Starsector 0.8.1a

Starsector 0.8.1a

Blog post/download links here.

Changes as of June 03, 2017

Campaign

• Fixed fleet overpopulation issue that caused hyperspace to get laggy around the time of the tutorial end (scavenger fleets were hanging out in core area instead of heading out to the fringes)
• Guaranteed at least one bounty from commission faction in a relatively timely manner
• Damaged REDACTED have a level 10 officer in command instead of not having one at all
• Limited occurrence of "Analyze Entity" missions with a target very far from the center of the system
• Increased drops from some salvageable entities
• Ship AI: reduced confusion of frigate and destroyer-sized ships when dealing with fighters
• Centurion: lowered supply cost to 4 (was: 6)
• Tempest's Terminator Drone:
  • Reduced shields and flux dissipation (to 200/50, from 1000/200)
  • Increased hull to 800 (was: 150) to roughly compensate
  • Increased replacement time to 30 seconds (was: 20)
• Made some improvements to AI ordering a full retreat:
  • When only ships left are faster than player's, out of peak time, have not successfully dealt much damage recently, and don't outnumber the player too much
  • When in a retreat scenario and only ships left are phase ships

Miscellaneous

• Windows build ships with both 64-bit and 32-bit Java; installs with proper one based on operating system

Changes as of May 30, 2017

Campaign

• Person bounty events: brought back small chance to have pirate bounties at high bounty levels
• Added shielded variants of Hound and Cerberus to pirate fleets
• Added tooltips explaining cause when "perform salvage" option is disabled
• Added sound effect for "pound into scrap" option
• Added another exploration music track
• Reworked Interdiction Pulse ability:
  • Takes some time to charge up, fleet slows to a stop during this time
  • Interrupts and/or triggers the cooldown on movement-related abilities of fleets in range
    • Emergency Burn, Sustained Burn, Transverse Jump
    • Also interrupts other charging interdiction pulses
  • Range is based on sensor strength of using fleet; shown while ability is charging
  • Effect magnitude is based on the comparative sensor strength of using fleet and target
    • No longer based on relative movement direction of target
  • Cooldown for affected abilities is set to a value based on the effect magnitude
    • E.G: 6 seconds base, +- (difference in sensor strength / 200)
  • Sufficient sensor strength on affected fleet allows it to avoid interdict entirely
    • This includes using Active Sensor Burst
  • AI fleets use IP and are aware of the various interactions
  • Does not affect fleets of same faction
• Transverse Jump: increased activation time to 4 seconds, to be slightly higher than IP charge time
• Updated sounds for Neutrino Detector ability
• Fleet and trade screens at markets will remember selected submarket when switching to other tabs and back
• Increased the availability of certain weapons, fighter wings, and phase ships
• Added "number of d-mods" indicator to ship list in refit screen
• Went through all variants, made sure PD groups are set to autofire
• Added recovery cost and time information to "suspend repairs" tooltip
• Added CR loss and recovery cost of in-space refit to refit screen

Combat

• Odyssey:
  • Reduced peak time by 60 seconds
  • Reduced shield efficiency to 1.0 (was: 0.8)
  • Reduced speed to 80 (was: 90)
• Conquest: increased armor to 1200 (was: 1000)
• Makeshift Shield Generator: reduced flux upkeep to 0.5 (was: 0.75)
• Gladius: increased turn rate, reduced OP cost to 10 (was: 12)
• Khopesh: increased OP cost to 12 (was: 10)
• Reserve Deployment ship system:
  • Increases maximum by 1 fighter for wings of 3 or less, 2 fighters otherwise (was: up to 3)
  • Will deploy at most wing size number of fighters (was: up to new maximum)

Miscellaneous

• Added "allowForceQuitInIronMode" setting to settings.json; defaults to true
• Renamed front shield generator and front/omni emitter hullmods for improved clarity
  • Makeshift Shield Generator
  • Shield Conversion - Front
  • Shield Conversion - Omni
• Upgraded to LWJGL version 2.9.3

Modding

• The following JSON files are now merged (if multiple mods provide them) when loaded:
  • .wpn, .skin, .ship, .variant
• Ships with modules will properly use total mass when collision occurs with main body

Bugfixing

• "Factions permanently at war after a while" bug *should* be fixed
• Fixed issue with mission ship variant editing
• Fixed issue that caused REDACTED fleets to become non-hostile to player after some time
• Fixed issue with post-pursuit-autoresolve ship recovery showing enemy ships as coming from player fleet

