Evochron Legacy is a freeform space flight simulation that focuses on 'lone-wolf' survival gameplay and pilot controlled spacecraft management. The environment setting is a vast seamless style universe where you can perform many activities including buying, trading, spying, racing, escorting, delivering, emergency responding, mining, exploring, weapon/equipment crafting, cleaning solar panels, clearing paths through asteroid fields, recruiting, protecting, hiring crew members, fuel harvesting, building stations/cities, and designing/selling ships. Some objectives are part of the game's contract system with established parameters and pay levels while others are available for you to set up on your own terms through your choices of where to go, what to do, and how to do it.
Demo installer for Evochron Legacy SE version 2.0448...
Version 2.0448 includes the following improvements:
- Added ability to install fulcrum jump drive and cruise drive at the same time (see notes).
- Added dedicated key/button binding options for separate cruise drive and maximum range jump control.
- Changed Alt key option in maplog to support dragging and dropping entries rather than only topping them.
- Labels on HUD gunsight, IDS indicator, and weapon firing mode centered and revised for improved clarity.
- Shape specific hull/direction status indicators for station and city modules added to target detail cockpit display.
- Added new optional 'Spears' and 'None' motion indicator modes to HUD (Options > 3D Cockpit > HUD Motion Indicator).
- By request, directional arrow character for gunsight and OCRS vertical velocity readout (VVL) moved to right side.
- By request, all allied and neutral stations will now better defend themselves and prevent docking if attacked by player (see notes).
- By request, station and city weapon turret collective activation (for cannon and missile impacts) and missile engagement ranges increased to just under 10K from 5K.
- By request, jump drive cooldown rate can be increased by up to 400% while inside a station hangar or above city docking pad (when in docking range).
- Auto-save applied for module destruction events when leaving a sector in single player to better preserve build states across save/status templates.
- Station attack system updated to reduce potential of NPC ships attacking faction blended modules if command module is not under opposition control.
- Displayed territory control percentages for ALC/FDN shifted war zones on nav map now remain linked to sub-region control level.
- Added ability to adjust cruise drive speed via limited range selection with throttle/set control input (~28K-78K).
- Added new lines (201-217) to the savedata set to read nav console values for map modes/options and nearby stations.
- Radar display images updated to separate contact/blip type color section from main image (see customizing kit).
- Market bar graphs and text in nav console adjusted to better account for 4 digit values in large font mode.
- Server programs updated to correct a rare issue that could cause a player to be kicked due to 'E2' error.
- Improved line spacing in Axis Configuration menu when two controls are mapped to the same axis channel.
- Updated the Key/Button Configuration menu device toggle buttons to support more than eight indexes.
- Local economy type now displayed with commodity price comparison display to indicate value offsets.
- Fix for 'RenderImage' error message when attempting to build several modules in rapid succession.
- Fix for station and city modules potentially getting stuck in a retargeting loop when destroyed.
- Fix for storage modules not properly delinking from weapon turrets when the former were destroyed.
- Fix for potentially incorrect shield/energy/storage linking for out of range modules upon startup.
- All station and city module link ranges for energy, shield, and storage standardized to grid shape.
- Increased size of HUD ship direction indicators to improve text legibility at lower resolutions.
- Added color coded holographic rings around weapon turrets to visually indicate threat levels.
- Added an additional sector of range for allied player locating on nav map in multiplayer.
- Added ability to cancel Fulcrum jump drive cycle by pressing key/button a second time.
- Added ability to transport a stored ship from a station to a local station (see notes).
- Message log lines now crop when enlarged map mode is active to prevent overlapping.
- 'Rev Y' mouse flight and HAT/POV control modes renamed to 'Invert Y' for clarity.
- Added name of player sending order to message log in multiplayer.
- Exodus missile baseline price level increased by about 40%.
- Minor improvements and fixes.
Notes:
Installing Fulcrum and Cruise Jump Drives Simultaneously
Both jump drive types can now be installed at the same time with sufficient equipment hardpoints. The Fulcrum drive will be considered primary and operate as usual with the default F8 key. The Alt-F8 key function is now linked to having a cruise jump drive installed at the same time as a secondary option. If no Fulcrum drive is installed, then the F8 key operation will activate any cruise drive as the only available jump mechanism. For additional options, the maximum jump range option now has its own dedicated key/button index and another new index has been added to provide an optional single key/button control for the cruise drive. Both new options are on page four of the Key/Button Configuration menu. Lastly, swapping drives is still available for those who only want to manage one equipment hardpoint at a time for a jump drive.
Maplog List Entry Position Changing
The Alt key option in the maplog menu now supports dragging and dropping entries. To move an entry, simply press and hold the Alt key, then click and hold the left mouse button with the pointer over the entry you want to move. Then drag the entry to the new position in the list where you want to place it. Then release the mouse button to place the entry. You can optionally scroll up and down the list by holding the entry over the top or bottom entry respectively.
Transferring Stored Ships to Local Stations
The ability to transfer a stored ship from a remote station to a local station has been added to the Inventory Console > News/Information menu. In order for the option to be available, the player must be docked at a station where the stored ship can be received, ships must be stored in the gameplay mode the player is currently in (either single player or multiplayer), the station must exist in the universe the player is in at the time (server universe in multiplayer or single player), ship storage space must be available in the local station's hangar, and the player must have enough credits to pay for the transport cost. If the requirements are met, the ship will be transported from the distant station and placed in the hangar of the local station, the cost deducted, and the profile auto-saved.
