Turret Improvements, Blueprints in Survival, Device Grouping in Control Panel news

Fellow Survivalists!

Many of you were wondering, what took us so long to release this patch. We are quite sure, the following feature updates are a great compensation for the waiting time: Targeting Options and overall Turret Improvements, Device Grouping and Blueprints in Survival!

Targeting Options and Turret Improvements

Targeting Options can now be set for each turret individually. With Pre Alpha 5.2 we are going to add the first four options. Those can be activated or deactivated in the console ( default: P) via checkbox:

• Other Factions: all other factions (private, public and player made factions)
• Prey: all non-aggressive animals (e.g. dinos on Akua). This also includes animals that attack you once you hurt them (e.g. Slimes)
• Predator: all aggressive animals that attack you (e.g. Desert Golem)
• Alien: Drones, Crogohm, Crawler, Armored Golem

As a small hint: the “other factions” setting will be split up in a more detailed setting in the future, like alliances, neutral factions and such!



Handling Notes:

• If you want to deactivate a turret, just de-select all targeting options.
• Turrets that are part of a player-build base or vessel in a PvE environment, will never shoot at other players or vessels, even if the “Other Factions” setting is checked. There is a small known issue, that will get fixed soon: If you capture an alien POI, switch the core and install your own turrets, your turrets will attack everything that does not belong to you (Private) or is not set to your faction.
• Turrets can be grouped in the console with the new Device Grouping feature, although the individual turret settings (like deactivating or changing targeting options) are not available yet. These will be added in an upcoming update!

In addition, we have implemented several other turret improvements as documented below in the changelog.

Please note: Currently, you need to re-activate every turret after changing playfields. This will also be addressed in the upcoming patch!

Device Grouping in Control Panel

If turning off your thrusters, while keeping the growing light and fridges active and all other lights off gave you headaches, Pre Alpha 5.2 has the cure! With this first feature release of Device Grouping, we are tipping everyone’s toe into the wonderful world of filling up your console with a slew of functional groups.

You can now create groups, add/remove devices, add devices to the last used group and switch the devices of this group off and on - given the devices you were grouping have an on/off switch!

This on/off switch, displayed as “ACTIVE” with a checkbox next to it, can be found on the top right corner of each of the group- or device-info windows: OFF = empty checkbox. ON = checkbox with a hook. If your groups devices have different on/off settings or devices missing an on/off option, the checkbox is showing a rectangle. Devices without an on/off state do not show an ACTIVE checkbox on their detail page at all.

Please note: if you create a new vehicle, all devices are listed in the “ungrouped” group by default.


With the addition of Device Grouping, the overall power-management has also slightly changed, reflecting the grouping options in a more granular power-management method. Y (default) will, as always, activate or deactivate your vessel. It will stay the main energy switch: if you want to shut down your vessel completely, hit Y (default) and everything will power down.

But if you want to switch a vessel to active state, this now behaves a little bit different, depending on your group- or individual device settings:

• If you created a group A and set all devices to ON, the main power switch will turn them off, as Y turns off the Core. Group A will automatically be turned on, if you hit Y and power up your vessel or base again.
• If you created a group B and set all devices to OFF, the main power switch will not turn them ON when powering up your base or vessel. You might have had a reason, why you did NOT want to have those devices to be turned on, when activating your vessel. If you want to activate group B while your vessel is already powered, just check the ACTIVE checkbox.
• All devices that are listed in the ungrouped-group, will be affected in the same way: Devices that were switched to OFF individually, won’t power up if you activate your vessel via Y (default)

Please note: if you add a new block or device to your vessel or base, its individual ACTIVE setting is ON by default!

Blueprints in Survival Mode

Always wanted to get rid of all the running around, constructing components and blocks while remembering how you had set up your supercool base or vessel the first time? Never again! With the addition of the (very early) blueprint management, you just need to remember the name of you blueprint!

Please note that the current blueprint management in Pre Alpha 5.2 is something like a version 0.5 feature release. There are a few more steps to go until this is fully finished, but we did not want to wait any longer and decided to give you something to play around with - and to test.

The new blueprint library:


That’s possible with the blueprint management in v5.2:

• Save a blueprint in Survival (rightALT+O by default) and select it from the Blueprint Library tab (F6 by default)
• Select a blueprint from the Library and click TO FACTORY button on the lower right of the screen. You’ll get switched to the factory tab automatically.
• The Factory tab gives you an overview of the resources need (counted in ingots) and the production time (based on the time it would take to craft all blocks needed with an advanced constructor, starting with ingots)
• If you produced a blueprint, you will automatically get switched back to the Blueprint Library tab. Your newly created vessel or base will sit on the top of the list.
• Select the blueprint and use the SPAWN button. You’ll notice a wireframe box in your view. If it is colored blue, you are free to place the blueprint!

Please note: resources added to the factory intake are stored for upcoming blueprint production. You can’t retrieve them from the factory (yet).

The factory menu:


Handling notes:

• Although the resources are displayed via “ingots needed”, the factory will allow you to add ANY block, device or component and break it down to ingots.
• If you add already refined blocks, devices or components, those will REDUCE the production time! If you would add the needed resources by adding all the finished blocks of the vessel, this would reduce the building time to nearly zero!
• If you Log-out or leave a playfield in Multiplayer, the production time will keep counting down!
• Each blueprint has a production level. The production level is currently set by the most advanced device in this blueprint build. As a result, your player level needs to match the production level to be able to build this blueprint.

