This update adds a new 3d radar for smaller fighters that helps pilots find their targets easier, it can show the location of enemy ships, fighters, and the space station in all three dimensions! Pilots will also notice new countermeasures against homing missiles and a new fire suppression system for the Light Fighter, that regenerates some hull HP without having to land and repair the fighter. Different fighters now have different amounts of flares and homing missiles depending on their role in the space battle.
The UI of the energy controls and all mid-round purchasing stations for upgrades, droids, and fighters have been reworked to be more immersive, players can now interact with them as part of the world, instead of getting an UI window popup.

There is also a new EMP torpedo, if it manages to reach the enemy capital ship it will disable all engines, shields, and weapons for ten seconds, allowing you to unleash a super laser attack on the disabled ship or use its downtime to reposition your own ship! Once a capital ship hull section gets too damaged, more interior damage will be visible with ceiling parts crashing down, killing everything that happens to be below them and permanently blocking a pathway, so the crew needs to find alternative ways to reach the engine room or hangars!
Additionally, multiple other improvements and bug fixes have made it into this update, with solo players now getting more B1 droids as crew per default, making the huge capital ship interior a bit less empty and helping the player more with maintenance and combat tasks. You can read up on all the other changes, improvements, and fixes in the full changelog below! If you have any kind of feedback or questions please let me know! Full changelog: - ADDED: new UI interaction system that allows players to interact with 3d screens inside the ship, currently used by all mid-round purchase stations and the energy controls - ADDED: flares countermeasures to fighters (destroys any homing missiles that fly through the flares) - ADDED: new interior damage that blocks pathways if the hull section they are located in gets damaged too much and kills units caught beneath - ADDED: new 3d radar to fighter cockpits - ADDED: ability to sabotage wall panels in enemy ships - ADDED: new EMP torpedo disables the enemy ship for 10 seconds when it hits it - ADDED: capital ship interior and exterior lights now go out when its firing its superlaser or got hit by an EMP torpedo - ADDED: torpedoes, B2 attack, and Fireo pods can now be locked onto with homing missiles - ADDED: fire suppression system to light fighter - ADDED: small "wall of honor" display to the capital ship bridges - ADDED: AI now uses the EMP torpedo - IMPROVED: capital ship interior lighting - IMPROVED: security station now shows the droid type of all available droids - IMPROVED: 3d radar location, capital ship displays on the 3d radar, and added field of view lines to the 3d radar - IMPROVED: homing missiles damage reliability against AI interceptors - IMPROVED: droid mid-round purchasing screen now greys out droids that the player can't afford - IMPROVED: 3d radar now automatically zooms in to objects that are closer, allowing less cluttering when multiple objects are close, while still being able to show objects that are far away - REDUCED: B1 Robot HP from 150 to 100, B2 Robot HP from 600 to 450 - REDUCED: B1 Robot cost from 250 to 150, B2 Robot cost from 350 to 250 - REDUCED: torpedo purchase cost at the start of a round from 300 to 200 - REDUCED: fire suppression heal from 10HP in 5 seconds to 5HP in 5 seconds - REDUCED: smaller fighter HP from 25 to 20 - REDUCED: homing missile damage against smaller fighters slightly (to reduce one-shots by homing missile turrets) - CHANGED: default game mode to epic/station size - CHANGED: teams with only one human player now spawn with 4 B1 Robots, larger teams spawn with 2 B1 Robots - CHANGED: different fighters now have different amounts of flares and homing missiles - CHANGED: increased individual asteroid size - CHANGED: different asteroids now have slightly randomized hit points, some might require more hits (so fighters have to maneuver around them instead of just shooting them) - CHANGED: enemy AI will now deploy AI Interceptors more often when the enemy has a smaller fighter advantage - FIXED: homing missile warning sometimes persisting after missile ran out of fuel - FIXED: B2 attack pod and torpedo upgrade descriptions - REDUCED: light fighter HP from 30 to 25 - CHANGED: cockpit model to add windows below and make more space for the 3d radar - FIXED: midround robot prices not being the same as the pre-round purchasing prices - FIXED: midround torpedo price not being the same as its pre-round purchasing price - FIXED: team selection UI not getting mouse focus correctly sometimes - FIXED: midround fighter purchase UI not showing the number of missiles and flares the fighter has - FIXED: all fighters having the same amounts of homing missiles/flares - FIXED: AI interceptors being able to see cloaked fighters - FIXED: ceiling damage not getting reset correctly between rounds - FIXED: team selection UI focus issues

This update adds a brand-new Captain's Chair to the middle of the capital ship bridge. Only usable by that ship's captain, it offers a quick overview over the battle, allows direct firing of advanced weapons like torpedoes, can be used to relay information to the ships helm and turret stations, which are displayed to human operators and instantly followed by robots manning the stations, so make sure you assign a B1 robot to a station if you want your commands to be followed!
The Captain's Chair also includes a new navigation system, showing an overview over the battle, and allowing the captain to assign a waypoint the human or robot at the ship's helm will try to fly to!
To accommodate the new waypoint system, the AI flying behavior when controlling a capital ship got improved, and homing missiles received a buff to their damage to be more useful! Another common issue was the accuracy of the laser turrets when firing manually, I improved their accuracy greatly, using them should feel a lot better now! If you have any questions or issues, please let me know below or on the game's discord, where you can also find other players to play with! Full changelog: - added new Captain's Chair to the capital ship bridge - Captains can assign an enemy capital ship section to focus, this info gets transmitted to both AI and player turret operators, and smaller fighters - Captains can also fire advanced weapons like torpedoes from the Captain's Chair - Captains can also see information about their ship, and the enemy ship (if available) and have a small map they can give orders on - increased captains chair map size - increased "focus section" part of the captains chair UI - added frigate to "focus section" part of the captains chair UI - added ship orientation (relative to the enemy capital ship) command to the captains chair - improved AI general ship driving skills (better navigation/path finding, now rotates the ship forward instead of awkwardly drifting to the target) - added new "navigation system" tab to the Captain's Chair, opens a map of the space surrounding the capital ship and allows the captain to place a waypoint - added new capital ship navigation waypoints, shown on the Captain's Chair navigation system and to players flying the capital ship, AI also follows them - fixed captains chair UI persisting into the next round if it was opened at the end of a round - added enemy shield info to the Captain's Chair UI (if available) - Captain's Chair target frigate option now only shows when the enemy team has a frigate - added keybinding info to the nav system - can now zoom/move the nav system camera - fixed orders showing on the nav system screen - drastically increased turret accuracy when manual shooting - Captain's Chair order now has a seperate cooldown (15s) to the class ability (since classes other than Officer can be Captain) - new chair order cooldown is now displayed at the Captain's Chair UI - potential fix for homing missile lock-on not being removed correctly - increased homing missile damage from 10 to 20 - increased homing missile damage multiplier against AI interceptors from 1x to 3x (2 homing missiles now should destroy an AI interceptor) - fixed nav system waypoints not appearing for clients

