Starfarer 0.35a

Starfarer 0.35a

Update - the preview version of the 0.35a release is out, and you can get it here.

The preview version, in a nutshell:

• New fleet control scheme
• Codex with info on ships/fighters/weapons
• Fleet command tutorial
• Mods need to be updated with "gameVersion":"0.35a" in the descriptor to show up in the list.
• Right-click and drag now pans the map around, instead of left. Left-clicking is wholly reserved for interaction with objects. This will trip you up. I apologize Smiley

The full patch notes are below.

Latest Changes (updated on 8/19/2011)

• Wrapped up fleet command changes, discussed in detail here
• Content:
  • New ships: Medusa, Aurora, Dominator
  • New fighters: Warthog, Gladius, Thunder, Longbow, Trident
  • Cult of Lud captains in missions now have suicidal personalities
  • Revamped missions to showcase new ships and gameplay. The names are the same, but the missions are all quite different.
• New hand-painted backgrounds, stars
• Codex interface - accessible from main menum, "more info" on context menus, mission briefing, and mission results
• Improved font rendering, added new font for improved readability of larger blocks of text.
• Improved fog of war rendering, increased fog of war resolution
• Changed the way the exe is generated for windows, hopefully avoiding some AV false positives
• Mods need to be updated with "gameVersion":"0.35a" in the descriptor to show up in the list.
• New csv loader - supports multiple lines within strings in a row, and double quotes in strings (escape as ""). Mostly useful for descriptions.csv
• Balance changes:
  • Improved Onslaught - converted some small turrets into medium, improved all-around coverage
  • Improved Conquest - side-facing hardpoints converted to turrets, changed slot types & sizes, made faster. Overall, more powerful and easier to use
  • Lots and lots of weapon balance changes - mostly bringing weaker weapons up to par
• Added captain personalities
• Fighters more likely to return to carrier when hitpoints are low
• Added two new fighter classes. Assault - stays close to target like interceptors, but doesn't have a preference for engaging fighters like interceptors do. Support - tries to strafe around the target without making direct attack runs.
• Added friend-vs-foe indicators around ships and missiles (red diamond for enemy, blue circle for neutral, green square for friendly in map view only)
• To prevent any incompatibility problems due to extensive control changes, controls are now reset to defaults when running the new version of the game for the first time.
• Fixed AI bug that caused bombers to be too cautious with bombs, and too cautious in general. They're a lot more deadly now.
• All dialogs can now be dismissed by right-clicking outside the dialog. Pressing Escape still works, too.
• Ships use full color icons - should be placed in ships/icons/color/icon2_<hull id>.png

Full list of changes, broken out by category, below:

Content

• Codex interface - accessible from main menum, "more info" on context menus, mission briefing, and mission results
• New fighters: Warthog, Gladius, Thunder, Longbow, Trident
• Cult of Lud captains in missions now have suicidal personalities
• Revamped missions to showcase new ships and gameplay. The names are the same, but the missions are all quite different.
• New hand-painted backgrounds, stars
• Codex interface - accessible from main menum, "more info" on context menus, mission briefing, and mission results
• New High Intensity Laser and Annihilator Rocket Launcher graphics (screenshot, featuring the Aurora, which is also sporting the new PD burst lasers for good measure)
• Added new ships - Medusa, Aurora, Dominator - screenshot
• Added Heavy Burst Laser, medium energy point defense weapon
• Added PD Burst Laser weapon

