BETA 5.1 introduces some significant changes to projectiles as well as several community driven quality of life additions and fixes for bugs found in BETA 5. You can discuss BETA 5.1 and let us know your thoughts on Discord or as usual on the Steam Discussion Topic

Patch Notes

Projectile Protection

With the addition of more weapons in BETA 5, we realized that more and more weapons could penetrate shields, devaluing the use of shields overall. This was partly a technical limitation as well as intended design, when projectiles were first added. Now as time has passed, and sitting down playing the game, as well as listening to player feedback, we decided to add the ability for shields to block projectiles. This addition only affects the Plasma Launchers as of right now, which can be blocked from passing through a shield. Other existing projectiles, like mines and torpedoes will still pass through shields. While working on the ability for projectiles to hit shields we noticed another problem, even though the projectile was being blocked, the explosion was still damaging tiles. To this end, splash damage will now check "line of sight" and will not penerate nearby shields or jump across tiles, only those connected by free space should be hit. This will create more accurate explosions, but may appear to do less damage overall as less tiles may be damaged per explosion.

Zoom zoom zoom

Due to many community suggestions we have looked into adding better zoom control. This was not quite ready for BETA 5, but with a few extra days we have it all set. Not only does this release add the much asked for zoom key and zoom speed options we have also added a new "Quick Zoom" feature. "Quick Zoom" lets you easily zoom in to scan, inspect or change components without needing to crank the scroll wheel in and out every time. By holding down the "Quick Zoom" key (default Z) the game camera will zoom into the position around the mouse pointer, letting go of the key will return the camera to the last default position (most likely over your ship) and zoom level before it was pressed.

Community Fixes and Feedback

Thanks to our great community here on Steam and over on our Discord we have found and fixed a number of bugs for this update. We have also listened to feedback and included several quality of life changes.

Details

Additions

• Added the ability for certain projectiles to hit shields intead of ignoring them. All Plasma Launchers will now hit shields and damage them rather than ignoring them, all other projectiles are untouched for now.
• Explosions (such as from projectiles & reactors) will now do an improved Line of Sight check. Only tiles(and suits) with a clear path to the explosion location will take damage therefore tiles behind shields or behind other tiles may no longer be damaged by an explosion.
• Added a 'Quick Zoom' feature. When holding down the quick zoom key (Default Z) the camera will zoom in on the mouse position until you let go. Quick zoom lets you easily switch between an overall zoom for play/combat and then quickly zoom in on objects to inspect or interact with them and their components.
• Added key binds to Zoom In and Zoom Out. These are unbound by default and need to be bound in options -> input screen.
• Added a slider in input options to control zoom speed. Further to the right is faster.

Fixes/Updates

• CHANGE: Greatly optimized projectile networking, this will improve performance greatly when multiple projectiles are alive. This could have also caused projectiles to appear for longer than they should.
• CHANGE: Tiles can no longer be placed on top of existing objects while building. This also applies to loading templates but you will get a warning message before continuing as this can create an undesirable result.
• CHANGE: Optimized certain internal item lookups, this should improve performance and reduce hitching in a number of situations.
• CHANGE: Universe last access dates on the load game screen now better represent the date they were last loaded. Last opened universe should now show on top no matter what was done in said universe on last load.
• CHANGE: Added some extra logging to track down duplication issues reported by a number of players.
• CHANGE: Increased Assembler build radius on most assemblers.
• CHANGE: Game will now show a warning when removing a reactor in building if the reactor powers assembler currently being used.
• CHANGE: Game will now show a critical warning when launching from Construction and object is in a state that would prevent it being self-assembled in the future.
• CHANGE: A vessel's docking hologram should be better centered on the mouse now.
• CHANGE: Vessels in construction can no longer be split by external damage.

• FIX: Control group icons should now refresh correctly when leaving into a hangared vessel or transporting between two vessels.
• FIX: Construction actions that fail integrity check could cause UI to think component/tile actually placed prevent further components or tiles being added to that location.
• FIX: Added back missing cargo bays to 'Cruzer' trade vessel.
• FIX: UI Keybind elements will now display correctly when editing key.
• FIX: Medium/Large/Gigantic shields not collapsing correctly when certain mount tiles were destroyed.
• FIX: Leaving the edge of a wormhole/jumpgate while entering transit no longer causes an error and will cancel transit.
• FIX: Graviton beam graphics should now reach the full length of the weapons range.
• FIX: Warnings encountered when removing tiles in construction should no longer leave red hilight and block further tile construction on that tile position.
• FIX: Small graphics issue with plasma laucher muzzle flash.
• FIX: UI "out of inspection range" circle should no longer cut out other UI elements.
• FIX: Replying to dialogue of a vessel that has since been destroyed should now correctly reply with a "No Response".
• FIX: Arrows for an object that hailed but has since been destroyed will now be correctly removed.
• FIX: Fixed an error that could occur when looking for mounts after a resize.
• FIX: Fixed an error when filtering inventory if vessel had empty cargo bay mounts. This could cause certain UI to become unresponsive.
• FIX: Fixed an error when trader dialogue was closed due to a warp out while mid trade.
• FIX: Fixed an error when hovering over plasma projectiles in flight.
• FIX: Improved JSON logging and caught several bad JSON entries that were miss spelled or in the wrong place.
• FIX: Removed some redundant logging, this should improve performance in a number of areas.
• FIX: Tiles killed during construction by AI or other players will no longer leave those tiles marked as "built on" an prevent further tile placements.
• FIX: Altering search terms when filtering inventory should no longer leave strange gaps.