PULSAR: Lost Colony News

Hey everyone!

Devlog #78: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8oWRPRtc_c

Beta 21 is now available! This update adds new end-game content for the Colonial Union faction. The next big updates after this one will be adding end-game content for the W.D. Corporation and Alliance of Gentlemen factions.

To see the new content, you’ll need to be playing on a Colonial Union crew with a fairly high CU reputation (more details discussed in the devlog). The chain of events start with a special assignment to stop an asteroid from colliding with a planet. Successfully completing this mission and keeping a high reputation will allow your crew the chance to be given a special assignment by the commander of Outpost 448!

We’re very excited to add more end-game content to the galaxy. This update has been in the works for a while, but we’ve managed to solve a lot of interesting problems and build a nice set of tools to help us make content like this faster. We’d love to get your thoughts on the new content and let us know if it’s appropriately challenging!

If you’d like to experience the new content without any spoilers we recommend not reading any further.

Additions
-New Weapon: Held Beam Rifle - Similar to the healing beam. This weapon focuses on higher damage output and forgoes healing effects.
-New Weapon: Stun Grenade Launcher - Explosion can stun most enemies, stopping them in their tracks for a short time.
-New system for planetside fires - these do not spread and cannot be extinguished.
-New door type: Seamless Security Door - Opens when the crew is in possession of required item (such as a keycard).
-New door type: Quarantine Door - Door remains closed until all enemies within a given space are defeated.
-New system for spawning enemies - Enemies can now spawn when a player enters a specific area.
-New system for respawning enemies - Certain enemies can now respawn on their own.
-New slider for camera shake - From 0-200% camera shake intensity, you can find the slider in the game settings.
-New system for in-game cutscenes - Used sparingly for the occasional cinematic moment.
-New system to illustrate mission difficulty - If a mission has a suggested crew level and your crew level is lower, it will first appear red, then turn to yellow and finally look normal when you’ve reached the specific level. This is to illustrate when a mission may be especially difficult. This is will mostly be used for the end-game content but will likely be used with other missions over development.
-New system for automatically jumping ships to specified sectors, used primarily for unique story moments.
-New system for timed mission objectives - Used to add some tension to important moments or fights.
-New threat system for special enemies that track damage over time by certain players, and can target the individual currently dealing the most damage

-New Content: The Commander Center of Outpost 448 - Located on the second tier of the station. Inaccessible until ‘Report to the Commander’ CU mission has been accepted.
-New Content: Sylvassi Research lab - Located in the Sylvassi Quarter of Outpost 448
-New Content: Asteroid Level
-New Content: The Wasted Wing

-New Creature: Experiment 72
-New Creature: Stalker
-New Creature: Infected Scientist
-New Creature: Advanced Paladin
-New Creature: The Source

-New CU Mission: Stop Asteroid Crash (assigned via long range comms at CU rep 7 by CU sectors)
-New CU Mission: Report to the Commander (assigned via long range comms at CU rep 9)
-New CU Mission: The Wasted Wing (assigned by NPC Commander Darine Hatham in Command Center)
-New CU Mission: Retrieve Data Pad (assigned by NPC Alarick Soun in Command Center)
-New CU Mission: Eliminate Stalker (assigned by log in Wasted Wing)
-New CU Mission: Eliminate Infected Scientists (assigned by NPC Mat Kornoan in Wasted Wing)
-New CU Mission: Retrieve Medicine for Vilvard (assigned by NPC Noemi Prast in Wasted Wing)

-15 readable plaques and logs in Wasted Wing
-22 NPCs added for CU Wasted Wing mission
-2 NPCs who discuss Sylvassi lore added to research lab in Sylvassi Quarters of Outpost 448
-New NPC Uniform: Colonial Union Commander

