What is up Depthians!!

Happy holidays from all of us at Brilliant skies


Thanks to Ninjin_Ninja for this awesome xmas tree and giving himself a present :p

Beta Test v3.1.3 Came with the changes to warp drives, nothing much to explain, however, please read the changelog below.
3.1.4 gave us the new decorations which Ill leave the beta notes on that below for those of you that did not check the beta test out.
In addition to the two betas hitting stable we also have a new system for missiles, which ill jump right into! xD

3.1.5 brings us two new blocks that greatly effects the way we can launch missiles and more so cluster missiles! We have added a missile wireless transmitter and wireless receiver, which allows a missile controller to control several distant missile launch points.


This also allows us to make more sleeker wings and keeping the missile controller and local weapon controller inside our construct.



But thats not all!!!

Turrets and cluster missiles.
Did you ever want to make a crazy cluster missile on a turret? Well now you can xD


v3.1.3 Mimic 2.0, which we all need to call Decorations so that we are on the same page and not get confused.

Decorations are essentially mimics but have several key differences

they are free, have no volume, mass, health, armour buoyancy or any other physical effect
They are tethered to existing blocks, and you can have up to 32 of them connected to one block. If the block dies they go invisible to simulate the damage. When the block is repaired they re-appear.
They can be attached to barrels, dediblades and custom control surfaces and will move and spin with the barrel/dediblade/surface
The primary reason for adding them is to allow decorative constructs to be made without affecting the physical behaviour of the vehicle. There are only a few situations where a mimic is better than a decoration (e.g when you need a wood/metal/alloy cube but wanted it to look different you would use a wood/metal/alloy mimic). For most situations, a decoration would be more appropriate.

We should probably start off by saying that there is a slight change made to the old mimics, as they can be converted to the new system. So dont be thinking they are useless or no longer work on your other constructs, they are still usable with no issues.

The new decorations will work as follows.

Ctrl + X IN any block, notice me using capslock for IN a block not flush on a block as the mimicked item will be then highlighted as red.

Ctrl + X will open up this UI.


Add new decoration will bring up our usual mimic UI.


However, as you can see the mimic UI has been added as a new tab in slot 0. Therefore this means that you can have multiple decorations tethered to the exact same block/location on a 4m beam.


The UI is self-explanatory, copy all would copy all the tabs allowing you to paste all at another locationDelete all destroys the world and all of your blueprints.

The other important thing to explain is the Shift tether point


As you can see the decoration block in the pic has no physical collision/mesh it has no volume and adds 0 to the block count or cost. The tether, in this case, is created in the applique slope which is where the mimic block is currently and the blue corners showing the tether. If I click right we will move the tether 1m right, yet the mimic block remains where it was.


I had mentioned the new Change to decoration feature in our old mimic block.


In this pic you can see the mimic block its self with the blue corners is sitting on the deck.

If we click Change to decoration now, we will see our decoration tinted in red like something is wrong. This is because the game needs the decoration block inside any block as it thinks its not attached to anything / the block it was in has been destroyed. To fix this once converted simply move the tether where you want it inside any block.

After moving the tether point, you can access all the decoration parts from one point and you can have up to 32 tethered at one point but a max of 900 decorations per construct per subobject, the standard mimics do not add to this number.


All five decorations in one point.


If we turn on our mirror mode and pop back into our new decoration setup we can mirror all five of these tabs.



We also have a new way to view the actual location of mimic blocks and decorations.


You need to cycle through the shift+p views. Yellow are the mimics and blue is where the decoration is tethered.

Changelog 3.1.3
[h2]Changes[/h2]
[h3]WARP[/h3]

• After a warp the warp drives used must be stabilized before a jump in that direction is possible again
  
• After a warp vehicles get a big IR and sonar detection signature increase. That increase is a function of warp energy used, decays over time
  
• Battery energy: warp energy conversion rate depends on ROD:VEHICLE length ratio
  
• Controllers and warp terminators now also count as a 1m rod
  
• Controllers only have rod attachment points in the front
  
• Each m of warp rods can store 10000 warp energy and use up to 400 battery energy/s for warp energy creation
  
• Maximum warp distance is a function of WARP_ENERGY_AVAILABLE / VEHICLE_MASS
  
• Target warp distance can be set on the warp controller. Warps will only use the energy necessary for that distance
  
• Vehicles get a push after a warp, force of that push if a function of the warp energy used
  
• Warp component durability up from 300 health/3 armour to 400/4 for each cubic meter
  
• Warp component weights reduced to 20 for each cubic meter (half of metal)
  
• Warp components are now susceptible to EMP
  
• Warp drives got new tooltips and a standard UI showing cost/volume breakdowns
  
• Warp drives in a given cardinal direction are grouped and triggered together
  
• Warp stabilization time is 40s. Thats reduced by 15s if stabilizers cover the entire width of the vehicle, and another 15s if they cover the entire height (if the jump was forward/backwards)
  
• Warp stabilizers: new components replacing chargers. They determine how much time the warp drive needs after a jump to be available again
  
• Warping under terrain or into constructs is no longer possible. Longer warps have a higher safety margin before/after other craft
  

• Added a new new mimic-type feature available with CTRL+X in build mode. A decoration is visually like a mimic but does not take up physical space on the vehicle.
  
• Decorations can be attached to barrels, dedi-blade spinners and custom control surfaces and will move with those objects
  
• Decorations can be prefabbed with blocks and placed
  

• Ability to drag and drop .txt FTD log files into the FTD application to parse and display them has been added
  
• Ability to drag and drop blueprints into the FTD application to load them in single player designer has been added
  

• Decreased the spawn chance of warp gates by 2
  

• Fixed complex control controller input component not displaying the value of the input
  

• Added hull prefabs to new blueprints section. This will be updated over the month along with others.
  
• There is now a new start fort that contains the spawn-o-matic. The spawn-o-matic contains trainer blueprints with annotations that people can learn from. This can also be modified to suit your own needs.
  

• Fixed a bug where a disconnection of over 400 blocks would halt the disconnection code from making subsequent disconnections
  

• Indication that theres a minimum time between 2 vehicle spawns using the vehicle blueprint spawner [BUGS-2861]
  

• Missile wireless transmitter and wireless receiver have been added. This allows a missile controller to control several distant missile launch points.
  

• APS barrels in a multi-barrel system are now all rotated so that decorations placed on each one will be radially symmetric
  
• APS mantlet decorations will behave differently to decorations placed elsewhere on the APS barrel. Also note that they can be made to spin independently if you have a rail-gun.
  
• Decorations using metal/alloy/HA/wings and placed on barrels/control surfaces/dediblades now correctly adopt the camo of that material (if applicable)
  

• The load/save vehicle UI now allows you to deselect a default designer spawn, and deselect a favourites bar entry
  
• The setting of default designer spawn and addition to favourites bar are now separated in the load/save vehicle UI.
  

• The ACB Interaction condition now behaves as a standard condition, not as the test button. The dot button in mouse-mode will still behave as the Test button [BUGS-2875]
  
• The closest boiler pressure condition boundaries are now adapted to the new steam boilers [BUGS-2849]
  
• The list of custom jet generators to activate is now updated correctly when a vehicle is loaded [BUGS-2702]
  

• Fixed various issues with rail magnet spinning speeds/flags.
  

• The color customization for the smoke of missiles and jets now works [BUGS-2784]