Hey Everyone!
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Beta 26 is out now! This update includes an upgrade to the core game engine, as well as three new ships with unique systems and various ship components! In addition, we’ve made multiple improvements to VR support!
New Ships: This update is the first where we’re adding three new ships at the same time. Each of these new ships were crafted with the goal of making them a unique experience.
The first ship is the Nomad 5 produced by SunCircler. This ship is a civilian vessel and wasn’t built with heavy combat in mind. Crews who begin in this ship have no faction. They start at chaos level 3 and have sub-par ship components making this ship challenging for players, especially early on.
The second ship is a relic from the Old Wars known as the Interceptor; it has been restored and retrofitted with modern technology, allowing it to properly interact with today’s systems. The interceptor is unique because a shield generator can’t be installed. Instead crews must utilize one of the ship’s unique features: field repairs. While it’s not as economic as going to a repair depot, captains on the Interceptor can use processed scrap to heal the ship’s hull, even during a fight.
The third ship in this update is also a relic from the Old Wars, only it was a ship on the opposite side of the battles. The Sylvassi Swordship was faithfully restored and retrofitted to be usable today. Its design is very different from the other starting ships and it comes equipped with a unique ability; once per jump the pilot can fire a frontal beam that can deal enormous damage to unsuspecting ships. It works well when used in tandem with the ship’s cloaking system, and it was feared by humans during the Old Wars. It also comes equipped with a host of new ship components that are uniquely Sylvassi in style.
This update also adds improvements to VR support. While there are still some rough edges, we’ve tried to take your feedback and our own experiences with the game to improve upon the usability and comfort. Some of the bigger changes we’ve made are to many of the interactive menus while playing the game, movement controls, and piloting.
Many of the interactive menus are now attached to the motion controllers, allowing players to more easily interact with them. The Main hud is also attached to the two controllers and should hopefully make it more readable and interactable. The offsets of these menus can be adjusted in the vr offsets menu.
We’ve added options for snap turning and the ability to customize the degrees in which the camera rotates. We’ve also added a toggle function for running which should make the experience more comfortable, especially on the rift.
A note about piloting: By default VR players will be restricted to the Manual Flight mode and the first person camera mode. We have found these to be the most playable and comfortable modes when playing in VR with controllers. For those who don’t want these restrictions, it’s possible to disable them in the VR settings menu, just keep in mind that we don’t recommend piloting with those restrictions turned off and that our tweaks to the vr controls have been made with those restrictions in mind.
Besides that, we’ve added some quality of life changes to the game. A few of them include: the addition of access hatches on Cornelia Station, the Estate and the Roland which help players maneuver those larger spaces faster than before; the talents menu opens to your specific class right away; the dialogue window allows for more text to be displayed; the computer screen shows which programs are currently active.
We’ve also done a number of other additions and improvements which you can read more about below. This update has taken longer than we originally anticipated, but we hope the new stuff makes up for the wait.
Additions
- New Ship Class (The SunCircler Nomad 5 - Economic All-Purpose Space Vehicle) - This ship is intended to provide experienced players with an added challenge. This starting ship begins at chaos level 3 with low-quality ship components and no active faction. This makes early game much more difficult and hopefully provides an engaging challenge to players looking for a harder game. We anticipate crews starting on this ship will tend to avoid all-out conflicts in space until they begin to improve their ship. This ship has only one basic turret slot instead of two, and its startup switchboard is much closer to the bridge which is fairly unusual.
- New Ship Class (Interceptor - Restored Old Wars Relic) - This ship is a refurbished relic from the Old Wars back when Atriums, Shields and Teleporters were not widely used. This ship has had some of those amenities added, but it doesn’t come with a shield generator and it’s impossible to install one. Its hull is designed to take a beating and can be repaired using scrap while away from a repair depot. Processed scrap can be used to repair the hull even in the middle of a fight! This ship also has a reactor that periodically leaks radiation into the engineering bay.
- New Ship Class (Sylvassi Swordship - Restored Old Wars Relic) - This ship is a refurbished relic from the Old Wars. It has a cloaking system that charges very quickly, as well as a beam weapon called the Sword than can be activated once per jump by whoever is piloting the ship. It also starts with several new programs.
- Interceptor Screens - The Interceptor has been retrofitted to use a modern computer OS but the screens are still the authentic monitor-based screens used in the Old Wars. They are older and more utilitarian.
- New System - Field Repairs for the Interceptor - The captain has the ability to repair the Interceptor’s hull at any point by consuming processed scrap. 1 processed scrap will repair 100 points of hull. While it may be cheaper to purchase repair at a repair depot, this system allows one to repair the ship’s hull mid fight.
- New System - Sword for the Sylvassi Swordship - Powerful front firing beam weapon that the Pilot aims and fires. This weapon can be used once per jump and is very taxing on reactors, often accumulating lots of heat during the firing process. Its potential for ambush tactics made it feared among humans during the Old Wars.