Changes as of May 24, 2017

Campaign

• Lay in course:
  • Right-clicking on an icon on the map will lay in course to that entity
  • Also works on empty space
  • Right-clicking on empty space when a course is laid in will clear it
• Made stabilizing cargo pods 2x cheaper; lasts 150 days
• Weapon slot rendering: added "distance from center of ship on spinal axis" as factor for rendering order
• D-hulls, restoration:
  • Pre-made, non-pirate etc d-hulls now have same weapon mounts and OP as base hulls
    • Will convert to the base hull when restored
  • Hulls with paintjobs (e.g. pirate, luddic path, etc) will retain original sprite and skin properties (OP, weapon mounts)
  • Clarified restoration dialog: now says that it will remove d-mods rather than "restore to peak condition", which implies more changes than restoration actually does
  • Removed "destroyed weapon mounts" hullmod; was more confusing than clarifying the matter
  • Pirate-paint-job d-hull names now end in (P) instead of (D)
• Reduced ship restoration cost somewhat (still higher than cost to buy brand-new)
• Restoring a mothballed ship unmothballs it
• "Sought by patrols" will not prevent market interaction unless the patrol is at least somewhat nearby
• Autofit target variants no longer show dmods in the tooltip
• Autofit now attempts to recreate weapon groups used by the target variant instead of autogenerating them
• Will no longer spawn distress calls from systems with pulsars
• Campaign toggle abilities with a deactivation time now can't be reactivated during deactivation
  • Mostly affects Sustained Burn
• Doubled chance for modspecs to drop after battle
• Ox-class Tug:
  • Improves fleetwide burn by 1, cumulative with other tugs, not limited by its own burn level
  • High sensor profile
  • Base burn is 8
  • Uses 10 fuel per light-year and 10 supplies per month (but only 5 supplies to deploy)
  • Costs 40% CR to deploy (which brings down the cost to regain full CR, especially when recovered)
• Scavenge: will now show rough indication of accident risk (low/significant/high)
• Salvage not taken after the dialog is dismissed will be placed in a cargo pods object
• Free look mode: right-clicking to turn it off will immediately toggle it off (with gradual return to center)
• Fighters now start out in "regroup" rather than "engage" mode
• Refit screen: fighter picker dialog will now show actual fighter sprite rather than schematic
• Slightly increased salvage generated by the "pound it into scrap" option (should be roughly half of "proper" salvage after 2-3 scavenge attempts)
  • Added tooltip indicating the expected salvage quantity compared to proper operation
• Shift-right-clicking the source cargo stack while some cargo is picked up will put down 1 unit of cargo
• Added "administrator" person to markets that did not have any official faction representative
• REDACTED fleets should no longer be able to initiate the transponder-off cargo scan interaction
• During the basic combat tutorial, it should no longer be possible to destroy the Enforcer during the first step
• Fleets will no longer try to "maintain contact" while Emergency Burn is on
• Officers:
  • If already have a carrier skill: guaranteed a carrier skill pick on every level-up, if any left
  • Otherwise: guaranteed a non-carrier skill pick on every level-up
• Hermes, Mercury: reduced fuel use to 0.5/ly, reduced fuel capacity
• Added Colossus Mk.II and Mk.III
• Hyperstorms more common, have longer "warning" period and move more slowly
• Fleet tooltip: maximum burn will now update dynamically
• Adjusted "in the heart"/"in the outer reaches" mission location descriptions to more closely match actual location of entities
• When battle involves a REDACTED REDACTED, player fleet will always be allowed to disengage w/o pursuit
• Scavenger fleets that turn pirate now have low reputation impact, i.e. fighting them will not turn you insta-hostile w/ either the independents or the pirates
• Person bounties:
  • Take less completions to go up in level on low end, more on high end
  • Level 3 and higher bounties are all of the more difficult "deserter" type
  • Some bounties above and below the current level will be posted
  • Bounty level goes up with player level even if the player hasn't been doing bounties
  • Improved bounty description - mentions flagship, fleet size, and noteworthy commander qualities
  • Bounty fleet commanders may get fleetwide skills (electronic warfare etc)
  • New bounties will not spawn near where the player is
  • Technically-expired bounties will not end while player is in the same system as target
  • "Mission-important" flag on fleet will be cleared if fleet remains after flagship is taken out
• Reward balance:
  • Toned down reward from "analyze entity" missions; increased fraction based on distance from core
  • Same for "survey planet" missions
  • Roughly halved drop rates of AI cores
  • Survey data:
    • Higher level for habitable worlds
    • Lower level for high hazard
    • Lower credit value overall
    • Planets in populated systems start out fully surveyed
• Domain-era REDACTED:
  • Probability of defenders reduced to 50% on probes and survey ships (was: 100%)
  • Number and size (but not probability) of defenders grows as more and more are defeated
    • With corresponding hand-waving re: why/how it happens
  • Will always deploy all available ships, or as many as possible given the battleSize setting
• Other REDACTED:
  • Higher probability and larger number of defenders at various habitats/stations
  • Smaller fleets will run away from the player instead of always engaging (to remove annoyance of having to fight the smaller fleets)
  • Station-spawned fleets have combat officers
  • New station-spawned fleets will get larger as fleets in same system are defeated
  • Undamaged station commander always has Gunnery Implants level 3
• Size of new patrols spawned patrols increases more quickly as they're defeated
• Procurement mission reward text updated to match new standard for how it's displayed
• "Unmothball" tooltip will show estimated supplies and time to recover combat readiness
• Food shortage events will now increase food prices properly (wasn't working right before)

