Renaming what was 0.35a to 0.5a to reflect the amount of stuff being added.
Latest changes (as of 1/31/2012):
Base starsystem implemented:
Goings-on focused around an orbital station (buy/sell weapons, ships, crew, etc)
Factions: Hegemony, Independent, Pirates, Tri-Tachyon
Loading/saving campaign games
Character creation screen - just name & portrait for now
Added campaign menu that lets you load/save/adjust settings/etc while in campaign mode w/o going back to the main menu
Cargo transfer UI
Click to pick up a stack
Ctrl-click buys/sells/transfers full stack
Shift-click picks up 1 item, subsequent shift-clicks pick up one more each
Shift-click-drag-release adjusts quantity slider (on stacks > size 10), subsequent shift-clicks pick up one more each
Ship refit
Takes time to finish depending on the extent of changes made to the variant
Ship can still be deployed in battle (with new weapons) before refit is finished, but will not have any of the hull mods
Ship repairs
Ships are repaired gradually
Rate is based on amount of crew (both present on the ship, and surplus crew in the fleet)
"Automated Repair Unit" hullmod now also affects out-of-combat repairs
Repairs cost supplies
Repairs can be suspended/resumed to manage supply use
Modding-related
Icons for ships are no longer required (using mipmapped ship sprites instead)
Added "UNIVERSAL" weapon slot type
AI tweaks
Improved decision process involved when turning autofire on/off - now considers flux usage of group vs available flux
AI considers damage type and whether its attacks will hit shields when deciding which weapons to fire for more weapon types
Ship with disabled weapons is more likely to vent (might as well vent while weapons are down and can't be used)
Ship with very low hitpoints and under threat is less likely to vent or lower shields (don't bring shields down at a critical time)
Improved missile firing decision logic
Balancing
Did an extensive balancing pass over weapons and ships with the goal of encouraging the use of kinetic weapons vs shields and HE weapons vs armor
High explosive damage now does 200% damage vs armor (up from 150%)
High explosive weapons do less damage across the board, by about 20%
Normalized shield absorption around the average value of 1 (used to be 0.5)
Increased ship flux capacity and dissipation rate across the board by ~1.5x
Increased weapon flux cost across the board by ~2x
Other per-weapon changes too numerous to list
Miscellaneous:
Small battles (8 or less ships total) don't have objectives and start with both sides fully deployed and close to each other
Combat map generation - size and battle objectives present are determined by the sizes of the opposing fleets and their selected strategies (attack/defend/escape)
Added "strafe without turning" control mappings, initially set to Ctrl-A/D and Alt-A/D
Improved/added various tooltips: for ships, combat assignments, hull mods, etc
Updated ship tooltips in mission briefing screen
Improved look of context menu and assignment indicators in command interface
Updated fleet deployment dialog to look more in line with new UI elements
Adjusted fleet point calculation at the start of battle so that each side can always deploy at least their flagship
Limited maximum number of flux vents and capacitors to 10/20/30/50 based on ship size
Added "Flux Distributor" hullmod, improves flux dissipation (stacks with vents, less efficient)
Added "Flux Coil Adjunct" hull mod, improves flux capacity (stacks with capacitors, less efficient)
Wolf frigate - modified hull so that all 3 energy turrets can point forward
Changed "ALTERNATING" weapon group mode to automatically switch weapons while the left mouse button is pressed
Ships can be scuttled for supplies (amount recovered depends on ship damage level)
Increased asteroid hitpoints significantly to make them more useful for hiding behind in combat
Changed autofire behavior - switching to autofiring group temporarily suspends autofire mode and lets you control it manually. Switching to another group resumes autofire.
