Space Impossible BETA 11 has landed. Conflicts are back! You can discuss BETA 11 and let us know your thoughts on Discord or as usual on the Steam Discussion Topic

Patch Notes

Star System Conflicts Return

Star systems can now be in conflict between two factions and are a great way to gain standing with those factions. When a conflict is finished, the system experiences a period of regeneration, with better prices and rare traders becoming available.
Conflicts can occur between the current system owner, and the faction of a neighboring system (neighbors via jumpgates count too). Once the conflict begins, battle fleets will spawn, and battles will erupt throughout the system.
As the distress calls, battles and just general mayhem happen, a faction will gain conflict points. Whichever faction reaches the goal first, wins the system. A battle will finish once all the ships of a faction are destroyed (all bridges) and if the player captain participates, they can earn extra faction and special faction reinforcement beacons. Or just sit there out of range and let them fight, and steal their wreckage, that's boring, but your call. There are unique distress calls, either asking for parts or for a ride related to the conflict that will spawn too. Systems must be level 3 (bonivium) or above to be eligible for conflicts.

Transponders

As a reward for helping with Battles Factions may reward you Transponder items. Transponders can be used like Beacons and will call in reinforcements of that faction into your current region

Projectile Weapon & Ammo Changes

Projectile weapons have been changed. A long time in discussion, we felt it was just not fun to use projectiles the way they were they currently were. They no longer require ammo, and instead are a specific weapon component that can be found, purchased or manufactured and be used accordingly. This also allowed us to update AI ships to better use projectile weapons without having to load them with ammo, or have them cheat and have infinite ammo.

Improving AI & Dynamic Regions

Other changes include some significant dynamic region re-working, where regions (fleets, stations, asteroid fields) can now merge and separate depending on the actions within the regions. Some other changes include even better AI handling of weapons, navigation and some AI can even use tractor beams now.

Details

NOTE: Changes marked with were inspired by feedback or bugs found by the community!

Additions

• Added battlefield regions
• Added transponder backup caller items
• Added trader regions to recovery phase, with all factions getting improved price mods
• Added AI limit to merging of regions to ensure reasonable performance
• Added additional check to prevent wrecks with no bridges getting AI assigned
• New conflict UI
• Added custom loot table for Madd's Marauders
• Added recipes for all the new projectile weapons
• Added unique station conflict dialogue
• Added /sv_allownewsystemconflicts command. Turning this off will prevent new conflicts from being calculated during game time. It does not affect any conflicts started during universe generation.
• Added two new scrapper ships for recovery period of conflicts
• Added guarenteed begillium region in starter system
• Added a check for waiting-for-destruction objects that will skip certain actions when necessary. This should save on some performance and decrease chance of errors occuring.
• Added /setregionaltfaction command to set "other" faction in a region, mainly useful during conflicts
• Added tractor using capabilities to AI logic
• Scrapper vessels may now select appropriate targets for tractoring (mainly during conflict recovery)
• Added codex entry for jumpgate travel
• Added several missing language entries
• Added auto complete for true/false when entering commands
• Added new warp in/out stretch-y effect

Changes

• CHANGE: Now batches projectile networking sends to improve performance
• CHANGE: Changed spawn rules for regions to support conflicts
• CHANGE: Missions no longer generate during conflicts
• CHANGE: Altered pitch on alarm/error sound to make it less harsh
• CHANGE: Converted all projectiles into weapons and removed ability to acquire ammo and projectile launchers
• CHANGE: Altered mass anchor speed and added a "stop on hit"
• CHANGE: Updated all vessels to new projectile type weapons and updated loot pools
• CHANGE: Level 3 Ticeroy regions will now have attractor mines
• CHANGE: Moved tractor beams to separate weapon groups on all stations
• CHANGE: Several console commands can now use relative values with the tilde '~' modifier. Ex: "/setposition 1 ~10 ~" will move entity 1 to the right by 10 units
• CHANGE: Made /setposition and /setrotation compatible with selectors. Ex: "/setposition @a[ai=true] 10" will move all AI units 10 up.
• CHANGE: Merged objects in a region will keep their relative positions now instead of re-calculating new positions, this should allow fleet organizations to stay more coherent
• CHANGE: Trader and Fighter AI will attempt to return to their original positions once they're done with their current tasks (like fighting).
• CHANGE: Increased audio radius for warpout/warpin sound effect for better awareness
• CHANGE: Increased planet asteroid ring density, there should be more regions now
• CHANGE: Trade button of the inventory panel should no longer appear during inspection if the vessel hates the player, or is currently targeting the player
• CHANGE: Changed command /changeregionfaction to /setregionfaction for better consistency

