PULSAR: Lost Colony News

Hey everyone!

Devlog #75: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyZx8616qVU

Beta 19 is now out! This update adds a new type of content: battle races! Battle races are pretty much what you might expect them to be; multiple ships compete to be the first around the track while they barrage each other with turrets and lasers. To spice things up each race track has their own assortment of benefits and hazards, from a giant unstable spinning laser machine to the entire track being inside of an electrical ion storm!

These races are balanced to pose a challenge, so starting ships likely won’t fare too well and certain ship types may inherently be at a disadvantage due to poorer maneuverability or other factors. Upgrading the various ship thrusters and ensuring that you have a good reactor--as well as using good teamwork and communication--will be important in giving your ship a fighting chance!

To try out a battle race, you can warp towards the storm on your starmap. When you arrive in a race sector you’ll have the chance to fly through the race track on your own to get a feel for the various obstacles and layout. Once you’re ready, the captain can board the station, find the race registration screen and click enter! You’ll have 30 seconds to prepare yourselves and the race will begin. You only have one chance at winning each race, so make sure to save beforehand if you want to keep trying it! (any loaded saves made during the race won’t allow you to retry the race)



This update is also the first chunk of Lost Colony related content we’ve added. By that we mean that when the Lost Colony is added to the game, winning these races may be one of the several ways crews can gain more information on where the Lost Colony is located.

When crews overcome certain parts of the game, they will be rewarded with Lost Colony Data Fragments. Lost Colony Data Fragments will be highly sought after and dangerous to hold onto, but once a crew has collected enough of these data fragments, they will be able to move one step closer to finding the Lost Colony. Winning these races will eventually reward your crew with one such fragment.

We are also planning on having a unique and challenging quest line for each faction, exploring the themes of that faction and allowing your crew to rise up the ranks. Each one of those faction mission lines will also grant a data fragment. There will also be several non-faction restricted ways your crew can come across more data fragments (such as these races). Our goal with this is to hopefully reward exploration and offer several different paths a crew can take to find the Lost Colony, making the main campaign more replayable in the process.

Let us know if you have any questions or feedback, and thanks for reading!



Additions
-New Racing UI - This new interface replaces the normal ship information cards in the upper right corner of the screen with a new list visual that shows the positions of each racing ship along with the relative location on the track.
-New Environment Hazard: Overcharge - Being near a Stormbringer or near other ships inside of an ion storm will cause your ship to accumulate overcharge. This is displayed by the electrical effects coming off of your ship and a blue meter on the screen. As overcharge increases, your ship’s reactor will begin to output more energy and the lights on your ship will begin to brighten. If you accumulate too much, however, your ship will shut down and your crew will need to startup the ship again.
-New Sector: Dutain’s Garage (Race) - One of the two starting race tracks with a mix of corners and straight aways.
-New Sector: W.D. Mining Station 41X (Race) - The second of the two starting race tracks with a heavy focus on sharp turns and temperature/fire control.
-New Sector: The Ion Port (Race) - The third and final race, requires wins from both previous races in order to compete. The open track is battered by a massive super-storm which can cause electrical overcharge if two ships are close to one another. This sector also sends boarding bots to damage your ship systems and crew, so keeping your quantum shields online is a much higher priority.

