Campaign
Colony building:
Player can establish a colony on a planet they've surveyed
Requires crew, machinery, and supplies
Can change the planet's name, either when colony is established or at any point later on
Can build "Industries" and "Structures" (same thing, mechanically) at a colony
Some example ones:
Mining
Farming
Spaceport
Heavy Industry
Orbital stations (of several varieties)
Military Base
Tech-Mining
... and a number of other ones
Some industries can be upgraded, i.e. "Patrol HQ" -> "Military Base", or "Heavy Industry" -> "Orbital Works"
Most industries are known from the start, but a few more exotic ones can be learned
Can set a "stockpiling level" for a colony to have it build up extra resources the player can take
Stockpiling costs credits, but somewhat less than the base cost of the commodities
Stockpiles will be used to counter temporary shortages
Player colonies have a "local resources" submarket where they can take from, or add to, stockpiles. There's a "storage" submarket for resources that must remain untouched.
Player colonies do *not* have an Open Market unless there's a "Commerce" industry
Colonies start at size 3; population growth depends on many factors and can be directly invested into
Can assign AI cores to manage industries for various, significant benefits
A Military Base produces patrols which will defend the colony
Can hire Administrators (up to a limit) to manage your colonies
Can learn skills that improve the colonies under your control
Maximum number under personal control is soft-limited - reduced stability for going beyond
Can assign Alpha Cores to manage your colonies, for a massive benefit
Establishing the first colony also creates a new player faction
Can set the faction name and select a flag
Can adjust both at any point in the future
Blueprints for ship hulls, weapons, and fighter LPCs:
Required by Heavy Industry to build ships
Ship production "quality" is based on many factors and affects the number of d-mods a produced hull will have
Can be improved by certain items found during exploration
Some basic blueprints always known from the start, rest have to be acquired
Blueprints can be prioritized to get the desired fleet composition and weapon/fighter use
Affect fleet production by player colonies
Player can custom-order known ships and weapons
Will be built based on the monthly production capacity of their heavy industry
And delivered to a designated gathering point, along with some crew, fuel, and supplies
New economy system to support colony mechanics
Player buying/selling has direct impact on market's available commodity numbers
Player colonies can become suppliers for other factions and generate export income for the player
Relative "accessibility" of colonies determines who the best supplier is
Player has several tools to manage this, from establishing waystations to piracy
Officers found in sleeper pods can now be up to level 15 instead of 5
Administrators can now be found in sleeper pods; likeliest place to find high-skilled ones
Can now go over the maximum number of officers and administrators
Can't use the ones over maximum
Can't hire to go over maximum
Mainly useful to be able to find officers/admins in sleeper pods, while already at maximum
Factions
Factions have access to ships/weapons/fighters based on their blueprints
AI ship loadouts are dynamically generated, based on what's available
Factions have been adjusted so that their available blueprints and doctrine make each more distinct
Examples:
The Hegemony favors larger ships and high-quality officers
The Luddic Church, while also mostly drawing from low-tech designs:
Favors larger numbers of ships with lower-quality officers
Makes extensive use of Converted Hangars
Has access to a faction-specific "Perdition"-class torpedo bomber
Faction doctrine: settings that affect faction fleet composition and ship behavior
Each setting can go from 1 to 5
Warships - proportion of regular combat ships found in fleets, on average
Carriers - proportion of carriers
Phase Ships - proportion of phase ships
Warships, Carriers, and Phase Ships must add up to 7 points
Officer Quality, Ship Quality, and More Ships - must also add up to 7 points
Ship Size - independent setting, determines average size of ships preferred
Aggression - determines personality of officers; does not affect the player's own fleet
Also applies to combat personality/behavior of ships without officers, both for the player and for other factions
This aspect *does* affect the player's own fleet
Each faction now has an appropriate doctrine setting
Monthly income and expenses:
Outposts/colonies
Base income from a population
Upkeep for each industry; based on hazard rating of planet
A lower-hazard planet can support more industries on the "base income"; exact numbers still TBD
Can go above that for a negative income
Exports: income for becoming the best provider of a commodity to another faction's colony
Incurs "overhead" when there are many exports from the same colony
*Always* better to have more exports, but the added benefit drops off quickly
Storage - 1% of base value of stored ships/cargo
