Istrolid Update 1.0.1 - Community Balance Council #2

We have run the Community balance council 2 and gotten a series of results guiding things ever so slightly towards a new and more mobile meta. Jump changes, heavy PD-able changes, and some minor tweaks are in this round. We look forward to seeing the effect on the current meta.

PD-able Adjustments

by Owlfeathers These are a modest rework increasing the general quality of PD-able weaponry. The missile changes are somewhat contentious as high speed Premium ships have few clear counters, but it should be within tolerances.

Missile

Reload Time 2.06 1.93 (6.5% faster Rof)
Projectile Speed 352 m/s 304 m/s
Energy use 2860e 2650e
Mass 30t 20t

Torpedo

Range 1100m 1250m
Energy use 1250e 1100e
Health 10 15

Artillery

Range 1600m 1700m

Phase Nerf

Inspired by blaze/nulitor There has generally been a sentiment that phase bombs are slightly too good, but there have been mixed feelings on how to nerf it. This is a general minor nerf to damage and a slight normalization.

Phase Bomb

Damage 160 150
Reload Time 3.75 3.56 (5% faster RoF)
Weight 20T 22T
Energy use 3600e 3500e

Jump Buff

by Owlfeathers Jump changes seem to have been mostly in the right direction, but it seems a hair weak. The official proposal by Owl was requesting a sharper decrease to min distance, but because of the jump-delay currently present, min distance is only being reduced to 150 for now. This is a much larger buff than it seems at first, roughly improving the part by 50% for ships that just wanted a jump-turn.

Jump Drive

Jump Distance and Recharge Rate: +10%
Min Distance: 200m 150m

Other Adjustments

Other minor changes are in, including a reduction to shield capacitor Tanks while buffing them for use with Heavy Shields, and a slight reduction to Flamethrower cost.

Shield Capacitor

Shield 8 9
Mass 5T 5.5T
Shield Recharge 1.2/sec 0.65/sec
Energy Cost 16e/sec 8e/sec

Flamethrower

Cost 5 3

[ 2021-06-12 20:30:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid 1.0.0 - Here we are!

The 1.0.0

Its finally here: 1.0.0. I dont know what I expected this would be, but here we are! When I was a kid I was captivated by computer games. I had no clue how computers worked. I created a paper box to be the screen and cut out stuff to move inside the screen with little handles. Istrolid started out as a game out of LEGO where one would build fleets of ships and have them fight. It's been quite a journey getting from there to this point. Learning programming to make games. Making 100s of other game prototypes. Going to college, getting a job programming. An entire lifetime has passed. Then finally I realized my dream. I released Istrolid. Dont let your dreams be dreams. At first I showed the alpha prototype to Saktoth, he convinced me to add part building mechanics to make this a more interesting game rather than a regular RTS. He brought RyMarq on board to help with the balancing of the game. This game would have been nowhere without Saktoth and RyMarq. Other members of the community Rio6, PurpleGhost, JWDE volunteer to add some features and provide bug fixes. Thank you very much! It's been fun watching the community discover new ship types and new strategies. Its been interesting to watch how the player base evolves over time. After the initial launch, Istrolid somehow managed to carve out a niche for itself. Some people have spent 1000s hours playing this game - this is amazing! This is only possible because of you - the istrolid players. I hope I can be there for you when you were there for me.

Balance Adjustments

We talked with the more experienced members of the community, and did some refinement off the first Community Balance Council Changes

Shaped Charge

100d 90d Damage, 100m 110m AoE, improved reliability
20t 25t Mass

Shaped Charge has been in testing for the last week or two at a new 100 damage level. It\s proving slightly too strong with jump-nukes, and is being brought down a bit.

Jump Drive

12% More jump power
16% Faster recharge

Jump Changes have been overall positive, but slightly too extreme with the higher minimum range.

Autocannon

12 HP 15 HP

Sidewinder

10 HP 15 HP
+5 Range
-2.5% Energy Use
+5% Bullet Speed

Both weapons were a hair weak at the new 10$ price point, and have gone to 15HP to help compensate for the structural implications. Sidewinder is very nearly where its stats want to be and got a broad set of very minor buffs.

AI Fixes

AI Recharging behaviors with carriers should be much better. We went through a number of the older AIs, fixing up some broken behaviors and updating them a bit for the modern game. This will mostly affect the campaign, where many lesser used AIs dwell.

Alpha Striker
Beam Man
Fireshower
Liberty
Mastermind
Nayenne
Razorback
Battlestar

Bug fixes

Fixed AI rule bug where charging fighter would not follow carrier ships.
Fixed an issue where ships could go into a special dimension, disappear and shoot anywhere on the map.

[ 2021-04-10 15:56:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.51.5 - Community Balance Patch!

Community Balance Council

We ran the [Community Balance Council](https://www.reddit.com/r/istrolid/comments/lxp3i3/community_balance_council_1/) reddit thread where you voted on the balance changes. We took the highest upvoted balance changes with slight tweaks and here they are:

Ranged Group Rework

by Owlfeathers (with influence from No-Personality 4982) These changes are a large rework to the range increments of the current game. They improve range mods for low-range use, diminish them for high range use, and generally increase some of the nuance in the range game. Generally speaking this is a broad normalization of range based effects. I look forward to seeing what options this opens up for classically mid-range weapons.

Spinal Mount

Range +600m +500m
Energy use +50% +25%

Demispinal Mount:

Cost $5 $7
Energy use +25% +10%
Weight 10T 15T

Micro 360 Mount:

Range penalty -34% -25%

Targeting Subsystem:

Range +25% +20%
Flat range N/A +80m

Heavy Cloak Rework

by Zango This one is going to be one of the larger changes to the game, despite only affecting one part. It represents a dramatic rebalance in what is viable cloaked and why. Light cloaked ships, especially Bombers that were only sometimes cloaked, they now have to pay a very real price in additional Weight to use the cloaking device. Short-Range Cruisers, especially more armored ones, should now be able to sustainable be cloaked, nullifying ranged attacks. There is some irony here that it comes at the same time as the range normalization, as this would indeed allow super-high range weaponry with less degeneracy, but I am sure it will find a powerful place enabling slower cloaked vessels that are still able to close on longer range targets.

Cloak

Weight 10T 60T
Cloaking Power 165T 420T

Jump Engine Rebalance

inspired by Owlfeathers A special note to the Dreamlight proposal. It indeed scored higher in the voting, but neither jump change was tremendously popular, but Owls represented something that could be altered to deal with the Heavy Cloak changes and the Game Engine changes that are making low-range jump turn more difficult.

Jump Drive

Jump power 100% 250%
Cost $25 $50
Weight 6T 15T
Min Jump Range 50 200

The proposed change got a moderate amount of votes, but was not wildly popular enough for us to break open the code to implement a possibly buggy change. Instead the proposal has been trimmed to its core aspects, weightier jump drive to diminish cheap bombs, implicitly lower energy cost, and a more concentrated jump strength. There is some additional Jump Drive strength and a large increase to min jump range to help compensate for the very real problems with microing jump-turns on tiny jump circles. This was really never the point of Jump Drive, even if it was an interesting byproduct, and is not being protected now that its somewhat problematic.

Sidewinder Changes

by Blazeroflasher and Dreamlight Two significant sidewinder buffs were proposed with near identical votes. To reconcile them and keep it reasonable, sidewinder was increased to 10$, along with autocannon (it seemed lonely). Both weapons get a 20% DPS increase from the change, along with mass reductions. This should help make them both interesting fighter weapons and keep them

Autocannon and Sidewinder

5 10$
10t 7.5t
Reload Time 6.00 5.00
Sidewinder Range 780 795

Tesla Changes

by Owlfeathers Tesla change did not receive the most votes, but nerfs were brought up in a couple places. We are therefore going with a somewhat reduced Tesla nerf, a sort of weighted-average of the Tesla changes.