-Race Hazard: Heat Gas - Flying through these pockets of superheated gases will increase reactor temperature and potentially start fires on your ship
-Race Hazard: Small Lasers - Slowly moving laser fields your ship must navigate through, hitting a laser will cause damage to your shields and ship
-Race Hazard: Turrets - Large Turrets will target and fire upon ships in the first place position
-Race Hazard: Massive Laser Ball - Rotates around dealing large amounts of damage to things in its path
-Race Hazard: Stormbringer - Large ball emitting a dangerous electrical field, contributes to ship overcharge
-Race Hazard: Heating Vents - Large structure that continuously vent super hot gases, these work like heat volumes but can also violently push the ship around if the pilot is caught in one of them.
-Race Hazard: Asteroid Fields - Groups of smaller asteroids fly through these fields, so pilots should be ready for evasive maneuvers
-Race Hazard: Boarding Bots - Will potentially board your ship (provided the quantum shields are offline) and cause damage to ship systems and crewmembers.
-Race Benefit: Program Pickups - Small blue points of light that can be found on the tracks, pilots can fly through them to fully recharge all installed programs
-Race Benefit: Ice Dust - flying through these pockets of cold dust will lower reactor temperature
-New Food Item: Racing Noodles
-New Food Item: Chilled Noodles
-New Food Item: Crispy Noodles
-New Food Item: Grubhaven Noodles
-New Food Item: Swamp Noodles
-New Food Item: Premium Noodles
-New Ship Component: Mega Turret: Rapid Fire - Can be acquired after winning the final race (The Ion Port)
-New Ship Component: Program: Digital Coolant - Instantly cools 30% of total reactor temperature; can be acquired after winning the Dutain’s Garage race
-New Ship Component: Discharge - Instantly removes 30% of total overcharge accumulated; can be acquired after winning the W.D. Mining Station 41X race
-New ship exterior meshes for both Outrider and Cruiser racing ships
-New Human Male Cosmetic Item: Headplate - unlocked after winning the final race
-New Human Female Cosmetic Item: Headplate - unlocked after winning the final race
-New AI override: Crew is Currently Racing
-New Starmap Asset - Ion Storm
-New conditional pickup component type allows players to see a component but must meet a requirement before they can take it.
-Added 64 NPCs across the 3 racing stations

Changes
-Lowered the temperature effect of heat gas emitted by molten asteroids
-Exosuit helmet interior and exterior meshes have been updated
-Exosuit glass frost effect has been tweaked
-Reduced bonuses for Pilot’s thrust and rotation talents
-Reduced bonus for Scientist’s sensor boost talent
-Reduced bonus for Captain’s run speed talent
-Drastically improved the jump charge capabilities of a ship without a jump processor installed
-Added “U.S.S.” prefix to Gallantry and Valiance. Tweaked some CU mission briefings to include prefix. Also fixed abandoned Intrepid (U.S.S. Centuria) to display correct name.
-Infection spread rate has been reduced, a fixed cap on maximum spread is now enforced around 30%
-AI bots will now equip exosuits on your ship if the environment is hazardous to them
-Default AI priorities have been updated, adding new overrides for racing and a few tweaks to selling biscuits. Engineer bots will put full power into engines, weapon specialist bots will target the engineering of other ships with their missiles and Sci bot will use programs faster.
-Improved the mission indicator visuals
-Replaced the FB logo on the character customize menu with the newer version
-Shop may now sell higher level ship components
-Intro screen transitions smoother if skipped
-The compare ship components menu should be a little clearer when illustrating the before and after values of the components in question.

Fixes
-Potentially fixed a physics issue that occasionally causes players to disappear. If anyone still experiences this issue, we’d love to know what ship and/or planet you were interacting with!
-Fixed an issue that caused a network bug with entering and exiting the Sensor Dish
-Fixed an issue that would prevent players from drinking drinks
-Fixed a few geometry issues on the Stargazer
-Fixed a few geometry issues on the Roland
-Fixed a potential performance issue that would occur after executing several virus programs
-Fixed an issue with Cyberdefense Processors not adding the appropriate Cyberdefense
-Fixed an issue that would still allows players to finish missions even if specific mission items were sold or no longer in their possession
-Fixed a potential performance bug relating to ship and shield colliders


Thank you for your time!

Best,
The Leafy Games Team




Beta 19.1
-Fixed issue that caused some screens to not be interactive

Hey everyone!

Beta 18.7 is now out! We are still working on Beta 19, but since we managed to find a fix for the teleportation issue, we decided it was worth it to get that fix out sooner rather than later.

Changes
-Intrepid-Class starship and its night variant have bathroom doors
-Roland crew area have shower and bathroom doors
-Stargazer-class ship have bathroom doors
-Added color descriptions to research material taxonomies in Kavin Arent’s dialog at Burrow
-Added support for OpenGL rendering on Windows (use -force-glcore as a command line argument)

Fixes
-Fixed a potential issue with disappearing wandering NPCs on Outpost 448
-Fixed a collision issue on the Carrier
-Fixed a culling issue on the WD Cruiser
-Fixed an issue that caused twisters to not damage clients
-Fixed an issue that would occasionally have clients fall through maps after teleporting
-Fixed an issue with respawning after reclaiming your ship
-Fixed positioning / visibility issues with fires spawning from fire-based ship damage
-Fixed Fluffy Biscuit radar screen

Thank you for your time!

