Greetings, captains!
The new demo version, now live, has a number of features that unfortunately weren't ready for NextFest, as well as some that were requested by the players in their well thought-out and useful responses.
Secondary batteries (including the Scout Corvette's starting armament) no longer reset their target after they've emptied their magazine. This was a constant complaint, and quite valid. The best tactics is still to hold fire until the enemy is close enough that most shots will actually hit, so captains are advised to use Cease Fire or simply fire manually for optimal effect.
I've added a trajectory marker for the ship's auto-pilot. When active, if the ship's current velocity is not what the autopilot wants, a yellow marker is displayed in the game world. I think this conveys much better what the auto-pilot is trying to do, and gives a better sense of the player's interaction with the system. More autopilot UI improvements are likely in the near future.
Also, the trajectory marker system now has 4 operating modes. The default is what's already there - show the trajectory for the player and the current target. All-vs-target shows the trajectories of all objects relative to the current target, and all-vs-self -- all objects relative to the player's ship. Off hides all trajectory markers from the UI. You can use the button on the top-right of the screen to switch between these modes.
And of course minor tweaks and fixes, as usual.
For the next update, expect some changes to the game's propulsion mechanics. I hope to come up with something that's both tactically deep, interesting to use, as well as less frustrating and easier to understand. We'll see how that goes.
Thanks for reading
The dev