Starship EVO News

Another big hotfixes build with a few physics engine improvements! Handheld have been fixed.

Improvements:

• Physics engine: rigidbody will get to sleep much faster (this will reduce the jitter when placing bricks on grounded ship)
  
• Physics engine: warm start is added which will allows complex equilibred situation get to rest much faster
  
• Physics engine: more tweak where added to reduce jitter.
  

Hotfixes:

• #4292 #3884 #3851 #3743 #3709 Cant build handheld weapons
  
• #3634 Invalid brick placement on weapon children entity
  
• #4307 Mission objective not showing keybinds
  
• #4307 Cancelling and redoing the Building Training does not not advance tutorial
  
• #4287 Gravity issue when transitioning between ship bounds
  
• #4325 Reset axis message not displaying for non-axis keybind
  
• #4328 Glow sprite does not disappear on ship unspawn
  
• #4329 Gravity inside ring is not working for player
  
• #4306 #4316 Newly built turret cannot be controlled manually
  
• #4324 Event Gate state not correct after reload
  
• #4317 Lag on very large (10Km+) build while placing bricks
  
• #4313 Prefab export failing
  
• #4332 Copy/paste of tank change their size
  
• #4322 While in F6 Photo mode the camera still move after pressing ESC
  
• #4315 #3953 Piston shaft not visible when the base is off screen
  
• #4341 Hotkey value mode now hides Invert signal
  
• #4342 Block deletion does not update collision points right away
  

Thanks for playing!

This build delivers some hotfixes regarding the new game tutorial.

Hotfixes:
#4307 Mission objective not showing keybinds
#4307 Cancelling and redoing the Building Training does not not advance tutorial.
#4287 Gravity issue when transitioning between ship bounds

Thanks for playing!

The way Event Gates work when linked to a Yoke (like the old "Hotkey gate") has been improved.
This will allow a more versatile approach to fire weapon systems allowing for smoother integration of upcoming gameplay elements (repair, mining, scavenging).

• It is now possible to use hotkey 1-9 as Fire group:
  
• You will still use Main Fire or Secondary Fire to shoot but can choose which weapon group will be active by toggling them on/off with their respective hotkey.
  
• It is possible to set a Fire Group to be exclusive (ie it will toggle off all other groups when activated)
  
• It is still possible to fire a weapon with hotkey 1-9.
  
• New HUD elements have been added for each hotkey (can be toggled off).
  
• HUD element display name can be customized.
  
• HUD elements can be hiden or their display order can be tweaked
  

Other changes:
A safe zone of 4km around stations was implemented. Pirates and auto-fire turrets wont attack inside the safe zone.

Community Suggestion:
#4296 Material removal will get back to steel

Hotfixes:

• #4276 #4288 Surface heat computation has been reversed to the old (wrong) way to ensure blueprint compatibility
  
• #4299 Bevel collisions incorrect
  
• #4286 #4284 Pasted Mechanism top part is orphaned
  
• #4295 Light brick glow is too strong to see actual color
  
• #4237 Exporting blueprint now clears docked entity info
  
• #4299 Repair End Mission message does not display long enough
  

Thanks for playing!

Hotfixes build.

New features:

Cargo brick added, decorative for now but soon will be functional.
Fuel Scoop brick added, decorative for now but soon will be functional.
Some help messages to do the link were added to the Repair Tutorial.
Hotfixes:
#4280 Player Collision on Arch bricks incorrect
#4264 Gatling barrel invisible on reload
#4241 Sprite Glow visible of prefab preview visible in world
#4224 #4221 #4134 Turret are not tracking correctly in some cases
#4281 #4263 Some SFX are not impacted by volume control
#4279 Cannot place item on Stand
#4278 Specific ship not loading
#4245 Large decal preview not showing up close
#4274 #4186 Warning message not working when linked to an event gate
#4277 Screen resolution reset refresh rate
#4267 #3880 F1 Build option menu config not saved
#4227 Gravity field incorrect bounds applied

Thanks for playing!

The time has finally come for all the big developments of the last few months to hit the main default branch of the game. This represents 49 builds made, if you want to see more details check out the github page!


Here is in a nutshell what is new:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Neovox Update:
This build is one of the biggest the game has seen!
Starship Evo started its life as a voxel building game but has morphed over time to a hybrid tech with voxels and the re-scalable bricks that you all love and that gives some much freedom.
Now we finally unplugged the voxel tech and embraced the true nature of the game building system!
It means:

• You can change the grid-scale of a brick, from a mini 0.125 to a giga-size 32m! If you fully strech a 32m-grid brick it will become 512m is size...
  
• Massive reduction in memory, as now the only factor is brick count. Bricks are quite light too: this massive ship made by Dolan weight only 20mg in VRAM:
  
• This two features combine means that it is now possible to create massive ships!
  
• The codebase has been simplified, which means faster dev in the future and less bugs
  

New Tutorials based on new mission framework:
The work on missions has finally started! The first missions integrated to the game are a brand new tutorial to better introduce new players to the game.

• Learn to use their Jetpack
  
• Learn the basic of build at the Training Center
  
• Fix a small repair ship by adding the various system needed to flight
  
• Fly around the station to repair three modules in order to learn to fly
  

The framework is still work in progress. The end goal is to allows player to create missions with LUA scripting!



New Stations and Kiosks:
We now have some brand new stations modules thanks to 5URG3! They are really looking amazing and they come with full interior. The level of polish and details is amazing, it no longer feel like a building game!
Another important addition is the spawning of kiosks within the station Hub interior. While some kiosks are purely decorative some other are ensuring key component of the gameplay like the refuel station, the repair station or the mission board.
We also have a slew of new Pirates and Tanker roaming the world. Soon there will be some interaction with them as more missions are added!
Many builders helped me creating those amazing stations and ships, a massive thanks to them!



Fuel Technology:
Fuel will be a major component of the gameplay loop: you will have to harvest, craft and manage fuel through your ship.
For now we have been focusing on the fuel transfer technology: reactor require fuel, and fuel flow from tank to reactor through pipes.
It all happen seamlessly over time - you can check it by building transparent pipe and tank! You can also use valve to stop fuel. More features will be added soon.



New physics technology
Some great progress has been made of the physics side: now the game uses a 100% custom physics engine that uses heavily the new Unity Data Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) and multithreading.
It means it is super fast and provide massive improvement over the past implementation: now collisions or mechanism no longer slow down the game.

There is plenty of more stuff added, check out the single dev note for more detail!

Happy building!