Changes
-PiBot should be better at entering repair depots
-Ground combat internal values tweaked, players now take less damage overall
-Enemy humans / bandits aiming routines tweaked, this should make them slightly less accurate overall
-Garlic Biscuit should now have correct inventory visual
-NPCs will now look at the player whose turn it is in Liar’s Dice
-Crew AI will now look at players
-A few security additions have been added to the game
-During a disconnect, host will try to autosave game
-Talents have now been grouped into class specific and general, locked talents are displayed at the bottom of the list
-Crew allowance should be faster to set for captains
-Default Camera shake has been adjusted / strengthened
-Player armor has been slightly reduced overall
-The Wasted Wing station has been moved to a seperate close range sector- it’s still visible from Sector 0 but you’ll need to perform a jump in order to reach it. The sector will be jumpable when you have ‘The Wasted Wing’ mission active.
-Changes/Additions have been made to dialog of the following Outpost 448 NPCs in reaction to the Wasted Wing: Jin Saineg, Remi Hocklan, Ranchelle Fieaque, Yondia Dremera, Vera Scems, Lesia Driay, Bain, Viar Tothim, Ide Fellus, Ena Sekra, Safia Neyonus, Weise Quel, Iresa Youls, Daza Susarin, Degoh Gervam
-Changed dialog of Outpost 448 NPCs Remian Folstera and Gusiva
-The new stalker creature has been added to the crashed Roland mission.
-Food items and research materials should weigh less in your inventory, allowing players to hold
more of them.
-Gun cooling talent strength has been reduced
-Replaced dead body meshes on Tall Rock planet and Ant Colony planet
-Changed some visuals on the Ant Colony planet
-Further reduced angular drag on Roland-class ship
-The system for choosing Long range mission assignments have been tweaked
-Internal AI system that can allows bots to adjust flight distance based a specific creature.
-Tweaks to how bots use jetpacks. They now only use them when targeting a location on a different nav mesh ( i.e unreachable by foot or very uneven surfaces )

Fixes
-Backup CPU scaling is fixed and is no longer overpowered due to a double scaling math bug
-Fixed a collision issue found in the Outrider
-Fixed an issue that wouldn’t fully display longer lists of inventory items
-Potentially fixed an error that occasionally killed bots after teleporting
-Fixed a bug that prevented talents from fully syncing / unlocking
-Fixed a bug with the Intrepid item upgrader
-Bots should appropriately target ground turrets
-Turrets should be able to damage and kill enemies in Sand Scar Arena after players lose
-Fixed an issue that would break lighting inside of room interiors when resuscitated as a human
-Fixed a visual issue found in the captain’s quarters on the Fluffy One
-Fixed a visual issue with the ExoSuit helmet exterior and interior and supply tank on human characters
-Fixed an issue with ‘Investigate Unmanned W.D. Unit’ mission not giving rewards for completion
-Fixed a root motion issue with NPC Ide Fellus in Outpost 448
-Fixed an error that allowed non-captains to edit bot inventories
-Fixed a bug that did not properly show class preview in VR
-Fixed a bug that had AI try to heal crewmembers with the incorrect tool
-Fixed an issue found on the Outrider that would limit music played to ambient only
-Two sectors were being spawned in the base galaxy that should have been restricted to specific missions.
-Waste planet 2 (radioactive one) has been reworked and now has static radiation scrubbers instead of patrolling NPCs
-The Grim Cutlass / Intrepid Night Variant is no longer preventing players from using their flightpacks
-Further removed possibilities for fires to appear in strange places on the ship. As there are quite a few ways fires can spawn on ships, we’ve applied additional checks to all of them to hopefully ensure fires don’t appear in strange places.
-Jumbo Biscuit now has better visual and description.
-Boarding bots should now be less memory intensive
-More checks in-place to prevent AI from using locked teleporters on planets

Thanks for your time! If all goes well, the next main update will be focusing on the end-game content for the W.D. Corporation faction and its climactic mission titled “The Forsaken Flagship”.





Beta 21.1 Release Notes

Beta 21.1 is now available! The Wasted Wing should properly load and the Sylvassi biology lab should render correctly.

We occasionally have content that only shows up in internal builds, which allows us to make public builds quickly without having to manually remove parts of the game that aren’t ready yet. The Wasted Wing sector was listed to only show up in internal builds and when we did our tests with the public version we were loading saves made on the internal version, so we didn’t catch the issue.

This should now be resolved, and people loading their saves with the Wasted Wing mission active should now see a sector to jump to. Thanks for bearing with us!

Fixes
-Wasted Wing sector should properly load when the mission is active
-Sylvassi biology lab should render correctly now






Beta 21.2 Release Notes

Beta 21.2 is now available! We fixed an issue with the Wasted Wing not spawning when loaded from a pre-21.1 save. Sorry for the trouble!

