From The Depths News

3.7.1 Alpha

Lots of under the hood changes to AI as well as some bug fixes. Nick is absent for the next 2 weeks and then I (Sean) will be absent for 2 and Alma is currently recovering so it'll be quiet for a little while following this.
If AI mesh stuff throws a GUID error just hold down enter. Will clear it in a later update.

Add:
Ram behaviour, The ram behaviour now has a dropdown with 3 options for 3 different types of guidance. Direct, APN and Predictive. Direct is the old ram behaviour where it goes direct to the target. APN uses the APN missile guidance code to setup a line of sight to a target and then try to close in on it. Predictive tries to intercept the target by calculating where it should be in the future and closing on it at a cross point.
APS CRAM, Resting azimuth added to APS and CRAM firing pieces/mantlets along with a warning about when a mantlet is misaligned with a firing piece. The warning appears on the firing piece.

Changes:
Ram behaviour, The various sliders in the ram behaviour UI now have larger values available in some cases to allow for things like disengaging the adjuster further away on very fast things. Traveling further away before reengaging etc.
PointAt behaviour, New slider added for configuring the view cone to decide when to turn and face away to retreat. Set to 180 for reverse only.
AI, All in one weapon controllers now accept physical connections as well as wireless connections.

Fixes:
Blockcounter, Fixed the blockcounter incorrectly calculating subsubconstructs.
Missiles, Fixed a bug for a rare case where a rotation could be zero and therefore do nothing.
AI, Fix to ship & tank maneouvre to allow 'reverse' when 'point at and maintain distance' behaviour is selected and the adjuster is set to 'air mode' and the vehicle needs to retreat to maintain distance.
AI, Fix to encourage reversing land-surface and sea-surface paths to be formed when 'point at and maintain distance' behaviour is selected and the adjuster is set to 'on land' or 'on water' and the vehicle needs to retreat to maintain distance.
AI, Fix to collision avoidance. There was a bug causing calculations to be wrong. Things can now also evade left right as well as up down. This still isn't perfect and we will try to refine it further.
Manual, Updated the helicopter guide so that it doesn't reference dediblades anymore.
Plate, Alloy and metal plate triangles now mirror correctly on a horizontal mirror.
Poles, Pole hit calculations now use a perfect cylinder to calculate intersections rather than the quantised cylindrical mesh of the pole.
Modding, Item duplicators can now define a class name override for the duplicate block.
Turrets, Turrets and spinBlocks shouldn't be 'stuck' when trying to rotate at max speed and free to move when rotating slowly, the collision check with the mainConstruct is now more permissive. [BUGS-4146]

World files:
Updated DWG with all of its intended corporations. They currently don't serve a purpose but will do so when DWG HQ layout is updated. Craft will be updated to proper corporations at a later date.

[Neter]
Marlin (DWG): Applied connection rules, adjusted terrain prediction time.
Transient (SD): Completely remade; now classified as a spacecraft, retains its cargo carrier status; when attacked, broadsides from afar with a long-distance laser.
Deimos (SD): Updated with interceptor decos, minor evasion tweaks, EMP-proofing.
Anguish (TG): Redesigned; it's now a melee mech with a large sword using a laser cutter core.
Removed "comment" annotation from Neter Adventure raft.

Patchwork (DWG): Overhauled; still retains its original identity but has been modernized.
Wanda (DWG): Updated cannon to be APHE, weakened missiles.
Slight difficulty balancing tweaks to Adventure for some designs that could spawn as the first enemy when they shouldn't have.
Removed LH Current and GT Weaver from spawning in Adventure (cargo craft)

[AotE]
Slight tweaks to early unit spawning for Adventure.

[Glao]
Granite Squadron (OFD): New fighter unit, replaces Fighter; 3 small fighter drones using burst APS.
Fighter (OFD): Retired.

Fix

Adventure, Trying to create/load a "structure" in adventure mode will instead spawn a "vehicle".
Decorations, No longer possible to select other decorations when the mouse is hovering over the UI (this was unintended.)
Rendering, Explosions should no longer end up accidentally occasionally rendering behind the sky layer / horizon layer.
Separator, Built-in shell designs copy into separated vehicles, and shells referring built in designs that are in clips no longer disappear on separation.
Munition Decorator, Removed EMP invulnerability.
Gone to Sea, Fixed character textures in linux.

Add

Blocks, Added 2m and 3m versions of the 4m beam-slope block.

Not much to say other than check out the store page that contains all the information.

Gone to Sea store page

Adds 4 more characters:
Sea Captain, sailor 1, sailor 2 and diver.

A stable update with some interesting changes in there. Adventure mode continues to be worked on and tweaked, thanks for all the feedback so far. The new adventure bell can be found in the Misc tab, ring it once per minute to summon a new enemy in both adventure modes.
If you want to play land adventure you need to load the "ashes of the empire" planet in the content menu and start adventure after loading that. It's a land based campaign. There are still blueprint updates trickling in to get that more up to date.
Glao has started actually being updated, thanks strider for managing that and to the builders!
Tracks are now moddable, Gladyon has added that, still not had anyone do it I think so would be good to know how people get on with it.
On top of that the tracks algorithm had a rewrite a little while back which Gladyon has now ironed the kinks out of.
There's a new widget when decorating (ctrl+x) that you can click and drag to alter your meshes!

Add
Tracks, Track texture will now keep its original ratio when the track's width is modified
Breadboards, Added a comment module with no inputs or outputs, for annotation purposes
Adventure, Bell Added - Misc Tab. Use it to summon enemies in any adventure mode. 1 min cool down, not underwater, not above 300m.

