The October Odyssey news - Star Ruler 2

Greetings 4Xians! We've sent out another Star Ruler 2 update to be transmitted into space by wifi routers everywhere. Read about some of the highlights below, or scroll down for a full detailed changelog.

Interested in Multiplayer? Join our Dev-astation Friday multiplayer game on european timezones, or check out our Saturday night brawl in more America-friendly timezones!

Freeform Ship Design

Over the past few weeks our experimental branch has seen many updates to the looks and mechanics of the ship design system, with yet more to come in the future.

The biggest change in this update is the removal of preset "hulls": you can now design your ship blueprints in any shape you want. Here are some of the designs uploaded by our avid testers:

Ordo Antibus' Maw Cruiser.

Dalo Lorn's BC-304 Refit.

Vlad's Storm Class Armored.

The engine will automatically select the ship model from your shipset closest to the shape you drew.

Community Features

The wiki tab has been combined with a number of new features into a brand new "Community" tab.

Browse designs other people have uploaded, becomment or upthumb them, or upload your own creation for the world to see!

Game Options

Feel like playing a game with at least 9 planets per system? Expand star systems to giant expanses filled chock full of hostile remnants? We have some new game options that let you tweak the generated universe to your liking.

Full Changelog

Added:

• Add some macro controls to support ship management, such as auto buying new or dead support ships until the fleet is full.
• Fleets will now pick up support ships from your nearby planets automatically to auto-fill up their capacity. Can be turned off.
• Object popup tooltips now show the flag of the empire that owns them in the background.
• Started work on new blueprint/subsystem sprite art.
• Some planets will now have a Planet Condition that modifies them or their resource in some way.
• Add Targeting Sensor subsystem modifier.
• First iteration of multiplayer match queue system, players can queue up for matches and automatically join other queued players.
• Ship information panel on the bottom left can be expanded to give a bigger view of the design.
• Replaced the empire flags with better versions.
• Changed Wiki tab to Community tab, which includes the wiki and where players can share their designs online.
• Dumbbell Galaxy map that can be configured to be perfectly mirrored on both sides.
• Several game and universe settings can now be changed from the new game menu.
• Add post-game stats and standings screen with graphs displaying the progress of the game.

Changed:

• Lasers now have a limited firing arc.
• Weapons can no longer have their firing arcs shoot "through" the ship, but must be pointing outwards.
• Engine exhausts can now only be placed on hexes that have open space on either one of their backwards-facing edges.
• Supply Storage hexes destroyed in combat will now leak supplies over time.
• Losing ship power generation that you are using in combat reduces the ship's effectiveness.
• Destroyed Support Command hexes can end up making the fleet lose control of support ships.
• Ship designs no longer have preset hull shapes, but the model that is the closest approximation to the shape you draw is used.
• Slipstream exit points are now generated inaccurately within a radius of the target. The further away they're generated, the more the target inaccuracy.

Fixed:

• Fix perfectly circular territory borders showing up bugged.
• Fix previously scouted remnant fleets showing their health/supplies/etc even when out of vision.

Balanced:

• Halve station repair rate.
• Double station hitpoints.
• Increased ship efficiency (power cell, name flagship, etc) can no longer increase repair rate above 100%.
• Plate and Neutronium armor now have DR.
• All forms of armor now increase the health of all adjacent non-armor hexes by 1/6th of the armor hex's hp.
• Fleets with no supplies left are now at 25% of normal effectiveness (down from 50%).
• Weapon turrets now have their own innate DR to reduce incoming hits.
• Significantly increased the range of all weapons.
• Capitalism now only has a single Patrotic Surge, but it has one extra quality.
• Cost of using Fling FTL is now no longer dependent on distance, only ship/station size, and is cheaper.
• Larger slipstream generator ships are more expensive in various little ways.

AI:

• Improved Hard AI's expansion speed.
• Improved the AI's use of influence.
• AI can use anomalies in a basic way.
• Improved the AI's ability to wage war.
• The AI will scout out other galaxies, allowing them to interact in those galaxies.
• Gave the AI some more sensible rules for when to declare war.