Changes
-Loosened the timing restrictions for processing scrap, the timing window is about 30% bigger.

Fixes
-Wasted Wing sector should properly load when the mission is active when loaded from a pre-21.1 save
-Fixed a timing exploit possibility with the item and component upgraders






Beta 21.3 Release Notes

Beta 21.3 is now available! We have worked on a fix for missions improperly failing after loading a save. This caused any non-CU missions to fail upon load among other potential issues.

Fixes
-Missions should no longer improperly fail after being loaded from a save in certain conditions




Best,
The Leafy Games Team

Hey everyone!

Beta 20.3 is now available! It contains some fixes for reported issues and some balance changes to ship combat. Enjoy the seasonal decorations on the ships and at some of the major hubs!

Additions
-Tweaked some internal values to help slow down ship fights a little and make them slightly more survivable
-Space mines will occasionally be found around some asteroids
-Seasonal decorations have been added to various ships, planets and stations

Changes
- Asteroids should generally be closer to ships after exiting warp, giving pilots better options for cover during fights
-Inertia Thrusters now provide more rotational thrust overall, which should help make piloting more responsive. We increased the angular drag on the Intrepid and Fluffy One class vessels since they didn’t need to rotate any faster.
-Crew bots AI / navigation when selling biscuits on planets and transitioning between planet interiors has been improved
-The Burrow is now presented at night! After the holidays are over it’ll be random.

Fixes
- Artifact Mission III should now properly display a sector on the starmap (will require a new galaxy / game to take effect)
-Both rat creatures and spiders have had their attack range reduced
-Piloting area mesh seam has been fixed on the Annihilator-class starship
-Fixed a navmesh issue on the Annihilator-class starship that may have prevented AI from moving well
-Crew bots will no longer target friendly turrets in some situations (like the Sand Scar Arena)
-Layered hull armor boost now properly scales when upgraded
-Fixed an issue with the Atrium on the Destroyer-class starship that would heal and respawn players at the incorrect location
-Fixed a small visual issue in the Destroyer lounge
-Fixed a comms screen bug that would sometimes duplicate options

Thanks for your time! Progress on Beta 21 is coming along, and barring any major issues with this update, should be the next thing we release!

Best,
The Leafy Games Team

Hey everyone!

Devlog #77: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R92F1FX2I4

Firstly, we apologize for the lack of updates recently; we’ve been hard at work building some of the end-game content related to the Colonial Union. It will ultimately be a way for Colonial Union crews to get ahold of a Lost Colony data fragment and will hopefully be a climatic moment within their faction!

We’ve also taken some time to see family and do some research about future goals for the project. While the majority of that work will be coming in a few weeks (we’re doing some final testing and waiting for the sound effects) we thought we’d spend some time and put together a different update since it’s been a while. A lot of you have been requesting a lounge activity pretty much since our first devlog and we decided now would be a good opportunity! We’ve played around with some different ideas and ultimately decided on Liar’s Dice (also known as Dudo, Pirate’s Dice, Bluff, etc.)

A few of the reasons we went with this game:
-The rounds are quick and don’t involve a large time commitment so crews can pick it up when they find some free time, like while the captain is shopping for components.
-The number of players can fluidly change from 2 to 5.
-The mechanics are fairly simple and easy to network / build AI for.
-We think it’s pretty fun!

There are a ton of different variants of Liar’s Dice, so below we’ll outline the specific rules that we went with:

Liar’s dice is a bluffing game about stating the number of dice with a specific face. Each player secretly rolls 5 dice, and then betting begins. Players place bets on how many dice of a certain face are up amongst the total pool of dice, even though they can only see 5 of them. On a player’s turn, he or she can choose to raise the current bid or challenge it (if they think it’s false).

When raising a bid, players must either raise the face value or the number of dice, or both. For example, if the current bid is 4 x [3]s you can raise the bid to 5 x [3]s or 2 x [4]s. As long as either the die count or face value is raised, the other can be lowered.

Players win points through challenges. If the bid was true, the player who placed the bid receives a point. If it was false, then the challenger receives a point.

The first player to reach 5 points wins the game, and a new game will start 20 seconds later!