Please note: the addition of a production level is the way to go for NOW. This will change to a more granular requirement as soon as possible.

We also added some stock blueprints to the game.

Capital Vessel:


Planetary Base:


Hover Vessel:


Small Vessel:


To point it out again: the blueprint management is a not-yet-finished-feature release. Some details will change, others might get added or refined, like a better blueprint-spawn preview for bases. Said that, we would like to grab your feedback on the question of blueprint production times in particular. Two possibilities for Singleplayer:

1. Shorter overall blueprint production time, but offline-time in Singleplayer not reflected and not counted in
2. Blueprint production time as it is calculated by now, but offline-time in Singleplayer reflected and counted in.

As always, please submit any bugs to our bug forums.

We hope you have great fun, playing around with those new additions!

Changelog Pre-Alpha 5.2:

Main Features:
1. Improved turret behavior
- Added possibility to select faction that a turret attacks (Other Factions, Prey, Predator, Alien)
- Better targeting for turrets: Turrets now pick up the closest target and don't get "distracted" with targets that are far away
- Attack range of turret is now dependent on type of turret (e.g. CV artillery turret can shoot up to 1000m)
- Increased attack range from 500m to 1000m for alien turrets in space
- Increased attack range of enemy turrets on planets (now they should have higher range than SV weapons)
- Enemy turrets stop shooting when player leaves their attack range (before enemy turrets started shooting on player SV at 300m but continued shooting until player SV was further away than 500m)
- Increased detection angle of turrets to 360°, i.e., now turrets can detect enemies in a full circle
- Increased vertical rotation limits of turrets and thus better targeting
- Improved manual turret handling (before you could manually "overturn" the turret, e.g. by moving mouse above the max vertical rotation limit. The result was that the turret go stuck for a while when you moved mouse back again)
- Increased overall rotation speed of turrets. In addition, rotation speed is now dependent on type of turret (e.g., fast moving minigun turret and slow moving artillery turret)
- Turrets now ignore dead targets

2. Blueprints in Survival:
- Now you can spawn your blueprints in Survival mode
- Added simple stock blueprints

3. Device Grouping in Control Panel
- Added possibility to group items in the control panel
- In addition, now you can power on/off single devices and whole groups in the Control Panel (e.g. you can now group thrusters and turn them off separately)

Sleeker design of CV turrets:


Changes / Improvements:
- Atmosphere density now influences range of all weapons (e.g. SV weapons have short range on planets and long range in space)
- Added possibility to run 2 Dedicated servers simultaneously on 1 machine (before playfield server did not correctly connect to the dedicated server)
- Added more variance to atmosphere density among playfields
- Added ground fog on Masperon and Aitis
- Added many new community builds as POIs (thanks to Dead8Eye)
- Added new CV in Creative Orbit (thanks to Xentor)
- Converted many neutral POIs into Alien POIs
- Updated model of door BA / CV / SV
- Updated model of cockpit CV
- Updated model of open passenger seat CV / SV
- Updated model of water generator
- Replaced turret CV rocket with larger version (now lvl 20). The old (smaller) version is still on your CVs but it is not craftable anymore
- Adapted all turret CVs - they are now less high and thus fit better to your CVs
- Adapted color of consoles to better match hull texture
- Added more hitpoint / armor to warp drive
- Tweaked attack animation off alien bugs
- Improved trail effects on plasma weapons
- Promethium ground texture and promethium ore resource are now slightly glowing - Added different colors of illuminated block
- Updated grid in space map
- Temporarily deactivated docking pad (CV)

The engine room with its warp drive of the new Nexus (in Creative Mode):


Bug Fixes:
- Fixed problem that it was not possible to confirm a faction application if leader is in in a different playfield
- Fixed problem that faction names/abbreviations can't be used even if last player leaves the faction (faction already used)
- Fixed texture stretching on cockpits
- Fixed problem that blueprint sometimes were cut off after saving (in the case that devices were placed at the boundaries of the blueprint)
- Fixed problem that SV/HV became undocked if set to public on a private/faction CV and falling through CV while liftoff
- Fixed problem that feet of a seated player were sometimes visible from the outside
- Fixed block line tool not working in some cases (e.g., relatively often in space)
- Fixed problem that player models looked broken (arms) when holding a weapon while sitting in an open passenger seat
- Fixed problem that after 2nd automatic reload of a weapon bullets got lost
- Fixed problem that if you left a 1-2 blocks gap behind cockpit and above core, relogin to a server sometimes placed you inside this trap and killed you
- Fixed problem that sometimes a player was ejected into space at high speed after login
- Fixed problem that pressing LMB/RMB in ship while empty slot is activated caused error
- Fixed problem that weapon sound loop occurred after emptying a handheld weapon and entering a SV/HV/CV + switching it on
- Fixed error when flattening terrain and immediately afterwards placing starter block
- Fixed problem that sometimes the map button icon disappeared
- Fixed problem that sometimes tech tree was empty after opening
- Fixed problem that player's unlock points on unlocking an item did not correctly refresh

The new ground fog:


Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next update

Empyrion Dev Team