Alpha v0.0.4.4 - Unit Experience news

This is a big update, so go make yourself a cup of tea and then come back and read the patch notes!

Galaxy Map

Previously, there was only 1 sector of space to play through – we’ve now unlocked the Galaxy Map which will give you access to more content when you “exit” the starting sector. There are now 3 sectors opened in total with some more coming later this month. We had hoped to have the save feature ready for this patch, but it’s still being worked on so that should come with the next patch – apologies for any inconvenience until them.

Experience System

One of the most commonly asked for features has been unit experience and we’re happy to announce that we’ve added an experience system to the game. As your fleet progresses through the game, your ships will gain experience and level up. When they do, you can choose skills for them that will quite significantly improve their performance in combat.

Ship Rewards

Missions now have a chance to result in a new ship as a reward. This, combined with the new content that is now available, will allow you to experience the game with more ships in your fleet than you had before.

New Mission Types

We’ve added “Defence” and “Escort” mission types to the game. There are several versions of each and they are further randomised the same way existing mission types are. Let us know what you think of them.

Ship & Combat Improvements

We’ve listened to the feedback from players and made a number of improvements to ships and combat. This guide to A’Kari ships will give you some details on the new stats. The main changes are:

• Improved shield and hull for most ships.
• A’Kari shield regen is twice as effective if the ship is stationary.
• Reduced shield “full regen” to 20 secs from 15 secs.
• Energy regen greatly reduced.
• Abilities will use either energy OR a cooldown.
• Some abilities require the ship to be stationary to use (or charge up).
• Balanced the damage output of a number of weapons.

With these changes, we hope to have toned down some of the extreme situations where your fleet dies too quickly (for example, if an enemy fleet spawns with multiple Rogues or Lancers). We’ve got a host of new attachments still to be added to the game in future updates, but we’re generally pretty happy the combat is nearing where we intended it to be. There’s still some tweaking to be done though, so please let us know your thoughts on the changes in today’s patch.

Full patch notes can be found below…

Missions & Events

• Defence map template updates. Defend 1 and Defend 2 maps added.
• Added new events, including Defence1, Defence2, Escort3, and Escort1 mission types.
• Escort specific hard walls and soft walls added.
• Added Orbital Platform objective and faction updates
• Switched on all tested events in sector files.
• Halved shop chances
• Added hard walls for Escort missions. Fixed soft walls for all other maps.
• Updated hunt fleets to new fleet points.
• Some ships have changed their fleet score due to stat changes, so enemy fleets have been modified to represent this.
• Random attachments based on danger level have been removed (for now).
• Added failed objective markers to escort missions.
• Removed mines from escort missions.
• Updated defence objects to use hunted brains.
• Updated wave times on Map 4 Defend 2.
• Added failed ‘X’ to UI for Escort death.
• Updated hunt mission objectives to use new hunted brain.
• Added new Escort map. Map 1, Escort 3 should now be working and have its random variations.
• Hunted targets can now patrol on one point.
• Trigger deletion on Escort loss added.
• Added jump-out story events for Escort.
• Missions no longer assume there is at least one lose objective.
• Some objectives can now ‘Soft Lose’. Only when ALL sub-objectives are lost will a lose be triggered.
• Hunt patrols force set to not Omni.
• Hunted patrols should now move at a set patrol speed.
• Updating sector events, updated and switched on static hunt mission.
• Multiple changes to the way that the Galaxy Map works: New links between nodes, node colour now set programmatically.
• Added in alpha restriction on Galaxy Map.
• Escorts are now not targeted by enemies when they reach their destination.

Skills System

• Skill system is now in place, ships will gain experience after each successful battle they survive and after certain amounts skill slots are unlocked.
• Added skill sockets to ships
• Created Skills advancement Panel.
• Skills have been given a first balance pass.
• Reduced effectiveness of Range skill boost.
• Added basic descriptions to skills.
• Skill icons have been added.
• First pass at names and descriptions on skills.
• Stopped ships from gaining XP in the very first ambush battle.

Loot System

• Activated potential for ship rewards now that ship scrapping is a thing.
• Attachments can be installed on newly purchased ships within the same shop

Ships & Attachments

• Added new Criticals.
• Added ability to scrap ships from your fleet and ship loot awards.
• Mortar barrage implemented (for Othani).
• Implemented Ion Storm attachment, fought with Ion Storm VFX, implemented Ion Storm AI
• Added Orthani Artillery ship.
• Akari shielding is now twice as effective when stationary.
• Shields now pop back at 20 seconds, up from 15.
• Balance pass on all ship stats.
• Orthani gunship has been added and should now spawn.
• Artillery spawner and Mortar Barrage Attachment balance.
• Charging an Attachment can now cause your ship to stop and be unable to carry out basic orders and fire automatic weapons.
• Prices changed for attachments.
• Lowered Energy Regeneration.
• Changed mending pulse targeting size.
• Storms and sustained pulses now charge.
• Attachments now use either energy OR cooldown.
• Attachments balanced to new tier system. Tier 1 included in this patch.
• Support things no longer have a cooldown.
• Beams are no longer available on the Lancer.
• Cannons are no longer available on the Rogue.
• Removed ‘core’ attachments. All weapons are now weapon attachments.
• Added modifiers that can apply either when the ship is stationary or when the ship is moving.
• Changed how the shield modifier works very slightly (no longer affects down time or hit recharge delay).
• Removed depreciated attachments.
• Force Targeting added to dreadnaught as standard system.
• Charge up is now handled by Attachments rather than being a unique case for Lasers and Nukes.
• Charging attachments are shown in blue on the UI.

