Hello, fellow commanders!
These few days were dedicated to the most common feedback points so far: difficulty and lack of a comprehensive tutorial.
Game Difficulty
Here is how the difficulties were affected:
1. The first ("normal") difficulty got significantly easier
2. The second ("hard") difficulty is now slightly easier
3. The third difficulty is more or less the same
Also keep in mind that you can always set your custom difficulty by adjusting the individual settings - different people enjoy different challenges. I, for one, enjoy a slower pace game (world progression), but also a very hard economy setting so it is harder to get stronger for me too.
It is not only about adjusting the individual settings, but also about introducing new mechanics into the game. For example, the Cult got a new ability to replace an outdated planetary guard with a new squad, but it will also cost it more points to do so. The player can now deploy AUX units in more missions, sometimes in larger quantities.
The scavenging trait (pilot skill) rework is also going to make the game easier.
Tutorials
This game is meant to be explored with a slower pace. The game will try to give you contextual hints if it knows you're missing something, but at the same time it will also try not to overwhelm you by trying to explain the stuff you might not care about.
With that being said, it is still obvious that it is unfair to expect some pre-existing knowledge of gaming conventions I used in the game. But I can't give you a gentle staged introduction. In the world like this, you get a manual. Well, it's more of a guide as it tries to be short and on-point, instead of going into the deepest details.
You are not supposed to read through all of it. Is is there to fill the gaps if you are stuck at some specific part of the game. For instance, if you couldn't find how to edit the software and play with coding in this game.
Ah, and I'm also improving the tooltips, fixing the wording, etc. The in-game manual is like a last resort thing, if no other clue was successful.
Changelog
* Added "vessel export" option to the campaign
* Made active quest pins non-removable
* Added 2 new government quests
* Added an metaprogression-unlocked item checkmark near the price
* Fixed some crashes (thanks go to the players that sent the crash traces)
* Fixed a fast travel bug - now it should work all the time
* Made cult detector module more affordable, try it out
* Items acquired through quests and missions are now properly saved to metaprogression
* Scavenging can now give you a random enemy vessel part after battle
* Fixed bots weird use of burst-firing weapons at high INT values
* Added some hotkeys to the astroscape (J, R, F - all rebindable)
* Added an in-game manual
* Adjusted the existing difficulty settings and their values
* Introduced more Cult-related limits so they're not as deadly on lower difficulties