Demo installer for Evochron Legacy SE version 2.0388...
Version 2.0388 includes the following improvements:
- Added holographic banners (five directional projections) to cities.
- Added ability to apply custom names to player-built cities (see notes).
- Added city specific save state parameters to enable respawning at any city.
- Upper HUD image index updated to reduce vertical size and video memory consumption.
- Updated asteroid icon on nav map to reduce obstruction and scale better with zoom levels.
- Added 'City' label to highlight details on nav map to better distinguish city names from planets.
- Added ability to require minimum hull damage level and minimum fuel level to quest event directives.
- Added options to specify damage levels to subsystems and hull in quest event directives 12-14 and 99.
- VR system updated to better align viewpoint position alignment with head movement and rotation for all scaling levels.
- Updated hangar inventory and ship item lists with left-justified numbers to align with other lists.
- Message log lines now always crop when console is open (preventing layering issues with buttons).
- ILS guidance ranging for secondary cities expanded to 100K from 10K (primary still prioritized).
- Quest direction indicators now show on HUD and radar when destination is outside current sector.
- Quest destination indicator on nav map now also displayed in quadrant mode.
- Added text file option to adjust rate of movement for cockpit structures.
- Reduced shield recharger energy consumption and increased charge rate.
- Reduced afterburner drive energy consumption by about 300%.
- Font changes for improved legibility and clarity.
- Minor improvements and fixes.
Notes:
The ability to apply custom names has been added to player-built cities and works much like the space station command module naming system. When creating a city command module, the naming option appears and you can type in a desired name for the city you are building. Then when the city is highlighted on the nav map, its name and faction affiliation will appear. When the cities were originally established for the game over 10 years ago, this capability was not in place, but cities were given their host planet's name for the same field now used for this new option. So all default cities will carry the matching planet's name, but will also now use numerical sequencing along with a new 'City' label to help distinguish them from the planet they are on. The main trade city on a planet (the '+' indicator on the nav map) will have just its name displayed. All additional cities will have a sequential number after their name. So for example, the main trade city on Pearl will be displayed as 'Pearl (ALC) City' while the second city will be displayed as 'Pearl-2 (ALC) City' and so on. If you give two or more cities on a planet the same name, this same numerical distinction will apply while unique custom names will be displayed on their own. All faction link mechanisms remain in place, the displayed name can now simply be unique to each built city.
City specific save state parameters have now been integrated into the profile template, which enables the ability to respawn at different cities. Previously, the player's ship would be migrated to the local main trade city on a planet at each respawn, rather than a specific city the player may have saved at. It was originally set up this way to better account for cities that might not exist between servers or between single player and multiplayer. This new system keeps track of specific city placements relative to planet rotation and existance states upon startup, which allows for respawning at the same city you save at. If you respawn at a city that doesn't exist in a new universe you start in, the game will either default to the main trade city as before, or place you near the planet out in space at a safe distance if no cities exist at all on the planet.
The same holographic banners on stations have been added to cities as well and will update with sector control conditions. So any time you take over a sector with a new command module, the city banners will be updated to match the station's. This helps to visually distinguish which faction a city is linked to without requiring the player to hold the pointer over a city icon on the nav map.
The asteroid field icon has been updated to reduce obstruction of other icons on the nav map and to provide a more complete indication of coverage area. The texture is also now looped/tiled at different levels to better align with various zoom settings and there is now a slight 3D shape to the icon (more visible in VR).
The shield recharger has been updated to operate differently by request. First, the device now uses significantly less energy while also applying a higher level of array recharging. Additionally, the device now operates smoothly rather than in pulses, so it transfers energy in much smaller consistent increments without the staged application nor chirping sound of the earlier system. And it also now displays an indicator on the HUD when active (much like the anti-missile system).
You can now adjust the level of movement for cockpit structures with a text file named 'ccpitmove.txt' in either the save data folder ('\Documents\EvochronLegacySE') or the '\media' folder inside the game's installation folder and in the first line, enter a value for the level of movement. The default value is 1.0 and you can set it to 0.0 for no movement or a higher value for more movement.
The VR system has been updated to more precisely align viewpoint changes that occur when the player rotates and moves their head. The new system should provide consistent behavior across the entire range of optional scaling parameters. These changes will likely affect one existing parameter, which may need adjustment to accommodate the offset corrections applied in this version. The 'HeadHeight' value may need to be changed if not left at the default -1.25 value. So for VR users, adjusting this value in the 'media\vrsetup.txt' file may be needed after installing this update.