Patch and Updates Notes

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.6.5.0 ( Monday November 4 2019 )

This patch contains major architectural changes related to input events and key bindings. Control schemes can now be specified per ship, the Virtual Cursor navigation mode and Direct control schemes were unified, and new bindings were introduced for capital ships, allowing full rebinding of strafing keys. As a result, some of the bindings might be empty or no longer work properly. We implemented an automatic configuration upgrader so that players do not have to remake their input profiles, however due to the complexity of the changes it is possible that some events might have to be fixed or updated manually. If you do not use a custom configuration and run into trouble, we simply recommend pressing the “reset to defaults” button.

Note that we got ride of some obsolete profiles that were not working properly anyways: X52, X56 and T-Flight Hotas X. If you have a working, fully functional profile for one of these HOTAS, or some other not-officially-supported-yet HOTAS, do not hesitate to send us your config file so that we can include it in a future build, thank you !

Balance changes

• Increased torpedo count on bomber from 6 to 8
• Small reduction of death credits rewards to make it more challenging to keep a capital ship
• Haulers vertical thrust increase by 50% so that they can fly upwards on planets without engine overcharge

Some minor balance changes. Bombers should now be more threatening to capital ships as they won’t have to resupply their torpedoes as often as before. Killing other ships will also be rewarded with a few less credits.

Flight Model

• Updated manual thrust flight model when overriding flight assist. The new model should be more responsive, especially when using analog inputs or controller arrows
• Fixed corner directions not having enough thrust when using using an 8-way arrow/hat for strafing
• Fixed the long-standing bug of overriding throttle manually in warp, which somehow slowed down the throttle

We discovered that the amount of manual thrust in the corner directions wasn’t reaching 100% due to a bug, so we reworked the manual thrust physics so that it’s more coherent and works as expected

• Introduced a hard-brake option in controls settings to specify if the brake key also overrides manual thrust/strafe. Default is on
• Fixed braking continuously starting / stopping at zero throttle / speed

This technically wasn’t a bug, but a question of priority. When you’re holding the brake key, but are still holding a manual thrust/strafe key, would you expect your ship to brake and ignore the manual thrust inputs ? We saw divided opinions on this subject, so we decided to add a setting for this behavior

• Revamped warp exit speed: it will now set the throttle to match the warp entry speed (instead of resetting the throttle to zero)

Before the change, the warp exit speed was always set to the minimum warp entry speed (ex.: 240 m/s on the interceptor) no matter what the real entry speed was. After the change, your ship will exit warp at the same speed it had when entering warp. Throttle will also be set to that value instead of zero

• Added more vertical thrust to haulers so that they can hover / take off more easily on planets without overcharging engines

Input / Controls

• Fixed a major bug with key + axis combinations that made key combinations sometimes not work as expected

This was a major bug that caused key combinations conflicts. This should now be resolved

• Added support for tooltips and localization to input events. All events should now have a proper name and tooltip
• Added support for display order (sorting) for events and event groups. Categories should now make more sense and be more intuitive
• Improved key conflicts: they’re now displayed as a warning underneath the corresponding input event entry in the keybindings menu
• A value bar appears for each event entry in the keybindings menu
• A value bar appears for each axis entry in the device calibration menu
• Cleaned up the key bindings menu (made the keys button larger, with a smaller font, and removed the event type as it is now usually mentionned in the event name)

These changes should make the keybindings menu cleaner and easier to work with. A small bar representing the current detected value should appear below every single keybinding, make it easy at a glance to see if keys/axes are properly detected. Conflicts will now appear below each input binding too, make it easier to see where the issues are located

• Unified events between Virtual Cursor navigation mode and Direct mode
• Introduced a Capital Ship mode with separate events / key bindings (it is now possible to use separate strafe keys)
• Removed many hardcoded keys / combinations in events. The automatic profile upgrader tries to keep the same configuration, but might need some tweaks, especially for capital ships bindings

All those changes should make it easier for players to figure out how control scheme works and how to rebind keys. In the previous version, the Virtual Cursor control scheme (which was the default) used “CursorX” and “CursorY” events, whereas most players tried to bind “ShipYaw” and “ShipPitch” which only works for Direct mode. This generated a lot of confusion and frustration and lead many people to thinking rebinding keys wasn’t working properly. With better event names and events unification, this problem should now be solved

• Fixed major issues related to event values being polled in the physics step versus the UI thread, which caused mouse samples to get lost/ignored
• Fixed major issues related to mouse wheel. It is now properly treated as a relative axis with framerate independence
• Fixed a bug with changing mouse movement or wheel sensitivity in the controls settings which didn’t apply the changes until restarting

Mouse wheel wasn’t framerate independent, so it behaved differently if you had 30 fps versus if you had 300 fps. In general, mouse inputs weren’t polled at the correct frequency so samples could be lost, resulting in erratic behaviors at high (100+ fps) framerates. Mouse sensivity settings changes weren’t correctly applied

• Added new input event bindings: scan mode and mine launch
• Removed F4 key to cycle through control schemes. Control schemes can now be set per-ship in the controls settings menu
• Fixed view switching from cockpit to internal when changing control schemes
• Camera / head look now automatically resets after a delay, which can now be set via a slider in the control settings menu (default: 2 seconds)
• Introduced a camera absolute mode, in controls settings to specify if camera movement uses incremental values or resets the values for every event input
• Revamped colors in radial menus, to make the selection more obvious / stronger
• Fixed some ship movement inputs still being active in radial menus (ex.: you could move forward / backward while a radial menu was open)
• Removed obsolete profiles: X52, X56 and HotasX - we need replacements !

Other Bug fixes

• It is no longer possible to spawn at a carrier in warp (if it had a very low warp speed)
• Fixed a carrier respawn bug which didn’t check the proper respawn conditions (it was possible spawn at a carrier in movement)
• Fixed client crash when loading the game with an input profile that does not exist anymore (now defaults to Qwerty as expected)
• Fixed crash when finishing to send some text after getting disconnected from a server
• Fixed incorrect matching of spawn type when calculating team scores statistics
• Fixed static base credits generated by installations resulting in stale match endings

An annoying bug that resulted in credits being no longer resulted when there was a low amount of bases alive at the end of a match, resulting in a status-quo and no battles being spawned. It was then the responsability of the players to finish the match by destroying the remaining bases, but since there is no challenge it was just a chore. In this patch, battles should now be generated (although at a lower frequency) and result in an automatic match ending

• Fixed other ships’s thruster effects still firing when their ship is powered down

Misc

• Reduced thickness of armor/speed curved bars on HUD and removed the text/status information
• Added random reactivity to AI ship powering back up after being powered down

AI ships that got powered down, powered back up almost instantly no matter the NPC’s rank. Now it can take a few seconds for the NPC to react

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.6.5.1 ( Thursday November 8 2019 )

A small patch with a bunch of HUD and star map fixes.

HUD

• Updated font for monospaced numbers ( curtesy of Pendrokar )
• Redesigned HUD central elements: removed text and icons; made the curved bars thinner and shorter
• Removed set throttle notifications
• If the selected target is behind a planet, an “Obstructed” notification will now appear on top of the target’s indicator name

Starmap

• Trade routes now show up on the star map rather than in the 3D viewport
• Fixed a bug with blinking icons on the star map when they were obstructed on the main HUD
• Trade routes are now team colored

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.6.6.0 ( Friday January 10th 2020 )

Hey all, sorry for the time it took to release this patch. We encountered a lot of internal issues related to the AMS (aka. Anti-missiles/torpedoes/mines system) lasers implementation. Please keep in mind this is only a first implementation, and as such, until we get more player feedback, is likely to cause some balance issues. The patch also contains multiple bug fixes as usual.

AMS (Anti-missiles/torpedoes/mines system)

• Initial implementation for AMS lasers for capital ships

• AMS are currently available on destroyers (4 hardpoints) and carrier (2 hardpoints). To promote the escort role of the destroyer, the cruiser currently does not have any AMS system

• AMS produce green-colored lasers that hit their target instantly and cause a very low amount of damage over time

• AMS lasers automatically target heavy missiles, torpedopes and mines within a 10 Km range. Since light missiles are no serious threat to a capital ship, they currently do not target light missiles

• Remember to enable the AMS systems in your ship’s weapons radial menu (they’re disabled by default)

• Introduced heavy missiles and renamed the old missiles to light missiles

• Light missiles are available on small ships (interceptor, bomber, corvette) and do the same amount of damage as before (150)

• Heavy missiles are available on capital ships and do more damage (500) but are less maneuverable than light missiles. They’re still faster than torpedoes.

