Dear players,
In the first week after the Early Access campaign started, quite a few bugs and crashes were reported, but after initial troubles the game runs stable now. Today, I am excited to have published the second major content update. Before I summarize all new things for you, I wanted to tell you that I will focus on improved ground combat in the next big content update scheduled for July. I want to improve the animation, ground formations and AI for ground combat. I will provide more information in a future dev log once I have something to present you.
New features
New playable race and story line
One of the first features I announced back in April was the latest playable race: Mutants! You can unlock them by completing the new story line. It focuses on exploration and leads you to various dungeons and planets and also introduces you to some of the game mechanics such as spawning boss monsters in temple ruins.
More in-game help
I am always there to answer your questions in Steam discussions or via e-mail and Twitter, but I also wanted to provide more in-game help. I started to expand the help dialog which only showed the keyboard layout so far. Now, it also features information about crew members and an overview over existing firearms, armors and jewelries. The plan is to expand this dialog with more information over time whenever I notice certain features are not self-explanatory or there are features players don't know about. You will also find more tool-tips like descriptions in the inventory for each resource.
New items and useable items
Two new types of armor are now available for looting and equipping: Flak armor and anti-grav armor. They can be looted from enemy soldiers or from weapon crates - just like combat vests so far.
More crafting recipes
Hazmat suits could already be purchased at space stations or they could be looted from some enemies. Starting today, you can craft them at any resource processor on your spaceship or in workshops in your colonies.
There are also Stimpacks and Medpacks to heal or revive an injured or fallen crew member instantly without the help of a medic. They are quite expensive to craft, but you won't need a medic anymore for resurrection. They can be crafted at the new chemistry lab in your colonies. There are also new recipes available for items to summon boss monsters.
Dangerous planets
So far, planets could be inhabited by nasty alien creatures, but the planets themselves were never hostile. New planets with a toxic environment will hurt all crew members with damage over time, if they do not wear any protection gear. As I mentioned earlier, hazmat suits can be crafted at any resource processor or workshop.
New colony rooms
Three new colony rooms are now available: chemistry labs, fusion reactors and reacruitment beacons. Chemistry labs work exactly like workshops, but they offer a new variety of crafting recipes such as Stimpacks and Medpacks. Recruitment beacons can be used to recruit new crew members in your colonies to fill the ranks of fallen friends and fusion reactors offer a very space-efficient way to create energy for your bases.
New dungeon content
Dungeons got a content boost with today's update featuring not only a completely new type of dungeon (temple ruins), but also featuring four completely new rooms including a room to summon boss monsters. If you have crafted summoning powder with you, you can use it on the altar to summon a beast that is way stronger than normal beasts, but it guarantees to drop at least one piece of jewelry! The other new rooms feature new resources to collect and already existing rooms also feature collectable resources.
Rumors
Rumors are a mix between missions and quests. Once you got a rumor from a space station, an indicator will appear on a system in your map. The rumor tells you what you are going to find there, but it is gone once you arrive (just like a quest) and you do not get any rewards for completing the dungeon or planet at this site.
More quests and missions
I wanted to make sure to provide proper content for you while spending your time in space. Today's update not only features dozens of new space quests, but also new missions you can accept from the space station. Some of the new missions involve also new space content like deep space comm relays.
Music
Two brand new ambient background music tracks were added and there is also an option to disable music. You could already turn off music by dragging the volume slider down to zero, but the new check box just needs one simple click.
Chinese localization
The original Galactic Crew was sold quite often in China, but Galactic Crew II wasn't available in Chinese so far. With today's update, the game is now fully translated into Chinese.
UI scaling
If the user interface is too small for you, a new option let's you re-scale the UI to a larger resolution. The game needs to be restarted in order to use the larger user interface.
Improvements
Female androids were renamed to gynoids.
Quality of life improvements
As requested by you, items can now also be traded by Shift+Click on an item instead of drag & dropping.
When you press the Ctrl key while crafting, the recipe is crafted as often as possible. This comes in handy when you want to process large amounts of resources!
A tool-tip in the crafting dialog shows the costs of each recipe.
Damage modifiers for firearms are now multiplied instead of added. That means if you have increased the damage of rifles by 10% using the soldier's skill and you make 10% bonus damage against beasts, you no longer make 1 + 0.1 + 0.1 = 1.2, but 1.1 * 1.1 = 1.21 damage. This comes in handy if you optimize a soldier for ground combat.
Message dialogs like the one that informs you that you can't jump into a new sector because your hyperdrive is not fully charged can now be closed by pressing the Esc key.
Bug Fixes
This list of bug fixes also include fixes from previous publishes after the initial Early Access campaign start.
- After changing the resolution, the content of the ship upgrade window near shipyards was shifted.
- After changing the resolution, the button for deleting items in the inventory was misplaced.
- Access issues for models with sub-models was resolved. This could have minor impacts on the game's performance.
- Possible crash source resolved when completing a campaign mission.
- After promoting a crew member in a dungeon, or when his armor was removed or an armor was equipped, the crew member's position was no longer updated on the minimap.
- The names of used water textures was not properly saved when saving outposts resulting in crashes when re-visiting outposts.
- Trade routes were not properly saved if the languages was changed before.
- Players could land in water when exploring planets.
- The game could crash when you entered the level editor after previously visiting a planet during a playthrough.
- Resolved possible crash source when shooting on enemy spaceships.
- Multi-level dungeons sometimes had no stairs making it impossible to complete missions in the dungeon.
- Resolved possible crash source when switching between game modes (like main menu und level editor).
