Welcome to 1.45, our biggest update yet!
TRACTOR BEAMS:
All ships can now equip a tractor beam. Tractors use lots of fuel and can be temporarily disabled by ion torpedoes. Tractors have a lot of uses:
- Tractor beams, as you might expect, hold ships in place. If a ship is disabled, tractoring it will keep it from being lost in the atmosphere of a planet. You can even grab things that are already beyond the point of no return and move them to a safe zone for further recovery operations. And if the tractoring ship moves, the held ship should also come along.
- Tractors can rescue ships, cargo and shuttles that have fallen deep into a planet’s gravity well
- If a tractor beam has sufficient power, active ships can be held, preventing any movement. If a tractor lacks sufficient power, the object will be slowed. Since tractor beams have the longest range of any weapon, this can be used as a purely defensive strategy by holding an attacker out of range.
- With enough tractor power, a ship can be pushed into a planet’s atmosphere and held there, causing damage!
- Multiple tractor beams can be combined to slow, stop or move an incoming enemy.
- Tractor beams can be set to Autotractor mode, which will automatically pull in any cargo containers and lifeboats within range. Disabled ships and boarding shuttles have to be manually tractored, because they do present a danger.
- Tractors can be set to Autorepulse. In this mode they automatically push enemy ships (including Reapers), boarding shuttles, mines, (and soon asteroids and comets!) away from your ship. Entering minefields just got a lot easier!
- Ships will autorepulse other ships in formation that are being attacked (if in range)
- You must choose between autorepulse, autotractor, or manual tractoring.
- Disabled ships are not autotractored; use a Tractor Retrieve action instead. Tractor Retrieve can be used on a disabled or abandoned ship, which automatically pulls the ship in for a transfer, allowing you to cherry pick what to bring over from the wreck.
- Tractors do not hold ships through jump, but if a tractor beam is equipped on a ship that can seize, the Tractor Seize command will tractor in a seizable target and then automatically seize it which will hold it through jump.
- Enemy boarding shuttles that are retrieved by a tractor will face a boarding action; it’s because of this that boarding shuttles are not autotractored.
PRECISE POSITIONING:
All movement commands now give you the ability to precisely choose where the ship will position itself with respect to the target.
Hold down the CTRL key while left clicking any movement order such as Attack, Follow, Support, Protect, Nuke, etc. to enable precise positioning.
This also works with multiple ships and formations.
NEW SHIPS:
The Irenic Argosy is the Irenic ship of plenty, capable of manufacturing Intoxicants and Snacks that can be sold at any trade location for a handsome profit.
The Pact Armored Refueler or ARF is a smaller tanker that can also package spare fuel into cargo containers for rapid resupply in combat or sale at trade outposts. As its name indicates, this ship is also lightly armored. Good doggie.
MAINTENANCE AND CANNIBALIZING SHIPS:
Dealing with ships that have been forced way past their normal operating limits has always been part of XO. This used to be totally random, and not very fair as pointed out by a few players.
We have heard you! In 1.45 we’ve reworked all of those events with a maintenance simulation that puts interesting choices into your hands.
Here’s how it works:
Once you are deeper into a run, Industryships, Farmships and Cargoships will begin to notify you that they require maintenance.
Maintenance requires one day and spare parts. Spare parts are relatively cheap and can be obtained through trade, by activating distress beacons, or by cannibalizing other ships using a Pirate boarding party.
You can choose to defer maintenance on a ship, but the more jumps you wait the more likely something bad will happen to that ship.
Once you install spare parts on a ship that needs maintenance, it will no longer require maintenance for the rest of the run.
The longer your run, the more ships in your fleet will require maintenance.
If you choose to cannibalize a ship for spare parts, that ship becomes Gutted. Gutted ships cannot jump by themselves (unless spare parts have been re-installed aboard). Note that Disabled ships can be gutted.
This new mechanic (see what I did there) replaces all random ship disaster events that used to disable Industryships, Farmships and Cargoships.
At this point just about anything bad that can befall your fleet is now preventable, and also addressable before things get too out of hand.
It will probably need some balancing and other tweaks, but I look forward to hearing your feedback!
BALANCE:
Added an impossible/insane mode medal for dying without pausing. Hint: use that pause!
Boarding shuttles can now be used against other boarding shuttles
The Rover Fixer, Empire Miner and Corp Extractor gained a cargo slot
Reduced water use on Irenic Casino ships
Mining lasers no longer increase in price during a run
Fleet ships can now be seized even when not abandoned or disabled
Your chances for coming across ore-producing ships were greatly increased
Industrial shipyards are a little more balanced
Hailing disabled, defended ships with non-warships now gives more interesting results
Crews in stasis are better accounted for in events. For example, a boarding party in stasis no longer defends against an attacking boarding party, and ships with passengers in stasis no longer demand food in events.
Timers give even more time when trying to reach a destination in another sector
Lasers can now be added to MegaFixers
Trade items are more balanced with less duplication
Laying minefields no longer triggers automatic enemy ship aggressive actions, but being hit by a mine sure does
Having a second battleship no longer adds additional fuel or water capacity
Boarding shuttles gain the same vector as the launching ship when launched
Added a few new enemy tractor events like cargo stealing pirates that use tractor beams
Did a full logic rework on boarding actions for consistency
QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS
We added better camera control. The scroll wheel no longer selects ships, instead it zooms all the way in to a ship and quite a ways up and out. Looking forward to hearing your feedback on this one!
Right clicking with selected ship(s) automatically moves them to a waypoint, not sure why it took me so long to do this lol
Temporarily exceeding your ore capacity while paused (by melting weapons, using ore cargo, etc) is now allowed so that ship actions that take more ore than your current capacity can be started
Stasis can now be controlled by selecting and right clicking your stasis-capable ship
Many ship items (such as repairbots) can also be used by right clicking the ship they are equipped on, giving you easier control
The game now pauses automatically after the battleship jumps in (before the rest of the fleet arrives) -- this can be toggled on or off in Options from the Esc menu
Ship abilities and benefits have been made clearer and easier to see, both when scanning and also when hovering a ship in your fleet list
Timers (at least, those with negative consequences) can be immediately skipped, triggering the consequences immediately
Choices can now be selected by using the number of the choice
Weapon hardpoints, gunboat hangars and cargo holds are better explained in the UI
Seized ships now sit in more logical locations, making them easier to select
Ships added to the fleet now immediately have a grey icon added to the fleet list so you can add them to a formation without having to wait for the entire new ship animation to complete
We added better camera movement during jump, visual improvements to weapon range ring, and added boarding party types to passengers in stasis
Made improvements to the Captain’s Guide and updated info for 1.45
A ship’s class is now shown on the scan dialog
Fleet ship details are now available in the starmap
The formation editor now shows a formation’s speed and flags slow ships
If a ship is repaired between a destroy order being issued and the weapon being fired, don’t destroy the ship when hit, just damage it
Faction leader actions no longer work if the leader is in stasis
Gunboats continue to be repaired through jump
Individual mines can how be hovered
The main menu got a little more active
Non-formation ships are a little better about not jumping in on one another
BUGS
Harvested worlds no longer steal a trade event in sector 1
Several exploits closed off
Stuck jumpgate(s) unstuck
Log improvements
Sending feedback now shows progress
Trade event bugs were fixed
Literally dozens and dozens of other bugs were fixed
WHAT'S NEXT?
In 1.46 we’ll add space hazards, at least one new ship, more events, plus the usual QOL and balance improvements and maybe a surprise or two!