• Rebalanced missiles, torpedoes and mines hitpoints so that they’re harder to kill

• Slight reduction in activation time for missiles, torpedoes and mines

• Reduced chaff activation range from 1.25 Km to 1.0 Km

• Removed chaffs from destroyers, as they now have AMS

General / gameplay

• Target speed now resets to zero automatically after exiting warp
• Increased ramp-up / warmp-up propulsion factor
• Tweaks to missile detonation and distance calculation algorithm (sometimes missiles were exploding too far away from the target)

HUD / Interface

• Changed default font
• Fixed friendly fire warning while being on the spawn menu / star map
• Added a checkbox in the controls menu for automatic view reset
• Added effects quality setting to options menu

Bug fixes

• Fixed options menu staying opened after clicking “apply” with settings asking for a restart
• Fixed invalid initial position of navigation cursor when entering the game due to accumulating mouse input on the splash screen
• Fixed /SetSkin server crash when player is on spawn menu
• Other minor coherency fixes / checks for player commands
• Fixed a bug that caused some input event groups to randomly stop working
• Fixed a bug with error correction that gets ignored when client receives server’s tick before client validated its own
• Fixes and checks related to custom quality levels which were causing crashes, or weren’t being take into account properly for smoke / damage effects
• Fixed lack of camera control in spectator and kill-cam mode
• Fixed rare server crash during corvette ammo resupply
• Fixed a bug that caused weapon muzzle sounds to sometimes originate from the actor center instead of the actual gun position

Eye tracking

• Added eye tracker interface + experimental Tobii eye tracking support
• Added eye trackers selection list to the controls menu

Misc

• Updated many stations / modules layouts (some modules had gaps and holes)
• Added input profile for Logitech X-55
• Particle system culling now better takes into account per-particle size to calculate its bounds
• Slight Increase of brightness of space debris

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.6.7.0 ( Saturday February 8th 2020 )

This patch mainly aims at laying down the foundation to revamping the weapons groups / management system and introduces a number of important changes. On small ships (up to Corvette, included) weapons are now exclusive (you can only select one weapon group active at a time). On capital ships, it is possible to toggle automatic vs manual firing and aiming. The locking system for missiles / torpedoes has been updated to be less constraining (locks are acquired instantly so that you can fire as soon as you select a target). Finally, we updated the radial menus and assigned a new weapons selection contextual menu to the right mouse button (for keyboard profiles). The goal of all these changes is to prepare for the upcoming HUD update.

Weapons groups

• Weapon groups are now exclusive on small ships: for ex. selecting blasters will unselect guns
• Weapon groups on capital ships can now cycle between disabled, automatic and manual firing
• Revamped missile locking system and alerts. To fire a missile, just select the missile’s weapon group and press fire. Locking is instant as long as the conditions are met (enough ammo, in range, not on cooldown etc…). The angle restriction has been rempoved
• Revamped HUD weapons list (now showing group ids, name and ammo as a bar)
• Reduced amount of heat generated by laser AMS by half
• Most weapons groups are now active by default on capital ships (default configuration: automatic)
• Cleaned up corvette groups: there’s now only one group for kinetic guns and one for blasters
• Changed ordering of some groups on destroyer to go in increasing power

Input/Controls

• Revamped keyboard input profile for weapon groups hotkeys (1-9 activates the matching weapon group, instead of ctrl 1-9). Note: ctrl 1-9 is now used to set the throttle.
• Chaffs have been moved to the middle mouse button instead of left-alt (for keyboard profiles)
• Removed “Secondary fire” and “Missile fire” input event
• Revamped radial menus: introduced the Flight mode menu (default: hold X on keyboard, which is the ex key for weapons)
• Cleaned up other radial menus and reduced their content so that they fit into 10 slots
• Moved the weapons radial menu to the right mouse button (for keyboard profiles)
• Radial menus now resize dynamically according to the amount of slots they contain (ex.: a 4 slots radial menu will look smaller than a 12-slots)
• Added an optional event to cycle through active weapon groups ( “CycleWeapons” ). Currently left unassigned by default

Bug fixes

• Fixed music volume slider in audio options that required a game restart to take effect (it can now be changed on the fly)
• Fixed camera free-look not working when spectating / in kill-cam of a capital ship
• Fixed missiles/torpedoes still locking and tracking a target even when satefy lock is off

Misc

• Increased a bit AI probability to fire missiles/torpedoes
• Revamped AI to actively manage weapon groups in a smarter way. The AI now takes into account more parameters, such as heat (for ex. interceptors switch to blasters when kinetics are overheating), ammo depleted, damaged weapons, etc…
  They try to switch to the weapons with the best DPS according to their target.

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In this image you can see the weapons group HUD update. For each weapon group, from left to right:

• Weapon group ID ( matching the number hotkey )
• Number of usable weapons ( not damaged, having ammo, not under cooldown ) over the total number of weapons in that group
• Name of the weapons in that group
• [*] if the weapons are automatic
• A bar showing the average amount of ammo for weapons in that group. Note that energy weapons ( blasters ) share their ammo together ( so the bars will be synced ). Kinetics use per-hardpoint ammo, so it’s technically possible that some hardpoints have exhausted their ammo while others still have some ammo. The bar represents the average. The orange portion represents the ammo already exhausted. When the whole bar is orange, none of the weapons in the group have any ammo left.

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.6.8.0 ( Saturday February 29th 2020 )

This patch is the first iteration for the new HUD. It mostly focuses on small ships; while it also works for capital ships, it still needs multiple tweaks and improvements that will come in future iterations.

Also note that the targetting system (and the target indicators) and the planetary indicators will be revamped in the next iteration. The patch also introduces HUD color themes (you can change them in the general options menu) and adds support for Russial localization.

HUD Changes

HUD changes are too numerous to list, but here are the main changes:

• The default color theme is now green (but you can also set it to blue or orange in the general options menu)
• The speed and energy bars have been redesigned and moved to the left side of the screen
• The right side of the screen is now reserved for the selected target’s information. The information panel on the top-right corner of the screen has been removed. It’ll be re-introduced later as a special target MFD
• The bottom-left center part of the screen now displays counter-measures (CM) and the overcharge mode (None, Engine, Weapons, Shields)
• The bottom center part of the screen is now showing your ship’s armor and shield points are a percentage
• The bottom-right center part of the screen is displaying the heat percentage and the currently selected weapon and its ammo count
• A circle and locking status information is now displayed at the center of the screen when selected a missile / torpedo launcher (note: disabled for capital ships)

General

• Improved per-turret targetting selection: now takes into account distance, tries to minimize rotation angle, prioritizes the selected target and/or the incoming missile threat (for AMS)
• Increased hitpoints for most turrets (MK4 to MK7) as they got destroyed too quickly in big battles
• It is now possible to fire missiles even in heat overflow mode

Bug fixes

• Fixed client crash bug when selecting a target far away with a missile launcher
• AMS / lasers no longer fire after engaging warp

Misc

• Increased width of system menu (to better fit longer localized strings)

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.6.9.0 ( Saturday March 21th 2020 )

This patch is the second iteration and overhaul for the HUD. It introduces most of the missing features, including tweaks for the capital ships HUD, a new planetary HUD, a revamp of the targetting indicators, a revamp of the ring radar, a warp tunnel helper to show the path to an objective and a bunch of other HUD tweaks.

Note that some features are experimental. Due to the high amount of HUD changes and tweaks, it is likely that this patch has introduced new bugs and will require further tweaking. Feedback is more than welcome so please let us know on the forums what you like or dislike with the new HUD features. Thank you !