Crew, officer, and administrator salaries
Presented in a detailed monthly report
New tab: "Command", shortcut "D". Allows player to:
Manage colonies
Can also see which markets you have storage at and what's stored where
View latest income report
Manage the doctrine and blueprint priorities
Make custom production orders
Cargo screen
Can quick-transfer (or sell) a lot of cargo by holding down Alt then mousing over the stacks
Can be turned off via settings.json
Improved quantity selection slider for picking up part of a stack
Supplies/fuel/crew/marines/heavy machinery now shown first in sorted cargo; other commodities also shown before weapons/fighter chips/etc
Revamped intel screen
Tag-based filtering system
Always shows map
UI is updated based on the current state of missions and such
Can accept and abandon certain missions directly from the intel screen
Can flag pieces of intel as "important"
Intel is now "live" and does not require a new message for the information displayed to change
Person bounties:
Will now pay out and increase reputation when hostile or worse with offering faction
Information given re: where to find target now includes constellation and some planet/star system type hints, but no actual star system unless it's a lone star
Reward no longer based on market stability
System bounties:
Will now pay out and increase reputation when hostile or worse with offering faction
Most likely in systems containing markets hostile to each other
Faction commissions:
Have to talk to a high-ranking faction official to get one
Pays a level-based monthly stipend in addition to a small bounty for enemy ships
Partially restores standing with other factions as hostility status changes
Can be resigned; smaller reputation penalty if in person
Restores standing with factions that became hostile as a result of holding the commission
Faction hostilities: fixed various issues re: hostilities properly ending and total number/frequency
Last for at least 6 months, and rarely more than a full cycle
Hostilities between Hegemony-TriTachyon and other starting hostilities between major factions (i.e. not pirates/pathers) are no longer permanent
Smugglers now have a low reputation impact if attacked, i.e. won't turn entire faction instantly hostile
Chance to have advance intel about departures of trade fleets/smugglers, including timeframe and cargo
Changed options for colony interaction
Can open all core UI tabs with corresponding shortcut instead of just a subset
Added "visit dockside bar" option; details are WIP
Added "Consider your military options" option; sub-menu allows player to attack orbital station
Will also contain a few TBD mechanics re: planet-based military actions
Dropping cargo pods may now distract pirate fleets; duration of distraction (if any) depends on quantity of goods ejected
Autoresolve (AI vs AI, and auto-resolved pursuit battles):
Takes d-mods/production quality into account
Works with stations and modular ships
Made various improvements to "where is this entity" mission/bounty/etc description text
Toned down bounty level-scaling
Added "Compromised Storage" dmod, reduces cargo/crew/fuel capacity of ship by 30%
Added to Mudskipper Mk.2
Added Gremlin-class lowtech phase frigate, with pirate and Luddic Path versions
Buy and sell cost of ships now includes the base supply cost of their current combat readiness (i.e., no/minimal credit loss for recovering CR on a ship and then selling it)
Similar CR-based modifier added to supplies etc recovered when scuttling a ship
Added two new torpedo bomber wings: Perdition and Cobra
Fleet AI:
Much less easily sidetracked by chases; patrols in particular will largely focus on defending their objectives
When orbiting a planet, will spread out to try to avoid overlap with other orbiting fleets
Reduced number of campaign ship contrails; improves performance a lot and should generally not be noticeable
Sensors: combined detection range in hyperspace now limited to 2000 units (was 5000)
Added "generate name" option to colony renaming dialog
Installed fighters now shown in the fleet screen
Trade fleet routes will stop by a waystation if appropriate
Fighting independent scavenger fleets will now only slightly reduce standing with the independents
Temporary/event-based market conditions no longer have "event" label, grouped to the left of other conditions instead
Condition icon size scales down if there are too many to fit in the available width
Lava planets will no longer show up as part of the combat background (too bright)
Jump-point tooltip no longer shows planet types in unexplored star systems
Number of d-mods is now shown for each fleet member in the campaign fleet tooltip
D-mods are now also highlighted in the ship tooltip's list of hullmods
Made "fleet despawning" animation smoother
Number of supplies UI indicator will now include the picked-up supply stack, if any
When a course is laid in and you approach a jump-point, selecting "leave" will also disable autopilot
Miscellaneous
Updated to use newer version of xstream (1.4.10)
Cleaned up controls screen - updated text and removed commands that are no longer in the game