- New System - Locked Ship Components - These ship components can’t be uninstalled, sold or swapped. They can, however, be upgraded. If a ship component is locked it’s usually a special part of the ship or intended to be part of a playstyle.
- New Ship Component - [Warp Drive] Old Wars - Super Jumper - increases warp drive range each time the manual program charge is activated. Resets each jump.
- New Ship Component - [Hull] Interceptor Hull - Unique to the Interceptor - This hull is exceptionally strong and has unique properties that allow field repairs, yet it isn’t compatible with shields.
- New Ship Component - [Main Turret] Retrofitted Coil Gun - Projectile-based main turret. Originally manufactured during the Old Wars, it has since been refurbished and improved.
- New Ship Component - [Nuclear Device] Tactical Nuke - Cheaper nukes with smaller blast ranges, ideal for heavy assaults within close / medium range
- New Ship Component - [Warp Drive] Old Wars Super Jumper - This warp drive will increase its jump range each time a fuel capsule is used at the manual program charging station. This effect resets after each jump.
- New Ship Component - [Reactor] Leaky Reactor - Powerful reactor that occasionally spews radiation. Label Reads “DO NOT USE”.
- New Ship Component - [Shield Generator] Sylvassi Shields - This shield generator has a unique function that increases shield charge rate when shield integrity is above 50%.
- New Ship Component - [Reactor] Sylvassi Reactor - A competent reactor with a lower maximum temperature.
- New Ship Component - [Processor] Sylvassi Cyber Defense Processor - A more efficient Cyber Defense Processor.
- New Ship Component - [Processor] Warp Range Processor - Adds +1 range to the warp drive
- New Ship Component - [Processor] Research Pipeline Module - Adds one fuel capsule whenever a new talent is researched
- New Ship Component - [Processor] Improved Defenses - Increases effective hull armor
- New Ship Component - [Program] Extended Shields - Increases max shields by 80 for 60 seconds
- New Ship Component - [Program] Quantum Tunnel - Advances the current research track by 1 step
- New Ship Component - [Program] Burst AV - Removes one random active hostile virus from the ship
- New Ship Component - [Program] Random Access - Fully recharges one random uncharged program
- New Ship Component -[Program] Sylvassi Capacitor - Provides 5 warp program charges on execution
- New Ship Component - [Cloaking System] Sylvassi Cloaking System - More power efficient cloaking system
- New Ship Component - [Processor] Warp Range Processor - Increases warp drive range
- New Sector - The Processor Shop - Sells a large selection of ship processors
- New Sector - The Program Shop - Sells a large selection of programs
- New Sector - The Virus Shop - Sells a large selection of viruses
- New Sector - The Sylvassi Shop - Sells various Sylvassi related ship components
- New Talent - Turret Cooling Optimizations - (Weapon Specialist) +5% to crew turret cooling rate per rank (5 ranks)
- New Talent - Turret Cooling Optimizations - (Engineer) +5% to crew turret cooling rate per rank (5 ranks)
- Cornelia Station now has Access Hatches that lead to deeper parts of the station and back to the teleporters.
- The Estate now has Access Hatches that lead to various parts of the ship as well as back to the teleporters. It also now has a repair depot available in the sector
- Added Forward Spotlight on the Carrier
- Added Forward Spotlight on Roland
- Added Forward Spotlight on Outrider
- Added Forward Spotlight on Destroyer
- Added Forward Spotlight on Fluffy One
- Added visual space particles to the Carrier, Fluffy One, and Caustic Corsair ships. These particles help illustrate ship movement.
- Added a colored border to current selected ship when starting a game. This should help signify which ship is selected and the color illustrates that ship’s faction.
- The game settings now have a way to toggle sprinting instead of requiring the sprint button to be held continuously.
VR
- Upgraded internal VR plugins
- UI tweak - The right and left sides of the HUD are now paired to the right and left controllers. Players can adjust the offsets of these in the VR Setting Menu under Offsets.
- UI tweak - The Tab Menu is now attached to a VR controller. This should make it quicker and more intuitive to use the menu.
- UI tweak - The Escape Menu is now attached to a VR controller.
- UI tweak -The “Z” menu is now attached to a VR controller
- UI tweak - The NPC dialogue window is now attached to a VR controller
- UI tweak - The store window for both Items and Ship Components are now attached to a Controller.
- The Z menu has new option to reset VR orientation and Skip Warp
- The controller bindings for Steam VR have been updated to Steam’s new binding system. This should make it easier to customize controller support or build support for other VR controllers
- Added a Snap Rotate option in the VR menu. There is also a setting for customizing the degree of each snap step.
- Fixed an issue with action prompts being rendered behind objects
- Fixed an issue when VR players playing under the roomscale settings would zero out their perspective when attempting to reset their orientation
- Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented VR players from being able to process scrap
- Piloting in VR has been tweaked - It’s now set to a first person perspective with manual controls, this, from our experience is the most usable setup for VR players
- Drop Down Menus should be working better in VR
- Fixed an issue regarding your player character’s image moving around during class selection
- VR players can toggle sprint (as mentioned above)
- Ship’s log should work better in VR
- VR now responds to the game’s graphics settings
- The Motion, Healing and Damage vignette strengths have been reduced
- Improved the look of the vr controllers in game
Changes
- The Dialogue Window for interacting with characters has been greatly tweaked, allowing for more text to be displayed but also (when the camera permits) better shows the individual you’re currently talking to.
