Demo Updates
First, I want to thank the hundreds of you who tried our demo last weekend. Most especially, I want to thank those who provided us with your feedback. Your bug reports, suggestions, and constructive criticisms are helping us make the game better, please keep them coming!
We’ve already incorporated much of that feedback into the main branch, and I’m excited to let you know we’ve also brought many of the quality-of-life, bug fixes, balance changes, and improvements to combat and immersion over to the demo branch as well for you to try!
Thank you all for your support on this journey, and please keep your feedback coming!
Demo v2 Full Changelog:
Space Combat
Overworld Ships Engage Each Other - Pirates will now hunt down civilian and corporate ships besides the player, and militia, corpsec, and navy ships will try to engage pirates while on patrol
Third Team in Space Combat - space combat now supports neutral fleets for larger engagements
Normalize Cannon Reload Times - cannon reload time has been normalized across all ships. Ships with more guns (and more crew to reload them) no longer take longer to fire a volley than smaller ships with less guns and less crew.
Strafe/Retros Affected by Engine Health - the power of maneuvering thrusters is affected by engine health
Torpedo Ability Changes - Torpedoes are now launched independently of the bow cannons and have their own reload time
Inverse Turn Speed - turn speed inversely proportional to forward velocity. IE, the slower you are moving, the faster you can turn, and vice-versa.
Afterburners - added afterburners to all ships, activated by pressing the SHIFT key. Afterburners provide a temporary speed boost while active, with a chance to malfunction if engine health is low
Space Combat starts with enemy fleet focused - space combat camera now starts facing the enemy rather than a beauty shot of your squadron
Improved Space Combat Behaviors - improved the intelligence of enemy combat behavior. Now it should be harder to kite enemies, and faster ships will break formation to take advantage of their speed to flank you.
Ground Combat
Sniper Nest Skill - with this skill, characters equipped with sniper rifles treat half cover as full cover if the enemy shooting them is at a lower elevation
Suppressing Fire Skill - with this skill, machine gun shots apply an accuracy debuff to targeted enemies, even if the shot misses
High-ground aim advantage - units at higher elevation than their target receive a small bonus to shooting accuracy
UI/UX
Funds displayed on Crew Menu - available funds now displayed on crew menu. Morale level moved to morale report.
Auto-assign hired Officer if available - when hiring an officer, they will be automatically assigned to the role fitting their archetype if the position is empty on your ship.
Comparison arrows in Shipyard - added upgrade/downgrade comparison arrows when comparing ships in the shipyard
Cannon pips tick down while firing - each cannon pip on the ship cannon status UI now ticks down individually as the cannon it represents fires
Bug Fixes
Bug fix: pirate bounties - fixed an issue preventing players from turning in completed bounties to the tavernkeeper at the Nix Spaceport
Bug fix: wholesale swapping of offhand weapons not in inventory - fixed an issue where swapping weapons with a sword and pistol equipped broke the inventory screen
Loot container state persistence - hidden loot containers on spaceports no longer replenish every day
QoL: Face system center when leaving planet - your ship now starts facing the system center when leaving planet (no more having to make a U-turn every time you take off)
Dialogue text speed option - added an option to customize dialogue text speed. Increased default setting by 50%
Left-click on a selected action button confirms actions with only one valid target - for actions with only 1 valid target (e.g. sentry, reload, etc.), clicking the action button a second time now executes the action. Right click cancels
Autosave after Space Combat - the game now autosaves after leaving space combat. Autosave slots increased from 2 to 4
Only Player Character initiates dialogue - The player no longer has to shout at NPC’s from across the Spaceport just because a crewmember reached them first
Party Banter - your officers will now share their
complaintsthoughts with you when exploring planets