AI

• Reduced the amount the Orthani Gunship is spawning.
• Pirate fleets updated to new point system.
• Difficulty balance pass on Defend1 map.
• Drones have had a slight tweak to bring them into the new balance scaling.
• Orthani drone missiles reduced in effectiveness.
• Drone missile damage reduced.
• Missile and bullet drone firing rates reduced.
• Frequency of drone spawning has been lowered.
• Allowed ships (specifically the Artillery Ship) to not share their sonar enemies and only run off of their local enemies.

General

• Updated the lead ship icon asset and position.
• Updated README.TXT for fleet skills and addition of galaxy map.
• Patrolling ships can be made invincible and un-targetable when their route is complete.
• Added new icons.
• Added descriptions and tooltips to attachments.
• Made all Modifier VFX at the various sizes.
• Criticals have their proper icons.
• Added New Attachment icons, and updated the Icon Atlas.
• Added damaged orbital platform.
• Added a failed objective icon along with an updated version of the battle alert icon
• Trying to issue a basic order while ‘locked’ results in a warning appearing on-screen (also used for ship disabled/destroyed messaging)
• TriggerKilled now takes into account escaped ships by listening for Escapees.
• Sounds now play when the shields go up or when the shields go down.
• Added in images for locked skill mouse overs and experience bar disabled
• Battle alert sound update
• Updated the tactical mode text.
• New images added relating to the skills system.
• New UI assets for the Skills Panel
• Patrol changes: speed changes, setting up allowing a ship to attack when on patrol, or jump out Objective
• Marker and Mission Area Render stuff updated – including all the capture maps in BattleManager objectives Tracker. Story events for Defence.
• Changed cargo transport and civilian ship setups.
• Command ship updates. Deleted legacy fleets.
• Added damaged versions of structures to the structure prefabs.
• Added damaged structures
• New version of the sustained damage pulse VFX created.
• Created assets for the orbital defence platform
• Assets created for the Orthani Artillery ship

Bug Fixes

• Shop prices are no longer broken.
• Fixed issue where Defend 1 could not be won.
• Fixed capture map station which had no UI present
• Player ships no longer spawn on top of mine field in Map2.
• Fixed some terrain spawning mischief.
• Fixed Command and Tech ships spawning inside environment on Map2_Capture3
• Map4_Defend2 now wins, loses and partial-loses correctly.
• Fixed minor typos.
• Tooltip for ‘Other’ tab in shop should no longer appear over the corner mask which was causing a chunk of it to disappear.
• Greyscale effect can no longer be applied multiple times.
• Fixed Escort1 – “Escort Ship” objectives were marked as complete when the ship was destroyed.
• HostileEvent12, Map15_Capture1 – Player ship no longer spawns stuck in environment.
• Fixed issue with cannon rate of fire.
• README information about supplies corrected
• Fix for NeutravEvent6 where no mission would load
• Can now select story options at the full width of the text box
• Gunship colliders fixed.
• Skill system should now no longer break the fleet browser.
• Now don’t get XP from a node with a visited event on it.
• Accidentally made all drones not valid targets. Now fixed.
• Added a ‘DontTargetMe’ boolean to ships which prevents auto-lock on of weapons/AI-aimed attachments.
• Fixed issue where Lancer was charging but not firing.
• Fix for defence mission always ending in soft-lose condition.
• Fixed a bunch of Escort 3 objective issues.
• Map1_Escort3 now has ‘trigger trigger’ triggers that trigger on spawned trigger [no, really].
• Set Orbital Defence platform to AkariNPC faction to stop player ship disabling when it should be destroyed.
• Fixed broken Icon Atlas
• Removed kinematic settings from Orbital Platform.
• Fixed Cargo Transports as Escort ships.
• Lancers should now chase you.
• Fixed trigger boxes not spawning enemies in Map2.
• Scavenger damage VFX fix.
• If path not looping then ships can now get much closer to the end of a Patrol point.
• Bug fix for patrols not spawning on hunt missions.
• Fixed patrol bugs in ship definitions.
• Fixed hunt spawners. Fixed bug where enemies would try to do a little dance when moving.
• Ion beam didn’t have beam deactivated on start.
• Fix for enemies spawning in too close to player on Defence map.
• Fixed escort ships and friendly stations will now no longer appear in the battle report
• Defend metakey fixes.
• Fix for missile amount.
• Can no longer spam the right-click vfx when charging an attachment.
• Caught null-ref bug when trying to issue order to ship which cannot move.
• Hopefully caught sneaky bug that was allowing ships to overlap each other too much.
• Fixed stationary shielding error.
• Fixed a core slot bug for dreadnoughts.
• Fixed Akari Large shield Disabled VFX
• HostileEvent20, Escort3 can now hard lose.
• HostileEvent14, Map4Defend2 no longer ends with a battle still happening.
• Stopped pirates being immune to bullets.

Known Bugs

One or more enemies may spawn on an Escort map but not route to the player. As triggering the ‘next phase’ of the map requires all currently spawned enemies to be dead dead, find and destroy those stationary ships and the game will progress again.

As always, we’d love to hear your feedback on this update either on our forums or on the Steam community. You can also check out our Development Roadmap for an idea of what is still to come.