This smaller update takes some of the firepower of the smaller fighters away, and increases the damage of the capital ship turrets, to shift more power to the capital ships while keeping fighters viable. The damage of the Heavy Fighters rockets got decreased as well, while the bomber only got a slight reduction of bomb damage, which is compensated by reducing the bombers speed and mobility, making teamplay more important since he needs escort fighters, or the team has to destroy enemy fighter defenses prior to making bombing runs. The engine overclock was also rarely used to resulting in random overheating very fast, to make this feature more viable there now is a 5 second period after overclocking before the engine has a chance to overheat, this is increased to 10 seconds if an Engineer overclocks it. There are also some bug fixes, mostly relating to tutorial issues where players could die in some situations, making the tutorial incompletable and requiring the players to restart the tutorial. Random fighter models spawning in the blue ships science bay should also be fixed, with the space station receiving some fixes regarding fighters landing in its hangars. If you have any questions or feedback, please let me know! Full changelog: -BUFFED: increased large and double laser turret damage by 10% -BUFFED: increased gauss turret shield penetration from 35% to 50% -NERFED: reduced smaller fighter damage by 15% for all fighters -NERFED: reduced heavy fighter rocket damage from 50 to 40 -NERFED: reduced bomb damage from 500 to 450 -NERFED: reduced bomber speed from 75 m/s to 69 m/s -NERFED: reduced bomber turn speed by 20% -CHANGED: engine overclock now takes 5 seconds before randomly failing, instead of possibly failing earlier -CHANGED: engineer has 10s instead of 5s overheating protection after overclocking the engine -FIXED: resource points resetting on every death when "allow mid-round class changes" was enabled, instead of only when switching classes -FIXED: being able to shoot while in the selection menus -FIXED: one station hangar slot not being set up correctly, resulting in landed fighter not spawning there, but in [0,0,0] location -FIXED: player being able to die in the first and third tutorial missions -FIXED: players frigate being able to be destroyed in the tutorial missions

This update is the first one after the game's full release from Early Access, and features the most requested improvements, as well as a new optional win condition!
Players can now choose to allow "self-destruction" as a new win condition in the server host menu, this will add a terminal to each bridge that requires all three keycards to initiate a 60-second countdown, if the countdown does not get cancelled by the crew, the whole capital ship will self-destruct. To help defenders with defending their bridge, a second bridge sentry was added. Keep in mind those sentries won't work if your generator gets destroyed!
There are also improvements to hitmarkers, which now get activated when flying in a bomber and hitting something with a dropped bomb, and they also show the amount of damage dealt, this can be disabled in the settings. Bombers now also deal more damage with their bombs but have had their speed reduced, so they are even more vulnerable now and work best with allied fighters protecting them! If you infiltrated the enemy ship, you might have noticed that enemy robots respawned quite fast, this has been reduced from 8 to 16 seconds to give players more opportunities to sabotage the enemy. You will also notice that the AI now deploys Barsk security guards at higher difficulty settings. There are also two new server settings, the first allowing uneven teams, if you want to play 1vs3 PvP for example, and the second one allows class changes mid-round, giving players the opportunity to change their class after they died, with the trade-off of losing their resource points when doing so. Also included in this patch are loading screen tips, more AI spawn variations so enemy AI doesn't always spawn in the same locations, and a few bugfixes! Thank you all for your support, if you have any feedback or issues let me know! Full changelog: -ADDED: hitmarker for bombs dropped by the bomber fighter -ADDED: impact sound inside the capital ship when B2 attack pod hit the ship -ADDED: B2 attack and Fireo robot spawn locations are now randomized -ADDED: "Allow Self-Destruct" host option -ADDED: self-destruct terminal to the bridge, after a 60 second timer it blows up the whole capital ship, AI will try to stop the timer -ADDED: "allow uneven team" host option (allows for 1vs3 games for example) -ADDED: AI will now utilize Barsk Security Guards on the two highest difficulty settings -ADDED: loading screen tips -ADDED: second bridge sentry (remember you can deactivate the sentries by destroying the generator) -ADDED: dealt damage amount to hitmarker -ADDED: damage amount toggle option -ADDED: new self-destruction warning UI -ADDED: "allow mid-round class changes" server host option -NERFED: reduced bomber speed by 30% -BUFFED: increased bombers bomb damage by 20% -CHANGED: AI respawn timer increased from 8 to 16 seconds -IMPROVED: self-destruct terminal is now completely hidden if self-destruct option is disabled -IMPROVED: slight changes to selection phase UI to improve chat visibilty -IMPROVED: self-destruction countdown sound -FIXED: potential fix for smaller fighters sometimes spawning inside the science bay -FIXED: every player getting a hit marker if a drone hit something -FIXED: sweepo robots can now use the medbay doors -FIXED: potential fix for intruder alert not disabling itself after a while

With this update, the game gets fully released after 20 months of Early Access, with over 45 major updates, over 12,000 unique players, and an awesome community with nearly a thousand members on discord the game now is in a state where it can be made available to a wider audience. Over the last 3 years, Deep Space Battle Simulator got developed by me alone, aiming to provide a unique playing experience combining space combat with large and smaller ships, and fully explorable interiors, allowing teams of up to 8-16 players to fight against other players or the continuously developed enemy AI, or play alone, controlling the huge spacecraft with the help of the different AI robots, which is able to take over every part of managing and defending the own capital ship to assist players with commanding those giant vessels. While this is an important goal, the development of DSBS does not stop here, with the usual improvement updates still coming in, as well as lots of cool new content updates on the horizon, with new ships, turret types, game mechanics, and even a completely new game mode combining the space battles with new ground battle scenarios!
Big thank you to everyone who helped me with their constant feedback, the game wouldn't have come this far without you! I am looking forward to meeting you in-game, and implementing your feedback in future updates! If you have any questions regarding the game, please let me know below!