Tesla

Tesla Damage from 13 11
Tesla Energy 1600 1375
Tesla Bounce Distance 540 400

Mount Cost Reduction:

by Zango and Kyuriam

200 Turret

Cost $15 $12

270 Turret

Cost $27 $21

There wasn't broad consensus on the specific changes, so the most mild reductions to these mounts was taken.

Ultralight armor Buff

by ProfessorUlf.

Ultralight Armor

HP 8 9

Galaxy Puzzles

In order to prepare player coming from galaxy single player we are adding new design challenges to some of the early missions:

Bug fixes

Fixed a bug with getting a new design in Galaxy Camping mode.

[ 2021-03-21 17:43:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.51.4 - Bug fixes before 1.0.0!

I would like to get some bug fixes out for you as we make our way to 1.0.0.

Area Centering

We are now going to do area-center instead of mass-center:

This makes ships way more centered but it takes away this mass centering puzzle. Its true some people did like, but mostly was a kind of chore that did not do much to balance anyways. It ended up not mattering that much after we made the weapon ranges in game longer and longer.

Units with Stasis Field will ram

Your ships with stasis fields will now ram targets when you order them with the F follow/focus order. This will make stasis equipped ships much easier and fun to use as they will just chase down their prey and kill it. Just like you designed them to!

Weapon Sounds

Artillery no longer sounds like it came from WW1. I made it sound more sci-fi. That arty sound always stood out to me as not fitting. I hope you like the new one.

I also made ship explosions to be deeper. You still get that same short explosion for fighters, but for bigger ships there are medium for medium HP ships and super deep explosion for high HP ships.

Ambient Sounds

I removed all of the annoying drones. I dont know what I was thinking when I added them. They were pretty annoying. I added two new action tracks though and deleted that one annoying action track. Music has never been strong in Istrolid - I hope it just makes it a little bit better. Who am I kidding, you have disalbed all music long ago!

Galaxy Update

The earlier tutorial levels did not prepare players sufficiently. We have added a design checklist, to guide players to better designs. We hope the new ship-building tutorials will better guide players to design sound and useful ships, highlighting the aspects that will be important to them as they grow and develop their fleet in the future.

Community Balance Council

We still have not made significant balance changes for 1.0.0. That is still ongoing please vote for your changes here: [Community Balance Council] (https://www.reddit.com/r/istrolid/comments/lxp3i3/community_balance_council_1/). There is still time to vote for the changes you want to see!

Bug fixes

Fixed chat links not opening.
Fixed Escape doing odd things with full screen.
Fixed Quit Game button disappearing (you can never leave).

[ 2021-03-06 18:36:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.51.3 - 1.0.0 next!

I know, some of you had trouble running the game. This is mostly due to aging underlying technology called Electron. Well good news I have updated it to the newest version to enable the biggest compatibility for you across Windows, Mac, and Linux. Wow so exciting well not really what is exciting is:

Community Balance Council

I want to try something new, something radical. Many of you have expressed your frustration with balance. But its very hard for me to know what the general community wants Go to this [reddit thread and make a top level comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/istrolid/comments/lxp3i3/community_balance_council_1/) with your balance change, please follow this format: Heavy Beam: Damage 38d -> 36d Energy Use 4000e -> 4500e It's going to make heavy beam less dominant in the meta. Right now every game has to have one. If balance change gets enough votes it will get approved and make it into 1.0.0! Thats right 1.0.0 is right around the corner.

The 1.0.0 release!

I want for Istrolid to continue to evolve, it refuses to die no matter how much you say that in the discord channels. Istrolid is part of me as much as it is a part of you.

[ 2021-03-04 17:18:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.51.1

Fleet Tabs

We are excited to introduce fleet tabs! Our fleets have been getting a little too full lately. With players having hundreds of ships its been getting pretty crowded. With fleet tabs you can organize your fleets in the way that works for you. Even more ships now!

Rework of the Jump Drive

Jump drive is being changed to be more dynamic and varied in its usage. Since its inception, Jump drive has been used primarily to bomb targets, or engage very rarely. The burst turning for larger ships has also been interesting, but it doesnt really fulfill the fantasy of a Jump Drive here. Jump drive now doesnt cost energy to jump and can recharge much faster for short range jumps. A new indicator also means you can control and understand the new Jump Drive a bit better. The hope here is that ships that make many smaller jumps will become more valid. We will keep an eye on how designs progress after the patch, and may continue to buff it to keep things in mind. Jump drive now has dotted-black markers showing its range when you select a specific unit. The range is now also 25% larger.

Importantly a units jump range now grows gradually as it recharges. After just a few moments, the fighter can already jump again here.

This enables smaller ships that can engage and then retreat more quickly, making jump engine more powerful for dynamic hit and run.

Beware, Jump Drive now costs energy and some cloak energy constantly in exchange for its free jumps. You will want to be using it on ships that Jump often and meaningfully, or you will be paying a bit of a tax from the extra energy costs.

Unit Info Panel

Pressing I will now toggle a unit stat menu on the upper left.

All units selected will be added up together, making it easier to calculate just how big a swarm of units is, and what it can do.

The stat panel also make it much easier to determine health or range of specific enemy units, no longer will players need to copy a unit to see its information.

Patch Notes

This patch introduces a slew of quality of life updates in addition to a set of balance updates to hopefully increase ship variety a bit by emphasizing the strengths and weaknesses of Spinal and Artillery weapons.

Spinal: 40t 50t , 450 600 range, +50% energy costs.

Demispinal: 7 5$, 15 10T, 2 1hp +25% energy costs. Reasoning: Give more real and substantial trade-offs for spinal use, especially compared to 30/90 mounts. Should increase variety of spinal weapons, in theory, and diminish the potency of the strongest ones.

Light Point Defence: 20 18 damage. Reasoning: Changes are going to improve the general power of PD by upscaling arty and shields that are weaker against burst. This might be necessary to ensure PD is kept in line.

Artillery: 220 210 AoE, 500 675 min range, 112 144 velocity, min range scales with projectile speed at half-rate, weight reduced by 5T. Reasoning: Current arty hit goals, but needed too many speed mods to be valid. Now starts off nearly as good as 2 speed mods, but will increase in min-range with speed, to stop squads from being deleted with no reaction time.

Flak: 17.5 18 dps, half damage, twice fire rate.

Orb: 3.8 4 dps, 15 8 dmg, 4 2s reload, 2000 1400E, 624 704 m/s.

Missile: 5% energy cost decrease.

Flame: 23 damage, 2421 burn, fire burns 33% faster (3-4% per second). Reasoning: Flame doesnt seem to be fighters problem these days, and it feels a bit weak generally, but doesnt need to have its ability to delete large ships enhanced. Newer shields are also sufficiently better against fire that a small buff here seems reasonable.

Reloader: 20$ 25$ cost, 10 15hp. Reasoning: Widely viewed as too strong, mostly changed to change the feel of the meta.

Dampener: -25 -26.5% energy reduction. Reasoning: Self-sustained ships using dampeners will see a bit of weakening from the changes, this was the largest buff to them that wouldnt disrupt anything else.

Volumetric Armor: 1.3t 1.5t.

Scout Thruster: 144 E/s 160 E/s, 5% thrust increase.

Cruiser thruster: Now has turn rate, roughly equivalent to 4$ of wing added to it.

Jump Engine: 20$ 25$ cost, 160 e/sec, +25% Jump distance and recharge rate. Now jump range scales over time as it recharges. Drains 2% current cloak at all times. Reasoning: These Jump changes have been done to hopefully increase the power level of ships that want to jump frequently, while weakening units that are just kept in the pocket until they are needed.

