This began as a hotfix, but then I started messing around with some new weapon ideas. So alongside the bug fixes, there are now a load of quality-of-life improvements and some new toys to play with.
The Ice Fabricator is a new utility weapon that sprays walls of ice into space.
You can box in enemies, block off an approach, or build yourself some cover to hide behind. It creates a completely different style of play that will hopefully appeal to some players.
I spent a lot of time making sure the ice behaves properly, so it cannot be stamped directly against a hull or used to shove ships around.
Inspired by the ice walls, I finally worked out how to make the flamethrower-style weapons feel more distinct and fun.
Instead of disappearing immediately, their projectiles now slow down and linger, painting space with fire, frost or plasma that continues damaging any enemies that enter it.
Their range is slightly shorter to account for the new lingering behaviour, but they now work properly as area-denial weapons.
If you enjoy Beacons, Holo Drives or reanimated ships, this update includes a lot of improvements for them.
Tapping an active Beacon or Holo Drive now sends its ships directly towards your cursor, allowing you to reposition your fleet with a single tap. They will continue firing while moving and prioritise your locked target, so they will focus fire instead of wandering off after whatever catches their attention.
Tethered and reanimated ships are now coloured according to your ship slot, meaning you can pick their colors. Beacons and Holo Drives now share the same visual effects, and dismissed Mirror Image ships shimmer gracefully out of existence instead of exploding.
On a final note, some players wanted me to remove the level 100 cap so they could keep playing. I'm not comfortable doing that in the base game as it would disrupt my end game plans. However, I've added a mod to the workshop that removes the cap and allows you to play New Game+ forever if you wish.
Full details of the update are listed below. Enjoy, and let me know what you think of the ice walls!
• Added 1 x new utility weapon Ice Fabricator that sprays walls of ice.
• Flamethrower, Cryo Gun and Plasmathrower can leave lasting elemental patches.
• Holo Drive is now unique, so only one can be equipped at a time.
• Spray weapon range is now slightly lower as projectiles slow and linger.
• Tapping an active Beacon or Holo Drive now sends its ships to your cursor.
• Beacon / Holo Drive ships now attack your locked target first.
• Tethered and reanimated ships are now colored by your ship slot.
• Beacons and Holo Drive ships now share the visual effect.
• Dismissed Mirror Image ships now shimmer away instead of exploding.
• Equipment resistances now show your true value in brackets when over the cap.
• Sector generation is over 4x faster by checking link overlaps nearest-first.
• Skirmish stars now complete when the last enemy ship is reanimated.
• Reanimated Gateway Disruptors now count as destroyed.
• Ships summoned by an Elite no longer explode with it if they were reanimated.
• Reanimated ships no longer show as Gateway Disruptors to other players.
• Holding fire no longer toggles the Pollen Spreader or Smog Exhaust back off.
• Grapple tethers now sever when the tethered ship jumps out of the star.
• Reanimated ships no longer jump away when their beacon goes on cooldown.
• Mind-controlled and reanimated ships now color their Assault blades too.
• Mind-controlled and reanimated ships attack without displaying red warnings.
• The Trade panel is now disabled while editing a ship so keys cannot sell gear.
• Fixed map loot icons not clearing until you left and re-entered an area.
• Shots still in flight when a ship despawns no longer hit friendly ships.
• Friendly ships no longer shed enemy debuffs onto your fleet when killed.
• GameShip.ApplyMindControl and Reanimate now take the conversion color.
• New Equippable.GetSlotDisplayColor decodes slot hue triplets to RGB.
• Added IceFormation voxel walls, IceBeam and the IceFabricator item class.
• New net messages IceUpdate (74) and IceDepositRequest (75); StarSnapshot ices.
• GameShip.netDespawnMaterialize flags a shimmer-out despawn on the wire.
• New AIShip.SetMoveOrder and SetPriorityTarget drive summon AI externally.
• New HUDMoveOrder ping and InputController.GetCursorWorldPoint helper.
• New Damageable.Resistance*Uncapped properties expose pre-cap resistances.
• New poolable BurningSpace area component; FuzzyProjectile spawns and slows.
• New Star.MarkContainersChanged bumps the map changed time for map UIs.