- Opening the talents menu should now show the talents for your current class
- The Roland-class starship now has two access hatches to make travel to the teleporter and cargo room faster from the bridge
- Multiple space backgrounds have been tweaked, they should be slightly brighter.
- Nuclear devices updated across the board. Overall cheaper and slightly lower ranges / damage
- Programs on the scientist computer screen now show when they are active (if applicable)
- Chaos level increases from ship destruction and warping is now half of previous values
- Barrage program - increased active time from 8 to 15 seconds. Decreased boost amount from 50% to 35%
- Updated Abandoned Station: added lighting, added more props and pickups, tweaked materials, tweaked mission text, lowered buy-in for AOG crews
- Updated Cryogenics Station: added lighting, added more props and pickups, edited text for Alosius Grec and Yiria Sali, decreased credit reward, fixed an issue with the turrets not attacking properly
- The cryo chamber cargo assets have been updated with the current character models
- Updated WD Toxic Waste Mission Planet: tweaked materials, tweaked Reese Novo’s dialog, raised credit reward, fixed pathing issue with station interior
- Updated Rocky Plains Mission Planet: changed lighting on planet and station interior, tweaked materials, added more props and pickups, edited Kirod Ennish’s dialog, decreased credit reward and removed reputation reward
- All installed nuclear devices now increase the intimidation rating of dialogue choices
- Armored drone modifier now boosts hull armor less than before
- The default flight and camera mode for new players or those who reset settings are Manual and Hybrid, this can still be changed at any time while piloting by pressing X and Y respectively
- Captains Waypoints should not only be more accurate when determining the fastest route, but also update faster. Curren players who are still syncing galaxy data may not see the waypoints until it’s all synced however. (1-2 minutes)
- The scrapyard is now listed on the Starmap legend
- We’ve made some tweaks to how armor scales and how it affects damage reduction, this should allow armor to play a better role when reducing damage for particularly bit hits
- Sensor readout now shows Ship Type instead of GX ID
- The ARX-TGT processor now also provides a turret cooling bonus in addition to turret damage
- Reactor coolant is now more effective when cooling turrets
- Turrets now cool down faster after overheating
- The WD Destroyer’s screen type was changed to the WD style
- Starting WD Destroyers now begin with a WD classic Captain’s Chair
- WD Destroyer no longer have the boost to turret damage
- WD Destroyer’s Armor bonus is now +25% instead of 50%
- The WD Destroyer’s hull is now locked
- The WD Destroyer’s reactor now begins with a slightly weaker reactor
- Tweaked the starting orientation of ships in the Estate Sector to a more interesting view
Fixes
- Player names should not appear if they are in different areas (i.e. different interiors)
- Fixed a networking issue regarding Scrapyards
- Fixed a teamspeak issue regarding game names with more than 18 characters. The game should limit the names properly
- Fixed a few fire issues found on the Intrepid and the Roland
- Fixed a room culling issue found on the Roland
- The in-game bug reporting system should be improved
- Fixed a few small visual issues on the WD Annihilator
- Tweaked a visual issue found on the Carrier
- Fixed a few symmetry issues that were reported
- Fixed an issue regarding fires not being visible due to culling reasons
- Fixed a character head flicker issue
- Fixed a lighting issue regarding The Estate’s thruster lights
- Fixed a pathing issue found on one of the cave planets
- Fixed a screen culling issue found near the bridge of the Roland
- Fixed a pathing issue found on WD Base Planet
- Fixed missing collision in Dutain’s Garage race sector
- Fixed missing materials in Sylvassi Cypher Lab
- Fixed missing materials on red dunes planet
- Fixed floating assets on artifact planets
- Fixed issue with temperature on artifact planet 3
- Fixed floating asset on Fluffy One ship
- Fixed an issue that might have been causing false positives with an in-game security method
- Added a small change to potentially help an issue regarding bots occasionally firing through walls
- Fixed an nav mesh issue found in the cargo area of Fluffy One
- Fixed a potential networking issue regarding the Atomizer
- Fixed an issue regarding bots occasionally becoming invisible when playing Liar’s Dice
- Fixed an AI issue regarding the Weapbot on the Carrier
- Fixed a potential issue that might occasional prevent fires from starting on the Carrier
- Fixed a networking issue regarding players entering and exiting interiors
- Fixed a bug that would occasionally render players invisible if they died on a separate ship
- Fixed a few minor errors found on some abandoned ships which may have been leading to some issues
- Fixed an issue with nukes when they were not manually detonated
- Fixed a pathing issue at the Grey Huntsmen station
- Fixed a minor visual issue on one of the cave planets
Thanks for your time and feedback!
Best,
The Leafy Games Team