It can be a strange game to get used to at first, but we’ve had a lot of fun with it and we hope you all will too! A few extra things to be mindful about: the number of dice in the pool changes based on how many players are playing. For example, the odds of 7 x [6]s are far less likely to happen in a 2 player game than a 5 player game. Also, since points are only awarded during challenges, you want to make bets that others may want to challenge.

In addition to this, we’ve also build a new ship class for the W.D. Corporation: the W.D. Annihilator!
The recurring theme for this ship was “advanced prototype”. Crews manning this ship are on the bleeding edge of W.D. technology. This ship is unique in its starting configuration of components. It begins the game with numerous experimental ship components that may drastically change how crews normally operate.

- Its reactor’s output is tied to the overall ship system health.
- Its hull is layered and increases armor when integrity falls
- Its warp drive gives each and every installed program / virus a single charge per jump.
- Its shield generator has a fast charge rate but a very high minimum shield integrity
- Its main turret deals fire damage to enemy ships (starting fires), but also heats up the Annihilator’s reactor faster.
- It starts with 0 credits but 20 processed scrap.
- Its basic turrets are designed to cut pieces of hull off of enemy ships, producing extra scrap

Among those starting features, it possesses two new attributes innate to the ship itself:
- It has proprietary shield stealing technology that saps enemy shields when turrets damage them. It converts 20% of damage to an enemy ship’s shields to your own shields immediately.
- It has flaky internal systems. New technology can sometimes be unreliable, and there is a chance the ship’s systems will be damaged upon exiting warp. Crews flying this ship should pay extra attention to their ship systems.


Additions
- New Ship - W.D. Annihilator - A W.D. prototype unit that’s currently being field tested in this galaxy. Equipped with multiple experimental ship components, a starting scrap pool, and shield stealing technology. It is a prototype however, which means the systems can sometimes be flaky, and exiting from warp has the chance to damage one of your ship system instances.
- Liar’s Dice - Found in the lounge of each ship. Liar’s Dice is a competitive mini-game played amongst the crewmembers of your ship. Read more about it above!
- New talent: Armor Boost - + 1 Armor per rank
- New Talent: Armor Boost II - Can be accessed when Armor Boost is fully invested
- New Talent: Health Boost II - Can be accessed when Health Boost is fully invested
- New UI Addition - Crew health indicators can now be seen in the top left corner of the interface. They can be disabled in the game settings.
- New Weapon: Healing Beam Rifle - The Scientist now starts with a healing beam rifle instead of a phase pistol. While it damages enemies it can also be pointed at fellow crew members to heal them!
-New Crew AI behavior - At Ease - If this is the highest priority, it will prompt AI crewmembers to head to the lounge to play Liar's Dice
-Crew AI should be a bit better about choosing a teleporter location closer to the captain when there are multiple options to choose from.
-Mouse Scroll Wheel can now cycle through equipped items
-New art additions to lounge areas
-New Ship Component: Strong Point Reactor - Starting reactor for Annihilator
-New Ship Component: WD XC-7 Prototype Config 4 - Starting Shield Generator for Annihilator
-New Ship Component: WD XW-5 Prototype Config 1 - Starting Warp Drive for Annihilator
-New Ship Component: WD Prototype “FlashFire: - Starting Main Turret for Annihilator
-Captains can now issue a move order / rally point by clicking the middle mouse button / scrollwheel. To currently cancel a move order, captains can issue one into space or a place not accessible via nav-mesh. Move orders will also expire on their own after 30 seconds.


Changes
-Aux Power talent has been increased from 10% to 15%. The text description has been updated too.
-Changed dialog of Ranchelle Fieaque, Weise Quel and Remhan Zesho to accommodate for changes in lore of Outpost 448
-Talents are now arranged in alphabetical order and will show unavailable talents in grey
-Captain Order “Status Update” has been renamed to “At Attention” and is now the default order when starting a new game.
-Captain Order “At Ease” is no longer the default option. Bots will not man stations on Green alert and will join in Liar’s Dice.