Fixes

• FIX: Loaded dynamic regions should now have their path correctly loaded too
• FIX: Capital ship loot not using correct factioned loot table
• FIX: Missiles incorrectly firing from wrong mount angle
• FIX: Control groups now load correctly from templates
• FIX: Sixiser loot pools
• FIX: An error with AI targeting
• FIX: An error with AI attempting to flee but can't move
• FIX: Increased AI target search range
• FIX: Modified the AI pathing algorithm costs when trying to avoid active weapons
• FIX: Dynamic regions should no longer spin in place in star system view when failing to merge with region
• FIX: Capital ships of lawless and independent trader should no longer use the Venture class ship
• FIX: Issues with wrecks for ships and stations that weren't always removing AI correctly, or not correctly being assigned a trade table.
• FIX: Some issues with AI merging into regions, namely tractoring or reinforcements
• FIX: A rare potential construction error when building a vessel
• FIX: AI now takes into account broken mounts when calculating weapons to fire
• FIX: Modified AI weapon calculations to better judge weapon type and usefulness
• FIX: Visual of AI weapons being stuck "on" when all weapons are unavailable or lost
• FIX: AI should now cancel warp out on tile death and mount changes to match player gameplay rules
• FIX: A very specific issue with building where the energy overlay was on, while panning and removing tiles
• FIX: An issue with target lock-on window
• FIX: An issue with behind-the-scenes tile construction that could affect building
• FIX: An error where certain deaths in a space suit could interfere with respawning
• FIX: An issue where building drones lose their target mid-journey and improved cleanup when large objects are destroyed
• FIX: An issue with AI moving between regions and incorrect data saving
• FIX: An issue with entities not being saved correctly when added for a mission or via region merging
• FIX: Scavenger and mining vessels dropping their target incorrectly
• FIX: Missing hangars on Odyssey and K'Cateran vessels
• FIX: An issue with region regeneration
• FIX: Tractored AI from not being able to stop spinning
• FIX: Incorrect AI distance calculation that was preventing them from moving when firing weapons
• FIX: Several issues with AI saved file data
• FIX: Several issues where entities moved between regions would lose their associated AI element on universe load.
• FIX: Several issues with tractor flotsam regions.
• FIX: Attractor mines should no longer attract vessels with neutral or better standing
• FIX: Icons incorrectly showing in the warp inset camera
• FIX: Entering a jumpgate should correctly ignore warp spoolup/spooldown times
• FIX: An issue with loading different templates with mounts of different types overlapping. Ex: having a venture and loading a different ship on top of it should replace mounts correctly.
• FIX: An error with editing control groups
• FIX: Hull replacement using wrong levels when spawning vessels
• FIX: AI insta-warping if they had no direct line of sight to their target warpout spot during fleeing
• FIX: An issue with mission panel details missing
• FIX: Label "no missions in conflict" incorrectly being displayed after a conflict has finished and missions have resumed
• FIX: Shields will no longer spam activation failure effects for shields without enough power
• FIX: Shield activation failed effect would not show if shield was not previously active

Removals

• REMOVAL: Removed "get spaced!" response from many of the dialogues
• REMOVAL: Removed all codex references to wormholes
• REMOVAL: Removed a significant number of language entries that were no longer needed. This should speed up loading and make any translation efforts easier.
• REMOVAL: Removed any mention of "chaos" including stats from the stat tracker

COMING BETA 12

In BETA 12, the long awaited mission revamp will begin. We will be using some of the newer processes as well as some hard gained wisdom and insight into improving missions from the ground up.