Abilities

• Sustained Burn:
  • Removed sensor range penalty
  • Can run Neutrino Detector at the same time as SB (but not Active Sensor Burst or Remote Survey)
  • Profile penalty increased to 100% (was 50%)
  • Acceleration depends on direction of travel - slowing down is faster, going to top speed is slow
  • More affected by hyperstorms
  • AI fleets will use sustained burn
• Emergency Burn:
  • Fleet not affected by terrain movement penalties while active
  • Reduced duration by about half
• Active Sensor Burst: reduced duration (4 seconds total)
• Transverse Jump: fleet stops and charges for 3 seconds before executing the jump, can be attacked
• Interdiction Pulse ability
  • Stops the fleet and charges for some time, then disrupts drive fields of nearby fleets
  • Temporarily reduces the burn level based on whether a fleet is heading towards the pulse source
  • Interrupts target fleet's movement-related abilities such as Emergency Burn and Sustained Burn
  • No resource or CR cost; 1 day cooldown
  • Slight reputation penalty if successfully used w/ transponder on; won't make hostile
  • Other fleets will try to avoid it by turning away
  • Used by AI fleets, available to player by default

Skills

• Coordinated Maneuvers maximum now applies after bonus from current ship is subtracted, not before
• Recovery Operations: level 3 now provides +50% fuel found instead of +10% general salvage
• Added "Converted Hangar" modspec to level 2 Fighter Doctrine
• Fleet Logistics:
  • Swapped level 1 and 2 effects
  • Maintenance cost reduction is now 30% (was: 50%)
• Helmsmanship: level 3 bonus now applies at up to 5% flux (was: 1%)
• Advanced Countermeasures:
  • Level 1: increased to -50% kinetic damage vs armor (was: 20%)
  • Level 2: increased to -25% HE damage vs shields (was: 20%)
  • Level 3: damage to fighters/missiles increased by 50% (was: 30%)
• Fighter Doctrine: bonuses reduced to 15% (were: 25%)
• Carrier Command: bonuses reduced to 20% (were: 25%)
• Wing Commander: level 3 accuracy bonus reduced to 50% (was: 100%)