Best,
The Leafy Games Team

Hey everyone!

Beta 18.6 is now available!

These changes were supposed to go in Beta 19, but were released early in order to be compliant with the new EU data privacy regulations. We’ve disabled all analytics and reporting from the game until we sort out a better solution for player data / privacy settings.

The majority of changes are smaller quality of life improvements and additions.

Beta 19 will introduce new content and will be released once we do a bit more balancing and get some sounds in.

Additions
-Added an additional direction sign to the Intrepid-Class Starship
-Added direction signs to the Outrider-Class Starship
-Added direction signs to the Stargazer-Class Starship
-Added direction signs to the Carrier-Class Starship
-Added direction signs to the Fluffy One-Class Starship
-Added direction signs to the Cruiser-Class Starship
-Added an additional Teleporter towards the front of the Estate
-Added additional teleporters to Cornelia Station
-Added some pickups in a dangerous part of the Estate
-Added a custom cursor to the game, which will replace the default computer cursor image. This cursor will also change color based on the class you are currently playing as, similar to how the tab menu works.
-All ship startup switchboards now have appropriate labeling on each switch
-Atriums are now labeled as medical aid stations, to hopefully inform new players that this is where they may be healed (provided the auxiliary reactor screen is sending power to them)
-Oribit , Fixed and Hybrid pilot camera settings will now adjust based on collision in the sector (less likely to clip through and show backfaces)
-Pilot HUD now shows thrust rating
-Pilot HUD now shows reactor temp percentage
-Added a galaxy map legend, which illustrates the various sector types and faction territories / jurisdictions
-New NPC visual: Female Civilian 1 Amputee
-New NPC visual: Female Civilian 2 Amputee
-New NPC visual: Male Civilian 1 Amputee 1
-New NPC visual: Male Civilian 1 Amputee 2
-New NPC visual: Male Civilian 2 Amputee
-Added transition doors to the Sylvassi Quarter environment area on Outpost 448

Changes
-Overcharge program has been renamed to Overdrive
-Tweaked ship teleporter pads to help make them more distinct.
-Character dialogue windows now have an option for ending the conversation, alternatively you can press the X button in the corner or press R again.
-Removed the jetpack restrictions on all remaining ships, this hopefully removes some potential confusion especially for newer players
-Ship components are better labeled based on if they are contraband (red), experimental (yellow) or special (quest related, blue)
-Items are also better labeled in the above mentioned format
-Special items (quest related) can no longer be destroyed or dropped. They may still be sold, however.
-Teleporter screens no longer give the option to teleport to the ship you are currently on
-Dialogue window border has been tweaked
-Thrust Booster warp drive program now adds +6 thrust instead of multiplying thrust
-Character names and health bars are now shown through geometry within a certain distance, this may help with locating positions of crew members on ships


Fixes
-Fixed an issue with the floating robots found at The Estate
-Fixed a visual issue on the Carrier-Class Starship
-Fixed a space collision issue in Sector 0
-Fixed a few visual issues in Outpost 448
-Fixed a visual issue in Cornelia Station
-Fixed a temperature effect in the Sylvassi Quarter on Outpost 448

Thank you for your time!

Best,
The Leafy Games Team

Hey everyone!

Beta 18 is now available!

Also for the next week the game is available for 40% off!

Devlog #74: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx6m8wcNlHw

This update is focused on revamping the character art in PULSAR and adds two new playable races: the Sylvassi and robots! Player and NPC models have been replaced with a new, slightly more stylized look. This style allowed us to make a lot of extra improvements that we feel will better the experience of the game. It's different, but we're happy with the new characters and hope you guys like them too!

