BETA 5 is an update that takes another pass at combat. Combat is a key part of Space Impossible, and while not the only point of the game, it needs to be as great as possible. To that end, BETA 5 adds two new elements to combat: new weapon types and a faction leader with unique components.
You can discuss BETA 5 and let us know your thoughts on Discord or as usual on the Steam Discussion Topic

Patch Notes

Expanded Arsenal

Several new weapons have been added along with some under-the-hood work that will make future weapon additions even easier and robust. The news weapons are:

• Rail Gun - Fixed aim, high damage, penetrating (goes through shields) gun weapon. Comes in Large and Gig. versions.
• Point Defense Lasers - Auto aims at projectiles within firing arc and attempts to destroy the projectile.
• Reflector Cannons - Reflecting variant of the Particle Cannon. This can bounce multiple times, hitting multiple tiles on the same or different targets.
• Plasma Launchers - Weapons that fire a salvo of projectiles and requires no ammo
• Graviton Beams - Pulls objects toward the shooter with a force. Different than tractor beams in that they only pull, and do not establish a constant link.
• Repair Beams - Fires several beams in a spread that can heal any affected tiles.
• Drag Field Projectiles - Projectile that when it detonates it creates drag field that will slow down any moving object that is caught within. Great for chasing escaping vessels.

Some of these new weapons can be manufactured, others must be found either via combat or trade. We will leave it up to you to discover which. A number of existing ship templates for various factions have been updated to use these new weapons.

The Universe has gone Madd

Madd's Marauders, a new sub-faction see their debut along with their Captain Madd the first faction leader added to the universe. Madd's Marauders are small but efficient. They are a group of merceneries widely popular for their unconventional tactics and lack of official accountability. Their leader and founder, Captain Madd, leads with a hands-on type of approach. Madd's Marauder fleets can be found roaming other faction systems.

Details

Additions

• Added Madd's Marauder faction
• Added unique spawned system, first unique is Captain Madd himself
• Added new damage type, pushing, which will push or pull on an object when hit
• Added Rail Gun
• Added Point Defense Lasers
• Added Reflector Cannons
• Added Plasma Launchers
• Added Graviton Beams
• Added Repair Beams
• Added Drag Field Projectiles
• Added new tiles and items, Ferinium Rock and Maridid Deposits. These tiles produce Ferinium-A and Ferinium-B and Maridid Sludge and Maridid Crystal respectively. These are used in manufacturing and can be found on larger rock asteroids and icesteroids.
• Added suit position checking when spawning/placing vessels. Vessels should no longer be placed on top of living (or dead) suits.
• Added a small warp factor bonus to all Engine Overdrive bridge enhancements

Fixes/Updates

• CHANGE: Disabled ability to zoom the background in the main menu.
• CHANGE: Added some additional logic to prevent an over abundance of ambushes compared to genuine distress calls. Ambush:Distress ratio should now be consistently near 1:5.
• CHANGE: Redid a number of the underlying systems involved with weapons. We have further modularized the weapon code to increase the ease of weapon diversity and weapon types. This has changed some of the weapon's json data but should not change the gameplay.
• CHANGE: Weapon damage is now applied more consistently, which should reduce most sync issues between server and client.
• CHANGE: Weapon range indicators will now highlight when mousing over control action groups.
• CHANGE: Revisited and updated the weapon tooltips. They should appear overall very similar to what they were, but some of code was improved or updated to reflect game changes since they were lasted modified sometime in Alpha development.
• CHANGE: Improved UI scaling when using a ui scale value above greater than 100%. UI elements should no longer appear offscreen in some situations.

• FIX: Addressed an issue with certain peripheral input devices setting the game into controller mode. In this instance, a player's 3D mouse was causing the mouse pointer to be hidden leading to much confusion.
• FIX: Tractor beams activated via weapon groups will now stay attached even if selected weapon group is switched.
• FIX: Fixed a number of performance issues with weapons and memory garbage generation.
• FIX: Improved performance with trying to destroy the same tile multiple times when multiple weapons are in use.
• FIX: Fixed a nullref with being kicked to menu during specific loading step which caused issues during subsequent re-loading
• FIX: Fixed "OK" button not working correctly on override popup when saving a template
• FIX: Fixed an issue where ships (or pieces) would continue to strafe in perpetuity. This was due to missing an engine count check after chunk splitting.
• FIX: Fixed regions generated for missions not having the correct level values.
• FIX: Fixed some missions having empty or broken objectives.
• FIX: Fixed a problem when trying to "Clear All" during building while in Creative Mode.
• FIX: Fixed Item Mass offset. It was incorrectly offsetting towards the objects true center as opposed to the Center-Of-Mass center.
• FIX: Fixed an issue with looping sounds not correctly restarting from the beginning of the sound loop. It was playing from the previous stopping point creating some confusing audio.
• FIX: Fixed a number of weapons that have the Drain Energy damage type. The variants did not have the correct modified damage values that they should have had based on their variant types.
• FIX: Dialogue popup should be better anchored now, ensuring better visibility for all screen resolutions.
• FIX: Fixed an issue with the region server and hangared objects. Previously certain hangared objects were causing the region server to have a bad time after certain actions were performed. A symptom of the region server breaking is objects not moving when colliding, damage no longer working, AI breaking or dialogue not updating.
• FIX: Added some logic to improve network performance and vessel state sync reliability when adding and removing components to/from vessels, especially when spam clicking is involved. This should definitely improve reliability of the available item count as well.
• FIX: Fixed an issue with the Manufacturing window not re-opening in certain situations, this was related to the UI scaling issue.
• FIX: Taking Control of a vessel after an accidental dupe (like after a game crash or PC power loss) should now be possible.
• FIX: Fixed trade slider box not hiding correctly on player warp out.
• FIX: Fixed an issue where fleet regions were not correctly colored red even if they were aggressive.

COMING IN BETA 6

We have been discussing this for a while. There are a few things we want to do, but the top priority will be new player experience. Getting players into the game, and teaching them some of the basics is one of the biggest complaints we receive, and it is something that has been mostly neglected. We think there will also be time for something for the more seasoned players, we will take a look at improving Distress Calls.