Update 0.9.3.2
Update 0.9.3.2 is out! It focuses heavily on polishing existing gameplay, and smoothing out the early game.
[h2]Mining Changes[/h2]
A new Mining Transport vehicle has been added. When deployed, the mining transport automatically looks for Mining Heaps and delivers directly to your Mining Depots. By default, they auto-set their search filter based on what is nearest. Mining Transports now take care of all Mining Automation for vehicles, and this feature is no longer a part of normal Transport Vehicles.
Mining Depots, when you place them, now automatically set their filter based on the nearest mining heap or excavator it can find.
[h2]Start Game Changes[/h2]
You start the game with a grace period on your starting loan, so you aren't rushed to pay things back immediately. The grace period ends once you've gotten a reasonably large factory set up on Titan, or once a long enough time has passed, at which point the Greater Saturn Federal Authority will call you and inform you that the good times are over.
There is a greater concentration of resources in the plots around your start now, to ensure you always have what you need for the first few techs on the tech tree.
You can no longer buy land rights, only mining rights at the start, until you research Habitats.
You start with a Waste Storage for storing slag and garbage and the like, and you can manufacture more immediately. Waste Storages help with accumulating your junk until you can figure out a way to recycle or remove it, and they send you an alert when they are filled up.
Bonus starting items unique to each faction are greater in number, but they now arrive over the course of the first few days, rather than immediately.
You can now choose a flexible start in Custom Difficulty, which lets you choose your starting land tile.
[h2]Automation Changes[/h2]
You can now directly send vehicles on cargo missions from the missions in the top right corner of your screen, rather than hunting down your vehicles and telling them to deliver.
Storages default to being pickup spots automatically. These options can still be disabled or set to how they were previously.
"Pickup from Trading Posts" has been split from "Pickup from Ruins/Caches" for cargo vehicle automation.
Automated vehicles now display even more alerts and info about any current automation issues they are having.
[h2]Difficulty Changes[/h2]
On Normal and Easy, you can no longer lose the game by running out of money. Only on Hard mode will this happen.
You are given longer amounts of time to complete all trade missions.
Factions don't send you unsolicited missions nearly as often in the early game.
Many technologies don't require nearly as many repeated recipes at the Research Lab, so research is much faster.
Many, many subtle balance tweaks made as well.
[h2]Graphical Changes[/h2]
Added a subtle Film Grain that improves the general views of Titan.
Added lightning and thunder during rainstorms.
Altered the fog to be thicker and higher quality at times.
Rain and snow have been tweaked.
[h2]Quality of Life[/h2]
Made an enormous number of small but helpful changes to the UI.
Fixed a huge number of bugs and crashes.
[h3]Full Changelist[/h3]
0.9.3.2
Gameplay
- Flexible start - When starting a new game, you can choose flexible start (in custom difficulty), which lets you choose your first land tile. Hard mode defaults to flexible start.
- Loan payments mission doesn't appear until after you've gotten a foothold on Titan. You get a grace period at the start of the game where loans don't drain your money. Loan interest is higher on normal now because the loan doesn't show up until later.
- You can't buy the full land rights, only the mining rights to land, until you've researched Habitats.
- You no longer start with habitats.
- In new games, there are now more resources near the player's start.
- Mining Transport vehicle added. It functions as a transport vehicle, but it starts automated for mining pickups. Other transports can't do automated mining pickups now (although they will remain with that behavior with legacy saves).
- Mining Transports, upon creation, automatically search for the nearest Mining Heap and set their filter to match that heap.
- Mining Depots now automatically set their filter based on the nearest mining heap it can find upon placement. If none are found in the area, it will not work until you manually set its filter.
- Excavators, upon receiving orders, if they don't have a Mining Depot or Mining Transport associated with what they are mining, will automatically attempt to force nearby Mining Depots and Mining Transports to match them.
- Players start with mini excavators rather than light excavators.
- Mini excavators mine a bit slower than the other excavators.
- New Waste Storage structure which is cheap, but only can hold waste byproducts. Players start with 1. Waste storages send an alert when they are full.
- Increased the range of all habitats.
- All warehouses/storehouses/general storages default to being a Cargo Vehicle Pickup Spot for automated vehicles.
- Some techs do not require as many recipe copies to finish.
- Increased mission time.
- Bonus starting items unique to each faction usually come in a care package over the course of the first few days.
- You start with your starting unit again (usually a scout rover), spawned at your HQ as soon as it is built.
- Underground storehouses and warehouses are slightly further up in the tech tree (they require Wire as well), and must be researched.
- Supply Depots now need to be researched as well, and are also slightly up in the tech tree.
- New factions explore a greater area of their territory for you at the start of the game.
- Tweaked the tech tree.
- Trash is now balanced so you can sustain a low number of trash incinerators without relying entirely on other factions to produce the trash for you.
- Which missions have bonuses are no longer based on whether or not you have researched the tech, and instead are based on fixed criteria.
- Mission rewards never include items you start with.
- Tweaked mission rewards.
- Radar requires no workers.
- Starter missions have a bonus by default.
- Edge Scrolling off by default.
- Fixed cargo transport AI to be less wasteful of movement and ping pong less.
- Further increased starting necessities.
- Excavators dump their inventory when they are idle.
- Tweaked conflux faction AI.
- You can get no more than 1 permit-locked reward for a mission at a time.
- Cargo Vehicles now have a "Trading Post Pickup" automation option, separate from the "Pickup External" option.
- You now have the option of sending trucks on a trade mission directly from a dropdown on each mission, rather than selecting each truck directly to send them on a mission.
- For automated cargo/mining transports, dropoff spots that do not demand anything matching the transport's filters are no longer ever considered for that transport's automation.
- Tweaked a number of recipes, especially early game recipes, to be less punishing for new players.