New Races:

The Sylvassi are an alien race that were embroiled in conflict with the humans during the Old Wars and are still recovering from those days. They possess a cloaking ability that allows them to go "invisible" for a short time, letting them flee from or reposition themselves in combat. They need a liquid methane environment to survive and are immune to extreme cold, but as liquid methane is highly flammable, they take extra damage from fires.

Sylvassi home worlds are cold and comprised largely of liquid methane, though many Sylvassi have grown up enclosed in their suits. A good number alive today are part of the first generation born free of the W.D. Corporation labor worlds since the end of the Old Wars. In the past century, more Sylvassi have begun to forge their own paths; some have joined the Colonial Union, others have found sanctuary in the Alliance of Gentlemen, and others still have pursued their own ambitions and joined the W.D. Corporation by choice.

Humanoid Robots are common in the galaxy, but are just beginning to branch out as full time crewmembers on starships. They don't gain nourishment from regular food, but a repair tool can patch them up. They are immune to all hostile environment types (no oxygen, extreme heat and cold, toxic atmospheres), though they are still susceptible to radiation.

Often employed for automated trading stations or labor in conditions that are otherwise dangerous to living organisms. Recently, however, there has been a rise of seemingly sentient machines who are joining crews and fulfilling roles that have been traditionally performed by biological persons. As robots are particularly resistant to hostile environments, they are well-suited for planetary missions and the unexpected perils of work aboard a starship.

Humans now have a special ability as well. They tend to cling to life, and once per jump a fellow crewmember has the opportunity to revive a fallen human.

Humans have recovered some of their former glory since the dark ages after the Old Wars, and they have become a prominent intergalactic presence. Their innate drive for exploration has propelled them across many galaxies, discovering new worlds and paving the way for those who would follow. Though they are ill-suited for many environments, their tenacity, ingenuity, and will to survive rival even the most resilient of species.


As for the updated character models, we wanted proper uniforms for each faction, crisper silhouettes, more customization options, and characters that could work well in nearly every lighting angle we could throw at them. Because the new style doesn't use traditional texturing techniques, it's quick to make and cheaper on the CPU. We've made an interesting shader that allows us to forgo many of the textures the previous characters needed, which reduces the number of draw calls per character. We optimized the NPC character rigs for the same effect.

We’ve also taken a look at player progression and offering new customization unlocks for certain accomplishments or milestones within the game (no micro-transactions or loot boxes needed). Flaunt your accomplishments, if you so choose.


Additions
-Play as Human, Sylvassi or Robot crewmembers
-New appearance menu and more unlockable cosmetic items
-Sylvassi can cloak themselves to prevent enemies from targeting them for a short time, this personal cloaking field is shut down if the player shoots their weapon, similar to ship cloaking.
-Robots can be healed with repair tools
-Humans can be revived once per jump
-New Statistics menu that can show various info about your time playing the game. This can be accessed from the main menu.
-You can now access the character appearance / customization menu from the main menu
-The Barber is now a place where you can change your race/appearing during play. Since there are mechanical differences to each race now, we’ve decided to only allow in-game changes through the Barber located in the major hubs of the galaxy.
-New AI Behavior: Revive Crewmate
-New AI Behavior: Repair Crewmate
- Sylvassi AI characters should cloak themselves automatically when their low on health
-New AI Custom Event: Repairable crewmate is nearby
-New AI Custom Event: Repair gun is equipped
-New AI Custom Event: Nearby crewmate can be revived
-General AI Tweak: The “Close To Captain” Behavior stops bots from continuously running around when they are near you. They are more likely to stand near you calmly now.
-Status screen has been added to Outrider engineering bay
-Added a splash screen with various logos and a photosensitivity warning
-Game Options menu now contains option for profanity filter. It will be on by default.


