Physics/CPU optimizations: rewrote physics code to prevent lag spirals during CPU-heavy calculations such as large ship collisions (~80% reduction). Distant ships now stop calculating unnecessary physics much sooner (~9x reduction). Skipped calculating overlap for colliders that did not use it anyway.
Redesigned starter Outpost.
Reworked universe generation engine: planet radii now use a more consistent scaling of approx. 1:100 to real life, and star radii and distances 1:1000 (for reference, the starter planet is now 5x larger than before). This also comes with a regenration of the default star system.
Increased cruise mode max speed from 200 to 800km/s.
Cruise mode throttle and speed now follow an exponential pattern.
Dark side of terrestrial planets is now actually black when viewed from space.
Added water and oceans to lush terrestrial planets with varying odds of how much of the planet is covered (mostly visual, there are watery footsteps but you can’t go inside).
Added 8 terrestrial planet variations, 3 dwarfs, and all spectral star types. Each subtype has different colors, terrain conditions, and sizes that all vary within the subtype, so every celestial body is unique.
A ‘Test Flight’ option in the ship builder now allows you to spawn inside your ship in-game immediately for testing, both on the ground and in space.
Gravity levels are now accurate (to scale) and dependent on a celestial body’s size and density.
Default planet is now Miata d as it is further away from the star, making sense for a lush planet in the habitable zone range. Miata the star itself is now a spectral G-type to match our real-life Sol.
Ships landing on terrain (outside of launchpads) will now shut down their engines automatically and remain stable on the ground.
Added toggle cruise mode to the keybinds window on PC.
Updated distance at which various planet types will cause a mass lock (and cruise mode to emergency stop).
https://starcrestgame.com now contains a graph for average and max player counts over a configurable period.
Ship HUD’s altitude slider will now show an indicator where the mass lock is.
Added fuel consumption for cruise mode based on ship mass (independent of speed).
Dropping out of cruise mode now gives you max normal speed. Emergency drop still goes to 0.
Updated shaders to make the disconnect between surface and atmosphere sunrise ring less noticeable on smaller planets.
Reworked planet terrain LOD system to make color transitions a lot less noticeable.
Earth-like ('Lush') planets are now the only ones with breathable atmospheres.
HUD will display a visual ‘Low Fuel’ alert when hydrolox levels drop below 15%.
Various notifications and alerts are now shown in the cockpit HUD (many instead of the screen-space notifications meant for non in-universe info).
Planet surface footstep sounds will now match the actual material type, and added rock and sand footstep sound variations to match new surface types.
Added a warning to the pilot seat HUD for imminent emergency drops in cruise mode.
RCS thrusters are now 4x as powerful as before, making them 1/9th of the power of the small hydrolox thruster.
You can no longer spam jump to go up vertical walls.
Increased the PCU cost of basic blocks from 1 to 3.
Player HUD like oxygen are now hidden in third-person.
Master server restarts and outages (though so far very rare) will now allow running sessions to continue and reconnect automatically; whereas before it would force restart everything always.
Fixed atmosphere of terrestrial planets dissapearing when viewed from over 1Mm away.
Fixed performance issues related to vegetation when flying fast and low.
Fixed roll and strafe ship controls being anchored to the wrong side of the screen.
Fixed ship builder parts hotbar not being in the correct position on widescreen devices, and not being scrollable properly on ‘shorter' devices.
Fixed race condition if you exit the pilot seat whilst the animation was still playing.
Fixed conflicting gravity issue when inside a ship inside another ship.
Fixed ships with large amounts of basic blocks causing an exponential amount of lag related to cruise control mass lock evaluations.
Fixed ships resting on terrain causing physics jitter.
Fixed clouds from showing over dark terrain when viewed at an angle.
Fixed footsteps and head bob pausing for too long when landing after jumping while running.
Fixed being unable to go back online in the same session once having pressed ‘Continue Offline’ at any point, even when the connection has since been succesful.
Fixed vegetation sometimes appearing mid-air for a split second while flying at high speeds.