- Only on hard mode will the game end if your money runs out. On easy and normal mode, you can keep playing even if you run out of money.
UI
- When hovering over resources, a patch of all nearby similar resources are highlighted as well, to help visualize how large or small each vein of ore is.
- Cargo automation alerts improved.
- Pickup locations highlight all units picking up from that location while it is selected.
- Selecting a unit will highlight its current pickup and dropoff locations.
- Added more error alerts for cargo transports going on delivery missions but having no spots to gather from, and also for acquire missions and having no spots to deliver to.
- Right clicking on a mining heap with a mining transport will immediately set that transport's gather automation.
- Right clicking to move an automated excavator or mining transport clears its automation filters rather than its automation mode.
- Added a message indicating if a structure is currently being heated up, otherwise it can seem like nothing is happening.
- On Sandbox, errors about necessities are downgraded to warnings at most, because you can't ever lose workers in sandbox.
- Tutorial for fueling the combustion plant now suggests using Maglevs rather than trucks.
- Added a tutorial on locating allied trading posts.
- Many other tutorials updated and tweaked.
- Can store/destroy your own vehicles via the right click menu.
- Infolinks page better shows your current research progress.
- Infolinks now shows you what inputs are unresearched for an item.
- Breakdowns produce an alert rather than a notification.
- In Job Board, factions will mention that you can't take on multiple requests from the same faction until you finish existing ones.
- Added the ability to open infolinks from a trade request.
- Increased font size of the smallest fonts.
- Many strings tweaked and clarified.
- General controls tweaks.
- You can select the entire call widget to answer a call.
- Tweaked the main actions UI to make the deconstruct and land buying options more obvious.
- Techs that come in care packages are hidden away at the start of the game.
- Habitat inventory icons better show which necessities you don't have enough of.
- Various UI areas with a button replaced with clickable areas.
- You can select existing trade missions to get a reminder of what to do on the mission.
- If you complete a build mission, the job done message will immediately show up, rather than popping up in the background.
- Warnings on missing necessities now tell you exactly how many you need.
- In infolinks, recipes show what producer produces each individual recipe.
- Added loading screen tip on Vehicle Tracker and Quick Locator.
- Power Pie Chart aggregates and averages data over a longer interval of time, so it doesn't flicker frantically.
- Repair drones and demolition units highlight its current target.
- Subtly tweaked UI visuals.
Graphics
- Added a persistent light hydrocarbon rain most of the time on Titan.
- New Games start with heavy rain.
- Added lightning flashes and thunder during rain storms.
- Added subtle film grain to visuals. Can be disabled in options.
- Tweaked fog.
- Rain and snow lasts longer.
- Mining Heaps are a little more vibrant so you can see what color they are, and thus, what material they hold.
- Wishlisted land borders are dimmed.
- Tweaked a number of models.
- Vehicles turn parallel to structures when gathering/delivery resources.
- Excavator models hold heaps of resources rather than individual resources.
- Rebuilder Drone model given lights to make them easier to see at night.
Other
- Prefabricator audio is quieter.
- Rain audio is quieter.
- Bug fix - Fixed the wind view not showing up until you unpause.
- Bug fix - After you've already completed a trade request of a certain type for a faction once before, you can no longer get the bonus for that mission again.
- Bug fix - Power/worker ranges showing up if you have selected enemy structures.
- Bug fix - Fixed context menus staying after you open infolinks.
- Bug fix - Fixed a tutorial step sometimes getting skipped in certain circumstances.
- Bug fix - Exploration vision being slightly off center fixed.
- Bug fix - Fixed bug with wear and tear visuals.
- Bug fix - Fixed bad thumbnails showing up sometimes.
- Bug fix - Fixed some tooltips.
- Bug fix - Starter Building Frame mission wasn't triggering.
- Bug fix - Fixed Mining Depot model build animation.
- Bug fix - Fixed mining unit AI of Conflux Market.
- Bug fix - Fixed certain goods being misclassified as byproducts.
- Bug fix - Fixed vehicles dropping off an incorrect amount of resources, such as their entire inventory, or sometimes more goods than a warehouse could store legally.
- Bug fix - Fixed sales line showing up for subscriptions, which don't go on sale.
- Bug fix - Fixed multiple tech trees or infolinks pages being spawned on top of one another.
- Bug fix - Fixed zoom to tech focusing on the wrong tech in the tech tree.
- Bug fix - Fixed wheels on certain vehicles sometimes rotating in the wrong direction.
- Bug fix - If you use a custom difficulty with 0% population consumption, the workers won't immediately flee your factory.
- Bug fix - Fixed cargo transports sometimes gathering not enough resources for a cargo mission.
- Bug fix - Completing a build request now finishes it even if the game is paused.
- Bug fix - Fixed Maglevs sometimes getting blocked for no discernable reason.
- Bug fix - Fixed mouse hover of valley terrain.
- Bug fix - Fixed some missing strings.
- Bug fix - Titles not getting cut off properly.
- Bug fix - Fixed strange overlapping between main screen UI elements.
- Bug fix - Fixed power graph constantly getting wiped any time mining heaps were collected.
- Bug fix - Fixed intersections getting clogged and behaving poorly.
- Bug fix - Overhead floaters were showing up for all mining heaps rather than just relevant mining heaps.
- Bug fix - Moving the window between monitors during loading was causing strange graphical glitches such as the hydrocarbon lakes to vanish.
- Bug fix - Fixed units, especially excavators, sometimes clipping underneath terrain.
- Bug fix - Fixed shadows sometimes vanishing at certain camera angles.
- Bug fix - Fixed repair drones sometimes stopping work and refusing to continue.
- Crash fix - Crash on rebuilding maglevs.
- Some performance improvements.