-The I-Novae team

Capital Ships HUD

• Initial implementation for capital ship HUD and tweaks compared to small ships
• Armor / shield points are moved above speed bar and central information has been offset, to avoid covering the ship
• Removed hemispherical radar from capital ship HUD: since capital ships have a free rotating camera, the hemispherical radar wasn’t as useful and was covering the ship. With this radar removed, the view is now clear

Planetary HUD

• A planetary HUD now pops up when approaching a planetary surface
• This planetary HUD displays a heading bar (plus the heading angle in degrees, compared to the north pole of the planet) and the pitch angle, compared to the horizon
• Moved altitude meter on the bottom left side of the heading bar

HUD targetting / indicators

• Added an arrow at the HUD center to show the direction / angle of the currently selected target
• Added max target indicators limitation in combat vs navigation modes (+ slider in options menu). This is a major step towards decluttering in large battles
• Removed HUD cycling: the F3 key is now simply toggling on/off the entire HUD. The automatic vs manual HUD modes have been removed
• There is still a concept of combat versus navigation HUD. The simple difference between the two is whether you have a target selected or not. Without a target, you are in navigation mode and the HUD shows more target indicators
• The HUD switches to combat mode when you select a target. It then highlights only the highest priority targets
• Target selection (default key: G) is now taking into account priorities/threats as well as your ship type (ex.: a bomber will prioritize selecting capital ships, while an interceptor will prioritize enemy interceptors and bombers).

Note that the priority/threat formula is experimental and might need future tweaks.

Ring Radar

• Updated ring radar to use the new arrow design. The ring radar shows all the combat mode targets (by default: the 5 highest priority targets)
• Added a slider in options menu to control radius / size of ring radar

Navigation tunnel helper

• Added a navigation tunnel helper towards long-range objective in warp mode

Note that the tunnel display is experimental. In particular, at the moment it is straight. We are still working on generating a tunnel along an orbital curve to avoid planets / massive obstacles

Other HUD Improvements

• Added max weapon range info to HUD
• Increased font size for armor / shield hitpoints display
• Added cursor hovering to highlight targets and display their names (experimental)

Misc:

• Strings localization update for German and Russian languages
• More tweaks to HUD color themes

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.7.0.0 ( Saturday April 25th 2020 )

This is the final patch focusing on the HUD overhaul. It introduces virtual MFDs (multi-functional display) that aim at providing HUD customizations to players. The default MFD layouts have already been changed on all ships.

This patch also includes other UI tweaks, related to the HUD or some star map improvements.
In the next patch we’ll be focusing on the star map and a new sensors overlay system, then it will finally be time to move over to more gameplay !

-The I-Novae team

HUD and virtual MFDs

To open the MFD layout setup screen, hit F4 while in-game. The layout provides 14 MFDs, and each one has a button to select the current data page to be displayed in it. Some pages require dual MFDs and aren’t available at the left/right sides.

Some pages can be centered on two MFDs in “dual display” mode. When available, an arrow button will be displayed on top or below the MFD screen.

The currently available MFD pages are:

• Loadout (weapons list)
• Target (only displays basic stats at the moment, but this MFD will show a holographic 3D view of the ship in a future patch)
• Communications (chat box)
• Electronic Warfare (EW) (at the moment, only displays energy emissions and detection status)
• Front radar
• Back radar
• 3D radar (spherical radar)
• Mission / objectives
• Squad (not implemented yet)
• System notifications / messages

More pages might be available in the future - if you have feedback on pages you’d like to see, please let us know !

Also of interest: cockpits currently have MFDs that aren’t functional, but in the next patch those should be available as working MFDs too.

Note that MFD layouts are persistent (changes are saved automatically) and per ship class. You can transfer MFD layouts from your current ship to another ship in the gameplay settings menu.

UI / HUD changes

• Added a separate slider setting to control the max amount of displayed ring targets ( as opposed to combat targets )
• Fixed cursor hovering which was highlighting all targets within a certain range: now it only highlights the closest target
• HUD text now has a dark outline (instead of a drop shadow)
• Removed helmet deformation effect from root, main and tab menus;
• Fixed “not enough credits” text clipping issue in ship selection screen
• Improvements to star map targets panel: now properly uses team colors; distance text is smaller; added spawnable/unspawnable icons to be more clear on where a player can respawn at
• Added back status icons on top / bottom of the HUD MFD panels
• Improved readability of warning alerts

Bug fixes

• Fixed delta speed (mouse wheel up / down) being inconsistent in warp (it had a different sensitivity when scrolling down and instantly went back to zero)
• Fixed a small bug with HUD speed being sometimes displayed in menus
• Fixed an issue in menu flow that opened an empty spectator menu when you hit escape in the options menu while in spawn

Misc:

• Updated in-game Discord link to open the welcome-and-rules channel

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.7.1.0 ( Friday May 8th 2020 )

This is a transitional patch that contains a lot of improvements and fixes related to the MFDs (multi-functional displays) and HUD. In particular, it contains new settings options, a fix for the new HUD in wide-screens, the introduction of physical MFDs in cockpits (as well as a revamp of the virtual MFDs and seat positions).

A couple of various improvements are also included, like temporal anti-aliasing (note that the game still defaults to SMAA until we get feedback about TAA and if it’s good enough to be made the new default) or the ability to use the numpad keys to set the cockpit view.

The next big item on the upcoming tasks list is sensors overlay - which will be replaced the ‘quote’ key which was previously bound to 3D radar zoom in. It still needs a few days of work, and will probably become the focus of the next patch.

Note that as per community request we’ll be resuming our development updates in a new format (what we previously called “weekly updates”, but won’t be weekly anymore) and that might be merged with patch notes in the future. We’ll also post a quaterly update, with focus on priorities and refreshing the roadmap. We’ll post one of those next week.

-The I-Novae team

Cockpit physical MFDs

The interceptor, bomber and corvette now all have functional physical MFD screens. As previously, you can edit the layout and which MFD pages go on where by bringing up the MFD layout setup (default: F4). There are 4 screens in the interceptor and bomber (note: some screens are redundant on the bomber’s top frame). The corvette has 3 screens. Capital ships do not have cockpits, so they cannot use the physical MFDs systems.

IMPORTANT: the seat positions were tweaked in all cockpits, as well as the camera’s vertical field-of-view, that went from 60° to 70°. This allows every ship to display the physical MFDs at the bottom of the screen in the “default” view. Since there could be some overlaps with the HUD’s virtual MFDs that some people might have customized in the last patch, we decided to reset the virtual MFDs layout to restart from a “clean” state. This means that if you had customized your vMFDs, you might now have to do it again.

If you do not like the physical MFDs and wish to just use the HUD’s virtual ones instead, we introduced seat adjustment offsets in the General -> HUD options menu. You’ll find 3 new sliders that control the vertical, front/back offsets as well as the head pitch. Changing the head pitch is currently not recommanded, as the crosshair will no longer be centered and gameplay might feel awkward.

Numpad keys can now be used to turn your head in the cockpit (4= left, 5=center, 6=right, 8=up and 2=down). The corners (ex.: up-right) aren’t implemented yet

Temporal anti-aliasing

We’ve introduced a new anti-aliasing method, temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) to the game / engine. The game still defaults to SMAA, however you can enable temporal anti-aliasing in the graphics settings options menu. You’ll find a setting to change the “AA method” (it’s also now possible to disable anti-aliasing, for those of you that have a low-specs computer and need max performance). There’s also a setting for “AA quality”, which is dependent on the type of AA method applied. It doesn’t do anything for SMAA, but for TAA it changes the number of samples and the application or not of a sharpening filter.

In general, you should find that SMAA gives you minimum anti-aliasing and suffers from a lot of flickering. TAA is much better, but can suffer from ghosting effects (especially when you quickly zoom in or out) and slightly blurs the image (which is why we apply a sharpen filter in post-processing as a counter). TAA is slightly more expensive than SMAA in terms of performance.

