EA Patch #19: Major patch incoming!

Greetings Overseers!

We have been hard at work on a larger content patch over the past 6 weeks. It is in testing now and should be released within the next 24 hours. Here are some of the new features you can look forward to

Upgrade weapons with permanent enhancements
A new scanning system and codex with unlockable entries
A beta version of our Conquest mode
Revamped weapons, now projectile based

See the full list of patch notes below.

CONQUEST

Add a beta version of conquest game mode. Gaiyacite will begin spawning after a warmup period, and unlock the following Win conditions
Pyrrhic Victory - Build and fully charge a volcano bomb in the mouth of the volcano
Economic Victory - Consolidate a certain amount of Gaiyacite in your storage
Technology Victory - Build and charge tech scanners on active alien artifacts
Revolution Victory - Build and charge a launch pad to launch a satellite that frees all bots from corporate control
New Structures - Volcano bomb, Tech Scanner, Launch Pad
Conquest mode will be available for testing in SP and private servers but will not yet be active on official servers. Use Game=Conquest on commandline

Expanded the map to add tabs with a bunch of new info
New "Corporation" menu - contains manifest, and various other corporate info (Work in progress)
New "Character" menu - contains XP progression with full progression tiers (Work in progress)
New "Codex" menu - contains unlockable entries that expand on various items and gameplay features, as well as some story and lore elements (Work in progress)
Rework the compass to be linear instead of semi-circular, with a clearer delineation of important waypoints along the bottom
Interact widgets will no longer "expand" until you mouse over the object, and will fade out over distance to reduce screen clutter
Also fixes bugs where interact widgets clutter the screen when riding a vehicle
Inventory icon coloring will now correspond to a "quality" level as opposed to item class. Grey for common, Green for uncommon, blue for rare, Purple for Epic
Build structures list is no longer sorted alphabetically, instead sorted by how common the item is used

GAMEPLAY

All weapons except railgun and shotgun are now "projectile based", meaning the shots have travel times and tracers can be observed
Rebalanced all weapons to make them feel distinctive
Added a new type of consumable item which can permanently enhance weapons and armor
Rebalanced animal loot around drops which can be used to create weapon enhancements
Added "hunting" stat that can be increased by leveling up the "explorer" tree, and
Added a new "Scan" ability (Default hotkey: I) for most items in the game. Scanning something for the first time will grant a small amount of XP, an explanatory VO snippet, and a new Codex entry
Heavily buff the wind turbine generator, so it generates more power at lower elevations
Add some sounds that play when gaining XP, and a better "Level up" notice messag
Inflow and Outflow pipes can now connect from a pipeline, to ANY object that has storage, allowing you to automate things like generator filling and scrapping
Pirates now give "pirate XP" when killed instead of Soldier and Corp XP.
New structure: Science lab. Place samples collected from Gaiya and return later for some XP reward
New structure: Biology lab. Use material gained from hunting animals to create permanent weapon and armor enhancements

BUGS

Fix an issue that may have been causing some character and animal Jittering
Fix the randomized server-generated wind direction/intensity and associated sound
Fix some generator power radius issues
Fixed the persistent issue with pirate weapons never going away and cluttering the ground
Fixed an AI bug with haulers that caused them to freeze up, they should be better at hauling now

Over the next few weeks, we will primarily be working on

Bug fixes, especially AI bugs
Pipeline usability rework
Performance issues
New revamped progression system, spending XP points in a skill tree instead of automatic unlocks