Masteroid v1.2 Released

Hi Masteroid players,

Today I pushed v1.2 of Masteroid live - the third update since the game was released on Steam and the seventeenth release since I first shipped the game to alpha players. Read on to see all of the changes in this release!

Own Multiple Ships

Big ships are fun for destroying stuff but move slow. Small ships are agile and fast but can't take a lot of damage. Own them all and choose the right ship for the job: selling a ship no longer automatically trades in your existing ship. Instead, extra ships are stored in the station garage and can be swapped at any time. A ship must have an empty cargo hold and be undamaged to store. All weapons are automatically stripped from the ship when it is stored.

Warp Using Warp Gates

Previously, ships could warp out from anywhere. This made it easy to cheese combat by simply warping when you were in trouble. Additionally, ships could simply warp out and their destinations were unpredictable. Now warping happens through a warp gate in each sector. A new "trader" AI type flies back and forth between stations and warp gates - serving as prime targets for piracy-inclined players. Activity around warp gates is always exciting and opportunists may find a lot of free cargo!

Faction Aggression

Factions are now more aggressive towards each other (and by extension, the player). Enjoy more chaotic space battles and keep an eye on your reputation!

Faster Progression

Asteroids drop slightly more resources and bonus asteroids drop a lot more resources. Space station prices for both repairs and cargo change more frequently and can have higher min/max values. Paying attention to unit costs at stations is more important! Finally, sectors are busier in general. Exploit these opportunities to progress faster!

Sector Progression

New games start with fewer sectors but new faction sectors unlock faster when leveling up with a faction.

Quality of Life (QoL) and Other Improvements

• Players can now overtake enemies more easily - previously it was really hard to catch up with ships of the same class.
• The game now shows a grid when you are near a sector edge so it's easier to see where you will take radiation damage.
• Total ship count for newly-generated sectors has increased (more targets, more activity, more opportunity).
• Factions sometimes offer Level Zero missions (but you still can't take missions at negative reputation) so you can take on missions right away in a new game.

Bugfixes

• Fixed bug where game can crash if you try to warp while dead.
• Fixed some bad hint text
• Improved performance (required for more sector ships)
• Fixed rare game crash when generating transport missions
• Fixed issues with NPC AI type balance
• Fixed rare bug where fleet wingman AI crashed the game

As always, thank you for playing Masteroid. Your positive reviews really help little indies like me get some visibility and motivate me to keep adding features!

Thanks,
Justin