Once we gather enough feedback about the quality / performance tradeoffs of TAA, we might make it the default AA method (at least on high-end computers)

HUD fixes and improvements

• Fixed new HUD / MFDs wide-screen layout

• Wide-screen fixes for starmap and ship selection 3D viewport (they didn’t use the correct camera’s aspect ratio)

• Fixed a potential crash if you died while editing the MFD layouts

• Fixed a bug that still rendered MFDs despite switching the HUD off (F3 key)

• Fixed carrier “player spawn notification” layout for the new HUD. It will now show up as another line in the systems notification MFD

• MFDs now also flickers like the rest of the HUD when the engine / power is partially damaged

• Fixed warp engage warning after exceeding the soft cap speed, which was disappearing too quickly (most players didn’t notice it)

• Removed dark, very transparent (it was barely visible ) background over some text MFDs (ex.: objectives MFD)

• Swapped left / right arrows on collapse MFD buttons, which feel more natural

• More shadow outlines around some text in the system notifications or mission MFD

• HUD bottom-screen’s decoration lines now only show up when virtual MFDs are present, to avoid cluttering the physical MFDs at the bottom of the screen

• Tweaked (increased a bit) font size, opacity and layout of system notications MFD (the text was too small to be readable sometimes)

New customizable options or settings

• Tweaked graphics settings menu: it is now possible to change quality parameters individually, which will set the global quality level to “custom” automatically, which feels a lot more natural to the user
• Added target hit mark sound effect toggle in the audio options menu
• Added a slider into the HUD settings in the options menu, in order to control the separation between the ship/target info and the center of the screen
• Cockpit seat settings (offets and head pitch) can be customized per ship (see general settings)
• Added a screen shaking slider setting in the graphics options menu

General and bug fixes

• Respawning in a capital ship now defaults to third-person camera
• Increased max camera vertical-FOV from 80 to 100 degrees
• Changed default camera vertical-FOV from 60 to 70 degrees
• Tooltips now have a darker background, bigger font and padding
• Inactive/disabled sliders now appear darker in the menus
• Fixed joystick options window contour that was always displayed in blue, ignoring the current color theme
• You now get a critical hit notification when you destroy an allied ship’s weapons by accident
• Fixed a bug that required a restart despite not changing any graphic settings, the first time the user opens the options menu

Misc

• Added new muzzle flash effect for MK6 / MK7 kinetic guns on capital ships

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.7.2.0 ( Saturady May 30th 2020 )

This is a fairly big patch which contains the initial implementation for the new sensor overlay (tactical screen) replacing the old 3D radar zoom.

There are also a number of HUD improvements to make it easier for new players to understand who are enemies and who is currently shooting at you, as the indicators will now flash when an enemy is firing at you.

An important AMS lasers bug was fixed (which caused their DPS to under-perform) and 8 AMS turrets were given to the carrier for defensive purposes.

Finally, we also spent a bit of time to do a new round of improvements for the keybindings and improve the joysticks key detection.

Sensor Overlay

The old “3D radar zoom” (which was previously bound to the ‘quote’ key, aka. the key left to 1 and above tab on the main keyboard) has been re-implemented as a new screen: the sensor overlay / tactical screen.

When entering that mode, the camera will zoom out from your ship to about 15 Km (up to 30 Km max), seeing the entire battlefield. A grid is overlayed on top of the screen, showing ships and their indicators, as well as a “heat map” (basically ships are glowing depending on their allied or enemy status) and trailings heind each ship showing their movement. There are options on the bottom-left to toggle these features.

It’s also possible to change the frame of reference (by default it’s on your ship) to the nearest base or planet (or even the solar system’s plane). Your ship’s framerate of reference stays centered on your ship even if it’s moving, but its orientation is determined by your ship orientation when you enable the sensor overlay and will stay fixed. If you want to synchronize attacks and see the same battlefield view angle than other allied players, it might be better to change it to ‘base’ or ‘planet’ (since these will have the same frame of reference, no matter how your own ship is oriented).

While enabled it is possible to left-click drag to translate the camera or right-click to rotate around the origin. You can also hover the mouse over targets, or even select them as usual with T, G or Y/U.

In the future, we’ll add more information to that screen, like current velocities, arrows representing who-is-attacking-what, and possibly show in a corner the current target’s information (including its name and health/shield status).

If you have more ideas on what you’d like to see on this tactical screen, please let us know as usual, thank you.

New HUD or menus improvements

• Fixed a bug that made the max combat targets slider setting useless, as it still used the max nav’ targets instead of the right number. Note: this is a huge bug, which kind of made the decluttering from a few months ago useless as it still displayed a high number of targets in combat. As a reminder, you can change the number of displayed targets (both in navigation or in combat mode) in the general options settings.
• Implemented new glow/highlight effect for high nearby threats (firing at or targetting you) on the radars and ring target arrows. This should make it more obvious when suddenly a nearby ship out of your view starts firing at you
• HUD target ring and radar indicators now blink when firing at the player. Note: the HUD performs fire cone checks to see if you’re in the light-of-fire of an enemy firing in your direction
• Updated HUD indicators colors coherency (there were differences in the choice of colors between the 3D viewport, the ring target arrows and the various radars). All the different screens should now show the same icons indicators with the same colors
• Revamped HUD bloom/glow shaders and tweaked color theme: the bloom effect was too agressive and affecting the font’s readability. The new bloom is softer and wider and should keep text more readable. The current selected tab in the options menu is now highlighted
• Fixed battle notifications popups showing up in the in-game / tab menus. The popups will now be invisible in menus and update in the background at a slower rate. Popup notification sound can still be heard on menus, so you’re aware that something happened
• Moved battle notification popup so that it doesn’t cover the top of the HUD
• Weapons MFD now shows a dual arrow icon for auto-aiming/firing weapons instead of the cryptic [*]
• Help tips are now displayed in yellow to be more visible on HUD
• Fixed speed formatting on HUD which caused numbers to be too wide at high/warp speeds (now uses the SI units like distance)
• Fixed HUD power flickering (when engines are damaged) which didn’t seem to fade correctly
• Fixed HUD text areas that didn’t use the user-selected color theme
• Fixed HUD text areas that didn’t fade off when power is down
• Removed top helmet decoration bar when HUD is disabled (F3)
• Removed HUD help screen ( in system menu ) as it is obsolete
• HUD improvements to broken targetting systems and broken sensors (they will now correctly behave, flicker or stop showing up when broken)
• Weapons aiming indicators on HUD are now properly rendered as dots instead of small squares. Note: that’s a very small change… but the weapon aiming dots were rendered as small squares previously. They should now properly show as small dots
• Fixed selection indicator being empty for missiles, torpedoes or mines;
• HUD’s missile locking circle now shows as alert color ( instead of normal color ) when it’s under cooldown
• Low damage alert is now more reliable and should show up for interceptor shots landing on capital ships
• Added a new chat / comms channel: System, that keeps meta-game information notifications ( like player X killed Y );
• Added a /clear command to clear a chat channel
• Fixed a bug with the chat box text which didn’t extend to the full width of the window
• Tweaks to planetary HUD: lowered minimum altitude, no longer displays in external capital ship view, pitch are now based on camera instead of ship orientation
• Fixed a bug preventing previous / next target selection cycling ( Y and U keys ) from working as expected
• Mouse wheel will no longer change target speed while on starmap

Keybindings / Input

• Keybindings options menu now makes it more obvious when devices are unassigned for a given input profile (“no device assigned” message is displayed in orange next to a virtual device). That way new players will instantly see that they need to assign their hardware to the correct entry
• Added a warning dialog if you’re starting key detection without having assigned all the virtual devices for the current input profile. That way it’ll be more obvious to new players that they need to assign their hardware to the correct entry
• Improved key detection for keybindings and added options to allow key or axis combos. Key combos are allowed by default but axis combos are not. When starting key detection, if multiple axes are touched, the one with the largest movement/value is the one that will get detected
• Small fixes related to XInput and the joystick devices in options menu
• Tweaks to XBox XInput and PS4 input profiles (some buttons were swapped to be more natural and some new buttons were added)

Gameplay

• Fixed a bug with 2+ missiles launched at once, that end up kissing (colliding) each others while tracking the same target, hence exploding in the middle of nowhere before reaching the target. Note: I had a suspicion for this bug for years but it wasn’t easy to replicate. I was only able to figure out what was going on recently. The explanation makes sense and is 100% logical so in a way it’s not really a bug… more like an undesired feature…
• Fixed a bug that made the AMS lose their power every second, pulsating for no good reason (which reduces the intended DPS on them). This is a huge one, as it kind of made AMS under-performing, which indirectly made bombers over-performing
• Fixed turrets that could still rotate despite the ship having lost its power
• Carrier now has 8 AMS for defense against torpedoes/mines
• Adjusted capital ships default camera distance in third person mode
• Increased amount of heat generated by bomber’s shotgun
• AMS buffs; increased turret turn rates, +50% damage and doubled the visual thickness of the laser beam effect so that it’s more visible at a distance

