This is the first update in quite a while and it's a BIG one. TLDR; rebalanced block P costs, lots of new weapon types for modders, significant optimizations for better frame rate and a smoother ride. General Improvements: * Block P costs have been re-balanced * Significant performance, precision, and stability updates when editing very large structures. * 'x' now properly stops the player ship from rotating when in key rotation mode * tooltips are now properly updated after scaling a block * World streaming and generation is now smoother. Improve performance when copying clusters and when allocating new clusters using a new port connection copying algorithm and pooled allocator for cluster structures. * Use a different, more accurate method for sleeping between frames and update steps (smoother animations). * Improve targeting for cannons and rockets, particularly when the velocity difference between the firing ship and target is significant. * update Chinese translation (Thanks to community members Uiharu, Fgdfgfthgr, tang hao, liilili, Magnus siiftun1857 Frankline, and others). Improve Chinese and Japanese text wrapping. * Significantly reduce the memory used by each game block by moving constant fields into a central, shared location. This also makes it easier to add new block fields in the future. * Significant physics engine cpu and memory optimizations. * Graphics transformation optimizations. Particle effect spawning optimization * Significant healing laser optimizations * New block sleeping optimization reduces CPU usage of inert blocks. * OPTIMIZATIONS * Fix several rare editor related crashes * Weapon ranges are now displayed in the binding screen * Lots of random crash fixes Tournament: * The AI now ignores weapons bound as either "point defense" or "auto-fire" when determining what range to engage at. Players can bind auxiliary weapons to either of these two binding slots to prevent them from interfering with AI positioning. * AI will now use the fire mode ("fire all" or "ripple fire") from the primary weapon binding for its weapons. * Weapons bindings are now easier to edit in sandbox mode. Just press 'b' without closing the console. * AI now properly considers weapon boosters when calculating weapon range/damage in several places. Modders: * New "fragment" cannon field allows recursively defined projectiles that split into more projectiles. * New cannon field "pattern" can be set to "random" (default), "spiral", "wave", or "constant" to change the way projectiles are distributed through the "spread" angle. * New cannon/laser field "barrelTaper" allows modifying turret barrel aesthetics. * New cvar kSensorRangeMultiplier allows modders to increase the sensor range of all ships (default is 2200 units). Particularly useful for mods that also increase kLiveRadius. * audio.lua mods can now load sounds from the base game directory without having to copy the sound file into their mod * Hold down "control" to display the prettier construction mode tooltip when in the sandbox (instead of the more verbose sandbox tooltip) * level_save command now requires a -f switch to overwrite and existing level file. Add level_remove command. * Allow setting block "health" and "mass" directly instead of setting "durability" and "density" * Add new cvar kWriteJSON which causes the game to export ships and write other data files in easily parsable JSON format instead of the default lua-esq format. The game can now import ships and other data files in JSON format. * Fix issue where multiple glsl shader #includes were sometimes garbled * Add ability to glue several translation strings together in lua files. For example, blurb=_("foo") _("bar") will translate "foo" and "bar" separately and then glue the results together. * Add new features ALWAYSFIRE and NEVERFIRE which cause weapons to either always fire or never fire (ignored even by AI). Useful for cosmetic lasers, etc. * Extend the ONEUSE flag to work with SHIELD, LAUNCHER, and FACTORY/SELFFACTORY. * Add PALETTE feature to allow placing blocks in the faction palette even if they are not in a ship (see also NOPALETTE). * Add turretLimit block field to allow turrets that only partially rotate * Increase maximum custom block scale from 10 to 32. Increase maximum number of vertices per shape from 16 to 32. * Allow new kCVar += N syntax which helps mods conflict less * Add new triangle based (instead of point based) particle rendering mode which is slower but works better with very large particles. To enable set kParticleTris=1. * Add new feature LAUNCHER_BARRAGE which can be added to LAUNCHER to cause all missiles to fire at once. * Add cvar kMainMenuBattleFactions and friends to allow controlling the contents of the main menu battle

Reassembly

• Gorgeous Vector-Based Graphics
  
• Procedurally Generated Universes
  
• Ridiculously User-Friendly Spaceship Designer
  
• A Beautiful and Haunting Soundtrack by Peter Brown (Peaks)
  
• More Particle Effects Than You can Shake a Stick At
  
• Very Smart and Reactive AI
  
• Physics that Give Weight to Your Creations
  
• Asynchronous Multiplayer: Universes Populated by Fellow Players

• OS: 64 bit linux
• Processor: 2 GHz Dual CoreMemory: 2 GB RAM
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: OpenGL 2.1
• Storage: 150 MB available space

• OS: 64 bit linux
• Processor: 2.3 GHz+. Quad CoreMemory: 2 GB RAM
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: OpenGL 3.3+. 256MB+
• Storage: 250 MB available space