Fixes
-Fixed T-pose NPC found at Outpost 448
-Fixed an incorrect character preview during class selection for factions other than Colonial Union
-Fixed the descriptive text of the Aux Power Talent
-Fixed Yiria Sali’s dialog to mention Alosius Grec as a Sylvassi, not a robot
-Fixed Grey Huntsmen bounty missions for Striker, Drafters, and Biscuit Burners to appear through long range range comms only when players have accepted the Bounty Hunter’s Contract
-Fixed Rosalia Scillo at AOG hideout to open trading window
-Fixed an issue that may have sometimes prevented players from dropping items


Like we mentioned above, there is a big update arriving in a few weeks. Thanks for your patience and support and we’re hoping long pauses like this don’t happen again.




Beta 20.1 Release Notes

Fixes
-Tweaked Annihilator to fix fire visibility errors




Beta 20.2 Release Notes

Beta 20.2 is out now!

It fixes a few of the issues recently reported, thanks to those who’ve sent us reports and screenshots!

Additions
-New sound effect for the Healing Beam

Fixes
-Experiment 72 has been contained and is no longer replacing normal slime creatures. It was not meant for this update.
-Fixed a terrain error on an alien ruins planet
-Fixed a collision issue regarding the science system instance on the Annihilator
-Fixed a collision issue regarding the reactor on the Annihilator
-Fire extinguishers should work better for the larger reactors found on the Annihilator and Roland



Thank you for your time!

Best,
The Leafy Games Team

Hey everyone!

Beta 19.4 is now out! This one should include a fix for those of you who have reported performance issues while playing in VR. Additionally it contains a few other fixes and additions.

We also tweaked the Auxiliary Reactor, making each option more powerful across the board, and added an Intruder Alert function. The Intruder Alert function should hopefully improve feedback about when the fight might be becoming more personal. For those of you who want to prevent enemies from boarding your ship (besides keeping your shield integrity up), you can pick up the new program “Quantum Defenses” which should ensure your quantum shields are online for a few crucial moments.

Additions
- Added more feedback for players when they try to customize their appearance or bot appearances, letting them know to visit a barber.
-Players can now upgrade maneuvering thrusters and inertia thrusters
-Main turrets can now be extracted
-Ship thrusters can now be extracted
-New Program: Quantum Defenses - Keeps your quantum shields online regardless on shield integrity or viruses (like gentlemens welcome) for 30 seconds. As long as a ship’s quantum shields are online, no enemies should be able to teleport.
-New NPC uniform - Human Male and Female Scientist
-New NPC uniform - Human Male and Female CU High Ranking Officer

Changes
-Extraction success rates have been slightly reduced
-Tweaked the WD HQ Station galaxy map
-Shield coprocessor charge rate has been increased

Aux Reactor Changes
-Auxiliary reactors values have been standardized based on the Intrepid
-Spotlights and Interior lights have been merged and are now named Lights
-Intruder Alarm has been added, it alerts the crew when enemies teleport onboard. It will flash a crew-wide announcement as well as add a notification to the chat box. If disabled it could provide 400 MW to the reactor.
The following information is based on an Intrepid-class ship from Beta 19.3.
-Aux Values - Atrium Healing increased from 400 to 600
-Aux Values - Oxygen Generation increased from 800 to 2000
-Aux Values - Air Filter increased from 400 to 1000
-Aux Values - Spotlights and Interior lights increased from 500 (together to 1000)
-Aux Values - Projectile Aim Assist increased from 200 to 400
-Aux Values - Cyberdefense increased from 800 to 2000
-Aux Values - Missile Lock On increased from 100 to 1200

Fixes
-Fixed a lighting issue found on Outpost 448 that would occur on lower graphics settings
-Engineering fires should now be properly displaying on the status screen, and should properly damage the engine system.
-Fixed a few issues found at WD HQ
-Fixed a bug that would occasionally allow The Swarm to drop its hull component
-Fixed a networking issue related to the Captain plotting courses on the starmap
-Fixed a sound issue regarding ship damage
-Fixed an issue with an abandoned ship not appearing
-Fixed an issue that reduced performance in VR over several minutes
-Fixed an issue related to bots getting stuck while trying to repair a system on certain ships



Beta 19.5 Release Notes

Beta 19.5 is out! This is a quick update to address some of the changes we released earlier.