With the game leaving Steam Early Access this Friday, this update aims to improve and polish the overall experience players, especially newer ones have in this game. There are new UI elements added to smaller fighters, tracking enemy fighters and AI interceptors that are currently off-screen to make tracking them easier, and new improvements to the tutorial missions will make some objectives less confusing for newer players. Another turret option was also added, the new "Homing Missile Launcher" turret will automatically fire a homing missile at nearby fighters or AI interceptors every 10 seconds, giving you another way to defend against those threats. Homing missiles in general received an update, now being a lot more reliable, having better and more consistent collision and damage calculations, flying a bit faster, and having a higher turn speed. Fighter pilots will now also get notified how many homing missiles are currently chasing them, instead of just getting alerted that something is inbound. Players will also notice a new "Bonus Resource Point" upgrade, and a new ship layout save feature in the customization phase, allowing them to save their current turret, hangar and upgrade layout to quickly load it in future matches. The AI now also utilizes B2 droids for ship defense at higher difficulty levels, instead of only using the weaker B1 droids, making capital ship invades much harder against them. There are also lots of other bugfixes and smaller improvements you can take a look at below, if you have any feedback please let me know! You can also join the games discord to find other players to play with! Full changelog: -ADDED: UI icons for smaller fighters and AI interceptors that are currently off-screen while flying smaller fighters -ADDED: ship layout save/load system, allows players to save the current turret/hangar/upgrade configuration with a name, and load this configuration in future games -ADDED: new "homing missile launcher" turret, automatically fires a homing missile at a nearby fighter every 10s, the turret has less HP than others -ADDED: new "bonus resource point" upgrade, cost 50$ and grants every team member 20 resource points at the start of the round -CHANGED: capital ship UI icons to be better distinguishable from fighter icons -BUFFED: increased homing missile turn speed by 50% and homing missile forward speed by 50% -NERFED: homing missile shield penetration reduced from 50% to 0% -IMPROVED: minor fighter cockpit texture fixes -IMPROVED: rotating while spectating is now smoother -IMPROVED: sweepo spawning when purchasing a lot of sweepo robots in the selection phase -IMPROVED: B2 Attack robot spawning when multiple B2 Attack pods hit a target at once -IMPROVED: homing missile collision detection -IMPROVED: the AI will now deploy defensive B2 robots on higher difficulty settings -IMPROVED: some capital ship interior visual improvements -IMPROVED: fighter cockpit now shows the number of incoming missiles -IMPROVED: homing missile flight path, collision, and damage calculations to be much more reliable -IMPROVED: mission 2 skybox -IMPROVED: mission 2 now highlights the enemy communication modules, so they are easier to find for newer players -CHANGED: swapped ion beam and gauss cannon positions on the default turret layout -CHANGED: homing missiles no longer damage friendly capital ships -CHANGED: homing missile turrets no longer fire in the tutorials, to make it easier for newer players -CHANGED: docked frigate turrets no longer fire automatically -FIXED: pilots drone sound having infinite range -FIXED: on-screen now displays smaller fighters as "landed" and not "destroyed" if they landed in a hangar or frigate -FIXED: capital ship engine truster visuals not being shown when AI flies the capital ship -FIXED: main menu music skipping not working correctly -FIXED: droids being able to sit down in chairs already used by players, breaking things -FIXED: "destroy generator" UI persisting after destroying it -FIXED: Halloween pumpkins only getting destroyed for server host -FIXED: chat overlapping in-game menu -FIXED: frigate torpedo rack not being replenished when purchasing a new frigate -FIXED: some mission 3 progress issues -FIXED: mission 3 first enemy capital ship not exploding correctly -FIXED: homing missile impact location calculation being wrong, resulting in capital ship hits always counting as bridge damage -FIXED: homing missile maximum distance calculation not being enforced if homing missiles fly smaller circles around their target -FIXED: being able to use homing missiles while cloaked -FIXED: fighter cockpits always being red -FIXED: deleted layout button not disappearing instantly -FIXED: blue hangar 2 smaller fighter spawn issues

This update improves the visual appearance of the game, adds a new yearly Halloween event and the third mission in preparation for its full release from Early Access on November 5th!
The visual update consists of a new skybox with a more vibrant blue galaxy background, upgrades to the frigate, smaller fighter, and capital ship textures and particles, and making areas like bridge windows emit more light resulting in a brighter atmosphere. There are also big improvements to the frigate and capital ship UI, presenting important data like speed, distance to the enemy ship, or loaded torpedoes in a much cleaner way. The asteroid field also now is much bigger, with a slightly decreased density and new mineral asteroids that can be mined by shooting them with smaller fighters, resulting in bonus resource points for you and your whole team!

