Starship EVO News

A much needed hotfixes build following the warp update. More fixes to come! Thanks to all the test for your precious feedback and bug reports.

As usual you can book case or view more details on each issue on the official github page.


Bugfixes:
#3102 Texture issue on stretched Warp Core.
#3097 Collisions issue on Medium and Thin pipe base blocks.
#3099 #2940 Query gate still working after deletion.
#3103 Incorrect Spaceship widget position on large screen.
#3105 Warp travel widget does not flatten in 2D view.
#3111 #3115 Holomap breaks game when selection some stars.
#3114 Entity are lost on reload for new characters.
#3124 Medbay incorrect orientation for symmetry.
#3117 #3108 #3116 Autopilot planet avoidance can cause game freeze on warp.
#3112 #3120 Cancel warp issue.

The build 20w43a introduces Interstellar travel. You can now pick a star destination and warp to it!
You will need to add the new warp block to your design. Check out your ship range in the Spaceship Computer.
Also added are a few improvements to the holomap.

Interstellar Travel features:

• You can now warp to another system!
  
• Warp core block is added.
  
• Simply assign a warp jump target in the holomap, then while flying the ship Middle Mouse over the target and select "Initiate Warp Jump".
  
• Spaceship computer and holomap will display the spaceship warp range.
  

This is still a work in progress. The next steps are:

• Network support.
  
• Star system procedural variation (more planet type)
  
• Variety of asteroids, interstellar dust and more.
  
• Warp core addons and fuel
  
• Star System view in the holomap.
  

Holomap / Galaxy Improvements:

• Sector zoom is removed
  
• Star zoom is added
  
• Star lining on the galactic plane issue fixed
  
• More stars are generated.
  

Turret Improvements:

• Turret with more than one children entity are now correctly taken into account.
  

Community Suggestions:
#3073 Minimum FOV lowered to 30.
#3065 Player look angle while seated increased.
#3058 Canopy can now scale vertically.

Bugfixes:
#2009 #1625 Clipping is now also checking different entity.
#3067 Cannot unlink Query gate.

The latest big update focuses on the galaxy with the addition of the Holomap. It is an important step toward interplanetary travel which should be landing soon!
The holomap currently shows the galaxy and will be used to travel through the galaxy.
Access it from a Spaceship by pressing the H key (bindable).
The stars distribution has also been revamped, and the skybox is now showing the galaxy depending on the current star location.


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Features:

• Access the Holomap by pressing H while flying ship
  
• Can access the holomap by linking the new Holo Projector to the Spaceship computer
  
• Can lock a Warp travel (but interstellar travel is not yet implemented)
  
• New star distribution in the sky, reflecting each star position, color and magnitude.
  
• Pan the view by middle-mouse clicking
  
• Zoom with the mouse scroll wheel
  
• In the sector view rotator around by holding left mouse button
  

To-do:

• Interstellar travel
  
• System view of current star, planets and point of interests
  
• Star Info panel.
  
• Holoprojector size settings
  
• Holoprojector will link to others systems
  
• Sector view might be replaced by a zoom on Star view.
  

If you played the game when it was called Skywanderers, you will see quite a big departure from the old holomap. The older one was fancy but not really user friendly: I had to move to a more traditional full screen with mouse UI layout instead of the 3d in-game one.
The star generation also had been changed, we now have a lot less stars. Having a hundreds of billions of stars was a real pain navigation wise and was not delivering anything special gameplay wise. This might be great for more realistic game like Elite Dangerous, but Starship EVO aims at delivering a more space-opera feel.

See you in the next one!

This build welcomes a new mechanic essential to the upcoming gameplay loop: player health, death and respawn.
Indeed, survival has no meaning if the player cant die!
A new system block has been added, acting as a healing station and respawn point in case of player death: the medbay.
The player will have to "Scan" himself to various Medbay belonging to his ship or NPC stations as he progress in the game.
I have created the medbay to have a minimal form factor so you can decorate it as you wish. It is designed to be placed either vertically or horizontally to fit the style you prefer, the player animation inside will adapt to the relative orientation of the local gravity field. It is as small as possible as one day when crew and boarding is introduced you might need to put several of them inside your ship!

Check out the design and animation below.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

New features:

• Player health
  
• Player impact FX (wip) and death animation
  
• Medbay system added
  
• Medbay can heal wounded players.
  
• Player can "scan" himself at the medbay in order set it as his respawn point
  
• Scan and Respawn FX
  
• Medbay can be place vertically or horizontally.
  
• The player will respawn to the last non-destroyed medbay.
  
• Player height reduced.
  

As with all the new content this patch will live in the Experimental beta branch for a bit of time before landing in the main branch.

Thanks a lot for playing the game!

This build introduces a few game mechanics needed for the upcoming gameplay loop.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

First a drop system and a very basic ship inventory system is introduced.
Secondly a Upgrade Chips system is introduced as the first lootable element in order to spice up the game progression.
Here is how it works:
- Destroying a system has a chance of dropping a random Upgrade Chip.
- Each Chip can improve one or several stats like Hull, Shield, Power or Weapons efficiency.
- The number of stats and their increase depends on the Chip rarity: Poor, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic or Legendary.
- Each ship can have up to 9 upgrade slots depending the ship Power output.


Upcoming:
- The current inventory system will be made more complex in the future with cargo management.
- More upgrade chip type will be added.
- Chip switch will have to be made at a station.
- An upgrade chip will increase the ability to get more upgrade slots (up to 14)



This build is available on the Experimental beta branch. Thanks for playing!