Selecting a weapon group that your ship doesn't have allows all other groups to auto-fire (i.e., group 4 if ship only has 3 groups set up)
Fixed bug where missiles spawning from a disabled ship were flagged as neutral and wouldn't be targeted by PD
Right-clicking when shields are coming down will always bring them back up, previously click would be disregarded
Latest changes (as of 12/11/2011)
Campaign mode:
Single star system with several planets, moons
Can engage an enemy fleet, with both sides picking a strategy prior to battle (attack/defend/escape)
Use marines to board enemy ships after battle
Salvage disabled ships and cargo after battle
Cargo management - a single UI to manage fuel, crew, supplies, weapons, marines, and other cargo
Fleet management - control how ships get assigned crews
Refit ships using the weapons that are available
Ships require sufficient crew to be deployed for battle (crew experience not tracked/used quite yet)
Persistent ship damage after battles, including locational armor damage
Combat autoresolve - let your second in command fight the battle, or exit a battle midway through to autoresolve the rest
Weapons:
Missiles with limited ammo (10 for small, 20 medium, 30 large) never autofire - it's pretty much never a good thing when it happens
Changed Assault Chaingun to use animated spinning barrels
Added Heavy Mauler weapon using old Assault Chaingun graphic
Added Heavy Blaster medium energy assault weapon
Added Mining Blaster medium energy assault weapon
Added Thumper weapon - low-tech medium chaingun, rapid fire, frag damage
Added Salamander missile - heatseeking, knocks out engines with a strong EMP pulse
Miscellaneous:
Added two new high tech capital ships - the Odyssey and the Paragon
Improved weapon tooltips in the refit screen
Shift + click increases the rate at which new vents/capacitors are added/removed in the refit screen
Using mipmaps (LOD textures) for smoother zoomed-out graphics and ship icons
New Shuttle graphics (this ship only shows up in the Last Hurrah mission)
Changed message font to be more readable
Improved fighter movement to look more natural
"Strike" assignments now only use fighters and frigates - larger ships are excluded.
Added "Intercept" assignment available on enemy fighters and frigates. Assigns fast, nearby craft. Interceptors are especially preferred. "Harass" (which prefers ships with medium-range weaponry) is now only available on enemy ships of destroyer size and above.
Renamed "flux damage" to "EMP", no longer raises target ship's flux, but ignores armor and disables weapons and engines.
Fixed ship AI bug that was causing it to be a bit too concerned with avoiding collision with a ship it was directly engaging
Some AI improvements re: not firing off too many missiles vs a near-dead target and not using emp weapons against shields
Slightly increased the turn rate of some large ships (Onslaught, Dominator)
Increased the flux capacity of all ships by roughly 50%. Flux dissipation rate is unchanged. The goal is to reduce the frequency (and increase the committment) of venting and give shields a bit more longevity under fire.
Converted Ion Cannon and Gauss Cannon to use standard weapon controls (i.e., left click to fire, instead of hold to charge and release to fire). This wraps up converting all former pulse weapons to the standard control model.
Shift + mousewheel now scrolls through lists very quickly
Added music
Countless other minor improvements
Latest changes (as of 09/17/2011)
Made weapons and engines damageable:
Weapons take damage when the hull is hit near their location. Some weapons can't be damaged due to being set very far from the edges - for example, some middle turrets of the Onslaught. Most can be, however.
Disabled weapons (or engines) can't be damaged further and come back online after ~10-20 seconds, depending on weapon size and relevant ship hull mods
Hardpoint weapons are much more durable than turrets
Flux-inducing weapons such as the Ion Cannon are particularly effective at disabling weapons and engines as the flux damage component ignores armor
Engines are disabled individually, gradually reducing ship maneuverability and speed
Disabling larger engines has a proportionally larger effect
Disabling engines can also cause the ship's facing to drift in one direction or another, depending on the location of the disabled engine
When over half the engines are down, a complete "flameout" occurs and the ship loses all ability to maneuver for ~5-20 seconds, depending on size
Several new hull mods that let you change various related properties - Insulated Engine Compartment, Armored Weapon Emplacements, Flux Breakers, Automated Repair Unit
Fighters with disabled engines can crash into ships. Admiral Piett seemed indisposed and could not be reached for comment.
