Avorion News

[h3]Loot Transporter[/h3]
Getting really good loot usually takes a bit of work... With Update 2.0, we're making it a little easier for you, as the Loot Transporter is a sure way to know that there's some really great stuff to be captured! The transporter sometimes travels with pirates and is responsible for transporting the loot of their raids. You can imagine what he has in his bags! Since he has a lot to haul, there was unfortunately no room on his ship for turrets, so he makes a relatively quick getaway as soon as you attack him. The lucky ones among you who manage to destroy his ship despite the restricted time limit will be rewarded with a bunch of valuable loot!

[h3]Ship Reconstruction[/h3]
Who has never wrecked a ship? Nobody, probably. In such a case, the well-known reconstruction token is usually the first thing you need to get the destroyed ship ready to go again - as long as you have a token at that time.
We would like to make this feature less complicated and more comprehensible, so it should be easier to understand for Avorion beginners in the future.
The tokens will no longer exist starting with Update 2.0, instead we are implementing a new Towing Service at Repair Docks! In the future you will be able to simply fly to a Repair Dock and ask them to pick up the broken ship. The ship will then be brought to you and made ready to use (read: quickly cobbled together) again for a small price, so that you can immediately continue flying! Some additional repairs might be necessary, though. Good thing you’re already at a Repair Dock.
If you don't feel like looking for a Repair Dock first, you can purchase a Reconstruction Kit. With those you can make your ship ready to fly again on the (destruction) spot. You’ll be immediately ready to go, but will need a few more repairs.

Hello everyone!

The big update 2.0 is nearly done and we are working on the last few open points! We’d like to use this week’s announcement to update our development roadmap and show you the progress that we’ve made:

[h3]DONE:[/h3]

• Better UI visuals
• New progression system based on knowledge for different materials
• Scenario: "Classic Avorion" without the new progression
• Improvements to Independent Targeting
  • Removal of the 50% damage penalty
  • Amount of independently firing turrets can be increased with various existing and new upgrades
• Less micro-intensive commanding of ships
  • 10 new or updated commands (ie. go fly a trade route, go salvage, go explore)
  • Captains with classes & perks
  • Improved performance for remotely operating ships
• Bounties on Bulletin Boards
• More civilian ships for improved flair
• Improved visuals for busy sectors
• Tons of QoL
• More diverse faction areas on the galaxy map
  • Central vs. outer regions where different rules apply
• Player Profile w/ Milestones
• Crew Improvements
  • QoL; Sergeant, Lieutenant, etc. will be ranks within professions and no longer separate professions
• Hyperspace Jump Improvements
  • QoL; Improvements to game flow, jumps, reduction of waiting times
• Fighter Improvements
  • QoL; Fighters will be remote-controlled, will support boosting, will be cheaper to build but require stricter preconditions to have them on the ship
• Autopilots
• Scenario: "Free Play" that can be configured to your individual liking
• Torpedo loot drops
• Improvements to the tutorial
• Listing of build mode features & "tricks" in the encyclopedia

[h3]IN WORK:[/h3]

• A Secret Boss
• Various community-requested & QoL features
• Updates to the Encyclopedia
• Polishing, Bugfixing

[h3]STILL TO DO:[/h3]

• Nothing - we don’t have any other big topics that we’re not already working on! :)

[h2]Release Roadmap[/h2]
So by now, you’ve probably realized that Update 2.0 won’t release in Q2. The good news is that the big topics are done (hooray!) and we’re currently still working out some last kinks and bugs. As we’ve stated in another announcement a few weeks ago, game development is highly iterative (compared to “regular” software development) and we don’t want to burn our 5-person dev team out. That wouldn’t help anybody. We don’t want to ruin the 2.0 update hype with a buggy and rushed release. Also, we’re currently deciding which community-suggested features we’ll be adding to the game, so go vote on our forum, if you haven’t already!

So what’s coming next? One thing we can promise: It won’t be too much longer! Right now we're doing stress-testing, PR stuff like a trailer and informing influencers and media, etc. Over the coming weeks, we’ll get some closed beta-testing started (if we decide to include some community members, you will definitely hear from us), followed by the update being made available on the beta branch, just like any other regular release. After it performs well on beta, it’ll be released to the default branch.

See you next week!

[h2]Autopilot[/h2]
It has happened to everyone at some point: you try to dock at the station and the nose of your ship nudges the airlock but it still isn’t properly docked. The procedure should actually be much easier. And this is where the autopilot comes into play! In the future, you will be able to select your target station in strategy mode and simply give your ship the command to head for it. Docking is completely automatic!
Additionally, the autopilot is capable of many other cool things:
Have you ever wished you could just sit back and watch your ship do its thing? With the autopilot, that's no longer a problem! As long as you are in the same sector as your ship, you can, for example, instruct it to fly across the sector, mine an asteroid, or even attack someone. While your ship carries out the order, you just relax and enjoy the show! However, you need to be in the same sector as your ship to use this feature. To give orders to ships in other sectors you will still need a captain. And, as we all know, accomplished captains are way too proud to let an autopilot do their work for them ;)

[h2]Sector Overview and Sector Renaming[/h2]
How many stations have you clicked through to find the right crew members? Probably quite a few... In the future, we would like to make both the search for the right crew members as well as the buying and selling of goods easier and more convenient for you. With update 2.0 we improved the sector overview to allow you to find out much faster which station in the sector has exactly what you are looking for! Simply switch to Strategy Mode and look through the available stations to get an overview of which goods are bought or sold, which missions are available, and which crew members you can find at which station. Afterwards you only have to select the station, fly there and save a lot of time!