Other bug Fixes

• Fixed tooltips from mission screen staying on screen after closing the game menu
• Fixed a bug with the starmap contextual (right-mouse button) menu that didn’t close when tabbing out
• Fixed a bug that reset the throttle speed ( also warp speed ) to zero after apply & saving from the options menu
• Fixed rare random crash bug when playing some visual effects

Misc

• Added debug information to log files to figure out the issue with frozen/duplicated pings in the server browser screen for some users
• The client and servers now support new admin commands to spawn entities for the purpose of enriching community events

[INovaeFlavien]

Hotfix 0.7.2.1 ( Saturady May 30th 2020 )

• Fixed a client crash that was introduced in 0.7.2.0 after saving / reloading user settings from the main menu ( while not in game )

[INovaeFlavien]

Hotfix 0.7.2.2 ( Monday June 1st 2020 )

This hotfix is only applied to the Steam version. It’ll be included in the next non-Steam patch.

• Fixed a bug that prevented input key detection to detect > 32 buttons. The game should now support up to 150+ buttons.

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.7.3.0 ( Tuesday June 23th 2020 )

This patch focuses on the first iteration over the star map revamp. A new deployment (aka. spawning) system has been implemented to make it more clear to the players where the deployable bases are and which kind of ships they can spawn.

A “quick deploy” button has been added to get back into the action quickly. This will help to cut down the amount of travelling necessary for attack battles, making it more fair to the attackers versus the defenders that could always respawn instantly at their own base.

The way quick deploy is implemented, if a base or a carrier are available in defense, you’ll be spawning there as usual. If however those aren’t available, you take over an A.I. ship of the same selected class. The algorithm gives priority to A.Is that are not engaged in combat and undamaged. If the ship you take over is somehow damaged, you’ll get a refund proportional to the amount of damage. Note that since the bot had already been paid by the AI commander, the cost you pay for taking over is going back to the team’s funds instead of being paid twice.

The patch also contains a second iteration over the new sensor screen tactical overlay (default: tilde key), which now shows arrows to highlight ships attacking each others. Finally, amongst other fixes, we improved Tobii Eye tracker and integrated TrackIR to the game. Feedback on how good/bad the implementation is, is appreciated.

The next patch, due later this week, will most likely be a hotfix with a number of left-over quality-of-life improvements.

Starmap and new deployment/spawn system

• Implemented new deployment (spawn) system with quick deploy and deploy at buttons in the star map
• Cleaned up star map, added ship selector, automatic refresh of targets list, etc…
• Quick deploy allows to take over an AI ship in a battle
• Added high priority missions list quick spawn in the star map;
• Added deployable states and icons to targets list in star map
• Deploying over an AI bot will refund credits proportionally to how the bot is damaged
• Added selected target’s info panel to starmap and sensor screen
• Added search filter to starmap’s targets list

Sensors overlay tactical screen

• New holographic visual style for the sensors overlay / tactical screen for planetary surfaces, stations or ships
• Arrows are now displayed to show who is attacking who. You can see who’s attacking you / who you are attacking, same for your selected target or the ship you’re hovering on with the mouse
• It is now possible to click on the sensor screen to select a target, or double-click to recenter the view around it
• Added more options to sensor overlay screen: show MTBs, show vertical lines, trailings length
• Sensor overlay tactical screen will no longer show arrows or vertical lines for far away / invisible targets

General UI / Menus improvements

• Revamping UI visual style with custom buttons
• Added various new icons to the UI
• Mission screen’s missions list now automatically refreshes every second
• Fixes for various UI elements not correctly displayed as grayed-out when inactive
• Fixed indicators being displayed behind the camera on the starmap
• Fixed layout issues in missions list
• Fixed “deleted” objective names appearing in missions list
• Selecting a mission in the mission menu will now also highlight it on the star map
• Mission menu’s missions list is automatically refreshed as soon as a mission or battle gets created or destroyed

Head tracking (Tobii and TrackIR)

• Improvements to Tobii Eye tracking integration
• Added head / gaze tracking settings in controls options menu
• Added option for clear UI (gaze-based highlighting of MFD)
• Tobii eye tracking now supports head position offset/strafing
• TrackIR integration
• Added better error handling for Tobii and TrackIR (if the libraries can’t be loaded, an error message will pop up)

Misc

• Temptative fix for server browser pings all being the same on some machines
• Fixed a rare server crash bug when an actor gets deleted at the exact same time a player disconnects
• Updated match victory conditions: carriers are no longer taken into account in team score calculation, preventing a match from ending

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.7.4.0 ( Monday June 29th 2020 )

This patch contains quality-of-life improvements over the last patch and the new development system. In particular, we have introduced a waiting queue upon deployment if you were trying to spawn at a moving carrier, or if the hangars were busy.

We also have a new countdown mechanism so that players can’t abuse the quick-deploy at the same base/battle instantly after dying. A minimum “buffer” of about 30 seconds has been introduced, but the trick here is that this countdown is shared/synchronized by all players trying to deploy at the same location (so they’ll spawn in game at the same time).

The help tips system has been revamped, is more contextual and new help tips for beginners have been added.

UI / Menus improvements

• Introduced deployment waiting queue for carriers or busy hangar spawns
• Introduced countdown deployment timer if you try to respawn too quickly at the same location
• Deployment countdown timer is currently set to about 30s and is synchronized for all players waiting to respawn at the same time intervals
• Deploy buttons have been added to the ship selection menu (that way you have to go back to the star map to spawn, which will be important in the future when the ship upgrades/loadouts are added to the ship selection menu)
• More improvements to deploy buttons (they now become disabled if you can’t afford the ship cost) + more feedback messages that will tell you exactly why you can’t deploy at a given location
• Star map menu now properly sorts listed missions/battles by top-down priority
• Star map’s containers in targets list are now collapsible (there’s a small arrow on the left of each item, which you can click to (un)collapse the item)
• Added back spectator mode (accessed through RMB contextual menu while selecting a target in map menu)
• Added “select closest deployable base” in the star map’s targets list contextual menu (RMB). This will select the deployable base that is the closest to the target you have clicked on
• Updated generic list box and scrollbar arrows buttons icons visual style
• Fixed various issues related to tooltips staying alive after spawning or changing game states
• Fix for sensor screen’s base grid reference, which should now properly orientate the grid on the nearest base
• Revamped random help tips. The new system is contextual (ex.: it’ll show a tip about using chaffs only when a missile is fired at you). New tips have been introduced, which should help with the basics for new players. The tips now properly display the active keybindings in their text

Bugs fixes / Misc

• Fixed a rare client crash bug happening due some fired projectiles during high network latencies

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.7.4.1 ( Wednesday July 1st 2020 )

A small hotfix patch for 0.7.4.0.

• Fixed weapons radial menu, weapons were not selectable anymore due to a bug
• Fixed holographic shader rendering that was missing from the sensor tactical overlay screen

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.7.5.0 ( Saturday August 5th 2020 )

This new patch introduces the new revamped mission screen, which should make objectives more clear to new players. The mission screen now acts in a similar way to the star map, with a 3D viewport showing the stellar system, the planets and the objectives.

The missions are now listed on the right side of the screen and can be selected to get more information about the current status or objectives in the bottom-right info panel. Note that each mission also has an eye icon (to set the camera on it) and an "i"nformation icon, which opens a panel with mission details.

We still have to clean up the 3D viewport itself (make it interactive, improved the text and icons, make it more clear where the objectives and missions are), which will probably be the focus for the next patch, currently scheduled around mid/end august. After that, we’ll be refocusing back on gameplay (and particularly, match/battles/missions progression).

