Avorion News

We are happy to share good news with you today! Our official Community Servers are now assigned, and you can already explore the galaxy together with other players! The verified servers are clearly marked with a blue checkmark and are accessible to everyone without a password. The servers are provided free of charge in cooperation with 4NetPlayers and are managed by selected administrators.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the numerous applications! Unfortunately, we could not assign a server to everyone, so some applications are still on the waiting list if a server becomes available again in the future.
We will continue to work closely with both 4NetPlayers and the server administrators to ensure that you get the best performance from the servers.

We would also like to inform you that our friends from Stray Fawn Studio are releasing their game Nimbatus - The Space Drone Constructor! Today at 18pm CEST it will leave Early Access! 😊 For the launch there is a discount of 25% for everyone until 21.05.2020 9am PST! Take a look, because for all who love space games, it's definitely worth it!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/383840/Nimbatus__The_Space_Drone_Constructor/

Concerning an update, we would also like to inform you that we are working on it with determination. Unfortunately, we can’t give you an exact date yet. We ask you for a little patience and understanding. In any case we will keep you always up to date! 😊

This small update is the next step in bringing you our official servers. For more details please read our previous announcement.

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

• Official Community Servers are now marked in the server browser
• Added "Rent A Server" button to the multiplayer menu which opens the website of our official server hosting partner 4NetPlayers

• Added configurable motd to server.ini that is displayed when a player logs in
• One admin can now join over the maximum player limit to enable better supervision

"Bug reports marked with [UBR] are user bug reports. Keep it up guys! :)"

• [UBR] Fixed an issue that caused automatic miners and salvagers to get stuck
• [UBR] Fixed an issue where the tutorial wasn't playable in creative mode

We are happy to announce that official community servers are coming! Due to the current Covid-19 situation, we are all encouraged to stay at home and we want to help you through this time. We have already made all the necessary arrangements and are currently working on the final touches to get the servers live.
After consulting with many server hosts, we have found out, that it works best if each community plays according to their own ideas. That's why we provide you with the servers for free and you can administrate and lead them the way you want! We only set some ground rules to ensure that everyone is treated fairly. You can decide how you run the servers, which community you want to build, how often the servers will be wiped and so on.

[h2]How is this going to work?[/h2] We have organized servers for you via 4NetPlayers, which we will provide to you for free. There will be several servers and it is important for us to work closely with you together, to get the best possible experience for you and to achieve improvements! The servers will be marked separately so that you can clearly see which ones are official and verified.
If you are interested in administrating a server, send us a quick application with the following content to [email protected] :

- Your name
- A link to your Steam profile (must be public)

And please answer the following questions in your application:

- Are you already hosting a server or do you have experience in game server administration?
- How long have you been playing Avorion?
- Do you already have a community? If so, how big is it?
- How many administrators would manage the server?
- Please tell us, which kind of server you would like to have. For example, PvP or PvE?
- Why would you like to administrate a server, what is your motivation?

Please note that you must be a member of our official Discord Server, so please let us know your Discord ID in the email.
Here is the link to our Discord:
https://discord.gg/ebwtqkQ

[h2]Short Q&A [/h2] Will there be a charge for the servers?
- No, the servers are provided by us free of charge. We host them, you can use them.

Where will the servers be located?
- We will provide servers in the EU and the US.

Will we be able to mod our servers?
- For now they will be unmodded.

Will it be PvP or PvE servers?
- Both will be available, we have not yet determined the exact distribution.

What are the rules?
- In order to provide a good experience for a broad majority of players, there will be some ground rules set by us. Server admins are free to extend the rules, as long as they don’t revoke ours.

We are looking forward to hearing from you and we hope that we can assign the first servers soon! :)

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

We're releasing a small patch that should fix several issues that have come up over the past two weeks. In the meantime we're hard at work for the next free update, so stay tuned!

• Order chains are now started when the galaxy map is closed and Shift was still held

• Added warning text about potentially losing turrets next to the apply button in ModifyWholeShipWindow
• Blueprints are now called "Blueprint" in tooltips
• Turret blueprints are now rendered with a blue background in shops
• Adaptive Vsync is always used first, when trying to enable vsync. If it fails, normal vsync is enabled.
• Fighter order buttons can now be toggled back off when clicked a second time
• Added a notification for when there are not enough slots to activate all turrets
• Newly received items are now always sorted up
• Added a "Tools" title to the tool buttons on the right side of the building mode
• Added "repair" and "repair target" orders to map commands
• Added warnings for mod version changes that will break compatibility
• "Transfer to Alliance" button is now invisible while not in an alliance