Character Art
-3 Human Male Faces
-3 Human Female Faces
-10 Human Skin Colors
-11 Male Hairstyle Options
-8 Male Hats
-10 Male Facial Hair Options
-12 Female Hairstyle Options
-8 Female Hats
-26 Human Face Prop Variants
-New Uniform: Colonial Union (Human male and female)
-New Uniform: W.D. Corporation (Human male and female)
-New Uniform: Alliance of Gentlemen (Human male and female)
-New Uniform: Fluffy Biscuit Co. (Human male and female)
-New Uniform: 2 Civilian variants (Human male and female)
-3 Sylvassi Faces
-10 Sylvassi Skin Colors
-7 Sylvassi Head Markings
-7 Sylvassi Face Props
-New Uniform: Sylvassi Suit and Helmet
-6 Robot Heads
-10 Robot Paint Colors
-New Bodies: 4 Robot Humanoid Bodies
-New shoulder light and flight pack meshes
-New player movement animations
-New interaction animations
-Over 400 NPCs have been replaced with the new style and animations across all planets, stations, ships and hubs.
-All metal bandits have received the art update too


Changes
-Colonial Union hub “Outpost 448” has been revamped. It is slightly more consolidated and now includes Sylvassi quarters, a hydroponics lab, and a Fluffy Biscuit shop. Certain NPCs have been changed, removed, or had their dialog updated.
-NPC names now show up over their heads when looking at them
-New mission visual indicators when an NPC has a mission available
-New mission visual indicators when an NPC has a mission to complete
-Handheld scanner also displays mission indicators to help you find important NPCs
-Added more props to certain sections of Cornelia Station
-You can now see your character during the class select menu and can make modifications to your appearance before joining the game.
-Status screen has been added to the engineering section of the Outrider-class starship
-All Exotic shops will now deal in Contraband items (selling and buying them)


Fixes
-Fixed visual issues that caused players to disappear when on ships
-Temperature fixed in abandoned WD Destroyer
-Dark Drive should now show up for sale in exotic shops
-Fluffy Biscuit factories now sell biscuits
-Fixed a collision issue found on a WD toxic waste planet
-Fixed a collision issue on CU toxic planet
-Fixed a visual error on the CU warp coil refinery
-Fixed a visual error at the interdimensional research station
-Fixed a scrolling UV issue in the borthix lab on the Estate
-Fixed some potential typed input issues when typing in the chat box
-Fixed a collision issue found at the Burrow
-Fixed a visual issue found at the Burrow
-Fixed a visual mismatch for a nuke ship component



Thank you for your time!

Best,
The Leafy Games Team


Beta 18.1 Release Notes

Fixes
-Sylvassi cloak input binding no longer requires resetting input bindings
-A few small changes to prevent some internal exceptions that were reported

Beta 18.2 Release Notes

Fixes
-Fixed Fluffy Biscuit ship ranking board
-Scanner IK / animation updates to improve positioning

Beta 18.3 Release Notes

Fixes
-Fixed extractor UI

Beta 18.4 Release Notes

Fixes
-Fixed Fluffy Biscuit creation station UI on Fluffy One
-Improvements to help avoid teleportation issues and stuck in ground issues
-Fixed bots targeting friendly ground turrets

Beta 18.5 Release Notes

Fixes
-Fixed Fluffy Biscuit crate remaining UI on Fluffy One
-Tweaked camera properties to make handheld scanner more visible when using it
-Fixed AI priority override menu issue preventing edit button from appearing

Hey everyone!

Beta 17.3 is out! It contains various changes and fixes.

Changes
-Component extraction interface now has a small cooldown after each extraction attempt to prevent multiple extractions at once
-Auto saving timing tweaked to be more predictable (timer resets each game load)
-Scanner is now automatically equipped by Scientists when starting a new game

Fixes
-Fixed some collision issues that caused AI to see/shoot through some ship doors when closed
-Fixed some sun/star flare issues on Mac/Linux platforms
-Fixed some loading issues with player inventories that could cause equipment to not correctly be synced/ordered
-Fixed damage issue when players/bots are teleported in the Sandscar Arena
-Fixed scanner issue that showed pickups when none were available
-Fixed issue with enemy ship hostility system that caused them to become hostile to each other too easily
-Fixed issue with drone modifier random setup that caused only one type of modifier per sector
-Fixed issue with probe flares being visible during warp / on planet surface
-Crew bots of other factions than Fluffy Biscuit can no longer sell biscuits
-Fixed a visual issue on the snow terraformer planet

Thank you for your time!

Best,
The Leafy Games Team