Added to modifiable ship stats:
flux damage taken
health modifier for weapons
health modifier for engines
repair rate modifier
Miscellaneous:
Added flux generation displays to weapon groups dialog, main refit screen.
Added hull/flux/top speed/flight decks displays to main refit screen
Made "weapon groups" button glow if there are weapons changes to remind you to tweak the groups if needed. Added because I keep forgetting.
Optimized the way beam weapons do damage. Should result in decent performance increase when many of those are in play.
Fixed bug that caused beam weapons to do 2x the intended damage when a ship's flux level was high.
Reduced the damage bonus from flux level to energy weapons to 50% (from 100%)
Increased the range of assault weapons across the board
Improved Hellbore Cannon and Light Mortar projectile speeds
Converted some pulse weapons to use the standard control scheme (more to come, like Gauss Cannon):
IR Pulse Laser
Pulse Laser
Added new weapons:
Heavy Needler
Multi-Needler
Frag Bomb Bay (with proximity fuse)
Cluster Bomb Bay
Latest changes (as of 09/11/2011)
Added ship refit screen:
Refit every ship in your fleet (install weapons and hull mods)
50+ weapons
Available hull mods:
Heavy Armor
Reinforced Bulkheads
Augmented Engines
Auxiliary Thrusters
Expanded Magazines
Expanded Missile Racks
Integrated Point Defense AI
Integrated Targeting Unit
Hardened Shield Emitter
Stabilized Shield Emitter
Accelerated Shield Emitter
Extended Shield Emitter
Advanced Turret Gyros
Advanced Optics
Save, load and rename ship variants
Balanced ordnance points values for ships and weapons
Modding-related:
All hull mods are implemented in a mod-friendly way
Exposed the following ship properties for modification via scripts:
max speed, acceleration, deceleration, max turn rate, turn acceleration
flux capacity, flux dissipation
hull/armor/shield damage taken multipliers
energy/ballistic/missile/beam weapon damage dealt multipliers
shield upkeep, shield absorption, shield turn rate, shield unfold rate, shield arc
energy/ballistic/missile/beam weapon range bonuses (flat & multipliers)
armor/hull bonuses (flat & multipliers)
energy/ballistic/missile ammo bonuses (flat & multipliers)
Extracted WeaponAPI from core - a step towards letting scripts to do more with the game
Gameplay:
Strike craft will now route through a nearby "Rally Strike Force" assignment before accepting a "Strike" assignment. Naturally, only comes into play when "Rally Strike Force" assignments exist. The effect is to be able to set up flanking strikes without continuous micromanagement.
Ships assigned using a direct order via "Assign Task..." no longer count against towards the total strength of ships given to the assignment, except for "Capture". The effect is that directly assigning a ship to a task is less likely to cause other ships to be reassigned away from it.
Increased priority of "Harass" assignment
Changed scrolling lists to use the right mouse button for scroll & drag to be consistent with the combat map. Mousewheel still works, too. Also changed mousewheel scrolling to be faster and more smooth.
Added "Hold Fire" toggle that temporarily stops all autofiring groups from firing. Default key binding is X.
Turrets in inactive groups track the mouse now, letting you switch to a different group more easily (it'll already be pointing in the right direction when you switch, instead of having to wait).
Can now target ships while in a video feed from a friendly ships (formerly, attempting to do so would terminate the video feed)
Previous changes
Gameplay
Added new "Control" assignment. Gets automatically created after a successful "Capture" and converted back to "Capture" if the objective is lost. Is never assigned any ships.
Command points are refunded if an assignment or direct order is given and then immediately cancelled while the game is still paused
Ship assignments are updated immediately when created or direct orders are given, so you can see what's assigned where without needing to unpause
"Capture" assignments are more sensitive to how quickly a ship can get to the target objective (much less likely to reassign to a faster, but farther-away ship).
Content
Added new starry background to the mix
Modding
Fixed bug with loading CSV files where it would not handle double quotes in the first row