Stasis Field: 10 25$, 50 60% slow, 15 30hp, now decloaks and de-jumps targets gradually. Does NOT conflict with your own cloak, but instantly decloaks you on triggering. Drains 2% current cloak at all times. Reasoning: Stasis drones were inexpensive defense units, now they are stronger, but its easier to make cost by picking them off (increasing their power on large rushdown units where they were interesting, and decreasing it on random drones to defend against bombers).

Heavy Shield Generator: 25t 40t, 2160 1760 e/s.

Advanced Shield Generator: 2t 1t, 3.2 1.6 sh/s, 15 20 sh, 288 144e/s.

Shield Capacitor: 0 6hp, 15 12sh Reasoning: Shields are being reworked to be a bit weaker to burst, but stronger against light harass. We may move onto more extreme changes in the future, but for now they are just being differentiated a bit more strongly.

Explosive Warhead: 5 6$, 20 16 dmg, 325 390 AoE. Reasoning: Part of general rebalance discouraging instant delete of fighters, and helping fill out shield role.

EMP Warhead: 10 15$, 360 300 AoE, 4000 6000 EMP. Reasoning: Emp warhead doesnt need a full hit to ruin a fighter. This means that emp-warheads are much better vs swarms than they would appear. Decreasing AoE while keeping emp/$ consistent should improve it against single targets where it is weaker and slightly decrease how oppressive it is against fighters.

[ 2020-01-28 15:26:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.50.3

Survival Mode

Introducing survival mode: battle waves and waves of enemy ships as you try to stay alive and hold the control points. You can fight either single player or multiplayer. You can add any AI or AIs you would like to survive against. The waves increase in their number and their ferocity, there is no end.

Better Fleet Screen

You can now drag and drop fleets. If you have a ton of ships in your fleet screen this will greatly help you sift and sort them.

Balances Changes

Some slight tweaks to a variety of weapons. Overall balance seems very good generally, Tesla is overperforming slightly, Artillery is a bit weak but coming into its new role, and Flamethrower and Sidewinder are having their weaknesses covered just a bit more. Overall this should open up more variety in weapon selection among the less used weapons.

Torpedo Shot Energy 1300 1250
Tesla Shot Energy 1500 1600
Artillery: Shot Energy Cost 4500 4100 and Mass 70 65
Flamethrower Range 350 360
Sidewinder base speed 272 304
Push/Pull Wave Push/Pull Effect 10% stronger

Demi-spinal was overperforming a bit on fighters, this is to help keep both demi-spinal and standard fighters as valid while minimizing the impact elsewhere.

Demispinal Health 5 2

2x1 (and 1x2) Reactors had a supposed niche, but failed to shine at it as a real choice. This will bump up their space-efficiency as a battery to be higher than, well, batteries and might make them a more real choice among heavy-fighter style craft. Incidentally it helps spamming 2x1 reactors be a bit more correct of a choice for newbies.

2x1 Reactors:Energy: 10k 20k and Output: 400 250

Adv shield rarely saw use, this is a fairly significant buff that will hopefully help its role as light shielding.

Adv Shield Gen Energy Threshold 75% 40%

Energy Transfer was fine, but was a hair weak for smaller carrier choices, this should help those very slightly.

Energy Transfer Health 0 10

AI Edits

Prevented wiggling while capturing command points.
Return to spawn charging command now causes the ship to wait at spawn until charged, preventing it from expending energy with conflicting commands.
Better prioritize resting in AI commands that require it, improving some interactions with commands like follow player orders.

Bug Fixes

Remove most offensive map colors from the game.
Fixed a bug where players could lag the game by editing their ships.
Fixed one of the Zyro AIs broken commands.
Tweaked the formula that determines the distance ships use to follow such that they should more accurately stop one capable of shooting.
Improved performance on handling large ships.

[ 2019-06-18 05:23:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update0.49.2

In this patch we are simply tuning previous changes. Sidewinder and Artillery are being brought a bit more in line, Push/Pull wave as well were underperforming, and should be easier to justify damage or reload modding. Overall goals are a continuation of the previous, to ensure Artillery is used in a balanced fleet, and to decrease the power of single-weapon spam.

Balance Changes

Artillery: Reload Time 6 5.5, Speed 104 112, Energy 5000 4500
Sidewinder: Range 740 780 Speed 256 272
Heavy Beam: Damage: 37 38 Energy 5200 5000
Push Wave: Range 750 775 Damage: 4 5
Pull Wave: Range 825 850
1x1 Reactor: Energy 1800 2000
Advanced Shied: Mass: 10 8
No Overkill: Cost: 5 1 Health: 5 4

Fixes

Jump Drive now uses Mass x 15 for both energy cost and indicator check. Functionally a balance change as well, though was intended long ago.

[ 2019-01-19 17:43:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.49.1

Artillery has long been a source of fairly swingy behaviors in the game. This is in large part because of its small, but technically AoE hit location. Rather than trying to minimize that, these changes seek to accept the area of effect, making artillery shots more rare and dramatic, therefore more dodgeable, but still very potentially powerful. PD and missiles are both rebalanced to reduce the impact on artillery from this change. Additionally, shields and range are being changed to allow more long range spam as an option while also making it more counterable, increasing maximum range, reducing DPS at that range, and improving regeneration options. Finally, components that are traditionally used on more expandable craft have had their price increased, as well as their health, in order to reduce the power of the most expendable versions, and increase the power of potentially re-usable options. These three things form the core of this set of balance changes.

Balance Changes

Micro 360 Mount: Cost 10 15, Health 5 20
Demispinal Turret: Cost 8 7
Stasis Generator: Health 1 10, Mass 5 6
Heavy Shield Gen: Generation Rate 12 16
Adv Shield Gen: Generation Rate; 2.4 3.2
Shield Cap: Mass 8 10
Cloak Gen: Cost 20 25 Energy Use 440 400
Jump Engine: Cost: 15 20 Health 10 25
Fighter Thruster: Thrust 2080 2160
Weapons
Light PD: Reload Time 2.0 2.5 Energy Cost 1000 1100 Damage 16 20
Heavy PD: AoE: 6 12
Torpedo: Reload Time 3.0 3.25 Energy Cost 1200 1300 Damage 22 24
Missile: Reload Time 1.87 2.06 Damage 25 27
Artillery: Reload Time 3 6, Speed 192 104, Energy 2000 5000, Damage 60 120, AoE 75 220, Mass 100 70T, Leads from outside of Range
Sidewinder: Range 700 740 Energy Cost 1500 2000 Damage 34 35
Plasma: Reload Time: 3s 3.25
Heavy Beam: Damage: 35 37
Emp: Range 610 620
Orb: Range 1300 1400. Min Range 400 450. Reload Time 3.81 4
Phase Bomb: Damage: 150 160
Flame: Energy Cost: 200 400. Burn Damage: 20 24
EMP Warhead: EMP Damage: 5000 4000. AoE 325 360
Targeting Mod: Range Boost 20 25%. Reload Reduce: 25 30%
Dampener: Cost 10 5. Energy Reduction 30 25%

Fixes

Fixed AI Rally Point Interaction
Fixed a bug where decals could effect ship size
Improved Safari compatibility
Fix the sound setting bug
Fix challenge best time not saving
Patched exploit where a player could disconnect other players
Fixed the issue where too many ships or projectiles on screen could cause things to flicker./