Gameplay & Balance Changes

• Wrapped up fleet command changes, discussed in detail here
• Finished functional changes to the war room/fleet control interface. You can now create assignments for your fleet to carry out, instead of micromanaging the details. Blog post with details forthcoming.
• Improved Onslaught - converted some small turrets into medium, improved all-around coverage
• Improved Conquest - side-facing hardpoints converted to turrets, changed slot types & sizes, made faster. Overall, more powerful and easier to use
• Lots and lots of weapon balance changes - mostly bringing weaker weapons up to par
• AI improvements:
  • Revamped collision avoidance AI - much better at avoiding collisions and also aware of the ship's tactical goals (i.e., won't avoid a collision to wind up in front of an enemy Onslaught's main battery)
  • Missile avoidance similarily improved. Use of shields vs missiles also improved, especially for omni-directional shields.
  • Maneuvers to avoid being surrounded and to cause enemies to get in each other's way
  • Maneuvers to avoid crowding friendly ships that are between it and the target
  • Large ships will attempt to vent flux and get movement/turn bonus to better face threats trying to stay behind them
  • Interceptors are more wary of PD weapons
  • Improved friendly fire avoidance - AI is more aware when friendly ships might move into the path of a shot, but currently isn't
  • Won't vent flux when it's in a good position to do damage- i.e., when the enemy is venting or overloaded
  • Perceives ships that are almost done venting flux as a threat
  • Won't turn off autofire on PD groups when flux is high but enemy missiles are nearby
  • More judicious about using too many missiles on a low-hull target - won't waste all of them on overkill
  • Large ships aren't so easily distracted by smaller ones
  • Less paranoid about the threat posed by enemy missile launchers
  • Closes in to effective non-missile weapon range instead of relying on missile weapons entirely
  • If a ship outranges the enemy, it will close in to just beyond effective enemy range to take advantage of as many weapons as possible.
  • Improved strafing to stay away from enemy ship's firepower
  • Increased propensity to fire strike weapons against appropriate targets (notably, the Apogee will use its AM blasters now)
  • Alternating weapon groups now properly distinguish whether the ideal weapon to use requires aiming or not. (notably, the Apogee will use its MIRV launcher much better)
  • More intelligent about using kinetic-damage weapons vs shields
  • Added captain personalities
  • Fighters more likely to return to carrier when hitpoints are low
  • Fixed AI bug that caused bombers to be too cautious with bombs, and too cautious in general. They're a lot more deadly now.
  • Added two new fighter classes. Assault - stays close to target like interceptors, but doesn't have a preference for engaging fighters like interceptors do. Support - tries to strafe around the target without making direct attack runs.
• Added "burst" beam weapons. A burst beam fires for a set duration - usually about a second - and then has to cool down before firing again. No weapons using it (yet), most likely candidates are PD weapons - the burst damage is front-loaded, so among other things, this allows for weapons that can easily shoot down some incoming missiles but have low overall DPS.
• Improved the effectiveness of armor vs beam weapons overall. This includes non-energy-damage beam weapons such as the Graviton Beam, and does not include energy damage non-beam weapons such as the Pulse Lasers.

Modding-related

• Mods need to be updated with "gameVersion":"0.35a" in the descriptor to show up in the list.
• New csv loader - supports multiple lines within strings in a row, and double quotes in strings (escape as ""). Mostly useful * for descriptions.csv
• Ships use full color icons - should be placed in ships/icons/color/icon2_<hull id>.png
• Sound effects are now moddable - the contents of sounds.json will be combined the same way spreadsheet contents already were
• In weapon_data.csv, "burst size" is the burst duration, and "burst delay" is the burst cooldown.

Misc Features & Improvements

• Added friend-vs-foe indicators around ships and missiles (red diamond for enemy, blue circle for neutral, nothing for friendly - both in map and combat view)
• To prevent any incompatibility problems due to extensive control changes, controls are now reset to defaults when running the new version of the game for the firs
• All dialogs can now be dismissed by right-clicking outside the dialog. Pressing Escape still works, too.
• Improved font rendering, added new font for improved readability of larger blocks of text.
• Improved fog of war rendering, increased fog of war resolution
• Changed the way the exe is generated for windows, hopefully avoiding some AV false positives
• Changed ship variant names to differentiate between "Close Support" or "Fire Support" roles, in preparation for upcoming war room changes.
• Doubled default amount of panning. Instead of expanding the pan range, the 'Z' key now centers view on target - regardless of how far it is.
• Changes to controls - pressing 'R' will now set/clear target as appropriate, instead of using a separate key for clearing the target.
• The new default mapping for pause is spacebar.
• Entering the war room always pauses the game and leaving it always unpauses.
• Exiting the war room no longer turns off autopilot. It now stays on until it's explicitly toggled off or manual control of the ship is performed.
• Performance tweak - planets render about 100 times faster. No, really.
• Improved look of armor grid display

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug where sometimes an incorrect resolution would be used in windowed mode
• Fixed bug where the keyboard would get into a state where it thought the Alt key was
• Fixed bug that caused the AI to occasionally turn off shields and keep them off even while under fire
• Fixed bug where AI would sometimes point omni shields away from the desired direction when first raising them
• Fixed bug where game would hang if it tried to load a non-existent image.
• Fixed bug with unknown key bindings showing up as "<unset>". Now show up as "unknown_123" etc.