Hey everyone! Devlog #75: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyZx8616qVU Beta 19 is now out! This update adds a new type of content: battle races! Battle races are pretty much what you might expect them to be; multiple ships compete to be the first around the track while they barrage each other with turrets and lasers. To spice things up each race track has their own assortment of benefits and hazards, from a giant unstable spinning laser machine to the entire track being inside of an electrical ion storm! These races are balanced to pose a challenge, so starting ships likely won’t fare too well and certain ship types may inherently be at a disadvantage due to poorer maneuverability or other factors. Upgrading the various ship thrusters and ensuring that you have a good reactor--as well as using good teamwork and communication--will be important in giving your ship a fighting chance! To try out a battle race, you can warp towards the storm on your starmap. When you arrive in a race sector you’ll have the chance to fly through the race track on your own to get a feel for the various obstacles and layout. Once you’re ready, the captain can board the station, find the race registration screen and click enter! You’ll have 30 seconds to prepare yourselves and the race will begin. You only have one chance at winning each race, so make sure to save beforehand if you want to keep trying it! (any loaded saves made during the race won’t allow you to retry the race)
This update is also the first chunk of Lost Colony related content we’ve added. By that we mean that when the Lost Colony is added to the game, winning these races may be one of the several ways crews can gain more information on where the Lost Colony is located. When crews overcome certain parts of the game, they will be rewarded with Lost Colony Data Fragments. Lost Colony Data Fragments will be highly sought after and dangerous to hold onto, but once a crew has collected enough of these data fragments, they will be able to move one step closer to finding the Lost Colony. Winning these races will eventually reward your crew with one such fragment. We are also planning on having a unique and challenging quest line for each faction, exploring the themes of that faction and allowing your crew to rise up the ranks. Each one of those faction mission lines will also grant a data fragment. There will also be several non-faction restricted ways your crew can come across more data fragments (such as these races). Our goal with this is to hopefully reward exploration and offer several different paths a crew can take to find the Lost Colony, making the main campaign more replayable in the process. Let us know if you have any questions or feedback, and thanks for reading!
Additions -New Racing UI - This new interface replaces the normal ship information cards in the upper right corner of the screen with a new list visual that shows the positions of each racing ship along with the relative location on the track. -New Environment Hazard: Overcharge - Being near a Stormbringer or near other ships inside of an ion storm will cause your ship to accumulate overcharge. This is displayed by the electrical effects coming off of your ship and a blue meter on the screen. As overcharge increases, your ship’s reactor will begin to output more energy and the lights on your ship will begin to brighten. If you accumulate too much, however, your ship will shut down and your crew will need to startup the ship again. -New Sector: Dutain’s Garage (Race) - One of the two starting race tracks with a mix of corners and straight aways. -New Sector: W.D. Mining Station 41X (Race) - The second of the two starting race tracks with a heavy focus on sharp turns and temperature/fire control. -New Sector: The Ion Port (Race) - The third and final race, requires wins from both previous races in order to compete. The open track is battered by a massive super-storm which can cause electrical overcharge if two ships are close to one another. This sector also sends boarding bots to damage your ship systems and crew, so keeping your quantum shields online is a much higher priority. -Race Hazard: Heat Gas - Flying through these pockets of superheated gases will increase reactor temperature and potentially start fires on your ship -Race Hazard: Small Lasers - Slowly moving laser fields your ship must navigate through, hitting a laser will cause damage to your shields and ship -Race Hazard: Turrets - Large Turrets will target and fire upon ships in the first place position -Race Hazard: Massive Laser Ball - Rotates around dealing large amounts of damage to things in its path -Race Hazard: Stormbringer - Large ball emitting a dangerous electrical field, contributes to ship overcharge -Race Hazard: Heating Vents - Large structure that continuously vent super hot gases, these work like heat volumes but can also violently push the ship around if the pilot is caught in one of them. -Race Hazard: Asteroid Fields - Groups of smaller asteroids fly through these fields, so pilots should be ready for evasive maneuvers -Race Hazard: Boarding Bots - Will potentially board your ship (provided the quantum shields are offline) and cause damage to ship systems and crewmembers. -Race Benefit: Program Pickups - Small blue points of light that can be found on the tracks, pilots can fly through them to fully recharge all installed programs -Race Benefit: Ice Dust - flying through these pockets of cold dust will lower reactor temperature -New Food Item: Racing Noodles -New Food Item: Chilled Noodles -New Food Item: Crispy Noodles -New Food Item: Grubhaven Noodles -New Food Item: Swamp Noodles -New Food Item: Premium Noodles -New Ship Component: Mega Turret: Rapid Fire - Can be acquired after winning the final race (The Ion Port) -New Ship Component: Program: Digital Coolant - Instantly cools 30% of total reactor temperature; can be acquired after winning the Dutain’s Garage race -New Ship Component: Discharge - Instantly removes 30% of total overcharge accumulated; can be acquired after winning the W.D. Mining Station 41X race -New ship exterior meshes for both Outrider and Cruiser racing ships -New Human Male Cosmetic Item: Headplate - unlocked after winning the final race -New Human Female Cosmetic Item: Headplate - unlocked after winning the final race -New AI override: Crew is Currently Racing -New Starmap Asset - Ion Storm -New conditional pickup component type allows players to see a component but must meet a requirement before they can take it. -Added 64 NPCs across the 3 racing stations Changes -Lowered the temperature effect of heat gas emitted by molten asteroids -Exosuit helmet interior and exterior meshes have been updated -Exosuit glass frost effect has been tweaked -Reduced bonuses for Pilot’s thrust and rotation talents -Reduced bonus for Scientist’s sensor boost talent -Reduced bonus for Captain’s run speed talent -Drastically improved the jump charge capabilities of a ship without a jump processor installed -Added “U.S.S.” prefix to Gallantry and Valiance. Tweaked some CU mission briefings to include prefix. Also fixed abandoned Intrepid (U.S.S. Centuria) to display correct name. -Infection spread rate has been reduced, a fixed cap on maximum spread is now enforced around 30% -AI bots will now equip exosuits on your ship if the environment is hazardous to them -Default AI priorities have been updated, adding new overrides for racing and a few tweaks to selling biscuits. Engineer bots will put full power into engines, weapon specialist bots will target the engineering of other ships with their missiles and Sci bot will use programs faster. -Improved the mission indicator visuals -Replaced the FB logo on the character customize menu with the newer version -Shop may now sell higher level ship components -Intro screen transitions smoother if skipped -The compare ship components menu should be a little clearer when illustrating the before and after values of the components in question. Fixes -Potentially fixed a physics issue that occasionally causes players to disappear. If anyone still experiences this issue, we’d love to know what ship and/or planet you were interacting with! -Fixed an issue that caused a network bug with entering and exiting the Sensor Dish -Fixed an issue that would prevent players from drinking drinks -Fixed a few geometry issues on the Stargazer -Fixed a few geometry issues on the Roland -Fixed a potential performance issue that would occur after executing several virus programs -Fixed an issue with Cyberdefense Processors not adding the appropriate Cyberdefense -Fixed an issue that would still allows players to finish missions even if specific mission items were sold or no longer in their possession -Fixed a potential performance bug relating to ship and shield colliders Thank you for your time! Best, The Leafy Games Team Beta 19.1 -Fixed issue that caused some screens to not be interactive