AI Updates

FireShower

[ 2019-01-12 01:02:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.48.3

Balance Changes

Sidewinder Damage 30 -> 34
Orb range 1400m -> 1300m, minimum range is now 1/3rd of max range, instead of depending on speed (an overall increase)
Tesla damage 10 -> 12, energy cost 1300e -> 1500e, energy drain removed
Heavy Point Defense projectile speed 560m/s -> 880m/s, energy cost 4400e -> 4000e, reload time 3s -> 3.25s, radius 18m -> 5m
Overshoot of all projectiles except Sidewinder and Missile changed 50% -> 30%

Bug Fixes

Artillery/Phase target indicators better fit their AoE
Carriers now transfer to targets that have run completely out of energy
Unit names are now limited to 50 characters
AI will no longer have a chance of stalling when its targets are destroyed
AI DPS conditions are now evaluated correctly
Following an enemy ship will now get close enough to shoot even when that ship is running away
Game rooms will now change modes correctly
Weapons can no longer be placed between spinal mounts
Build queue numbers update faster
Ships can no longer be deleted if a player is in the fleet screen when a game starts

[ 2018-07-22 17:57:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update0.47.5

Visual Updates:

New wide variant 2x1 Scout and Fighter thrusters for symmetrical fighters.
Bulk Thrusters back to 1x2 visually.
New decals and inner diagonal stripe.
More statistics are displayed in the info pane for parts
Artillery and Phase bombs have a new visual indicator
Minimum range is now displayed as inward facing triangles.

Balances Changes:

Dampener from -25% to -30% Energy cost
Emp Warhead from 4000 to 5000 Energy Damage
Added armed and unarmed categories to relative AI commands
Fire damage is now displayed correctly in info pane
Fixes to AI facing
Fixes to orders.

[ 2018-02-03 02:59:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.47.5

Visual Updates:

New wide variant 2x1 Scout and Fighter thrusters for symmetrical fighters.
Bulk Thrusters back to 1x2 visually.
New decals and inner diagonal stripe.
More statistics are displayed in the info pane for parts
Artillery and Phase bombs have a new visual indicator
Minimum range is now displayed as inward facing triangles.

Balances Changes:

Dampener from -25% to -30% Energy cost
Emp Warhead from 4000 to 5000 Energy Damage
Added ‘armed’ and ‘unarmed’ categories to relative AI commands
Fire damage is now displayed correctly in info pane
Fixes to AI facing
Fixes to orders.

[ 2018-02-03 02:59:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.47.4- AIFixes

AI Fixes.

Fixed AIs getting stuck somehow for no reason.
Fixes issue in the AI editor, when moving rules up and down.
Updated Mini Charger
Kick AIs Upon Changing Game Mode. Previously AIs clogged up the player count, potentially locking a server if a player repeatedly added them and swapped modes. Now that they are kicked this is no longer possible.

New Shadow Parts (for DLC owners only) Added curved and front amor heavyweight shadowed pieces.

Part Changes

180 Turret Mount, arc increased to 200, cost decreased from 18 to 15
Sidewinder tracks further, moves faster, and does 25% less damage.
Demispinal Turret Mount cost reduced from 10 to 8
Dampener Mod hp increased from 5 to 10
Heavy Flak hp increased from 5 to 10

[ 2017-11-26 19:26:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.47.4 - AI Fixes

AI Fixes.

Fixed AIs getting stuck somehow for no reason.
Fixes issue in the AI editor, when moving rules up and down.
Updated Mini Charger
Kick AIs Upon Changing Game Mode. Previously AIs clogged up the player count, potentially locking a server if a player repeatedly added them and swapped modes. Now that they are kicked this is no longer possible.

New Shadow Parts (for DLC owners only) Added curved and front amor heavyweight shadowed pieces.

Part Changes

180 Turret Mount, arc increased to 200, cost decreased from 18 to 15
Sidewinder tracks further, moves faster, and does 25% less damage.
Demispinal Turret Mount cost reduced from 10 to 8
Dampener Mod hp increased from 5 to 10
Heavy Flak hp increased from 5 to 10

[ 2017-11-26 19:26:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.46.9 - Part Updates

A bunch of visual, balance, AI and order giving fixes.

Balance Changes

Stasis Field: Price from 15 to 10 This should allow stasis to be more easily placed on fighters and other small craft without making a serious impact on their cost effectiveness. Spinal: -50 Range The base range of spinal was quite strong, this should bring that power down a little while we think about the role of spinal versus rangemods in the long time. Flamethrower: 1 normal dps to 2. Flamethrower really only works as a niche anti-heavy weapon, a bit more base damage should help it kill units it would otherwise struggle to kill with its DoT, such as fighters, while not necessarily making it too strong in those cases.

Visual Updates

Thrusters have got an overhaul, typing together the visuals of the two variants of bulk and cruiser so they are more clearly the same thruster type. Ultralight armour is now fully rotationally symetrical. A range of other small tweaks and cleanups.

AIs updated to work with rebalanced parts:

FireShower
PushForce

Bunch of order giving fixes.

Stop, Self-D, Hold orders can no longer be shift-q'ed.
You can now Hold with the Z key and issue many orders, after you let go they all will be executed.
Follow Units renamed to Focus Fire/Follow (Many people did not realize that this command lets you focus fire on enemies)
Orders are no longer sent to all observers (they are private now).
Only the last order id is sent (which means a lot less network traffic from orders)
Order shift-q increased from 8 orders to 50.
Units during selection are sorted so that during line move they end up in the same place and don't switch positions.
Line move positions are now interpolated better, drawing line fast or slow produces the same line.
Orders no longer flicker when player issues orders and get them back from the server (player never gets them back now)

Design warnings are more descriptive

Design warnings now give instructions. For example: to add more wings if you cannot turn fast, to reduce weight if you are too slow, to reduce thrusters if they draw too much energy. This should help with player responses to these design problems.

[ 2017-11-18 17:59:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.46.9 - Part Updates

A bunch of visual, balance, AI and order giving fixes.

Balance Changes

Stasis Field: Price from 15 to 10 This should allow stasis to be more easily placed on fighters and other small craft without making a serious impact on their cost effectiveness. Spinal: -50 Range The base range of spinal was quite strong, this should bring that power down a little while we think about the role of spinal versus rangemods in the long time. Flamethrower: 1 normal dps to 2. Flamethrower really only works as a niche anti-heavy weapon, a bit more base damage should help it kill units it would otherwise struggle to kill with it’s DoT, such as fighters, while not necessarily making it too strong in those cases.

Visual Updates

AIs updated to work with rebalanced parts:

FireShower
PushForce

Bunch of order giving fixes.

Stop, Self-D, Hold orders can no longer be shift-q'ed.
You can now Hold with the Z key and issue many orders, after you let go they all will be executed.
Follow Units renamed to Focus Fire/Follow (Many people did not realize that this command lets you focus fire on enemies)
Orders are no longer sent to all observers (they are private now).
Only the last order id is sent (which means a lot less network traffic from orders)
Order shift-q increased from 8 orders to 50.
Units during selection are sorted so that during line move they end up in the same place and don't switch positions.
Line move positions are now interpolated better, drawing line fast or slow produces the same line.
Orders no longer flicker when player issues orders and get them back from the server (player never gets them back now)

Design warnings are more descriptive

[ 2017-11-18 17:59:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.46.8 - Important bug fixes

Speed Coil down to +50% from +60% bonus

Single speed coils were giving a lot of velocity, and less than 6x speed coil has quickly become common, so preserving the same extremes at 6 coils is less important. This also lowers the max velocities achievable with things like artillery stacks.

Waves now scale their power based on damage mods

With damage mods, you can now create a 'push/pull wave bomber', previously wave push/pull was unaffected by damage mods.

Quickscore displays current money, rather than earned money

Quickscore now displays the current available cash on hand, rather than the total earned over this game. This allows players to see if their enemies are saving up for a surprise rush and be confident in taking the last point and ending the game.

