strained more than usual. Fans spinning rapidly, stuff like that.

How was it resolved?
Honestly, I don't know. I could not reproduce the issue today using the same methods I've done so in the past. Which means that either unity changed something in an update, nvidia changed something with their drivers, or we accidentally fixed it with code somehow.

In either case, because this no longer seems to be an issue the new programmer, Algor, was able to lock the vsync properly and it now no longer gets overridden.

Additionally
In addition to these 'performance fixes', Atrixsanna also managed to do some programming wizardy and better cleanup of memory. Because of this the game now runs better in lategame as well, so big thanks to him for that!

For this update we are adding unity veterancy to the game. Killing enemy units and structures upgrades gives your units experience. This then results in them leveling up, causing them to get a lot of extra health and damage per level. So keeping your units alive is now more important than ever!



Additions

• Added Veterancy system for units. Now they can be promoted by killing hostiles.
  

Reworks

• Damara now uses bombers with magma projectiles damaging buildings most effectively
  
• Eradicator beam now uses flow animation
  
• MiniCannon defense: increased damage from 3 to 7
  
• Barreller defense: increased damage from 3 to 9
  
• Repeller defense: increased damage from 3 to 6
  
• Photon Launcher defense: reduced damage from 32 to 30
  
• Missile Platform defense:
  - Light missile damage increased from 2.5 to 10, cooldown increased from 5 to 10
  - Medium missile damage increased from 5 to 15
  

Fixes

• Fixed memory leak cause by some textures leading to performance drop in long sessions
  
• Fixed game attempting to read/modify destroyed objects in some cases
  
• Fixed wrong values in descriptions of the cost reducing utility modules
  
• Fixed scale and position of Lunaria's engine flames
  
• Fixed Agonizer's description missing information about her built-in Laser Shield
  

New features
- Added Behemoth and End Of Days super ships to the abilities menu
- Added Antibuilding missile launcher to the shipyard to the abilities menu
- Added Bloom Intensity and Radius sliders to main and in-game options (due to it often being requestd, not because the lead developer thinks it looks better)
- Added Minimap Size slider in the in-game options menu
- Hosts can now kick players from the multiplayer lobbies
- It is now possible to rotate ships in the fleet editor menu using all axis. Use LMB or MMB to rotate and/or reset ship rotation

Reworks
- Ship Direct Control mod now has new controls, new UI, dedicated page in the in-game options
- Players now can select targets to focus in the Direct Control by clicking on them
- Ships now has new navigation and movement logic that should fix all known issues with acceleration or/and rotation
- Minor updates to the selection circles and movement markers
- Updated values of price reducing utility modules
- Updated refinery description
- Plasma defense fortress price changed to 600/600
- Updated map descriptions and balanced enabled anomaly positions
- Floating text now has specific color for metal and energy gained
- Laserdef burstsize reduce from 4 to 3 Laserdef cooldown increased from 30 to 45. Both of these changes are made to make missiles slightly more effective in protracted battles.

Fixes
- Fixed bomber damage in Single Player game modes
- Fixed selecting allied units by double clicking on the allied buildings in the Multiplayer game modes
- Removed weapon chart bars showing on ship frames in the ship editor menu
- Fixed AI units 'freezing' in one place some times
- Fixed transport sound some times not playing correctly in BR
- Fixed players joining password protected lobbies via Find match
- Shipyard and anomaly extractors no longer can be escalated/boosted
- Fixed units stay in selected list after death.
- Fixed Matter Generator producing not enough metal
- Fixed escalation boosters not properly working on the refinery in some rare cases
- Heatsinks and Reload Cycler now has proper icon
- Fixed Stinger ship frame not able to change color
- Fixed enemy Eradicator and Hunter Seekers not having unit icons
- Fixed Megarepeater projectile color
- Fixed audio settings reader rare bug
- Fixed Mastodon turrets levitating over the frame