• Reduced volume of background music vs action music

• Several backend performance improvements for servers with many AI factions and players
• Added a chat message for when player enters 0:0 and the guardian was already beaten and has to respawn first in multiplayer
• Xsotan swarm event can now be limited to a configurable amount of sectors with players

• Added more debug logging to find more issues
• Client-sided mod version compatibility check with server only checks "major" & "minor" version numbers, to allow "patch" version to be used for backwards compatibility

• Added new Sector/Entity callbacks onScriptValueChanged, onAllScriptValuesChanged, onScriptAdded, onScriptRemoved
• Added new Player callbacks onScriptValueChanged, onAllScriptValuesChanged, onScriptAdded, onScriptRemoved
• Added new Galaxy callbacks onScriptValueChanged, onAllScriptValuesChanged, onScriptAdded, onScriptRemoved
• Renamed all "Multiplicator" occurrences to "Multiplier"
  • Left in "Multiplicator", those are now deprecated and will be removed in future versions

• Fixed an issue where crew quarters delta wasn't shown in building stats
• Fixed an issue where the turret factory ui wasn't correctly refreshed on show
• Fixed an issue where non-turret items could be added to the turrets window in building mode
• Fixed an issue where crew morale was not saved correctly
• Fixed several issues with german translation
• Fixed loop-order button not being shown when ship does not yet have some command running
• Fixed an issue where trading overview didn't list new turret factory supplier goods
• Fixed some issues where turret designs would get removed during modification of entire ship
• Fixed some issues where turret designs would get removed when merging blocks
• Fixed some issues with torpedo UI when auto-loading is enabled
• Fixed an issue where players of newly founded alliances wouldn't be immediately known as such as members of the alliance
• Fixed an issue where the AI wouldn't attack an alliance's ships
• Fixed several crashes in lua scripts
• Fixed a rare hang when collecting cargo
• Fixed an issue where map ship icons would be shown in the wrong place
• Fixed "Show in Workshop" button for mods not working
• Fixed too narrow list entries for mod paths
• Fixed some issues with respawning of asteroids
  • Fixed default respawn not being triggered due to non-obviously mineable asteroids being present
  • Fixed respawn not being triggered once all asteroids have been wiped from the sector
• Fixed an issue where camera shake would continue while paused
• Fixed an issue where disabled turrets would fire in out-of-sector simulations
  • This fixes an issue where ships with repair turrets and armed turrets would hurt their target instead of repairing it
• Fixed an issue where the crew transport ship wouldn't bring enough crewmen
• Fixed an issue where trading posts could sell for less money than they buy for
  • Trading post prices are now affected less by their stock
• Fixed an issue in building mode where transforming only the orientation didn't work
• Fixed an issue where "Transform all selected blocks" would reset the orientation of the transformed blocks
• Fixed an issue where turret designs on edge blocks were positioned incorrectly when the craft plan changed
• Fixed an issue where stations wouldn't have enough cargo space to be able to trade/produce
• Fixed an issue where hailing text would be displaced on MacOS

[h2]Release - what´s next?[/h2] It has been three weeks since we were able to celebrate the release of Avorion 1.0! We are incredibly happy that everything went well, and that the post-release stress is starting to fall off our shoulders. Now we will focus on new ideas, innovations, and improvements! There are a lot of things in Avorion that we can’t wait to get our hands-on. We want to thank everyone who sent us one of the many great suggestions that we received!

[h2]Boxelware, Corona, and Home Office[/h2] We're not getting spared from the Corona crisis either. Due to the current situation the entire team is now doing home office so that we and all our friends and families can stay safe. Of course, this also means that our workflow isn't as great as in our official offices and that some things will take longer than usual. But we hope that you will understand this and that you and your families are well!

[h2]Nomination for the DCP (German Computer Games Award)[/h2] Great news! Avorion has been nominated in two categories for the DCP 2020: Best Debut and Best Expert Game. It is an honor to be nominated and we are incredibly happy! So please keep your fingers crossed for us. 😊

Sadly, the news article is only available in German, but you can check it out here:

https://www.gameswirtschaft.de/events/deutscher-computerspielpreis-2020-dcp-nominierungen/

FYI: The DCP was first held in 2009 and each year the best computer games made in Germany receive awards in a number of categories. 590.000 Euros total of prize money is distributed among the winners, which makes it the German video game award with the most prize money.

[h2]What's up next?[/h2] Right now, we are putting most of our time and energy into the next free update! There are some really good ideas that just didn’t make it into version 1.0 and we're looking forward to adding them!
Over the next few weeks we'll keep you posted with more news on the upcoming update!😊