Small fixes, vacation, and what's next...

Greetings galactic explorers! There's a small update this weekend in all branches:

• Fixed medical bay device description
  
• Attempted to fix an error where ship weapons given as quest rewards are sometimes not the specified size.
  
• More than quadrupled the number of last names for officers.
  
• Officer rescue quests now usually offer away team equipment as a reward instead of credits.
  
• Fire and gases now appear transparent on top of the player and monsters
  
• I spent a large part of this week on a special new monster that will probably not be introduced until sometime in version 1.7 , but I think it will be worth it.
  

These are the main goals of version 1.6 (current development cycle):

Fixing bugs and making quality-of-life improvements
• That's a constant!
  
Presenting more depth and "promise of things to come" in the early game.
• Letting players interact with the sentient alien races sooner.
  
• Giving starter quests to point new players in the right direction.
  
• Making more monsters available, and working to make them not repeat too much.
  
Balancing the difficulty of away team combat.
• Adding damage types (fire, shock, cryo, etc.) to away team weapons.
  
• Giving officers activated skills with cool-downs.
  
• Giving monsters powers to balance that out!
  
• Analyzing and changing monster hit points and damage.
  

Of course there were many other awesome developments along the way, but those are the ones I set out specifically to accomplish. And aside from the very last point, "balancing monster stats", those things have been DONE!


So the next step is obvious: let's get those monsters balanced!


As I mentioned, I'll be away March 29th - April 5th, so when I come back, I'll get straight to work on those numbers. (I might even start before I leave). I also expect to be able to give you a decent preview of what version 1.7 will entail...


So: if there are any big problems with today's version (1.6L) , let me know ASAP, so I can fix it *before* I go away, ok?


Thanks, and enjoy!

• Away team auto-movement no longer avoids harmless gasses.
  
• Fixed an out-of-bounds error concerning shock weapons and water ;)
  
• Confirmed shuttle ace is working as intended.
  
• Ship repair devices and skills now help repair the shuttle when it is damaged beyond normal.