Hey Galactic Survivalists!
January comes to its end, but we are just about to start. With Alpha 5.2 we kept fixing bugs and adding more improvements to gameplay elements and a range of visuals. You can now enjoy an all new water shader, smoothened blending of terrain textures and, although Valentine's Day is still half a month away, a greatly beautified sunset and sunrise. ;-)
In our ongoing effort to improve the HV, we added a new assistant for drilling: If you want to dig a straight tunnel or slope, just use the new Fixed Drilling Mode (FDM). Incline your HV at any angle and activate fixed mode with SHIFT-O. This comes of the expense of being limited to WASD + up/down movement at the moment, but should be of great help for any underground work. If you feel limited, just deactivate the FDM and you are free to test your skills in FREE drilling mode as before.
For builders, we have also fixed the movement of the Player Drone. Farmers may find self-growing fiber very helpful and if you feel like you need to not only heat up the air, just make use of our improved laser weapons, for example of the all new Tier 2 Laser Pistol (incl. Scope)
More changes, improvements and refinements can be found below.
Please report any bug to this forum thread: Empyriononline.com
Last but not least, again we would like to thank all our Experimental testers for testing the pre-release version during the last days. You are a huge help for is in getting a polished version out to the public. Keep up the great work!
Thanks a lot in advance!
Cheers,
Empyrion Dev Team
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Changelog: Alpha 5.2 (Build 841)
New HV Drill Behavior:
- Added first version of "fixed drilling mode" FDM for easier HV drilling: press Shift-O to activate FDM
> with FDM activated, the HV will stay at the exact inclination and rotation as when the buttons were pressed
> press Shift+O to de-activate FDM
> in HUD it shows: Drill Mode: Free / Fixed
- If FDM is not activated, the the z-rotation of the HV is fixed as well -> no rolling anymore
- Auto-level O still works as before in Free mode
-> let us know what you think about the new drill behavior
Improved Laser Rifle and Pistol:
- Much faster projectiles (actually instant hit) and overall buff (damage, RoF etc)
-> let us know what you think
Improved Water Shader:
- We added a detailed reflection probe so that the environment is reflected in the water
- Added new "Medium" quality option for Sky Reflections (old "High" setting)
- We recommend using the new High quality option for Sky Reflections only on very good graphics cards
Texture Arrays for Terrain:
- We added a first version of texture array for terrain which ensures better blending of terrain textures
- Texture arrays are only active with VRAM >= 4GB
New Settings in Creative Mode:
- Added new Creative Setting on Akua, Omicron and Orbit
-> Thanks to our community creators for their awesome builds - we used some of the stock prefabs and some POIs for the new creative setting
Improved Controller of Player Drone:
- Added auto-level to player drone. Per default, the player drone only rotates around y-axis (vertical axis) on planets which improves the steering of the player drone.
- Deactivate auto-level by pressing "O"
- In space, the player drone behaves as before
More Vivid Colors on Several Playfields:
- We removed the Atmosphere fog on several playfields which results in more vivid colors (please note that Atmosphere fog is disabled if intensity in playfield.yaml is smaller or equal 0.5)
- In addition, we improved the sunset / sunrise settings on several playfields by introducing a new parameter in playfield.yaml: “SkyHorizonColor”
-> Let us know what you think of the new visuals on eg Akua, Ningues, Oscutune, Masperon and Skillon
Changed LCD Sign Editing:
- Sign editing done in own window (incl. Back-to-Control-Panel button if allowed)
- Control Panel now only shows text preview and has access button for editing
- LCD signs can now use a code lock
- Updated LCD symbols page: Wingamestore.com (thanks to Frigidman for creating this page)
Additions:
- Added new T2 laser pistol
- Added new NPC to Ningues: Oviraptor
- Replaced hover booster with better model
- Replaced Sniper T1 with better model
- Replaced texture tool with better model
- Added Fiber as growable plants to BA / CV
- Added long version of colorable and texturable stairs
- Added new orbital trading stations for Akua and Omicron. Thanks to Runningwithhamster and Dinkelsen.