Gameplay

• Warp charge duration and warp cooldown is now set per ship instead of being the same for all ships. Interceptors and bombers still need 5 seconds to charge the warp drive, but corvettes and above now charge a bit slower. Large capital ships (cruiser, carrier) charge much slower (10 seconds for the cruiser, 12 seconds for the carrier). The warp cooldown after exiting warp also behaves in the same way: higher cooldown for the bigger ships…

HUD

• Aiming direction dot indicators are now displayed on HUD for gimbal weapons (Note: the HUD was already showing these small dot indicators for turrets, but not gimbal guns. Since the gimbal guns kind of behave like turrets, just with a smaller angle, it made sense to also display the dot indicators for them. It’ll also help players to understand why they’re sometimes missing ships quickly traversing their view due to the gimbal gun’s rotation latency)
• Selected target indicator no longer fades out when too close (Note: the selected target indicator was disappearing when you were getting close to a station or a capital ship, making it impossible to know that you had it selected… )

UI / Menus improvements

• Revamped the mission tab menu screen. It now has a visual style / layout similar to the star map
• Mission menu is now the first tab, and is also the new default when launching the game, to emphasize its importance for new players
• Destroyed bases are now dimmer in star map’s targets list
• Implemented under threat/under attack status (orange or red dots in the right column) in starmap’s targets list. Orange dots notify under threat, where a limited number of enemies are gathering around an objective. Red dots notify that the objective is under attack by a large force
• Star map’s search filter now updates targets list dynamically based on what’s being typed
• Star map target’s list now auto-refreshes every 10 seconds while in-game (previously: it only auto-refreshed during respawn, not in game)
• Buttons and various UI text blocks that don’t allow multi lines now auto-rescale their text content down when it’s too long. This should particularly be helpful to fit some localized strings within their UI block
• Buttons border brightness is now reduced compared to content color (small visual tweak)

Bugs fixes / Misc

• Fixed a bug that caused some sounds with a non-standard pitch to get cut short
• Tooltips no longer appears on top of a UI control that has keyboard focus (like an edit text area)

Misc

• Tobii Eye tracking library upgrade to the latest version. Please let us know if you encounter new issues

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.7.6.0 ( Saturday September 12th 2020 )

This is the final patch primary focusing on the star map and mission screens. It contains a lot of improvements to these screens, including an improved representation of conflict zones or bases under attack. This patch also replaces and introduces a bunch of new sound effects, with more to come later (we’ll be revamping the sounds over the coming months, and are also in the process of doubling the amount of musical tracks in game). There is still a lot of work to do related to the UI and menus, however we’ll be refocusing our efforts on gameplay starting this next patch, and work on the UI will take the back seat from now on.

Gameplay

• Active mission’s objective’s location is now automatically pre-selected on HUD upon entering the game
• Fixed ship movement being on hold while menus/UI are opened (this caused players to overshoot or collide with planets in warp)

Audio

• New interceptor thrusters sounds
• New small machine gun and blaster sounds
• New gun and blaster projectiles impact sounds
• New small ship and missiles explosion sounds
• New mk4 (corvette) turret machine guns and blasters sounds
• New shotgun (bomber) sound
• Added sound effects for AMS lasers and rotating turrets sound loop
• Rebalanced volume of various sound effects
• Thruster sounds now have a dynamic pitch based on the ship’s angular speed, which should feel more immersive
• Sound effects range and performance optimizations, which should reduce clutter that deteriorated sound quality during large battles

UI / HUD

• Added mission symbols (letters: A, B, C etc…) in starmap/mission screen’s viewports. Each mission is given its own unique color ( with a different hue and saturation ) to help differenciate missions
• Added quick-deploy buttons floating over the starmap/mission screen’s viewports
• Added a panel for filtering and rendering options to the starmap and mission screens. It is now possible to filter the map by entity type (ex.: bases, players, teams, logistics like haulers) etc…
• Added a “heat map” (colored halos around team assets) to map’s viewport, which should emphasize areas of conflict (blue for allies, red for enemies, so it turns purple in areas of conflict)
• Added threat/under-attack indicator dots (orange = threat, red = under attack) to map’s viewport and entities panel
• Added back “Select on HUD” buttons in mission menu and star map for the selected item in the info panel at the bottom-right
• Added arrows on starmap and mission screens showing the direction between your ship and the closest allied base (blue arrow), or to the selected mission (green or orange arrow)
• Added the selected mission’s symbol and objective type to the ship’s HUD floating below its target location’s icon (this should make it extra obvious to new players to see where their objective is)
• Current mission can now be deselected on mission screen (default: backspace)
• Minor UI tweak: tighter tooltip positionning when opening a tooltip around the screen borders
• Minor UI tweak: checkboxes can be toggle by clicking on the text too (not just the check icon only)
• Minor UI optimization: added screen culling to icons rendering
• UI is now properly refreshed when changing the color theme or the language
• Tweaks to UI style in the mission and starmap screens (ex.: new icons for mission categories, improving coloring coherency, etc…)
• Fixed icons located in the back of the camera appearing on screen as mirrored ghost icons
• Fixed HUD and menu icons to be fully resolution independent
• Selected mission’s objective’s indicator is now always enabled on the HUD even if not actively selected (before: it was hidden if it was far away)
• Distances in starmap and mission’s targets list is now calculated as the distance between the player’s ship and the target’s (if in game)
• Fixed coherency of mission names + locations in UI
• Top 3 missions in deployment panel now selects the mission in the mission screen and focuses the camera on it instead of starting deployment
• Improved representation of the selected/active mission in the missions panel
• Fixed trade routes not showing up in mission screen
• Fixed trade routes randomly appearing in team screen
• Deployment panel is now also fully available from the ship screen

Assets

• Updated 3 station modules with improved geometry and materials
• Updated map icons to differenciate between planets, moons and asteroids (they now use different icons)

Bugs fixes / Misc

• Fix for the shield visual effect not being played when a projectile bounced off a shield
• Optimization fix for internal cockpits being loaded/attached and updated for all ships and not just the player’s ship, which wasted cpu resources for no good reason

Misc

• Increased game’s default camera’s vertical FOV from 70° to 80° to see more of the cockpit in small ships
• Server admin commands now dump information to the chat box instead of the HUD’s info MFD (which was too limited in size)

[INovaeFlavien]

Hotfix 0.7.6.1 ( Sunday September 13th 2020 )

• Fixed missiles lifespawn accidentely increased to 200s (they’re now back to their default of 20s)
• Floating starmap’s deploy buttons can no longer be accidentely clicked on while panning / rotating the view
• Flight assist now tries to maintain the current speed while radial menus are opened
• Fixed crash due to large numbers in network interpolator
• Added a sensor screen transition speed setting in the general options menu (default: 1 second)
• Small sound volumes tweaks
• German strings localization update

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.7.7.0 ( Saturday October 17th 2020 )

This patch implements a new match progression system to act as tug-of-war, in order to focus players on a specific battle/location instead of spreading out over multiple battlefields. The changes are pretty experimental so might need urgent balance tweaks in a future hotfix or patch.

The way it works is the following: instead of having multiple battles run at the same time, we only allow one single battle ( AI-commanded directed ) at any one time. One team is attacking, the other one defending. If the attacking team wins, the objective gets destroyed and it can attack another objective again. However, if the team loses, then the initiative goes to the defending team, which then gets its turn to go on the offensive.

Our goal with this change is to focus the action on a specific battlefield instead of spreading the playerbase over multiple battles ( so sometimes players didn’t even encounter each other due to participating to different battles ). The other goal is to make the battles feel more important - which is why we got ride of the critical vs non-critical battles system: now all battles are critical. Losing a battle as a defender means losing the base, period. As a side consequence, the rules should also be easier to understand, especially for new players. Destroy all enemy bases to win the match, that’s it !

Feedback on whether the new system works or not is very much appreciated. This patch also contains a lot of AI tweaks, a new neutral color-theme for the menus/UI, a new panel to compare ships statistics, and as usual plenty of HUD improvements and bug fixes.