The third mission is now also available, completing the single-player trilogy allowing players to experience the game in a different environment and learning the basics of commanding a capital ship, flying smaller fighters, and controlling a frigate. There are also the usual bug fixes and improvements regarding UI, frigate collision issues, and the AI along with new main menu music, as well as a pause and skip button for the different menu tracks! More experienced players will now also be rewarded with new black capital ship skins after reaching level 100 ingame and you can now also purchase a new frigate for 400 resource points at the space station, in case your original frigate got destroyed in battle! Players will also now notice a new Halloween event running automatically every year from October 20th to October 31st, spawning 7 spooky pumpkins inside each capital ship and 2 in each frigate, and allowing players to destroy enemy pumpkins for a resource point bonus! -ADDED: third mission -ADDED: mineral asteroids to the asteroid field that can be shot to gain 20 resource points -ADDED: frigate purchasing station to the space station, requires you to control the station and costs 300 resource points, will dock the new frigate below the station -ADDED: new main menu music -ADDED: main menu music skip/pause buttons -ADDED: space dust effect to smaller fighters when flying at higher speeds -CHANGED: skybox/galaxy background to be a bit more colorful -CHANGED: planet and gas field locations -CHANGED: sun now is a bit brighter and more white instead of yellow -CHANGED: increased mineral asteroid spawn rate -CHANGED: asteroid field is now much bigger, with a slight decrease in density -CHANGED: now all players of a team gain resource points when their team mines a mineral asteroid -CHANGED: slight changes to interior lighting, and the interior is now a lot darker when a generator is damaged and lights go out -CHANGED: "Missions" main menu tab is now called "Tutorial" until the first mission was completed (so newer plays can find the tutorials more easily) -REWORKED: frigate/capital ship flight info UI -IMPROVED: smaller fighter cockpit crosshair -IMPROVED: smaller fighter interior textures now emit more light in certain areas -IMPROVED: hitmaker now is a bit smaller, slimmer, and more bright -IMPROVED: capital ship and frigate default textures, now brighter on sections that emit light like the bridge -IMPROVED: thruster FX to have no more random cutouts, and made them brighter overall -IMPROVED: frigate cockpit UI visibility -IMPROVED: minor Mission 1 tweaks to explain the class abilities -FIXED: frigate energy distribution UI issues -FIXED: not getting the tutorial achievement after finishing the new tutorial (Mission 1) -FIXED: hacked hangar doors not closing again after 60 seconds, instead staying open until manually closed -FIXED: hangar hack UI issues preventing players from hacking hangar doors again after they were hacked in this round already -FIXED: purchased frigates dock lever not being set as docked to the station, preventing players from undocking from the station -FIXED: mineral asteroids sometimes giving their resource point bonus multiple times per destroyed asteroid -FIXED: asteroids not colliding with frigates -FIXED: main menu music not starting a new song when the old one finished -FIXED: main menu keybindings UI issues -FIXED: being able to purchase a frigate while already having one -FIXED: frigate purchasing fixes -REMOVED: random energy distribution chair in the spawn room that didn't belong there

This update adds the second mission, allowing players to play as a fighter pilot, fight in a huge battle and infiltrate an enemy ship and take control over a frigate. This adds some offline content for more experienced players and mainly aims to introduce newer players to the core mechanics of the game. The third mission will be released soon! The game now has been in Steam Early Access for around 18 months and has seen lots of updates bringing new features and improvements. The core mechanics are now completely functional and with the new missions completely added, the new player experience got improved greatly as well. The game is now in a state where it can be made available to a broader audience, which should increase the player base as well, allowing for more huge multiplayer battles while continuing to upgrade the game with new features and improvements. Due to this, the game will leave Early Access and will be fully released on the 5th of November. If there are any improvements you think would benefit the game before leaving Early Access, please let me know below! There are also some reports of players having trouble starting the game, especially users with Intel graphics cards. If you experience any issues regarding this, please locate the games log files (C:\Users\YourWindowsName\AppData\Local\DeepSpace\Saved\Logs) and crash files (C:\Users\YourWindowsName\AppData\Local\DeepSpace\Saved\Crashes) and send this info as well as your system specs to dsbs.dev@gmail.com.

This update introduces the first of three new missions to the game, that will serve as some single-player content as well as a learning experience for newer players. This first one is called "First Steps" and replaces the old (and outdated) tutorial and guides the player through some basic aspects of the game in small steps combined with some action sequences.
Two additional missions will be released soon, complementing the single-player content with more difficult missions where the player has more freedom than in the tutorial while keeping them in a scripted story, offering some variety to the normal game modes. There are also a few other improvements and bug fixes you can take a look at in the full changelog below, most notably the smaller fighter cockpit models got reverted to an earlier version to due popular demand. If you have any feedback or issues, especially with the new tutorial, let me know! Full changelog: -REMOVED: old tutorial -ADDED: new mission tab to the main menu, with 3 singleplayer missions (Mission 2 and 3 will be added later) -ADDED: first singleplayer mission "First Steps" that replaces the tutorial and guides the player to the basic things inside their capital ship and shows them basic fighter control -REVERTED: back to the older small fighter cockpit model with the old joystick animations -FIXED: mouse cursor not dissapearing correctly when closing the ingame menu while in a bridge station -FIXED: security stations bugs related to forcing the AI robots to specific locations -FIXED: mission successfull text clipping issues -FIXED: blue capital ship turrets not firing in the "First Steps" mission -FIXED: "First Steps" mission not correctly progressing when adding a patrol target to a droid -CHANGED: temporarily renamed "Missions" tab in the main menu to "Tutorial", will be reverted when more mission get added and players already completed the "First Steps" tutorial mission