- Added new stock prefab SV Tier 5 - Thanks to Ashrai and new HV Tier 6 - thanks to McFluffFace
Visuals:
- Tweaked terrain of Akua: integrated larger planes
- Tweaked Asteroid Field 2 - Alien Outpost (fog less dense)
- Added better particle effect for ION cannons and plasma space drone
- Tweaked muzzle flashes on mounted weapons and turrets (+ added muzzle flashes where they were missing)
- Tweaked some sun flares
- Alien tree on Masperon now emits less firefly particles
- Tweak flare block - bit stronger flare
Improved Client-Server Communication:
- Clients show message if server does not receive their packages any more. Thus, you will now notice immediately if you have lost connection to the server, which means you can avoid playing in a “ghost world” where your progress will not be saved
- Limited size of packages sent by client to avoid client disconnects
- Added server config to disable Steam family sharers playing (only owner can play then)
- Optimized playfield server and client heartbeat checks
Changes:
- Better finger positioning on weapons in first-person view
- Tweaked scope model on Assault Rifle and Pistols
- Added better explosion effect to freighters when they self-destruct
- Added new scope overlay for Epic Laser Rifle and Epic Pistol
- Updated several preview icons -> especially components and weapons
- Optimized audio sources: we fixed problem that their sound could be heard from very far away (let us know if you notice something strange)
- Reduced flare size on projectiles (eg rockets etc)
- Weapon bobbing applied to both hands
- Tweaked Moon playfield: weapon range is reduced and it is now a PvE playfield
- Tweaked: Reduced intensity of flare on light SV
- Tweaked stock prefab SV Tier 4
- Tweaked Grime effect on lava planet: reduced emission of particles
- Tweaked deco: added more skeletons of dead animals.
- Added bullet tracers to Projectile Pistol T2
- Removed lense flare effect from Unity flare of worklight 01 + 02
- It is now possible to teleport in Y-axis in orbit
- Reduced engine sound of player drone
- Tweaked space fog
- Better aiming of turrets (not yet new targeting options)
- Marker blocks for drone and troop transport spawners are now also available in Creative mode
- Updated loading screenshots
- Tweak to shader of Talon NPC
- Reduced amount of underwater particles
- Added better info on how to use "replaceblocks" cmd
- Added more loading screenshots
- Updated Unity to 5.5.1
Bug Fixes:
- Possible fix for a majority of “connection lost problems”
- Fixed: Problem that sometimes players resurrected briefly at death location when using "spawn to medibay"
- Fixed: Waypoint / Registry Exploit
- Fixed: Problem that diving was not working and other related problems
- Fixed: Rockets (handheld weapon) did not shoot through crosshair if fired while pointing into air
- Fixed: Problem that ground fog on planets did not taken into account water and windows
- Fixed: Problem that NPCs were not hidden by fog, ie they rendered in front of ground fog
- Fixed: Problem of character micro-jumping / jittering on uneven terrain.
- Fixed: Copy / paste of multi-line LCD text replaces newlines by spaces
- Fixed: LCD usability: If text is longer than the preview window, text will jump down when editing at the top
- Fixed: LCD text preview / edit view don't show special symbols of LCD font
- Fixed: Problem that HV flipped over when drilling
- Fixed: Problem that camera clipped into weapon when going into sniper mode
- Fixed: "EnableMaxBlockCount: False" still prohibits putting a Blueprint with exceeding block count to Factory
- Fixed: Portable Worklight 1 showed a blue cone in pre-place mode
- Fixed: Harvester did not work in 1st person when "centered" on the tree
- Fixed: Problem that weapon model vanished when switching view while reloading
- Fixed: Sectors.yaml arrow missing / line glitches
- Fixed: 3rd Person: Helmet on/off lights up blocks, surfaces and other faces
- Fixed: Problem that freighters often spawn only partially (MP only)
- Partially fixed: Windows visible through fog
- Fixed multiple exceptions in Registry Window
- Fixed: Problem that Poly Count and Light Count of SV Stock Prefab Tier 3b was not shown.
- Fixed: Problem with LOD of Control Station
- Fixed: Gap in door of SV - flares and light could shine through closed door
- Fixed: Problem that weapon spotlight created a white spot in front of the tool/weapon
- Fixed: Problem that Ramp Blocks worked like lifts
- Fixed playfield server exception - trying to clean up already destroyed avatar
- Fixed: Problem that player drone could still could open player-dropped backpacks and emergency boxes
- Fixed: Sunshaft "Jump" when Time at 00:00 to Sunrise/Sunset - now much smoother transition
- Fixed Multitool: When switching via Radial Menu to another mode (eg deconstruct) - the beam does not shoot through crosshair anymore
- Possible fix for client exception when unloading a playfield
- Fixed: Problem that Corn Dog Snow was visible in Creative Menu
- Fixed: Problem that sound of different models were audible from very far away (flies, generator etc)
- Fixed: Several internal exceptions reported on support email