While we're on the subject of sectors:
Be sure to stop by an Equipment Dock and pick up the new Sector Label Applicator! Once you have activated it in a sector of your choosing, a beacon will appear and you can give the sector a new name. You can rename the sector as often as you like using the same beacon, as long as nobody destroys it. However, the label applicator only works in sectors that are controlled by you or your alliance, after all, you don't want the name of a sector to incite a war with the locals.

After performing well on the beta branch, patch 1.3.8 is now live on default! It introduces Japanese and French as officially supported languages and brings several quality-of-life improvements and stability improvements.

[h2]Languages[/h2]"As our community is growing all over the world, we want to support more languages. In this patch we happily introduce the new supported languages of French and Japanese."

• Added French localization
• Added Japanese localization

[h2]General[/h2]

• Torpedo shafts can now fire when not assigned to a group
• Reduced default size of damage numbers
• Improved performance of durability weakness effects
• Improved performance of line break algorithm
• Implemented a setting for servers to enforce steam networking and not fall back to TCP protocols

[h2]Scripting API[/h2]

• Implemented a prototype functionality to enumerate all values in an Enum
  • Enums can now be converted to a table via enumerate() (ie. BlockType.enumerate())

[h2]Bugs[/h2]"As always, bugs marked with [UBR] are User Bug Reports, submitted through our in-game bug tracker. Thanks very much for helping and keep 'em coming!"

• [UBR] Fixed an issue where all players end up in the same sector once 3000+ players are registered
• Fixed an issue where safe mode was always on (even when turned off) when transforming a shipyard-requiring block into a non-shipyard requiring block without a shipyard in the sector
• Fixed an issue where colors weren't correctly translated in building mode
• Fixed an issue where hyperspace engine didn't go on cooldown properly when changing reach
• Fixed an issue where upgrades of ships could disappear through breaking blocks
• Fixed an issue where clicking coordinates in chat was possible while mouse was visible or obscured by windows
• Fixed an issue where the Hermit Dialog wasn't shown when another player already spawned Swoks in that sector
• Fixed an issue where Exodus Mission wasn't updating correctly
• Fixed a crash in /run command when called from RCON or console
• Fixed a crash when saving script data of players
• Fixed an issue where players could leave the ship into the drone while building in tutorial
• Fixed a GPU memory leak

[h2]Crew Improvements[/h2]

Searching for specific crew members can be annoying and time-consuming at times. Especially when you have already flown across several sectors to hire the correct crew members, only to realize that you’re now suddenly missing a general. That’s why we have improved the way that higher-ranking officers are handled, so that in the future you will no longer have to fly to countless stations to man your ship effectively.
First off, we removed the separate professions for higher ranking officers. As soon as the number of crew members of a certain profession increases so much that they now require a superior officer, your crew will automatically promote one of their colleagues from within this profession to a higher rank.
We have also made the crew more effective. Compared to before, you will only need half as many crew members to get your ship ready for action because each of them now has double the workforce. But good employees come at a price and the new crew knows what they are worth and demand a salary twice as high as before.
In turn, they are also willing to work under harsher conditions. Lower morale will no longer have an immediate effect on the workforce, even though morale will decrease somewhat faster than before if you don’t have enough crew quarters or if you don’t pay your crew. But if you do let morale go down all the way to 0% (you should feel ashamed for treating them so poorly!), all crew members on your ship will go on strike immediately. However, they will not leave the ship any more but simply refuse to work until the problem has been resolved.

[h2]Faction Areas[/h2]

We want to make the factions more interesting and give them more depth. Currently, the factions consist of a simple territory and that does not match our idea of growing and living civilizations. In the future, each faction will therefore have a central area and an outer area which will look and feel distinctly different from each other.
Each faction has a central area around the home sector that is very densely populated and has certain advantages for you. There are better trading options due to the many factories and other stations that are well connected by a close-meshed gate network. In addition, the central areas of the factions are very well protected, making pirate attacks in these areas less likely.
The outer faction area is rather sparsely populated, however sectors like asteroid fields or other (more or less welcome) surprises are much more likely in there.
In most cases, when moving into the territory of an unknown faction, you will first enter their outer area where you will encounter only a few of their ships and stations. There, you can assess them to decide whether you want to venture deeper into their territory to possibly find new allies, or if you’d rather stay away from them.
PS: The improved faction areas are compatible with existing saves!