New effects and explosions

EMP warhead now has a zap effect so you can distinguish it from other warheads. Orb has a hit effect, and hit effects have been scaled up to be more visible.

Bug Fixes

Joining games no longer takes so long.
Sending more info than needed on game start.

[ 2017-10-19 02:31:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.46.8 - Important bug fixes

Speed Coil down to +50% from +60% bonus

Waves now scale their power based on damage mods

With damage mods, you can now create a 'push/pull wave bomber', previously wave push/pull was unaffected by damage mods.

Quickscore displays current money, rather than earned money

New effects and explosions

EMP warhead now has a zap effect so you can distinguish it from other warheads. Orb has a hit effect, and hit effects have been scaled up to be more visible.

Bug Fixes

Joining games no longer takes so long.
Sending more info than needed on game start.

[ 2017-10-19 02:31:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.46.7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36TJ2mM63BM

Dampener

A weapon mod that reduces the speed of a projectile by 8% and the energy consumption by 25%

Orb Launcher

A light, long range projectile with an arming phase. Useful for bombardment against slow enemies. Able to strike heavily point-defended enemies, as it is not a missile.

Demispinal and Spinal Changes

A lighter spinal that gives +250m range, for $10 and 15T. Spinal now gives +500m range for $20 and 40T. Spinal range bonus now applies after the % bonus from weapon mods, reducing max ranges with range mods.

Emp Warhead

An EMP Warhead and nerfs to current explosive warhead

Speed Coils

Changed effect scale. Has linear increase. Increases speed by 60%.

Sidewinder

Now circles in place when it has no target, rather then flying off away from the enemy.

New Engine Sizes

Larger Bulk Thruster(47$), Small Cruiser Thruster (44$)

Bulk Thruster Nerf

Below 60 m/s, bulk speeds should generally be faster. Above, they and bulk turn speed should be slower.

AI

Now preserves hold position.
Can skip the rally point.
Evaluates the less range criteria correctly.
Micor Changed

Bugs fixed

Several order dropping bugs fixed
AI bubbles are not shown in single player
Units now turn if they have any non 360 arc
Spelling fixes
Cant mute server
Fixed Surrender Spamming
Friend list is now ordered

[ 2017-10-14 16:13:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.46.7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36TJ2mM63BM

Dampener

A weapon mod that reduces the speed of a projectile by 8% and the energy consumption by 25%

Orb Launcher

A light, long range projectile with an arming phase. Useful for bombardment against slow enemies. Able to strike heavily point-defended enemies, as it is not a missile.

Demispinal and Spinal Changes

Emp Warhead

An EMP Warhead and nerfs to current explosive warhead

Speed Coils

Changed effect scale. Has linear increase. Increases speed by 60%.

Sidewinder

Now circles in place when it has no target, rather then flying off away from the enemy.

New Engine Sizes

Larger Bulk Thruster(47$), Small Cruiser Thruster (44$)

Bulk Thruster Nerf

Below 60 m/s, bulk speeds should generally be faster. Above, they and bulk turn speed should be slower.

AI

Now preserves hold position.
Can skip the rally point.
Evaluates the less range criteria correctly.
Micor Changed

Bugs fixed

Several order dropping bugs fixed
AI bubbles are not shown in single player
Units now turn if they have any non 360 arc
Spelling fixes
Can’t mute server
Fixed Surrender Spamming
Friend list is now ordered

[ 2017-10-14 16:13:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.45.46

Game Mode Changes

1v1t now has a 30 minute timer like all game modes.

Balance Changes

Speed Coils: Cost 10 to 5. Speed boost 50% to 30%. Reload Penalty 1.25x to 1.15x.
Jump Drive: Now removes half of Max Cloak on jump.
Missile Launcher: Fire Rate Improved by 13%
Flamethrower: Range, 330 to 350.
No Overkill Mod: 1 HP to 5 HP.
Made Sidewinder retarget on target death/cloak only.

Updated Several AIs

LongPoint
Orbiter
Bulldog
Yarki
Sidewinder
Furia
Ficon

Bug fixes

Fixed spectators editing ships not syncing with servers.
Fixed sound sliders being hard to use.
Fixed stop command not clearing hold position command.

[ 2017-07-30 19:16:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.45.46

Game Mode Changes

1v1t now has a 30 minute timer like all game modes.

Balance Changes

Speed Coils: Cost 10 to 5. Speed boost 50% to 30%. Reload Penalty 1.25x to 1.15x.
Jump Drive: Now removes half of Max Cloak on jump.
Missile Launcher: Fire Rate Improved by 13%
Flamethrower: Range, 330 to 350.
No Overkill Mod: 1 HP to 5 HP.
Made Sidewinder retarget on target death/cloak only.

Updated Several AIs

LongPoint
Orbiter
Bulldog
Yarki
Sidewinder
Furia
Ficon

Bug fixes

Fixed spectators editing ships not syncing with servers.
Fixed sound sliders being hard to use.
Fixed stop command not clearing hold position command.

[ 2017-07-30 19:01:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.45.20

Some rebalancing and bug fixes.
Balance Changes:

Mid-Range Weapon Mounts have more HP, from 90/180/270 HP to 10/20/20 HP.
Advanced Shield Generator Mass from 10 to 2.
Jump Drive: Cost 10 to 15. Weight 5 to 6. HP 0 to 10.

Fixes:

Jump Drive energy use works correctly now. Is 250/drive on jump.
Sidewinder AI uses and gives Sidewinder.
Fixed fleet design menu issue that could delete ships.

[ 2017-06-17 16:39:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.45.20

Some rebalancing and bug fixes.
Balance Changes:

Mid-Range Weapon Mounts have more HP, from 90/180/270 HP to 10/20/20 HP.
Advanced Shield Generator Mass from 10 to 2.
Jump Drive: Cost 10 to 15. Weight 5 to 6. HP 0 to 10.

Fixes:

Jump Drive energy use works correctly now. Is 250/drive on jump.
Sidewinder AI uses and gives Sidewinder.
Fixed fleet design menu issue that could delete ships.

[ 2017-06-17 16:39:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 45.16

Symmetry mode, better logic if you click really fast, and more bug fixes!
In this update I have added Symmetry mode. I think this is a good feature to add as it allows you to design symmetrical ships faster and easier, you can toggle it on and off at any time if you want part of your design to be asymmetrical.

Added Symmetry mode.
When drawing a line order for ships to follow, left clicking now issues the order instead of clearing the order.
Brought back the 1x1 No Overkill AI Module that was removed by accident.
Shaped Charge HP +5.
Shields were tweaked.
Fixed some bugs related to old style ships not loading.
Fixed Shadow Armor parts did not flip properly, might break some ships, to fix this just flip the parts correct way.
Fixed Sidewinder Damage readouts.

[ 2017-06-01 17:05:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.45.15

This version has some small fixes and the new addition of a share feature where you can share units by copy-pasting a string into a unit slot. The sharing string copies ship parts, names, stripes, DLC and even AI.

Added new share box where you can get a string of your ship and post it anywhere.
Spectators can now edit their designs in 1v1t
You can now copy your owns ships without ghosting in multiplayer.
New tips were added based on feedback.
Fixed a bug with adding AIs that contained old style ships without AI rules.
Fixed a bug on startup for some people.
Fixed prioritization between cloaked and non-cloaked ships, cloaked ships will be targeted last if there are uncloaked ships nearby.
Fixed stats on two shadow armor piece from the DLC being off.