Combat

• Added "Fighter Strike" command
  • Carriers given the assignment will attack the target with their fighters
  • Will try to stay within fighter range
    • Will otherwise maneuver and pick their own, non-fighter targets independently
  • Non-carriers given this command will treat it as "Eliminate"
  • Is automatically created on right-click when only carriers are selected
• Fighters:
  • Normalized range of most fighters to 4000 (some were 5000, some were 3000)
• Talons:
  • Missile launcher now has maximum ammo of 2 and regenerates 1 ammo every 10 seconds (previously: unlimited ammo, 5-second reload time)
  • Reduced hitpoints to 200 (was: 300)
• Piranha: removed LMG, bombs have an 0.1 second arming time
• Spark: removed 1 PD Burst Laser, fixed/adjusted weapon layout
• Thunder:
  • Range 8000, speed 450, 500 health/75 armor (same as Gladius)
  • Armed with Light Dual MG, IR Pulse Laser, Swarmers
• Longbow: shield reduced to 100 (was: 200)
• Lux: IR Pulse laser replaced with "high delay" version that fires at half the RoF
• Dagger: OP cost reduced to 18 (from 20)
• Trident: OP cost reduced to 25 (from 28), reduced drop rarity
• Weapons:
  • LRPD Laser: reduced flux to 25/sec (was 100)
  • Less drastically reduced flux cost of PD Laser and both Burst PD Laser versions
  • Locust:
    • Doubled ammo (to 600) and burst size (to 40)
    • Increased flight time by about 50%
    • Increased speed to 400 (from 300)
    • Damage changed to 200 fragmentation (was 100 high explosive)
  • Light Mortar: increased range to 500 (from 450)
  • Ion Pulser: ammo regenerates in sets of 3, to match burst size
  • Thumper: increased range to 700
• Ships:
  • Odyssey:
    • Increased speed to 90 (was 50), also increased acceleration/deceleration/turn accel
    • Increased number of fighter bays to 2 (was: 1)
    • Changed engine visuals to reflect higher speed
  • Brawler (Tri-Tachyon version):
  • Replaced ship system with plasma jets
  • Small mounts changed to SYNERGY (from UNIVERSAL)
  • Engines have high-tech style
• Unstable Injector:
  • Reduced range penalty to 15% (was 25%)
  • Reduced speed bonus to 25/20/15/15
• Front Shield Generator
  • Reduces top speed by 25%
  • Changed to tier 0, lower price, carried by all major factions
• Improved description of Stabilized Shields mod (clarified what bonus applies to)
• Advanced Targeting Core, Supercomputer: extends PD range by 60% instead of 50%
• Damper Field: damage reduction down to 50% (from 67%), charge regen rate halved (1 per 20 seconds)
• Pirate version of Wolf now uses "Degraded Phase Skimmer"; only 2 charges and longer regen time
• Trying to target an undamageable station body will target the nearest damageable module instead
• Ships deployed in station battles will burn in from the edge of the map

Ship AI

• Fixed ship AI bug that prevented carriers from auto-escorting nearby ships one size class smaller
• Will now close in a little more on enemies it's winning the flux war against
• Fixed issue that could cause certain ship loadouts to occasionally turn away from the enemy w/o a good reason
• Fixed issue with carriers getting over-aggressive sometimes when given an assignment (such as "assault" or "defend")
• Carriers given an "Eliminate" assignment will now focus their fighters on the target
• (Hopefully) improved AI behavior in regard to friendly fire danger from fighter weapons
• Fixed issue with carriers sometimes being hesitant to order wings to engage when they're on their own
• Carriers whose wings all have range 0 should no longer set them to "engage"
• Made some improvements re: missile use vs phase ships
• Fixed issue w/ ships not closing in effectively on very distant enemies sometimes and wandering instead

Sounds

• New sounds for Devastator shell explosions
• New sound for Phase Beam
• New sound for "Scavenge" ability activation

Miscellaneous

• Game now comes with 64-bit Java 7 (7u79)
  • Increased default memory allocation to 1536m
  • Can still run on 32-bit machines provided 32-bit Java is installed manually
• Game should now consume less system resources while minimized
• Game now remembers whether the tutorial was completed across clean reinstalls
• Added "clear" button to mod selection dialog in launcher
• Added new carriers (Mora, Drover, Legion) to the "Random Battle" mission

Modding

• Fixed issue with using custom rule commands
• Fixed issue with procgen occasionally generating star systems too close to modded ones
• Fixed issue with ship system active duration not allowing fractional values
• Fixed issue with non-leader fighters overwriting any changes to velocity
• Added to ShipVariantAPI:
• Map<String, String> getStationModules()
• Added to SectorAPI:
  • List<EveryFrameScript> getScripts();
  • List<EveryFrameScript> getTransientScripts();
• "Ships with modules" should work
  • Use SHIP_WITH_MODULES hint in ship_data, instead of STATION
  • When modules are destroyed, they don't drop their weapons and are still accessible in refit
  • When recovering, about half the modules are detached
  • D-mods only applied to base, not modules
  • Likewise with recovery
  • Base will not self-destruct on losing all modules unless hull is invulnerable
  • "empty hull" variants (for sale in markets) include empty-hull versions of all the modules
  • Case where different variants use different hulls for same module slot not supported
• Non-phase-cloak right-click systems now display properly in fighter tooltip
• Fixed issue with phase fighters leaving permanent "ghosts" when used with recall device
• "allowAnyJavaVersion" setting now has to be changed by the player, can not be changed by mods
• Added to SectorAPI: GenericPluginManagerAPI getGenericPlugins()
• GenericPluginManagerAPI: goal is to provide centralize means of picking overridable plugins for mod-added features or vanilla features implemented in .api code
  • GenericPlugin pickPlugin(Class c, Object params);
• Added tags and related methods to ShipVariantAPI
  • Using Tags.SHIP_RECOVERABLE to track whether a ship can spawn as a derelict post-battle, instead of using isStockVariant()
• Added MutableShipStatsAPI.getFighterWingRange()
• WeaponSpecAPI:
  • List<Vector2f> getHardpointFireOffsets();
  • List<Float> getHardpointAngleOffsets();
  • List<Vector2f> getTurretFireOffsets();
  • List<Float> getTurretAngleOffsets();
  • List<Vector2f> getHiddenFireOffsets();
  • List<Float> getHiddenAngleOffsets();
• WeaponAPI:
  • void ensureClonedSpec()
  • Which then allows new methods of WeaponSpecAPI to be used and only affect that one instance of the weapon
• Added engineSlotChanges to .skin files; see brawler_tritachyon.skin for example
  • "style" *must* be a custom style from hull_styles.json