This update adds lots of new content, starting with a widely requested AI crew update, you will now be able to assign your B1 droids to the energy control station, the capital ships helm, and the turret stations where they will assess the current battle situation and take action accordingly, maneuvering your capital ship to safety or a more aggressive position, managing the energy distribution to protect heavily damaged parts or increase firepower to finish the opponents' ship and focus their weak points with the turrets.
The enemy AI also received lots of improvements, utilizing the new AI crew system for themselves as well with all the new smarter decision-making that comes with it. You will also find a new security station on your capital ships bridge, allowing you to lock down individual doors to protect certain areas or try to slow down attackers without having to lock down all doors on your ship. You can also force droids to check out certain positions if you think enemy players might hide there, and let them guard important spots and even assign them customizable patrol routes that they will follow instead of randomly walking around!
FIghter versus fighter combat also received some love, with fighters being extremely hard to hit due to their high speeds and small size, every fighter now has 2 homing missiles on board, that can be replenished when landing in a hangar. You can fire them at enemy fighters and drones after a 2-second lock-on period, after which they have to evade the missiles with fast turn maneuvers or risk getting hit by it. Bombers also received a small rework based on your feedback, their bombs now have much slower fire rate but greatly increased damage, allowing you to fly multiple bombing runs instead of having to replenish after spamming all bombs at once.
You can now also choose to overload the enemy generator instead of just shooting it, this will not immediately disable it, but instead start a 60-second timer after which the generator will explode, damaging everything nearby as well as the capital ships hull, and then the generator can now be repaired again for the rest of the round, allowing attackers to deal persistent damage to the enemy if managing to invade their ship and hold the generator room for a longer time. To help defending teams, new sentries have been added to the engine, generator, and bridge rooms that the attackers need to destroy before being able to enter the rooms. There also is a new spectator team that you can select at the beginning of each round, allowing content creators to fly around and have a better view of the action. Spectators can use key shortcuts to jump to certain spots instantly (1=blue interior, 2=red interior, 3=blue capital ship, 4=red capital ship). There are also lots of new smaller features, improvements, and bug fixes, with better widescreen UI support, looking around in fighter cockpits, a new stairway to the upper levels of the capital ship, and a lot more things you can take a look at below in the full changelog. If you have any issues or feedback, please let me know! Full changelog: -ADDED: new static sentries to the bridge, generator, and engine rooms -ADDED: "overload generator" interaction, takes 6 seconds, overloaded generator explodes after 60 seconds (this can be stopped by repairing it) -ADDED: overloaded generator explosion, deals damage to everyone nearby, and massive hull damage, generator can't be repaired afterward -ADDED: keybinding option for flying up/down -ADDED: new stairway to the upper levels to the left side of the capital ship -ADDED: option to add/edit/remove patrol routes to individual B1 robots in the security station -ADDED: hitmarker for the drone energy beam -ADDED: functionality to remove droid patrol points again from the security station -ADDED: homing missiles can now lock onto repair drones -ADDED: can now set droid patrol points from the security station (additionally to the default patrol points) -ADDED: can now force the closest droid to a specific location from the security station -ADDED: security station to the bridge where you can control door lockdowns and droid movements -ADDED: the ability to lock/unlock specific doors in the security station -ADDED: looking around in smaller fighters -ADDED: more windows to the smaller fighter, so you have better visibility, especially downwards -ADDED: files for windows servers -ADDED: first, very work-in-progress version for a spectator mode -ADDED: spectator mode shortcuts (1=blue interior, 2=red interior, 3=blue capital ship, 4=red capital ship) -ADDED: better widescreen/different aspect ratio support -ADDED: B1 droids now can control turrets, tries to focus the lowest hull section -ADDED: enemy AI now uses B1 droids to man all important bridge stations -ADDED: option to assign B1 droid to ship helm and energy management -ADDED: functionality for multiple interact options for one item -REMOVED: view distance option since it now uses a new, optimized system for all players instead of having multiple steps -IMPROVED: B2 Attack droid is now a lot smarter when choosing which target to attack, now prioritize players and sentries that block their path or shoot them -IMPROVED: players that got kicked now get instantly kicked again after rejoining that server (gets reset after a while, so you can rejoin dedicated servers that don't restart) -IMPROVED: AI capital ship piloting now takes its own hull HP values into account -IMPROVED: AI capital ship piloting now tries to rotate their weaker hull side away from the enemy -IMPROVED: AI energy management now takes hull HP advantage/disadvantage into account and tries harder to increase shields on the currently most vulnerable hull -IMPROVED: capital ship piloting AI now takes its own turret configuration into account, flies closer if it has ion beam turrets -IMPROVED: capital ship piloting AI now is more aggressive and flies closer if it thinks it has an advantage -IMPROVED: sentry CPU performance -IMPROVED: AI turret targeting -IMPROVED: slight performance increases -IMPROVED: B1 robot controlling the capital ship now tries to stay within the battle zone limits (if that option is enabled) -IMPROVED: GPU performance through better mesh culling -IMPROVED: some other security station improvements and fixes -IMPROVED: turret selection UI widescreen scaling -IMPROVED: sentry aiming and targeting systems, so they shoot enemies more reliably -IMPROVED: sentries now are a lot smarter, can hit enemies that are mostly hidden behind corners -IMPROVED: teleporter placement -CHANGED: doubled HP regeneration (still starts 4s after being damaged, from 4/sec to 8/sec for marine and from 2/sec to 4/sec for others) -CHANGED: tactical droids now can't spawn B1 droids for 10 seconds after one of their droids got destroyed -CHANGED: the normal player UI now gets removed when spectating -CHANGED: bomber now needs to reload for 5s after dropping a bomb -CHANGED: Tactical Droid now no longer respawns instantly -INCREASED: bomb damage from 100 to 400 -INCREASED: enemy AI now spawns more B1 droids (still scales with AI difficulty) -INCREASED: crew turrets HP from 100 to 200 -REDUCED: bomber fire rate and laser damage slightly -REDUCED: bomber HP from 35 to 25 -REDUCED: bridge sentry fire rate slightly -FIXED: ion beams damaging smaller fighters HP -FIXED: explosions looping sometimes -FIXED: phantom hangar gate flying around in space -FIXED: homing missiles not exploding after running out of fuel (after 10 seconds of flying) -FIXED: being able to lock onto friendly fighters with homing missiles -FIXED: landing in a hangar resulting in landing on the already occupied site sometimes, resulting in 2 fighters stacked on top of each other and messing up fighter purchasing as well -FIXED: turret seats not unregistering players that stop using it correctly, resulting in players getting teleported to the seat if the turret they last controlled got destroyed -FIXED: potential fix for drone sounds not disappearing with the drone -FIXED: being able to use abilities in the selection menu -FIXED: binding crouch not actually changing the key used for crouching -FIXED: potential fix for "Destroy Generator" UI widget appearing when it's already destroyed -FIXED: getting teleported to the enemy frigate if it got destroyed and you were flying it earlier in the round -FIXED: marines rocket firing after he died in the spawn room -FIXED: station capture progress being displayed in the UI even if not playing on station size -FIXED: potential fixes for droids not forgetting players correctly -FIXED: not being able to shoot players sitting in the ship helm seat -FIXED: hangar door flying randomly alone in space -FIXED: friendly sentries sometimes shooting teammates -FIXED: robots sometimes being able to repair overloaded/destroyed generator -FIXED: potential fix for B1 robot running against a wall after exiting the energy controls -FIXED: player character sometimes getting shot by droids while in a fighter -FIXED: B1 robots repairing overloaded/destroyed generators -FIXED: automatically unpause the game when pressing "keep playing" while having paused the game -FIXED: homing missiles exploding instantly -FIXED: AI flying the capital ship too far away from the enemy capital ship -FIXED: fighter targeting rectangle UI persisting after leaving the fighter -FIXED: frigates appearing on the radar table, even if no frigates exist -FIXED: ship status UI issues on widescreen/different aspect ratio support -FIXED: windows server errors -FIXED: turrets and droids trying to attack spectators -FIXED: multiple UI issues introduced with the new widescreen scaling fixes -FIXED: multiple spectator shortcut bugs -FIXED: B2 droids/Barsuk droids not moving -FIXED: bomber showing "reloading" after its dropping last bomb -FIXED: developer debug binds not being deactivated correctly, resulting in AI commanders spawning for the wrong team -FIXED: engine not counting as destroyed for the UI widgets when overheated -FIXED: clicking on map icons in the security screen making the mouse cursor disappear -FIXED: enemy AI gaining 30 energy if repairing an overheated generator, resulting in total energy over 100 -FIXED: ion beams damaging smaller fighters HP -FIXED: explosions looping sometimes -FIXED: phantom hangar gate flying around in space -FIXED: homing missiles not exploding after running out of fuel (after 10 seconds of flying) -FIXED: being able to lock onto friendly fighters with homing missiles -FIXED: landing in a hangar resulting in landing on the already occupied site sometimes, resulting in 2 fighters stacked on top of each other and messing up fighter purchasing as well -FIXED: turret seats not unregistering players that stop using it correctly, resulting in players getting teleported to the seat if the turret they last controlled got destroyed -FIXED: potential fix for drone sounds not disappearing with the drone -FIXED: being able to use abilities in the selection menu -FIXED: binding crouch not actually changing the key used for crouching -FIXED: security stations in spawn rooms, resulting in players standing up from one being teleported in one of the spawn rooms -FIXED: cursor disappearing when closing the pause menu while being in a security station -FIXED: energy control station UI scaling/overlapping