[ 2017-05-31 17:31:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Update 0.45.12

We’ve been working on this patch for a while and as a result there are a lot of cool new features. This patch releases the Curves and Shadows DLC. This entirely new DLC comes with a suite of curved armour, new shadowed heavyweight armour, new corner pieces for Ultralight, diagonal striping and 1x1 decals. Equipped with this DLC, you can compete with your friends to make the best looking ships ever.. https://www.youtube.com/embed/g4jWiTtYDrM Along with a huge number of quality of life and under the hood changes, this patch also comes with a host of new and reworked parts, including new weapons and energy generation options, and a new play mode. UI Improvements

Right click on a players name to mute them or add them to your friends
Hold down shift to give multiple linked orders in sequence

Tournament Mode

In 1v1t the fleet bar is locked to its starting 10 ships, with no mid-game redesign or fleet swapping.
AI’s are disabled, meaning it is a contest of pure skill.

Sidewinder

A short range missile with a twin arcing behaviour
Re-targets closest enemies mid flight
Light and energy efficient.

Jump Drive

Allows a ship to jump up to 500m when given a movement order
Excellent on bombers and warheads to close in on an enemy

Solar Panels

Lighter than Reactors, but do not add any HP or storage
Take up more space, but come in smaller increments to tweak energy generation

Stasis

Displaced 100m forward, gaining more forward distance and less rear distance, making it better in pursuit than in retreat
The slow is now a flat 50%, rather than effecting slower ships more and faster ships less

Flamethrower

Has a much reduced AoE and a cool new colourful effect
Does 3% of the burnt HP per second, and burns to 100% of a ships HP
The DoT always leaves a unit with 4 HP remaining, meaning the burn cannot finish off a target on it’s own

Shields

The large/medium/small shields regenerate at 50%, 75% and 99% of storage, letting you use battery to charge shields
Varying energy usage, but faster regeneration

Tesla and Heavy Beam

Rate of fire Swapped, Heavy Beam is now a burst weapon, Tesla is a constant stream
This makes Heavy Beam better for sniping, while Tesla is for dealing with packs

Many smaller changes including

+100 base range for almost all weapons, giving extra reach to fighters and more maneuvering room
+5t to the cloaking device, making very light cloaked units a little slower

[ 2017-05-29 14:53:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 44.7

Patch going out tonight A small set of tweaks to the flamethrower.

Burn damage will no longer be 'reset' from future flamethrower hits.
Flamethrower can now hit cloaked units like other AoE effects
Max burn will no longer increase from damage mods

We will be keeping an eye on the flamethrower as we move on,

[ 2016-11-30 01:17:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 44.6

New Part: The Flamethrower

Deals 34 Damage per Second.
32 DPS is in the form of 'burn damage'
Burning ships take 8 DPS, while they have burn damage.
Ships can have up to half their current health in incoming burn damage.

Balance Changes

Targeting Subsystem: 25>20% range boost. 40>30T
Afterburner: 10% energy use reduction
Shaped Charge: 1>20 HP
Pull Wave: 650>725 Range
Stasis Field: 20>15$ 300-270 Radius
Heavy Beam: 500>510 Range

Campaign Changes

Several AIs retuned to be a more engaging fight (and better visually). Fighter, Anubis, Beamman, BatteryRam, and Tank
Added restart button 3 Options: Return to Galaxy, Return to Editor (then fight), Restart Fight

[ 2016-11-26 04:34:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 43.31

Some significant balance changes for fighters this week. Fighters have base energy generation which means that they might be able to limp back to a charger carrier ship. They also gain a little bit of base armor. We made Speed Coils give slight range to weapons which makes them useful on small ships. Artillery and Flak got damage fall-off which means that small ships that are at the edge of the explosion don’t get as much damage. Phase Bombs and Warhead already had damage fall-off. Artillery is now worse vis fighters. Flak’s explosions got both range increase and damage increase to deal with the new fighter threat.

Base Ship Changes

Ship Base Health 1 to 5

Ship Base Energy regen 0 to 40/sec (this is small, a 2x2 reactor generates 1000 e/sec)

Weapon Changes

Tesla: RoF and Damage Decreased by 5%.

Flak Turret: Damage increased 25 to 35. Blast Radius 150 to 200. Damage decreases as enemies are farther from center of the blast.

Artillery: Damage 50 to 60. AoE 50 to 100. Now has drop-off like Flak, Warheads, and Phase bomb.

Speed Coil: Now grants an additional +50 weapon range, in addition to its velocity boost.

Also worked on some client side particles in preparation for the flame thrower. Flame thrower did not make it in. Started work on steam integration.

[ 2016-10-30 19:31:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 43.15

Some significant balance changes this week. Many of them have been planned for awhile, and we are just now getting them all out. We are trying to normalize missiles with normal weapons a bit. Currently PD is strong enough to shut down missiles too easily (because of how mod sharing now works). We are weakening accurate 100% successful PD, making it better against light harass. Additionally, we are trying to bring Heavy Armor back into a better place, as it was too reliant on a bug (ship pushing was too easy), which has now been fixed.

Missile/PD Changes

Artillery: 15% Reduction in Damage

Missile: 15% Reduction in RoF

Light PD: RoF massively reduced to 0.5 shots per second. Damage increased to 15 to maintain DPS. Range increased to 400.

Micro 360: Range modifier 50% -> 66%.

Armor Changes

Heavy Armor: Mass reduced by 16%

Volumetric Armor: HP Increased by 25%. Mass increased by 30%.

Other Balance Changes

Tesla: RoF Decreased by 20%.

Module Sharing: Penalty increased with first weapon, approximately the same with 6 weapons per mod

Ship Collisions: Technically a bug fix, but with large balance implications. Ships now respect mass correctly when pushing/being pushed.

Galaxy Mode Changes

Many bosses tweaked to be more engaging and less beatable by 'cheese' tactics.

Fixed bugs with some AIs not spawning ships correctly.

Finally worth mentioning, we will be having an AI vs AI Tournament. Except an update on this in another post.

[ 2016-10-22 02:41:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 43.2: Stasis Field

Full Release Post: https://medium.com/@treeform/update-43-2-stasis-field-3a654db2b677#.vnjiqtjzj

Tesla: Bounce range a flat 440 distance, now targets closest viable target.
Phase Bomb: Damage now drops off as it hits max range. Max AoE: 75->100
Heavy Armor: Mass increased by 50%
Wave: Range decreased by 100. Slow effect removed. Lower AoE. Now Hits invisible targets.

New Part Stasis Field: Slows and decloaks nearby units. Slow does not stack. New Features Hold Position Command: Press Z to toggle ships holding their position. They will still face their target move destination. Stop command cancels. Fleet Redesign Fleet list now 'selects' lineups, rather than swapping them.

[ 2016-09-18 15:16:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version: 41.2 Local AI Update

This release we have a variety of balance tweaks, along with some substantial features for players who enjoy using the AI. Finally, copying ships no longer can be done trivially.

Balance Changes

Wave Guns Wave guns are less able to lock units in place and can now hit many units at once.
Heavy PD Bug fix, technically, but heavy PD's reliability against large numbers of missiles should go up dramatically.
1x1 Reactor 12 Tons to 10 Tons, helping it a bit at its role as a lightweight reactor.

AI Changes

AI Save System Your AIs can now be saved locally, and used as teammates or enemies in-game. Every player in-game can now add AIs in multiplayer games.
Cloak AI AI commands can now refer to cloaked ships specifically, or to being cloaked.

Galaxy Changes

Boss Rebalancing Bosses were tweaked for more consistent difficulty and for less stupid behavior in specific circumstances.
Creeping Hoard Redesign Creeping hoard now gives the Spinal Mount, and has a bit higher difficulty.

Finally, Copying has bee redesigned. In mulltiplayer, copied ships now create an outline of the ship so you can immediately see its stats, but you will need to rebuild it in order to use the design. We feel this change will foster less simple copying, but still allow players to understand what the enemy is using and use the same strategies if they wish.