Bugfixing

• Fixed hyperspace terrain in radar not updating properly
• Fixed UI rendering glitch when leaving area of Sector
• Pulsars now properly drain CR and blow fleet off course
• Changing fighter wings in flight now properly reduces CR
• Fixed issue with learning modspecs from "special" tab not properly consuming them
• Gave Drover a fleet-point value
• Fixed incorrect credit rewards/prices during distress call event in locales using "." as the number group separator
• Colossus freighter now properly has the "civgrade" hullmod
• Fixed issue with amount of collision damage applied to stations
• Fixed issue where scavengers-turned-pirate could turn back to independent but continue pursuing the player
• Fixed issue sorting cargo on military submarket
• Fixed issue where it was possible to unpause the game while in the scavenge dialog
• Fixed bug with possible excessive crew losses after combat if a salvaged ship with low hull is in your fleet
• Fixed credits not showing up in Luddic Path tithe dialog
• Fixed crash on star system info screen if planet had 4 or more moons
• Fixed "Restore" option becoming available on hulls that have already been restored
• Fixed issue in refit screen where mounts on restored hulls would show "empty" hovertext after being fitted
• Partially addressed issue where graphics would sometimes flicker on some machines
• Fixed issue where autofit could go above the OP limit sometimes
• Fixed autofit not using REDACTED fighters
• Fixed AI issue where it was underestimating incoming damage for purposes of shield use
• Fixed null in Safety Overrides description
• Fixed issue where removing Converted Hangar would result in the loss of the slotted fighter LPC
• Fixed issue where it was possible to click on already-salvaged entities on the map to salvage again
• Mothballed ships now show in burn level tooltip
• Going through a jump-point will no longer automatically "resume course"
• Fixed issue with fighter wing LPCs on black market not being picked from the right sources
• When sound initialization fails, the game will now show a message and proceed w/ sound off instead of crashing
• "Save backup" step ensures data is written to disk (and isn't just cached) before proceeding
• Fixed issue with excessive fuel/cargo being lost after a losing battle
• Fixed issue with disabled fighters playing the wrong sound when destroyed
• Fixed bug where venting would trigger the cooldown on Phase Lance and similar weapons
• Scuttling a ship will now put any mounted fighter LPCs into cargo instead of destroying them
• Fixed issue with intel messages losing line breaks after a game load
• "Supplies to finish repairs" now shows correct amount when repair time exceeds CR recovery time
• Fixed issue with some bombers not returning to refit if only remaining enemies are frigates
• Fixed issue where ordering a full retreat made fighter wings abandon their carrier and run away
• "Decivilized" condition now properly adds to hazard rating
• Fixed several issues related to transferring command during battle
• Multiple "analyze entity" missions will no longer target the same entity (and thus be uncompletable)
• Khopesh rocket bombers will properly fire rockets in a burst vs frigates
• Fixed issue where answering distress call increased reputation with the "Neutral" faction
• Fixed issue with REDACTED fleets not spawning at REDACTED REDACTED
• Fixed enemy ships with Reinforced Bulkheads always being recoverable regardless of player contribution to battle
• (Hopefully) really fixed logging on OS X
• Fixed collision detection bug when missiles were fired from point-blank range slightly inside enemy shields
• Fixed issue with black holes having reduced effect when Sustained Burn is on
• "Strike" weapons will properly attack station modules when on autofire
• Fixed a savefile/memory use bloat issue (was holding on to some despawned fleets far longer than necessary) (special thanks to Dark.Revenant!)
• Fixed issue where right-click assigning ships to a task could get other ships briefly assigned as well
• "Inhabited" map filter will now pick up Galatia as being inhabited during the tutorial