This update adds a completely reworked space station, it now spawns a lot closer to the capital ships and features 2 hangars that are always open as well as a brand new interior. Inside you can find fighter purchasing stations similar to the ones on the capital ships, and a capture point that allows your team to gain twice as many resource points while controlling it. To play on a map with the new space station, make sure to select the "Station" battle size!

The exterior of the new space station will reflect who currently controls it, with the lights changing between red, white (undecided), and blue. You can also dock a frigate at the lower end of the space station now, allowing you to basically respawn in the space station and defend it or spawn smaller fighters from there. You can now also choose to send B2 Attack Droids to the space station instead of the enemy ship, they will try to take control over the capture point and get rid of any enemies inside. The droids also received multiple improvements, for example, they are much smarter at dealing with enemies hiding/peaking from behind cover. But be aware that the enemy Tactical Droid can send droids to the space station as well to try and take control over it. Speaking of the tactical droids, numerous changes have been made to the frigates Tactical Droid to give him a respawn time, which makes it much less frustrating to hijack enemy frigates than before, when he would respawn instantly.
There is also a new respawn system in the game now, in earlier versions you always respawned on the last friendly ship you were on, now you can choose between your capital ship and your frigate (if it exists), allowing you to use the frigate as a mobile spawn station for your team to try and take control over the enemy capital ship or the new space station while being docked to them. The weapons also received some changes, you now spawn with the correct weapon when changing your class in the ship customization phase, and the pistol and the revolver deal a bit more damage now, with the pistols fire rate also being increased slightly. This means they will only have 10% lower damage per second than the rifle or SMG, instead of being 20-30% worse. Additionally, lots of improvements and bug fixes are included in this update, you can check those out in the full changelog below. Most notably, keybindings now accept "." and "," keys, the "invert y-axis" option should now save correctly, fighter purchasing stations should work more reliably, and the windows of your ship should no longer look weird when flying around with your drone. If you experience any issues or have any kind of feedback, please let me know! Full changelog: -ADDED: reworked space station, it now has interiors -ADDED: 2 hangars for the space station, allows players to enter it -ADDED: capture point in the middle of the space station, the team that controls it gains double resource points -ADDED: new station texture, station changes exterior light colors depending on who controls it currently -ADDED: option to launch B2 Attack Pods at the space station instead of the enemy ship -ADDED: B2 Attack droid logic changes so they know how to capture the capture point inside the station -ADDED: "Station" battlesize, basically "Epic" size but with the new space station -ADDED: sentry animation -ADDED: keybinding support for "," and "." keys -ADDED: some more cover to the space station -ADDED: crosshair when flying the drone -ADDED: functionality to dock one frigate at the bottom of the space station -REWORKED: respawn system, you now can choose where you want to respawn in the death screen (capital ship or frigate, if available) -IMPROVED: piloting the capital ship now always makes you look straight ahead (instead of looking behind or sideways when entering it in some situations) -IMPROVED: frigate tactical droid now takes 10 seconds to respawn, instead of respawning instantly -IMPROVED: tactical droid can now only control the frigate if it's close to the helm -IMPROVED: sentry turrets now target Fireo droids -IMPROVED: B2 attack droid behavior against players that hide behind cover on the station -IMPROVED: B2 attack droid pathfinding a lot smoother on the station -IMPROVED: your selected class skin now gets saved for each class -INCREASED: revolver damage from 60 to 70 -INCREASED: pistol damage from 40 to 45 -INCREASED: pistol fire rate from 100 RPM to 120 RPM -REDUCED: B2 Attack droid HP from 600 to 500 -CHANGED: space station interior color scheme to be less blue and more neutral (since it can belong to both teams) -CHANGED: station spawn location to have the same distance to both of the two teams ships -FIXED: teleporters onboard a frigate now get destroyed when the frigate is destroyed -FIXED: fighters landing in hangars not spawning correctly sometimes -FIXED: fighters starting from hangars not correctly freeing up the space they started from, preventing new fighters to be purchased on that side of the hangar -FIXED: spawning with the weapon of your old class if changing classes in the selection phase -FIXED: not getting kicked out of the frigate helm correctly when dying -FIXED: not getting kicked out of the drone correctly when dying -FIXED: windows looking weird when flying with the drone -FIXED: smaller fighters showing the wrong key to enter a hangar -FIXED: small hole inside the space station -FIXED: red teams repair drones being blue instead of red -FIXED: windows looking weird when flying with the pilots drone -FIXED: hangar numbers not being consistent on the map, the signs in the interiors, and the destroyed hangar door alerts -FIXED: invert y-axis option not saving correctly -FIXED: civilian shuttles turning into military shuttles when landed in a hangar -FIXED: energy panel right/middle hull shield buttons having no sounds -FIXED: fighters spawning in the bio lab instead of hangars on rare occasions -FIXED: some blue upper hangar doors being locked -FIXED: everything being too bright when piloting a frigate -FIXED: player sometimes not correctly getting kicked out smaller fighter when dying, messing up the respawn process -FIXED: capital ship hangar issue that resulted in the wrong hangar slots being registered as free when starting fighter -FIXED: changing keybinds not updating the UI hints correctly -FIXED: weird behavior when player is inside a shuttle of a frigate and that frigate gets destroyed while he's still flying around in the shuttle -FIXED: fighter displays still showing the old key when changing keybindings -FIXED: rounding errors sometimes resulting in hull descriptions flashing between"-0% energy due to damage" and "no damage" in the energy controls