Allied and Neutral Station Defense
Station self-defense systems have been expanded so that a command module can now fire flak cannons at an attacking player and block them from docking if they inflict significant shield damage or any hull damage on a faction-linked module. Previously defense was limited to weapon turrets, which may not be present or be in close enough range to provide adequate defense. Now command modules can also step in to provide additional defense and also prevent the attacking player from being allowed to dock. When a command module activates to defend and prevent docking, the banner at the top will change to red to help visually indicate that the station is no longer allowing the player to dock while also changing to a defensive status. To further accommodate the requested conditions and limitations, the defensive mode is temporary and can be reset by the player leaving the sector for a while, then returning later. This will help accommodate a player who may want to eliminate a module in one of their own designs as before, but effectively keeping it as a last resort option. The secondary defense mode for command modules will allow for some accidental weapon fire to account for conditions where a player may be chasing after a hostile ship and incidentally hit a module with some gunfire or a missile. Once a shield array gets low enough (generally <50%) or hull damage is inflicted, then the command module will switch to defense mode.
Station and City Module Support Linking Corrected and Standardized
In the 2.0408 update, shield module linking was changed to a 500 coordinate unit (5K) range in a block shaped pattern. This has now been expanded to energy and storage support linking as well. So now all module links use the same range calculation and shape (500 CU on the build grid). Additionally, some calculations could initially be applied incorrectly, potentially leaving some modules with shields at first, but unable to recharge and/or other inaccurate supply link conditions. The detection and ranging mechanisms have been updated for both initial spawning/placements as well as active real time events for consistency. The changes as a whole may mean some existing stations will now have supplied modules that weren't supplied before and/or not supplied that may have been before. Many of the default stations in the game were designed around the premise of being partially constructed anyway, so a few may need additional support modules to supply power, shield, or storage support for some dependent modules to be fully enabled. Most however, will likely continue as before or acquire newly enabled modules.
Holographic Rings Added to Weapon Turrets to Indicate Threat Levels
After a number of discussions (and thanks to those of you who provided feedback), the decision was made to continue to allow weapon turrets to operate both independently and in conjunction with supply modules placed by a different faction. The latter was originally implemented years ago to support cooperative efforts between independent (IND) stations and either main faction (ALC/FDN) against an opposing faction, placing turrets as kind of space-mines (via the ability to 'hack' into the supply/energy power grid of an enemy's station module network), and to require eliminating any hostile turrets as a station's defense before rebuilding or retasking other modules. Supply modules (power, shield, crew, storage, and production) can continue to be retasked for a new station if/when a new command module is built and/or new weapon turrets are built. To better facilitate these avenues of gameplay, new holographic rings have been added to weapon turrets to visually indicate their threat level to the player. Green are friendly, yellow are neutral (only attacking if attacked first), and red are hostile. No hologram will appear until a weapon turret is powered and active. This way, players can more easily distinguish at a distance if any weapon turrets are a threat to them before they get too close (without having to target them). They can then navigate or attack accordingly.
Vertical Velocity Level Readout Arrow
By request, the VVL readout on the gunsight and OCRS will now show its direction arrow on the right side and its speed value to the left of the arrow (with right justified character cascading). This allows both the VVL and HVL indicator to have their arrows aligned nearest to the gunsight. The ability to move these arrows on the gunsight and OCRS has also been added to the 'hudtext.txt' customizing options (lines 16 and 17). For easier reference, an example of this file with default values is now included in the ZIP with the kit's sample files (inside the '\hud' folder).
Axis Configuration Control Lines
When two control functions are mapped to the same axis channel, the menu will now better space each line to prevent overlapping, including split axis binding (up/down, left/right, etc) and primary axis bindings.
Cruise Drive Variable Velocity Control
The player can now apply a variable speed setting when in cruise drive mode using throttle/set control input. The range is kept within the scope of the cruise drive's nominal operation, limiting the available range from about 28K to 78K via an input range of about 30-100% on a variable axis control and/or the 3-0 numerical keys. This way, players can now slow down a bit to perform maneuvers or search an area more slowly without having to drop out of cruise mode entirely. All secondary velocity reduction effects caused by gravity fields still apply.
HUD Motion Indicator Modes
Two new modes are now available for the motion direction indication system of the HUD. The current default 'Tunnel' is available as the first mode. Then a second 'Spears' mode can be selected which displays the ship's direction and speed using random spears for a kind of 'starfield' effect. Finally, a 'None' mode is available that will disable motion indication entirely. For the 'Spears' mode, additional options are available to adjust the spacing, size, and velocity rate to adjust the indicators for personal preference (particularly for VR). After selecting the 'Spears' mode a new file is created in the save data folder (default \Documents\EvochronLegacySE) named 'hudmotion.txt' and you can edit this file to change the effect's parameters. Line 1 selects the mode (2 for 'Spears'), line 2 sets the movement rate, line 3 sets the maximum spacing range, and line 4 sets the scaling factor. Additional details are available in section 3.5 of the updated customizing kit ( Starwraith.com ). The texture itself can also be modified to change appearance ('hud-motion2.png').