[ 2016-08-12 04:47:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid 40.2 Ranking Update

Short Update List

Ranking is being updated to start from 0.
All wins, even on unranked severs will give you points, up to 500.
1v1 servers are seperating into 'Ranked' and Unranked(default)
Ranked servers will have an 'r' The idea behind the new ranking system is that every one starts at zero rank and gains rank playing on any multiplayer server, but after you reach a limit of 500 rank you need to transition to playing on competitive servers were you can also lose rank. This way every one can see their rank grow and only lose rank if you feel up to it. We are going to reset the ranks, but don’t worry your ranks will not be reset to zero. Instead we will use your past games to compute the rank you would have had if you played the game using the new ranking system form the start. We are going to have both unranked 1v1 and ranked 1v1“r” servers from now on. These are King of the Hill servers, if you lose you are kicked from the match and some one else can challenge the winner. These servers also keep track of your win streak. These competitive servers allow you to gain more then 500 rank and also lose it. You can’t lose rank bellow 500.

[ 2016-07-30 01:17:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 39.4

We are adding a series of changes that should further enable a huge amount of ship variety. Additionally, we have some updates from the last 'Reddit Suggestions' vote, which I hope you enjoy. Please vote for your favorite suggestions!

Parts Changes

Spinal Mount Added A new mount that adds a flat bonus of +300 range of its weapon, but has a very narrow arc and can only support 4 modules. Using this can substantially alter the dynamics of a weapon, more that doubling the range of close quarters guns.
Changes to module sharing Rather than splitting effect, modules now only suffer -10% effect for every additional gun they support. This means that putting many guns on a module is now often a reasonable tactic, something previously unheard of in competative play.
Tesla Cannon now Bounce up to 10 times This is a large decrease to its effectiveness under most conditions, but manages to keep the weapon interesting alongside its high burst.
Cloak decloak radius now 100 (from 0), Collisions were often fairly finicky for decloaking ships, which was not the intention. If a ship is directly adjacent to a cloaked ship, it will now decloak.

UI Changes

Can move ships in Editor Pressing the arrow keys will now move a ship in the editor, in case you started in a poor position.
Basic Matchmaking Join 1v1/2v2/3v3 buttons now exist in multiplayer lobby screen. They will have you join the server with the best chance of a game available for you. Thank you for playing, we are going to keep trying to make this game the best it can be.

[ 2016-07-05 16:02:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version: 38.39

A smaller update this time. We are adding: Faction (Clan) Tags Can be setup in your profile. As of right now no other faction options exist. New Rank Icons Should be a bit more gradient, several more to cover early experiences. Campaign Mode Bugs Fixed some bugs in campaign mode. 'Targets' Tutorial mission now has the targets move again.

[ 2016-06-18 00:32:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 38.38

We have an assortment of game improvements this time. A few balance changes that were generally frequently requested, and some general improvements to game operation.

Balance Changes

Tesla
Now always tries to chain to 4 targets.
Splits damage between targets, making it weak vs tanky groups.
Deals competative DPS, with minor EMP damage to make it better vs shields.
Warheads
Have linear damage drop-off up to their new max radius of 300.
This is in almost all cases a nerf, and they will be watcehed for current balance.

UI Changes

Servers now display skill of highest player.
More visible game countdown.
AI no longer copied with the ship, when you copy a ship.

Bug Fixes

General performance optimizations.
Fixed a few chat bugs.

Other

Servers will now be brought up and taken down as needed. The system is new, and in refinement, but it should allow us to have better servers for the players by not keeping up unnecessary ones. For the moment all servers are now being hosted in America.

I want to thank you all for playing and supporting the game. We will continue trying to improve Istrolid into the future.

[ 2016-06-15 19:57:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 38.29

AI stays with the ship One of the runner up suggestions from the previous voting & suggestion thread was the ability to keep your AI with the ship. This allows you to save your AI into the fleet section and swap out whole AI fleets. Have multiple AIs you are working on etc..
Units that have the little corner on their name are units that have AI rules attached to them. Balancing Changes

x2 Front and Back pieces changed to $3/$2 from $5/$3
Slight nerf to warhead AoE, from 210m to 200m

Lobby changes We made it so that only the host can start battles. We also added a 5 second timer to start of battles allowing people that don’t want to play to leave and abort the timer. And finally kicking a player from a team prevents that player from joining again for 15s. There was no consensus on who and when a battle should start. Now its the host’s job to start battles as soon as teams are filled. As rank play was introduced players could trap other players into games with them by pressing the start button quickly before the other player has a chance to leave. This was bad. When a host kicks a player from a team, that player can’t instantly join and start a game. A source of much trolling. I hope to see less trolling of this kind in the future. New challenge AIs added All of the AIs were already present in the galaxy campaign, except for Nayenne which was made by a highly skilled player. We though it was awesome and put it into the game.

Nayenne
WaveMotion
SparkShower
FireFly
AssaultandBattery
RushDown
BaitandMissile
SiegeCore
AlphaStriker

Ranks

Our rank experiment is continuing. We had to reset some people’s ranks due to “rank” farming. So don’t rank farm, it’s really easy for us to see who is doing it. We are thinking of ways to roll them out to the 2v2 and 3v3 in the future. See you in game!

[ 2016-06-08 18:03:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 38.22

We are happy to introduce the first version of a competative Ranking system. In addition, we have a number of smaller bug fixes this patch

Player Rankings

Calculated during 1v1 mode only.
Your first games will give you a bonus as you learn.
All 1v1 wins will give you Ranking Points from your enemy, based on the difference in your rankings.
This system will be subject to changes early on, as we try to expand and improve it.
A players 'tier' or skill bracket is shown above their color.

Bug Fixes

Massive reduction in bandwidth use of lobby.
Fixed some issues related to Deletions not saving.

[ 2016-06-04 22:38:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 38.14

This update comes with several small general fixes and a range of balance changes to weapons. These are aimed mostly at normalizing all weapon costs to $5, bringing most weapons down from $10. This should allow stacking low-angle mounts to be more competitive than before when compared to hex-modding, so that we can see more large battleships which stack forward-mounted weaponry, rather than everything being able to fire in 360 and using hexmods.

Balance Changes

All weapons now cost $5.
Heavy PD damage 44->60, making it more a versatile PD/weapon hybrid.
Heavy beam 40T-30T
Flak range 350->360, projectil speed 30->27. This helps it slightly when retreating, but makes it easier to dodge.
Autocannon range 500->470 as it benefits a lot from the price drop.
Tesla energy use down 10%.
Warhead weight 5T->6T
Phase bomb damage 180->150. AoE 50->75. This should make them less swingy and more reliable, but they still probably need a rework.

General fixes

Fixes to spelling and wording.
Fixes to login/password reset.
Clicking on links fixed
Copy/Paste fixed on Mac.

[ 2016-05-31 18:11:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Support Istrolid with our first DLC: Paint Job!

A lot of players have asked how they can support the game, so we’re releasing our first pack of cosmetic features for players who want to show their love for the Istrolid, and help with our rising server costs! For $10 you get all these cool decals that you can add on top of armor or batteries anywhere on your ship:
All supporters also get pioneer features as a bonus, including the ability to rotate all armor pieces and wings as well as name your ships. This DLC includes:

Insignias
Letters & Numbers
Stripes
Ability to rotate parts
Ability to name ships

Think of all of the cool new ships that you can build!

[ 2016-05-27 19:38:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 38.1

Updates have been a little bit slower this week as we try to complete some larger projects. That said, we still have some improvements to the fleet screen and editor.