Made some improvements to game-saving code that should speed it up on non-SSD drives
Made in-combat "exit game" button red to avoid potential confusion with "claim victory"
Vertical scrollbar active area now wider, indicator expands when mouse is in active area
Improved algorithm for automatically generating weapon groups
Improved game startup speed when sound is enabled by up to around 40% total, depending on the system specs
Orbital Stations
Can be built at a colony to provide defenses and support nearby friendly fleets in combat
Existing colonies have these as appropriate
Three tiers: Orbital Station, Battlestation, and Star Fortress
Three tech levels/styles: low tech, midline, and high tech
Roughly similar combat power of each style, but different tactical approaches
Dynamically fitted with weapons based on faction weapon availability
Higher-tier stations are bolstered with drones and minefields
Combat
Improved proximity fuse range detection vs longer/thinner ships
Phase ships:
Doom: new ship system, "Mine Strike", spawns high-damage, high-delay proximity fuse mines
Huge buff overall
Harbinger: system changed to Quantum Disruptor
Afflictor: system changed to Entropy Amplifier
Various performance improvements, should be around 20-30% faster
Toggling autofire on on an already-selected weapon group will make that group autofire
Can override and get manual control by selecting the group again
Fixed bug that caused the fighter rate replacement multiplier to apply twice
New graphics for Annihilator Pod medium weapon
Greatly improved missile tracking
And fixed issues with ECCM sometimes making it worse; it should now be a significant improvement
Hurricane MIRV:
Made missile and warheads more visible
Reduced number of warheads to 7
Warheads are now two-stage (aim then unguided burn), but much more accurate
Integrated Targeting Unit: increased OP cost for frigates to 4
Centurion: middle two turrets can now face front; arcs expanded
Low CR no longer reduces missile weapon ammo
Renamed "Guardian PD System" to "Paladin PD System" (reasons REDACTED)
Colossus Mk.3: removed fighter bay and Ill-Advised Modifications
Added "Converted Cargo Bay" that adds 2 converted fighter bays
Ship AI
Fixed issue that was causing small weapon groups made up of hardpoints to not be set to autofire
Will no longer fire low-ammo missiles vs overloaded fighters
Fixed issue with too many carriers auto-escorting nearby combat ships
Reduced tendency of carriers to assign their fighter wings to escort nearby ships instead of attacking
Carriers assigned a "search & destroy" order will no longer use nearby ships to hide behind
Improved logic for multiple ships not using too many total missiles vs a single target
Fixed issue that was causing carriers to order fighters to "engage" too far from target, causing unnecessary loss of the 0-flux boost
Fixed issue that was causing carriers with some support fighters to not order the other fighters to engage
Fixed bug that caused a retreating ship with front shields to keep them on when it was not necessary
More likely to set smaller groups to autofire when flux is low, including hardpoint groups
Improved autofire flux management
Will autofire most kinds of weapon groups, depending on flux level and dissipation
Able to keep on pressure with low-flux weapons when on high flux
Improved flux management for high-flux weapons such as Heavy Blasters
Fixed bug that was causing fighters to only rarely fire missiles/torpedoes at low-hitpoint targets
Improved omni shield use vs phase ships
Fixed bug that was causing the AI to improperly evaluate where it has the most remaining armor
Ships gradually get more aggressive when their peak time and CR tick down
Modding
Fixed crash from left-clicking station in hyperspace
Error message due to incorrectly configured music set is now comprehensible
Ships with modules:
Modules are no longer configured using weapon groups
Added "modules" section to .variant files instead
Modules will be ordered in listed order provided "modules" is an array of objects
Station/ship-with-module weapons no longer rendered in separate pass above everything
Use module order to control rendering order instead
Variants, hulls, skins, skills, weapons, projectiles: will be merged with core files when loaded
Meaning, a mod can now provide a partial file with just the changes rather than a complete file
Renamed FleetDespawnListener to FleetEventListener
Added reportBattleOccurred() method to FleetEventListener
Fixed bug to do with beamFireOnlyOnFullCharge and venting while firing at max charge
Proximity fuse projectiles with a trigger range of 0 will now only explode at end of range
MutableStat values no longer capped to be >= 0
Added better error message when game crashes due to an invalid ship system id being specified
Added MissileAPI.interruptContrail() - needs to be called twice, once at old and once at new location
Added MarketAPI.get/setEconGroup()
Markets within the same econ group only trade with each other and are not visible when viewing nearby markets etc from a market in a different group. Default group is null (the value, not the string).