Gameplay & AI

• Removed the concept of critical vs non-critical battles. All battles are now critical (the base will get destroyed if the enemy wins the battle) even if it’s no longer explicitely said. This should help to reduce the duration of matches, but also feel like each battle has a stronger impact on the match flow

• Removed condition threshold (<20% of enemy’s) for match victory versus opposite team’s score. It was an obscure rule to speed up the end of a match. Now a match will only end when very single enemy base has been destroyed

• Increased countdown to battle ending from 10s to 2 minutes (battles were ending too quickly with no time to clean leftover ships, and sometimes the same battle restarted at the same location)

• Changed match progression to act as a tug-of-war for battles. Only one battle is active at a time. When a team loses a battle, its opponent gets the initiative for attacking. As a result, the match ping-pongs between teams. However when a team wins an attack battle, it has the opportunity to attack again instantly

• Static defenses on structures are now taken into account when showing a battle’s victory odds to the player

• Attacker teams now have a slight advantage in fleet’s credits budget compared to the defender team’s, to take into account that the defender team’s slightly advantaged due to the static defenses/turrets/platforms

• Shields no longer break down when they’re depleted. Depleted shields now start recharging instantly. A critical hit has been added for shields being damaged instead (like other ship sub systems). It’ll take 30s for shields being repaired

• Energy no longer recharges at the same time as firing weapons in weapons overcharge mode. Weapons overcharge mode felt overpowered compared to the other modes, as if you fired in bursts, your energy was naturally recharging at full rate; so if you alternated between firing bursts, there was little downside to using this overhcharge mode

• Rogue AI/bots will no longer accidentely reinforce/participate in active battles (they were interfering with the score calculations)

• Reduced a little bit the probability of spawning AI capital ships in battles (this should make capital ships more valuable)

• AI can now fire kinetic weapons when their target’s shields are low (previously, shields had to fully depleted or damaged for a bot to start using kinetics)

• Fixed too many AI ganging up on a single enemy. The ratio was previously 5:1, but is now limited to 2:1 (in ship’s score worth)

• Fixed AI ships getting forcibly killed by the server due to remaining in warp in for more than 2 minutes, which could happen for AI destroyers entering a planetary battle. The limit is now 5 minutes

Asteroid and planetary collisions Fixes

• Fixed a bug which ignored projectile collisions on planetary surfaces (projectiles were passing through)

• Fixed multiple collision issues/bugs with asteroids

• Adjusted asteroid rotation speed (massive asteroids now rotate slower, almost unnoticeable)

• Fixed a major resource leak issue in asteroid fields/rings, which could potentially cause slowdowns over time (collision bodies were not properly destroyed when the ring was unloaded)

• Fixed planetary/atmospheric battles ships that were warping in too fast and colliding/dying on the ground before they could even get into battle

User Interface / Menus

• Implemented new user interface / menus color theme (previously: the UI was using the HUD’s color theme, so the colors were messy/all over the place. The new color theme is more neutral to the eye and coherent)

• Added team assets to mission screen’s info panel when selecting a battle. The victory odds are still shown as previously, but the panel now also shows the absolute credit’s worth of assets owned by each team in the battlefield

• Added new ship description and statistics panel in ship menu screen. This will allow to compare the different ships’s statistics together

• Fixed a bug related to textured brushes, which made some images flicker or appear incorrect in the UI (ex.: team selection menu background images were sometimes incorrect for a frame)

• Fixed missing trailings length slider bar in sensors tactical screen

HUD Tweaks and Improvements

• Added new HUD notifications for being repaired/resupplied (or, as a corvette, doing repairs/resupplies), either by an allied ship or in hangars

• Updated spawn marker colors: they’re now only blue for hangars that can fit your ship class (otherwise they’re now red). This will make it more obvious to new players where they can repair/resupply

• Added new floating text indicators on HUD to notify player of closest hangar or resupply ship (corvette).

• Added a new floating text indicator on HUD to notify player of the the closest heavily damaged ally (so as a corvette player, you know who’s in need of repairs)

• Tweaks to HUD warnings/alerts: they’re now colored as a function of importance/priority (info alerts are in cyan, normal alerts in orange, critical alerts in red)

• HUD indicator tweaks (they’re now more opaque)

• Tweaked selected target’s color so that it is more easily visible on the HUD

• Added horizontal alignment to MFDs (ex.: mission MFD is now right-aligned if it’s in the top-right corner of the HUD)

• Changed bounty indicator icon

• Added more explicit target-out-of-range alert if manually firing weapons at a far-away target

• Locking targeting circle color is now shows up as green only if the ship’s direction is aligned to its velocity. This will help firing missiles/torpedoes at targets within the circle

General bug fixes and Improvements

• Fixed friendly fire warning not showing up when hitting modular structures
• Fixed credits being reset to 0 instead of 50 when the match restarts

Assets and Visuals

• Updated a dozen station modular assets with their upgraded visuals (better geometry, improved materials/colors, added ambient occlusion etc…)

• Added ground (planetary surfaces or asteroids) impact projectile effect

• Updated bobblehead models with new look and textures

• Dust-particles effect now uses a non-uniform, more realistic density model (rings and close to thick atmospheres = higher dust density)

• The dust-particles effect is now affected by the ‘effects quality’ setting

• Modular structures destruction/explosion effects now fade off over time (previously, the small explosions never stopped and could become annoying)

• Updated spawn/hangar modular markers (also, fixed the ones for ground bases)

• Updates to spawns: dimensions tweaks, added new markers, added some new spawns in ground modules

• Updated destruction materials and added some missing materials ( some modules, like HUBs, did not have destruction materials and did not appear destroyed to the players)

Audio

• Fixed a major bug when initializing the audio device. It defaulted to 5.1 output, even for stereo users. As a result, if you were using a stereo device, sound quality was negatively affected. The game should now properly use your default audio device’s setup and most users should notice a sound quality increase (especially if you were playing in stereo or 2.1)
• Added menu option to change the output audio device on the fly (without having to restart the game)
• Audio volume adjustments for rotating turrets, weapons firing sound range, explosions sound range…
• Updated some audio effects after last patch’s feedback (new AMSl laser sound effect, improved machine gun sounds, improved some projectile impact sounds)

Misc

• Updated some default game settings (ex.: MFD layouts per ship, increased navigation targets from 30 to 50, … )
• Updated game’s initial settings to better take into account quality level based of CPU speed and GPU video-ram
• Moved default viewpoint in corvette slightly to the left (to be seated)

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.7.8.0 ( Saturday October 24th 2020 )

This small patch focuses on some important bug fixes related to planets, and introduces a new moon: Rygol, an arid Arizona-inspired moon full of canyons and terraced cliffs with a radius of 4250 Km and a green-ish atmosphere.

• Introduced a new planet: Rygol. Note that the current Battlescape still only has 4 moons max, so not all matches will necessarily feature the new moon
• Updates to new base locations on Sarake and Aresthia
• Fixed incorrect (floating) hardpoints when mapping a defense (tower) module on a planetary surface (turrets were sometimes floating in the air far above their tower)
• Fixed warp-in incorrect target location that lead an AI ship crashing into the ground after a ground battle started
• Fixed planetary collision issues due to the difference of precision in some noise functions between cpu and gpu. It mostly affect Aresthia, the Mars-like planet, where some craters had invalid collisions (sometimes you’d hit a ghost hill far above from the ground)
• Fixed haulers that sometimes had trouble engaging warp and leaving a dense atmosphere
• AI ships now know when to overcharge their engines on planets where gravity is too strong for their mass
• Corvette turrets will now keep auto-aiming at their target even when they’re not the active weapon (this will minimize the re-targetting time when switching between turret guns / turret blasters)
• Light weapons and MK4 turrets slight increase in max hit points (corvette weapons were very weak and easily destroyed by opponents)
• Respawning will no longer open the starmap menu. It will now retain the previous menu that the player had selected in game
• Fixed spawn marker colors for capital ships in docking bays (the markers remained red, as invalid, but should now properly be displayed as green, meaning busy)
• Minor bobblehead/textures tweaks

[INovaeFlavien]

Patch 0.8.0.0 ( Saturday December 19th 2020 )

Hey everbody. As you can see, we’ve increased the major version number for this patch. That’s because this patch is probably the biggest/most complex of the year, and brings the long-awaited ship upgrades system and custom loadouts into play.