This update improves the frigates in multiple ways, there are new windows on the bridge and in the hangar area, which got some visual improvements along with the vent area. There is also now first-person flying for the frigates, which works similar to the flying systems of the smaller fighters, and a short-range turbolaser that the pilot can use, which deals quite a lot of damage but overheats very quickly.


There are also some other improvements, most notably fixes for ultrawide resolutions like being able to set your FOV to a wider range of values, settings not being saved correctly when using Linux, and players getting stuck in the communication station of the frigates, The frigate undock lever now also has an outline that is visible through walls while the frigate is docked, to make it easier for newer players to find! Full changelog: -ADDED: improved, bigger, and more windows to the frigate -ADDED: bigger hangars to the frigate with new large windows -ADDED: first-person cockpit-flying to the frigates, with fighter-like control system instead of having to press a lot of keys at once -ADDED: frigate undock lever outline while docked (to make it easier for newer players to find) -ADDED: short-range, front-mounted double turbo lasers to the frigate, controlled by the pilot (torpedo system unchanged) -REWORKED: settings config system to make settings save correctly on Linux -IMPROVED: the game now allows a wider range of FOV settings (for ultrawide resolutions) -IMPROVED: made frigate vents a bit smaller, spinning vents now have 3 blades instead of 4 -IMPROVED: window visuals while moving -FIXED: skybox being too bright on the "small" battle size -FIXED: player models getting stuck in the communication stations of frigates -FIXED: multiple potential fixes for players sometimes spawning in the wrong ship

This update aims to improve fighter versus fighter combat. Before, fighters would be nearly impossible to hit due to slight differences between the location of the fighter on your screen, and the position of the same fighter on the server, especially at faster speeds. This issue should be greatly improved with this update, making dogfights a much less frustrating experience. Additionally, you will now get a little target helper on your screen after aiming at an enemy fighter that shows you where to shoot based on your laser's speed and the enemy fighter's current velocity. It also shows you the hull HP and shields HP of the enemy fighter, so you know if you are actually hitting them.
You will also notice 2 additional side windows on the bridge, that allow you to have a better view over the battle. There are also some performance improvements to those windows to allow for 3 being displayed at the same time, and some visual improvements like fixing them looking weird when looking up/down. If you have any visual or performance issues with those new bridge windows please let me know! Also, the "Bridge Screen Disable" option now actually works, so you can disable them anytime you want. There are also some more improvements and bugfixes, like voice chat not starting or stopping sending your voice, and players not being able to move after spawning in some situations. All classes now also have faster HP regeneration! Full changelog: -ADDED: smaller fighter aim helper against other smaller fighters (so you know where to shoot) -ADDED: smaller fighter info about the enemy fighters HP/shields while fighting them -ADDED: 2 additional side bridge windows -BUFFED: increased HP regeneration speed for all classes (starts sooner, and regenerates faster) -IMPROVED: lime capital ship skin visual improvements -IMPROVED: bridge window visuals when looking up/down -IMPROVED: bridge window performance -FIXED: bug that resulted in players sometimes not being able to move after a new round started -FIXED: lots of voice chat bugs regarding not starting/stopping voice transmission in certain situations -FIXED: sometimes spawning in walls in frigate vs frigate mode -FIXED: leaving the enemy info seat in a frigate not removing the player from the seat correctly -FIXED: multiple bugs regarding smaller fighter HP sometimes being less than intended -FIXED: "disable bridge screen" option not working correctly and not saving correctly