Change
Tracks, It is now possible for modders to add selectable materials for tracks by checking the 'Is available to tracks' option in the material screen of the modding UI
Adventure, Spawning now happens every 10 minutes as well as the other spawn types.
Adventure, Terrain hill scale changed from 0.5 to 0.4 (less hilly)
Adventure mode, In land adventure mode enemies will now spawn at 3km not 5km
Map editor, Removed unused HQ settings from the map editor

Fix
Achievements, Neter campaign achievements (e.g. destroying HQs on different difficulties) fixed
Tracks, Fixed a lot of edge cases bugs in tracks creation
Decorations, When placing a prefab in mirror mode with the prefab intersecting the mirror plane, all the decorations will now be placed [BUGS-4119]
Decorations, The decoration widget position and scale values are now rounded to 5 decimal places
Steam, [BUGS-4113] Changed cases where crank friction loss was applied before kinetic energy was added to the shaft
Steam, [BUGS-4083] Fixed sealed 2m shaft not connecting to transmissions
CRAM, [BUGS-3972] Fixed ERA triggering CRAM shells
APS, Shaped charge and secondary shaped charge tooltip shows damage/fragment, instead of total damage of all fragments
Interceptors, Interceptor priority for targets with >120% of their health in incoming interceptors reduced to 30%, instead of >150%/50%
Explosions, Fixed some strange explosion behaviour with subConstructs due to multi-threading (undamaged blocks which should be damaged or explosion leaking through subConstruct) [BUGS-4100]

I don't usually include this part but it just goes to show how much work goes on behind the scenes by community to improve the various planets. These are updates from the 6th Feb onwards.

Campaign blueprints:

[Neter]
Abactor (DWG): New DWG ship, hard difficulty, replaces Prowler. "The Prowler" in Sal's fleet is another design and will be untouched. Difficulty changed to godly from expert. Removed some unnecessary LWCs, artifacts of a previous version.
Hoplite (DWG): Re-added back as an easy design, updated with modern touches. There might be an "old bp" bug that will require it to be rebuilt as a new bp, will do testing.
Loggerhead (DWG): Paint/deco updates.
Wanda (DWG): Deco updates.
Davy Jones Outpost spawn logic has been set to just spawn all possible units. This is to "futureproof" spawning situations when new designs are added.
Airship Gantry has been given the Hoplite to possibly spawn as well.
Fitzgerald corporation made for DWG but doesn't serve much of a purpose for the time being with the HQ spawn logic. This logic may get improved later when corporations are all fleshed out.
Abactor (DWG):
Prowler (DWG): Retired from campaign and adventure.
Smoker (DWG): Redesigned to be larger and pack a bigger punch, also includes missile deco. The old version has been converted to an SM variant for the story missions.
SmokerSM (DWG): See above.
Tortuga (DWG): Moved to expert difficulty.
Sunfish (DWG): Reintroduced as a small expert thrustercraft; attempts to sit over its target and rain down munitions.
Leatherback (DWG): Heavily updated to be a smaller profile but retain similar functionality.
Monkey Barrel (DWG): Missile deco added to give it "barrel mines". Also has pivoting helicopter behaviors. The SM version is unaffected.
Defender Turret (TG): Redesigned, retains similar functionality.
- As a futureproof measure for Adventure, all installations/buildings have had their spawn rates removed for Adventure.
- More, if not all cargo craft have had their spawn rate removed in Adventure.

Parapet (OW): Difficulty dropped to Expert as intended, from godly. No bp changes.

The Repentance (WF): Deco missiles, slight optimization.
Harbinger (WF): Completely redesigned; has a large cache of cluster missiles as its primary armament.

Thresher Shark (SS): No design changes, fixed some typos in its lore.
Aerotyrant (SS): Improved thrust and lift near the rear to improve pitching issue.


Impedance (LH): Fixed up-props not working.

Astraeus (SD): Miscellaneous fixes and slight shape improvements.
Carnage (SD): Overhauled, still retains its original purpose as an AA thrustercraft. Added a Heartstone.
Archangel (SD): Difficulty dropped to medium from expert. AI updated to prevent it from falling out of space. It's now classified as a Spacecraft and if they're part of Adventure, I've reduced its spawn rate a little.

[AotE]
Sand Viper (DWG): Fixed missing armor, added missing paint.
Black Mamba (DWG): Increased difficulty for Adventure.

Cataphract (WF): Completely redesigned.
Saviour (WF): Completely redesigned and slightly different name from Savior; uses melee PACs as its primary armament.

Bombard (OW): Redesigned and refit to standards.
Oxen: Complete overhaul to get it up-to-date.

Nemesis (TG): Redesigned up to faction standards. I wasn't given a detailed list of changes.
Paladin (TG): Same as above. Fun to watch it charge at things with a giant lance!

[Glao]
Updated a typo in the fleet colors for TRD; the red trim was intended to be much darker.
Explorer (GI): New thrustercraft design. Not set to replace anything, just an addition to their roster. Fixed AI to recommended settings, removed some blocked thrusters
Buzzsaw (GI): Redesigned; still a melee craft but it's now a thrustercraft with more dynamic control.

Echo (TRD): New design, replaces Hammer of God. Spacecraft that hovers over its targets to rain down missiles.

Gold Turret (OFD): New turret design to replace the original "Cannon". AA turret.
Silver Turret (OFD): New turret design to replace the original "Cannon". CRAM cannon.
Defender Turret (GI): New turret design to replace the original "Doomcannon". Multipurpose APS cannon.
Protector Turret (GI): New turret design to replace the original "Doomcannon". Missile turret.
- "Cannon" and "Doomcannon" spawns in fleets have been replaced the appropriate turrets.
- At a later time the stationary turrets will be spread out to defend RZs and map locations as well.