Changes
-The researchable Aux Power talent’s bonus has been reduced from 40% per rank to 10%

Aux Reactor Changes
-Aux Values - Oxygen Generation decreased from 2000 to 1000
-Aux Values - Air Filter decreased from 1000 to 400
-Aux Values - Spotlights and Interior lights decreased from 1000 to 600
-Aux Values - Missile Lock On decreased from 1200 to 1000

Fixes
-Exotic shop owners should be lit correctly
-Corbin Taskerhall should now talk / sell face to face
-Bandit Drones should be less prone to attack one another
-Potentially fixed a sound effect bug related to probes




Beta 19.6 Release Notes

Beta 19.6 is out! This is just an update to fix a save issue that popped up. While working on Beta 20 we’ve been building a few new systems that involved the save-file format. Some of that code wasn’t ready to handle a pre-Beta 20 Release. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Fixes
-Saves should now load correctly.





Thank you for your time!

Best,
The Leafy Games Team

Hey everyone!

Beta 19.3 is now out! Along with some fixes, it includes changes to ship hostility which make Colonial Union space safer and neutral space more dangerous. In addition we’ve changed some ship spawning properties to make reputation loss more predictable during the course of exploring the galaxy. It also adds a new Grey Huntsmen station and bounty missions.

We have spent a lot of time working on content that will likely be added in Beta 20, mainly the faction mission chain for the Colonial Union which will conclude with a bigger piece of content focused on exploring the Wasted Wing (the section of Outpost 448 that was recently severed from the main station for mysterious reasons).

We’ve also been experimenting with new networking solutions and how we might move the project over. It’s still early on that front but we feel it’s important to jump into that one prepared.

Here is a sneak peek of our work in progress: https://imgur.com/a/x1XPAw5

Additions
-Bandit Drones can now be found across the galaxy. These ships will attack any and all ships they find. Attacking them incurs no reputation loss from any faction. Bandit drones are most common in neutral space, however there is a slight chance you can find them in Colonial Union space (blue sectors) and WD territory (orange sectors).
-In game manual has been updated and now includes sections on Ship Cloaking, Ship Sensor Dish, Item and Component Upgrade Stations, a several other tweaks.
-New Sector: Grey Huntsmen Bounty Agency
-9 NPCs added to Grey Huntsmen Bounty Agency
-5 NPCs added to Planet Crash 2 (planet with blue sand and crashed W.D. security drone)
-New Bounty Mission: WANTED: U.S.S. Xarius
-New Bounty Mission: WANTED: The Butcher
-New Bounty Mission: WANTED: Crumb Cleaners
-New Bounty Mission: WANTED: Unit 10, Div #44
-New Bounty Mission: WANTED: The Striker
-New Bounty Mission: WANTED: The Umbra
-New Bounty Mission: WANTED: The Drafters
-New Bounty Mission: WANTED: Biscuit Burners
-New Mission: Hunt Infected Carrier (given by Roka at Grey Huntsmen Bounty Agency)
-New Mission: Rid of Crawlers (given by Uleq on Planet Crash 2)
-Added a locked interior room to Cornelia Station for a bounty hunting mission

Changes
-Neutral space has been tweaked to be more dangerous, this should hopefully make it feel more chaotic and lawless.
-CU space has been tweaked to be less dangerous to ships of other factions. These sectors are meant to reflect civilization so CU ships and drones should only fire upon flagged ships.
-Crewed AOG ships now have the chance to be more directly hostile to other ships
-The Grim Cutlass sector commander is now considered flagged.
-Ship Processors should now get better when upgraded
-Updated Planet Crash 2 (planet with blue sand and crashed W.D. security drone)
-Original 5 Grey Huntsmen bounty missions have been updated with adjusted credit rewards
-It is now possible to join the Grey Huntsmen at the Grey Huntsmen Bounty Agency

Fixes
-Made some performance optimizations to the starmap when loaded
-Fixed an issue that wouldn’t prompt a mission failure in some circumstances
-Fixed an incorrectly spawning sector that should only be available during a Colonial Union mission
-Fixed an issue that could cause corruption of item unlock progress
-Fixed a visual issue regarding the Item upgrade station on the Destroyer
-Fixed some pathing issues found at Cornelia Station
-Fixed a teleportation issue found at Cornelia Station
-Ancient Sentry no longer associated with the Polytechnic Federation
-Removed two mission-related planets from generating in the base galaxy
-Fixed an issue with long range comms in “Help CU Roland in Alliance Ambush” mission

Thank you for your time!

Best,
The Leafy Games Team