UI Improvements

Dragging onto units now swaps the units, rather than copying over.
Now gives a red indicator when dragging off the fleet screen will delete.
Holding alt and click on a unit now deletes it instnatly.
Holding alt and clicking on a part now deletes it.

Balance Changes

Missile no longer hits cloaked units, and will stop tracking when the unit cloaks.

[ 2016-05-24 23:24:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version: 37.108

We have a series of improvements to campaign mode this patch. Most notably, we have improved the boss fights, with 5 new bosses. Galaxy Changes

Displays the highest difficulty you beat a mission at.
Galaxy remains available after you win, so you can replay as much as you want
Streamlined the tutorial levels a bit.

Tempest: Hit and Run Skirmishing Boss
MasterMind: Powerful defenses with a stealthed boss hiding behind them.
Zeus: Powerful Tesla-based AI that tries to keep it shields up.
DeathStrike: Fast and powerful assault AI that uses giant recharging stations to function.
SwarmLord: Carrier Boss with a hoard of units using it as a base.

Balance Tweaks Heavy PD Generally Buffed. Larger hitbox to hit more Missiles. +20 Range +10% damage Bug Fixes These are done in something of a rolling basis, but are constant. Of Note:

Harder to Scroll off the galaxy accidentally.

Fixed various issues with player AIs.

[ 2016-05-18 20:08:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 37.103

We continue to work on some larger projects for you, but in the meantime we have some fixes. Cloak

Now does not cost energy when you are not cloaked.
Costs 400/energy a second while cloaked, until you hit maximum cloak.
Now only decloaks when the ship actually fires, not just when it has a firing solution.

Ultralight Armor

Was in a bit weak of a place because of volumetric.
Now has half its former mass.

Additionally, there are bug fixes to problems that players can never see that should increase perfomance a bit. We will be doing more major releases later this week, but in the meantime, we are trying to keep the game balanced. As a referesher on cloak mechanics: Cloaking Energy A ship must generate enough 'cloaking energy' to equal its mass, in order to be cloaked. Each cloaking device cloak's 60T of ship, every second (so a 60T ship will cloak in exactly one second). The maximum 'cloaking energy' a ship can have is equal to twice its mass, and it will begin costing 6.6 energy per mass, until it hits twice its mass in 'cloaking energy'. While a ship moves, it loses 40% of its Mass in cloak energy, every second. If the ship ever fires or touches an enemy ship, it will go down to 0 cloak energy. Ships that are cloaked can only be hit by locked on missiles, and area of effect attacks. They cannot be fired at by the enemy. In Short A giant ship will decloak after 2.5 seconds of moving, when fully cloaked. A ship can move while cloaked without losing power at 150 Mass per cloaking device. This will cost 400 e/s per cloaking device (while cloaked). More allows it to to cloak from visible while moving, less devices means you must stop to recloak after recovering for a bit. You can tell how far a ship is in the cloaking process by how much of its health-bar is transparent.

[ 2016-05-17 02:43:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Post-Launch Recap: A Crazy Start

It’s now been a week since I launched Istrolid on Steam. Before the launch, I thought maybe a few thousand people would check it out but I was way wrong. Instead, Istrolid has had over 70,000 people try it out so far. This is 10,000 people per day, which is crazy-awesome-amazing! About 1,000 people play Istrolid every hour:
Since Istrolid got so many more players than I expected, I had to create a bunch of new servers on the first day. This was an interesting challenge because I hadn’t built a good system for bringing up new servers. I didn’t think I’d need one, but I was wrong and here is what I built:
Along with bringing up a bunch of new servers, I’ve also been updating the game many times a day. Istrolid is set up so I can put out updates without requiring a new download on Steam. This means you’ve been getting updates and bug fixes without even noticing! Most of these updates have been fixes to unexpected issues that came up because so many more people are playing the game than I had anticipated. Here are some issues I’ve this fixed this week:

On launch day, the global chat quickly got overwhelmed with people (and spam) so I added per-server chat and the ability to mute and ban people.
I had a bug that meant some players lost their progress and ships. I have now fixed this issue but I know how frustrating it was for those that lost their stuff. I feel really sorry about this bug.
Some players were kicking other players from games without any reason. Before Steam, this never happened so I didn’t even realize it would be an issue. To help stop this from happening, I added a host system, where only the host of the server can kick other players.
One funny bug was that nuclear warheads were unintentionally way overpowered for a while. Luckily this reported and fixed before too many people even noticed.

Looking back at this launch week, it has made me realize how humble the beginnings of Istrolid really were. Istrolid started as a simple WebGL prototype with spaceships you could fly around. I’ve always liked space and explosions. In the demo, you could only build 13 ships. There was no design component yet, it was all really simple. From there, the game just expanded and improved.

Saktoth and RyMarq joined in to help me improve the game in the very early days. We worked together to add some of the coolest features in Istrolid. Probably the best one was the ability to design your own ships. Multiplayer also really made the game better because you could battle your ships against other people’s, seeing who had designed the best fleet.

Istrolid took us over a year to create. That’s a long time, but it was also a lot of fun. We chose to make Istrolid free because we wanted to get as many people to play it as possible. This is what makes us so happy about our launch being so successful with so many players. It’s amazing so many people are playing our game. Thank you!

[ 2016-05-14 14:32:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version: 37.93

We have been trying to improve the multiplayer experience in what ways we can right now. Most importantly though, thanks to Treeform's hard work, we believe we have fixed all problems with player's ship lists being wiped. As of last version it should have been rare, but now it should be a thing of the past entirely Bug Fixes:

Fixed losing ship-lists. Ships will now never be deleted if a conflict occurs, in the worst case of error's duplication is now the failure state (and still very unlikely).
Massively reduced performance cost of warheads (it was entirely too high).
Fixed a bug that would cause shaped charges to do radically too much damage.

Changes:

Shaped Charges now have a built in No Overkill behavior. If they would kill the target twice over, they do not trigger. This means that unlike basic warheads, they will not trigger on small intercepting craft.
Warheads will no longer trigger on a ship with Shaped Charged, until that ship dies. Combining the two will allow warheads that don't die to random tiny ships, and can penetrate deeper into an enemy squad before exploding, but are a bit heavier and harder to use.

Player Search Feature: Players will now have their current current server listed in the player list, and there is a search bar up top so you can find them more easily. Clicking on the listed server will bring you directly to their game. In the coming days, we will be revealing a system for players to have a more engaging and competative multiplayer experience and will be further refining the balance of the cloak. We are currently working on a rework of the boss-fights in the campaign mode to make them more engaging, but do not have a clear ETA on that. As always, thank you for playing.

[ 2016-05-12 17:45:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid Version 37

Its been a bit of a hectic start over here, but we are overcoming the first hurdles of the steam release.

Bug Fixes:

Fixed a major cause of progress loss.
Improvements to server stability.

Quality of Life: We have made a number of changes this weekend, as I am sure most players have noticed.

Servers now have local chat-rooms, and wont be affected by global spam.
Server list is now better sorted to find games easily.
Moderation tools have been added to deal with problematic players.
The first player to join a game becomes the 'host', and will control adding AIs and kicking players.

Balance Changes: Wave Gun (Push and Pull): 500 Range > 750 Range. Damage to 8. The wave gun was in a rather conservative place, due to a series of changes before release. These changes should put it in a better place, where it will be easier to dirupt enemy formations, chase down enemy ships, and counter enemy rushes using the weapon. Thanks to all players who stopped by and tried the game, and we are sorry for a bit of a rough start. More players showed up than we had planned for, the response so far has really been incredible.

[ 2016-05-10 05:50:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Istrolid
treeform

Developer

treeform

Publisher

2016-05-06

Release

Indie Strategy Singleplayer Multiplayer