Hey everyone, Beta 8 is now available! This update features ship hailing, blind jumps and four new screens for the main ship systems. Devlog #65 is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqFXcdkDZnQ Due to the type of changes we’ve made in this update, save files will no longer carry over into this new version. We try not to do this often, but we’ve made a lot of changes to the files in Beta 8. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we hope you’ll bear with us as we add new features over the course of development. For the next few weeks, we’ll keep a 7.3 branch open for those of you who would like to continue your game with the old saves. This will not contain the new features in Beta 8, but hopefully it will give you some more time with your old ships until you’d like to switch over to the new version. Below is an image showing where to change your beta version through Steam:
Main Features: Ship Hailing - Ships you encounter in the galaxy can now be hailed. The Captain can interact with ships and use Diplomacy or Intimidation actions to negotiate with a hostile ship or extort weaker ones. Ships will treat you differently depending on which faction they belong to, which faction you ‘appear’ to be, and where you are in the galaxy. Hopefully these factors will be a good start in adding a bit more life to the other ships in the game. Diplomacy options may appear when a ship is prepared to fight. These options allow you to potentially ease a ship’s hostility and prevent any turrets from firing. If a Captain wishes to know how likely certain diplomacy options are to succeed, they can attempt to probe information from the other ship. Probing a ship will display percents of how likely the ship is to accept certain diplomacy options, but it may also pick away at their patience and instigate a fight. When a ship is not hostile, you can attempt to intimidate that ship into giving you fuel or credits. A failed intimidation will cause the ship to become hostile towards you. Blind Jumps - Ships are now equipped with an Emergency Blind Jump System. This allows you to immediately activate your warp drive to travel to a random sector in the galaxy. It may cause significant damage or total ship destruction, so it should only be used in dire circumstances. New Ship Screens - Ships have four additional screens, one for each of the main ship systems (Engineering, Science Lab, Weapons and Life Support). These screens display the main systems’ current conditions and give you more choices to allocate power within the systems. For example, you can now control power levels for individual turrets. There are currently no settings for the Life Support screen yet. We’re still planning which settings it will have. We hope this will help new players understand the purpose of each system, as well as offer new settings and functionality to experienced crews. Additions -Ship-to-ship dialogue system -Emergency Blind Jump system -Main System Screens -Unlockable teleporters -Captain can drag and drop components in tab menu -New planets / sectors Changes -Tweaked warp visuals -Mega turrets now use more power overall -Two new talents for the Captain to boost either Diplomacy or Intimidation actions in ship dialogue -Ship drag coefficient is now modified by engineering system health -Ship screens visual tweaks / now works with fog effects properly -Warp jumps should be slightly smoother and input shouldn’t stutter / be ignored for a short time -Memory optimizations (about 30% reduction from Beta 7) -Some balances changes to certain ship attributes -Small rendering optimization during warp -Tweaks to galaxy generation -Save file format updates -It is now possible for enemy ships to be flagged (won’t cause rep loss when attacked) -Added fog/smoke visual for ship fires Fixes -Fixed collision issue that could cause players to be killed if near the Captain’s Chair -Fixed issue with core safety toggle visuals on certain configurations -Fixed rare bug that could prevent warp skipping -Fixed bug that could cause the stamina bar to show up when the local player is in high radiation levels -Fixed bug that could cause long range comms to be disabled when it should be functional -Fixed some visuals glitches (especially on Destroyer) -Fixed potential saving issue caused by pickup missions -Can no longer warp an abandoned ship -Fixed issue with non-host Captain ship targeting -Fixed issue that caused abandoned ships to possibly attack the player ship once power was restored -Fixed internal power allocation issue that caused thrusters and warp drive to not use proper amount of power Thanks again for your time and feedback! Best, The Leafy Games Team