Added ShipAIPlugin.getConfig() method that returns a ShipAIConfig (or null if a custom ship AI doesn't support the core config parameters)
Added "tags" and "rarity" columns to ship_data.csv
Skins do NOT inherit tags from the parent ship, but can have their own tags specified via a "tags" json array
Default d-hulls also do not inherit any tags from the base hull
Added "tech/manufacturer" column to ship and weapon data
Defaults to "Common" if unspecified
"manufacturer" key to override in ship skin file
SectorEntityTokens and MarketAPIs stored in a MemoryAPI will be replaced by their ids in save files, and restored on load
For this and other reasons, code must gracefully handle a case where an entity is put into memory but then is no longer there or *is* there but is no longer in any LocationAPI
Removed dHullOverlaySmall/Large from hull_styles.json; replaced with single dHullOverlay, which should be large-ish and will tile to cover bigger hulls (instead of being upscaled)
hull_styles.json: now 3 d-mod overlays per style; light/medium/heavy, in only one size
d-mod overlays tile for larger ships
Moved get/setModuleVariant() methods from FleetMemberAPI to ShipVariantAPI
Weapon group generation:
Added "GROUP_LINKED" and "GROUP_ALTERNATION" AI hints to weapon_data; will attempt to place weapons with those in separate groups and set them to linked or alternating
Added groupTag column to weapon_data; when set, will heavily favor placing weapons with same groupTag into the same group, without other weapons in it
Will not auto-generate weapon groups for AI fleets until combat starts, for performance reasons
Fixed word-wrapping issue when a single word is too long for a line
Added limited support for drones with SHIP collision class; will no longer crash into mothership
Added "canUseWhileRightClickSystemOn" to ship system definitions
Missiles now support the "jitter" effect, above the missile sprite only
Changes to fleet despawn logic: listeners will now be notified before the fleet member list is cleared
Allows seeing fleet state at time of despawn if it wasn't snapshotted
Fleet members removed afterwards
Added CollisionGridAPI that gives access to internal bin-lattice used to speed up collision checks/AI
void addObject(Object object, Vector2f loc, float objWidth, float objHeight);
void removeObject(Object object, Vector2f loc, float objWidth, float objHeight);
Iterator<Object> getCheckIterator(Vector2f loc, float checkWidth, float checkHeight);
Added to CombatEngineAPI:
CollisionGridAPI getAllObjectGrid();
CollisionGridAPI getShipGrid();
CollisionGridAPI getMissileGrid();
CollisionGridAPI getAsteroidGrid();
Added to SettingsAPI:
String readTextFileFromCommon(String filename)
void writeTextFileToCommon(String filename, String data)
Load/save text data from the <installdir>/saves/common/ folder
Limited to 1MB per file, 50MB total files per session
Hull mods tagged with "no_drop_salvage" will not drop from campaign salvage operations
Different from "no_drop", which will only make them not drop from defeated ships in combat
Added alternate system for listening to campaign events, see: ListenerManagerAPI
Allows registering to listen for only one type of event
Not everything converted to use it, but will only use this system going forward
Added event-listening interfaces:
ShowLootListener
SurveyPlanetListener
EconomyTickListener
DiscoverEntityListener
Added IntelManagerAPI to manage player-visible pieces of information
See: Global.getSector().getIntelManager()
Replaces EventManager etc
CommMessageAPI, SectorAPI.reportEventStage, etc deprecated/removed
Game no longer loads/uses reports.csv
Missions are re-implemented as "IntelInfoPlugin" rather than a events
A few events that were essentially scripts (such as OfficerManagerEvent) remain for legacy reasons
MissionBoard and related APIs removed
All of these are now handled through IntelManager
Removed concept of "comm channels"; channels.json no longer loaded
Added CombatEntityAPI.getAI() method to get at proximity fuse AI from projectiles
Added ProximityFuseAIAPI, with an updateDamage() method, so changing damage via script can work on flak and similar
Added SettingsAPI.getMergedJSONForMod(String path, String masterMod)
Bugfixing:
Fixed issue with market/planet name mismatch for some procgen planets
Fixed issues w/ small dormant remnant fleets not engaging and sometimes dropping loot if harassed
Ship AI: fixed issue where 4+ carriers could get stuck in an escorting-each-other loop
Fixed bug that caused Fleet Logistics 1 to make destroyed ships only have a 50% chance of recovery rather than 100% as intended. Disabled ships still got the 100% chance.
Fixed issue with Plasma Cannon not being properly affected by Safety Overrides
Save bar no longer get stuck if saving the game throws an error for any reason
Fixed issue with scavenger fleets stuck in "returning to <market>" state
Fixed issue that was sometimes preventing carriers from properly obeying "Full Retreat" order
Fixed rendering issue with black holes on radar
Fixed issue with Strike Commander causing projectile weapons from fighters to hit multiple times
Fixed crash when a mission variant had a fighter wing from a mod installed and the mod was then disabled
Fixed visual issue with jump-point in Westernesse star system
Fixed issue with debris fields not despawning properly and causing savegame bloat (thanks, Tartiflette!)
Fixed issue where could select civilian/unarmed ships for pursuit autoresolve
Fixed issue where fighter chips would disappear from inventory when opening refit screen for a ship with that fighter built in
Fixed issue with fighters returning to a retreated carrier getting stuck off-map without retreating
Fixed station rendering issue in campaign where module placement wasn't quite right
Fixed bug that caused phasing mid-burst to improperly shorten some weapon cooldowns
The resolutionOverride config file setting now works with fullscreen mode
Fixed issue that cause a black hole to appear in the middle of the sector map in some games
Fixed bug that caused the player to have to wait for their allies to finish the battle after full-retreating from it
Fixed issue that caused REDACTED fleets to respawn extremely quickly in some situations