The implementation required some huge code refactoring so it is likely to have stability and balance issues, especially as we haven’t been able to test all the combinations of ships and upgrades yet. Remember that this is only the initial implementation.

We’ll add new upgrades and weapons on a regular basis in the coming months. We’d love to get community feedback on the new system: is it working well, is it confusing, is the loadout customization interface too complex or intuitive to use ? Are there upgrades which you find useless, or overpowered ? What other upgrades or weapons would you like to see ?

Let us know on the forums or on Discord and see you in game !

Upgrades, loadouts and ship menu

• Introduced the new ship upgrades(/components) system and its UI. The main idea here was to extend the hardpoints system not just to weapons, but also to internal hardpoints. All hardpoints are now restricted to a category of components that you can mount on them. For example, a “structural” hardpoint can only mount structural components, and not weapons or sensors. Some upgrades have size/class restrictions as well and might not be avaialble on all ships
• The list of components available to your ship and their categories is displayed on the right-side panel
• A “show mounted only” checkbox is also available next to the categories. The upgrades panel will only show components currently mounted on your ship’s loadout
• Hardpoints are now displayed on top of the 3D viewport. They can be hollow (hardpoint is free) or filled (a component is mounted on it). The icon can be a small circle for internal hardpoints, or an hexagon for external/weapons hardpoints. The color is green (hardpoint is free), red (hardpoint mounted) or yellow (selected)
• Components can have dependencies on other components (requirements or incompatibilities). Components that are currently mounted are displayed in green. Available components (but not yet mounted) are in blue. Finally, components which you cannot mount (due to a dependency issue for instance) are displayed in orange
• When hovering over a hardpoint in the 3D viewport, or a component in the upgrades list, the details/information about the component or weapon statistics gets displaying in the information panel at the bottom-right corner of the screen
• Components have tech levels. These are currently only for information purposes only, however we’re currently evaluating the possibility of introducing technological research done at military bases that would unlock new upgrades for your whole team
• A loadout management bar is available at the top-right corner of the screen
• The icons in order are: save loadout to disk (this will make the loadout available in future play sessions); duplicate the current loadout into a new one; rename the loadout; undo/revert changes to the loadout; reset/empty the loadout to a fresh start (all hardpoints become empty); and finally: delete the loadout (including from disk)
• Note that default loadouts cannot be deleted. They can be temporarily modified, but if you do any change to a default loadout, make sure you undo/revert the changes if you’re not satisfied with them. If you’re happy with your changes and want to save the loadout, you’ll have to duplicate and rename it first before the “save” option becomes available
• In terms of content we introduced about 25 upgrades and components. These range from familar components (flight assist, targetting assist, warp jammer, repair and resupply fields etc… ) to new upgrades that modify your ship’s statistics (ex.: feather weight reduces its mass, giving more mobility at the expense of a hit points reduction). Storage upgrades provides extra ammo/chaffs/missiles. Weaponry provides upgrades to the ship systems in general, or a sub-category of weapons
  in particular (ex.: faster turrets rotation or increased AMS laser damage). Some categories are currently empty as we haven’t implemented upgrades in them just yet (ex.: no propulsion upgrades are available yet)
• We also introduced 2 new weapons: the Halcyon and the Plasma cutter. Both are converging weapons, which means that the weapon will no longer auto-aim at the target like the standard guns/blasters. As a converging weapon however, it will automatically adjust its firing angle towards the “depth” at which the target currently is. Those weapons require more skills/precision, and as a result have a higher DPS than the standard gimbaled weapons
• Ship’s 3D model now correctly displays the team’s skin
• Ship’s 3D model now renders the loadout’s selected weapons on the hull
• Chat box is no longer visible on the ship or team menus anymore (for layout/lack of space reasons)
• Updated ship statistic bars and values to show how the current loadout positively or negatively affects each attribute (ex.: +10% mass, -15% hitpoints etc…)
• Added more statistics (ex.: recharge rates) to the ship statistics panel

Music and assets

• Introduced new musical tracks in game as they were too repetitive, especially in battles. The amount of music in game was doubled (6 new battle tracks, 3 new ambient tracks, 2 new danger tracks). Credits and thanks go to our compositer, Markus Zierhofer (http://markus-zierhofer.com)
• The music system now randomizes the order in which the tracks are being played (previously: it was sequential)
• New station asset (a new docking bay module) for haulers
• Loads of new icons for the new upgrades system

HUD and general UI

• Updated layout of deployment panel: the design is now more compact and top 3 missions list was removed
• Revamped locking system when a missile/torpedo launcher is selected: the ‘aim’ circle now dynamically changes it size based on the alignment angle towards the target. The new system takes into account your velocity and the target’s velocity and distance, to show
  you a spinning ‘lead’ indicator/reticle. Orientating your ship on this reticle will maximize your chances of the missile/torpedo hitting your target. An arrow is also displayed on the aim circle to show you in which direction you should fire your lateral thrusters to compensate the target’s relative velocity/direction
• Revamped team scores in tab menu: removed the progress bar, now the scores appear on the left/right sides of the menu tabs. Icon is bigger, and the name of the team is displayed
• Fixed “make target” bug in mission panel that sometimes didn’t change the HUD’s primary target
• Closest spawn point button on starmap screen (while having opened the menu in game, not at spawn) now selects the corresponding base in the map or missions list panel. This button also becomes automatically disabled if the closest spawn base is being selected in the list
• Fixed a clipping bug that stopped rendering the HUD radar ring or missile aiming helper when it’s partially out of the screen (but should still be partially visible)
• More HUD icons shoould have a black outline for readability over bright backgrounds
• Fixed a refresh bug that still showed the base having deployable spawns in the star map after it got destroyed
• Fixed a bug that caused ships standing in their spawn to display the hangar’s spawn marker as valid (green) despite belonging to the enemy team
• Nearest hangar’s text marker helper on HUD now stops showing as soon as its base gets destroyed (previously: the marker only disappeared after the hangar module gets destroyed, which could be a dozen seconds later)
• Scrollbars now appear thinner
• Fixed last death position incorrectly appearing at (0, 0, 0) with a red icon the first time the player joins a server (hence never had a ‘last death position’)
• Fixed Windows focus event that could result in accidental UI clicks (now, if the window does not have focus, the first mouse click that gives the focus to the game will no longer result in an in-game click)
• Fixed truncated right & bottom borders around some UI panels/windows in resolutions <= 1080p
• Fixed various UI layout bugs related to list boxes

Bug fixes

• Fixed instant action deploy system which listed an AI ship that the player couldn’t afford to take over due to not having enough credits (it was possible to click on the button, then the action got silentely denied by the server…)
• Fixed carrier that couldn’t spawn at large stations anymore
• Carrier now spawn at station docking bays instead of thin air/far away in space
• Fixed a bug that auto-repaired some modules (defense turrets, hangars…) right after they reached 0 hitpoints, forcing them to stay alive despite the base being destroyed
• Fixed a bug that caused some far-away modules (like defense platforms) to stay alive despite the base being destroyed
• Fixed random client crash bug related to HUD indicators getting deleted at the wrong time
• Fixed an issue that prevented the closest resupply ship to appear outside the (close) visual range
• Fixed FMOD crash due to listing and try to get driver information from disconnected/unplugged audio devices
• Fixed a crash bug when mouse clicking right as the application is starting

Known issues

• Ships have gravity issues on planets ( even the interceptor ). We added a ramp-up factor so that ship’s don’t instantly accelerate, but this results in a loss of sufficient anti-gravity acceleration to compensate for gravity on planets. We’ll revamp the ramp-up factor to take gravity into account
• UI and HUD icons are messed up in low quality texture mode. As a workaround, you can increase the texture quality to medium or high. We’ll work on a hotfix asap
• The prices of ships and their loadouts has inflated. We adjusted the economy in consequence, but this hasn’t been throughly tested. It might be more difficult to earn enough credits to afford the better loadouts or capital ships than in previous versions. Feedback on the economy ( are you having difficulities with it, or do you find it more challenging in a good way ? ) is welcome
• station/base defenses no longer fire at enemies. This is also a high priority for a hotfix
• on custom loadouts, the weapon groups are automatically assigned and might not be in the ideal order (for example, you could have multiple groups for the same weapon… )