Cosmoteer: Starship Architect & Commander News

Cosmoteer update 0.14.10 is now available for download! This update enhances the existing Ion Beam Emitter weapon and makes it WAY cooler by adding the Ion Beam Prism. It also makes a significant change to the game mechanics of structure pieces, as well as a handful of other improvements and fixes.


The Ion Beam Prism is a new 2x2 exterior ship component that combines and redirects any ion beams that are shot into it, resulting in a potentially far more powerful beam:



The Ion Beam Prism is mounted on a swiveling turret and can aim in a full 360 degrees, albeit very slowly. This feature alone makes the Ion Beam Emitter a much more versatile weapon, though at a significant cost increase.

But the real power of the Ion Beam Prism lies in its ability to combine multiple beams into a single, stronger beam. This makes it easier to focus all the power of multiple Ion Beam Emitters onto a single enemy target, as well as allowing the emitters to be housed within the interior of the ship while only exposing a single or small number of (ideally well-protected) Ion Beam Prisms to enemy fire.

Combining multiple beams is not without cost though, since each additional beam contributes 25% less power than the previous beam. To maximize the power of a single ion beam, it is optimal to combine exactly two same-sized beams per prism. Combining more than two beams in a single prism, or combining two beams of significantly different sizes in a single prism, will result in considerable power loss.

Ion Beam Prisms are also very fragile, and if they are destroyed while a beam is being shot through it, the resulting ion explosion can devastate the surrounding area as well.

To use an Ion Beam Prism, just build one in front of an Ion Beam Emitter, and the Emitter will be smart enough to shoot when the Prism is aiming at the enemy. You can also link multiple Ion Beam Prisms together to form a chain by selecting an individual Prism and clicking the "Link" button.


The "structure" pieces (those little girder tiles that hold the ship together) have also received a significant change to how they interact with the weapons on their own ship. Previously, structure pieces would block any weapons on their own or allied ships from firing over them, meaning you couldn't put any structure in front of your weapons without blocking them. But in this update the game mechanics have changed so that your own weapons can now shoot over your own structure pieces. This should make it easier to build and use Ion Beam Prisms, as well as make it easier in general to create clever ship designs.

The way that enemy weapons interact with structure pieces is unchanged (enemy weapons will still fly over them while damaging the first structure piece), with the exception of missiles, which will now fly over structure without exploding, unless the missiles were specifically targeting the structure.


This update also has a handful of other improvements, fixes, and modding features, which you can read all about in the changelog.

Enjoy!

Cosmoteer update 0.14.9 is now available for download! This update adds a new multiplayer competitive game mode called "Domination".


In Domination games, players vie to capture "control points". These are large, circular areas that, once captured, provide steady streams of income for the players or teams who control them. Players can then use this income to warp in new ships during the battle. Capturing more control points than your opponent will give you the upper hand to eventually defeat them.

The battle starts with most control points already owned by a player or team. To capture an enemy's control point, you must first fly one of your ships into its circle, which will start contesting it and eventually convert it to "neutral", meaning it is not owned by any team. The speed at which a control point is neutralized depends on the size of your fleet within the circle compared to the enemy's fleet within the circle.

Once neutralized, a control point can be captured and made your own simply be eliminating all enemy ships within it and defending it for a few seconds while your own ships capture it.

Final victory is assured by either capturing all control points or owning more control points than your opponent once the timer ticks down to zero.

Before the battle, you will pre-select a "loadout" of up to five ship designs. During the battle, you can spend the money you've earned from your control points to warp in new ships using any of those five designs. (And in a pinch, you can also swap out any of those five designs for any other design in your library.)

The purpose of this new game mode is to provide a deeper challenge that emphasizes having a variety of ship designs for different situations, that allows you the opportunity to counter the ships that the enemy uses, and that requires you to make strategic and tactical decisions during the course of the battle.

This update also has a handful of other minor improvements and fixes, which you can read about in detail in the changelog.

Cosmoteer update 0.14.8 is now available for download! This update adds a new support "weapon" system, the Tractor Beam Emitter.


The Tractor Beam Emitter is a very large, very expensive system that fires a beam of gravitational energy at other ships and objects. It has two modes of operation, "pull" and "push", and uses considerable amounts of power in both modes.

In "pull" mode, the tractor beam can "tether" to any object within 200 meters and then slowly pull it in with a weak gravitational force. While useful for pulling in debris and inanimate objects, that force isn't strong enough to pull in an enemy ship that is resisting it with its thrusters. However, once attached, the beam can then stretch up to 200 additional meters, and as the beam stretches, both its gravitational strength and power usage increase greatly, making the beam act similarly to a rubber band.

In "push" mode, the tractor beam acts as more of a "spring", pushing away ships and objects with a strength depending on how close the target is; closer targets will be pushed away with more force and will use more power while doing so.

Once you add a Tractor Beam Emitter to your ship, new buttons will be displayed that allow you to target the tractor beam onto other ships:


By default, tractor beams will aim for the center of the targeted ship, but you can also aim them at a specific part by holding the Ctrl key while targeting. Tractor Beam Emitters also use "pull" mode by default, which you can change by selecting the Tractor Beam Emitter and toggling their mode to "push".

Unlike all other weapons currently in Cosmoteer, Tractor Beam Emitters are "roof mounted", meaning they do not need to be placed on the edge of your ship to function; instead, they fire the beam over-top their own ship. But you'll still need to be mindful of where you place the tractor beam because they exert an "equal and opposite" force on their own ship, potentially "yanking" your ship around and exposing a weak side. (Of course, you can also use tractor beams to "yank" enemies as well!)

While Tractor Beam Emitters are the main new feature of this update, there are also a number of additional balance changes, bug fixes, and modding features.

Enjoy!

Cosmoteer update 0.14.7 is now available for download! This update includes new space backgrounds and planets, balance changes, user interface improvements, new modding features for your favorite mods, and a bunch of other quality-of-life improvements and fixes.




All of the space backgrounds and planets have been updated to look a lot nicer! More importantly, they do a much better job at matching the game's overall visual style than the old backgrounds. Here are a few examples:




This update also makes a number of signficant balance changes such as tweaking Cannons to emphasize short-range brawling, allowing Railgun Accelerators to increase Railgun range, making E.M.P. and Nuclear Missiles easier to shoot down, and overhauling Point Defenses to have a much longer range. You can read the detailed list of balance changes in the changelog.


First on a long list of interface improvements is a long-requested feature: a detailed list of weapon & part statistics, which can be viewed by hovering the mouse cursor over a part and holding the Alt key:



Another long-requested feature was the ability to give ships a "creator" name and custom lore or description, both of which have been added to this update. Hovering over a ship in the Ship Library will display its name as well as creator and description, if it has any.



New and lapsed players may appreciate a revamped tutorial system with less-intrusive tutorial popups and an easier-to-navigate "How to Play" manual:



Multiplayer has also has received a number of other frequently-requested interface improvements, such as the ability for the host to assign ships to players, a button to force-start the game even if other players aren't ready, features to mute and kick players during a match, and an always-on-screen list of each player's score in Arena games.


There are a ton more features and fixes in this update that you can read about in the changelog that weren't big enough to mention here. (Things like multiplayer performance improvements, new title screens, and math equation support when modding data files.)
Have fun!
Walt

Cosmoteer is still in early development and is currently available to download and play for FREE until it officially launches as a paid Early Access game on Steam.

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