This update introduces the first version of the new XP/level system, for every 500 XP you gain for playing the game, your level will increase. How much XP you gain after a round depends on the game mode, AI difficulty, and if you managed to win it.
There are also new character skins you can unlock by leveling up, you can equip them in the class selection screen. The new ship skins can be unlocked similar to the character skins, you can equip them as a free upgrade in the ship customization phase. You can also see your current level progress, your unlocked rewards, and all upcoming rewards in the main menu!
There is also a weekly play event on Saturdays to make it easier for you to find other players to play with, you will also receive double XP while playing on public (non-password protected) servers during Saturdays. There are also the usual improvements and bug fixes, most notably changes to the respawn system, respawning on a frigate now always takes 8 seconds instead of being dependent on the life support energy of your capital ship, AI frigates should no longer teleport back to their capital ship, the chat looks a bit nicer with players names being displayed in their teams' colors. The AI also received multiple upgrades, they won't shoot friendly teleporters anymore and have an easier time shooting smaller enemies like Fireos when up close. Full changelog: -ADDED: XP/level system, unlocking character and ship skins -ADDED: players level now get shown on the scoreboard -ADDED: players level now get shown in the main menu, hovering over it will show all possible unlocks -ADDED: gained XP changes with AI difficulty level, PVE/PVP mode and based on if you won the round, gained XP gets shown after the round -ADDED: Saturday playevent announcement to the XP gained screen after the round -ADDED: playing on Saturdays on public (=non-password protected) servers will double your gained XP -ADDED: team colors to chat messages -IMPROVED: Barsk aim when shooting at smaller targets that are close to them -CHANGED: respawning on a frigate now always takes 8 seconds, instead of being based on the life support energy of the capital ship -CHANGED: reduced damage taken when flying into capital ships, so fighters don't get destroyed instantly on low-speed collisions -CHANGED: XP is only gained for rounds that took longer than 2 minutes -FIXED: potential issue that prevented players from hosting games -FIXED: potential issue that resulted in the AI frigate teleporting back to their capital ship instead of flying there -FIXED: multiple minor issues resulting in log error spamming and bad server performance -FIXED: friendly droids attacking your teleporters -FIXED: using a teleporter would sometimes result in the wrong ingame map being shown

This update adds new laser impact effects for capital ships, you will now see if you hit a shield, or if you dealt damage to the hull. The droid patrolling system also got reworked, the droids now move around more naturally and don't get stuck in some corners or in hangars anymore. There are also new keybinding options and improvements to the keybinding menu, as well as lots of minor improvements and bugfixes you can take a look at in the full changelog below. Full changelog: -ADDED: shield impact effect when shooting at a capital ship section that has its shields up -ADDED: explosion impact effect when shooting at a capital ship section that has its shields down -ADDED: keybinding options for smaller fighter left/right roll -REWORKED: droid patrolling system, to prevent them from sometimes just standing in hangars doing nothing and instead cover the whole ship all the time -IMPROVED: asteroid field collision detection -IMPROVED: asteroid field GPU performance -IMPROVED: keybinding menu layout -FIXED: droids firing at friendly turrets -FIXED: fighter sometimes instantly landing again when flying out of a hangar and hitting a hangar door -FIXED: fixed players sometimes respawning in a box outside the map -FIXED: B2 Attack droids sometimes spawning in the wrong ship -FIXED: Pitch Up/Down keybindings not resetting correctly -FIXED: no AI Tactical Droid spawning inside the frigates -FIXED: potential issue that resulted in shuttles from the frigates spawning inside the capital ship interiors -FIXED: capital ship flying through the planet -FIXED: hangar doors hitbox being wrong -FIXED: hangar doors shield not being visible from the outside -FIXED: hangar doors not showing flames on the outside when falling below 50% health

This update adds active abilities to all classes, they have 30 to 60 seconds cooldown and can be used by pressing the key you assigned to "Active Abilities" (default: "R"). The Crew class can place a small sentry turret, that will shoot enemy players that get close to it.
The Engineer can place a teleporter, if he has two teleporters active, all players can travel between those two points. You can see teleporters on the map, and if they connect two points in the same ship, you can see where you are going to get teleported to if you look at the arrow on the teleporter.
The Marine (previously Ranger) can fire a small missile from his backpack, dealing great damage to whatever it hits, and decent damage to the surrounding area. Can be used to quickly blow up doors that are in lockdown mode. The Pilot can spawn a drone that can be used for reconnaissance and comes with an energy beam that deals decent damage over close distances. It can self-destruct to deal decent damage to its surroundings. The Officer class can now give their team orders like repairing generators or engines, killing enemy droids, destroying teleporters, manning turrets, or jumping in smaller fighters. If you use the ability, the map will open and you can click on the thing that you want to be taken care of. Once the order is followed, the Officer and the player that completed the order receive a resource point reward. There are also some minor improvements and bugfixes like hangar doors not taking damage correctly, that you can take a look at in the full changelog below! Full changelog: -ADDED: new active ability system for each class -ADDED: small sentry, placeable by Crew class -ADDED: teleporter, placeable by Engineer class -ADDED: small personal missile, useable by the Marine class -ADDED: recon drone, useable by the Pilot class -ADDED: new orders system that allows the Officer class to give orders to their teammates, both players receive a resource point reward if the order is completed -ADDED: droids now can shoot teleporters and sentries -ADDED: teleporters get shown on the map -ADDED: sentries and teleporters now show their teams color -NERFED: reduced sentry upgrade HP from 800 to 400 -NERFED: reduced sentry fire rate from 120 RPM to 90 RPM -CHANGED: renamed "Ranger" class to "Marine" -FIXED: sentry bugs that allowed the sentry to keep firing even when the generator of their ship was disabled -FIXED: asteroid field always taking up server resources -FIXED: bug that resulted in players appearing to sit inside turret control seats while they were not -FIXED: rounds restarting when a player left and only 1 player remained -FIXED: hangar doors not taking damage correctly -FIXED: "Heavy Fighter" midround purchase not being greyed out when you did not have enough resource points

This update brings a big rework to hangars and smaller fighters, you will now have to fly out of the hangar instead of just spawning outside. The hangar gates will open automatically when you jump in a fighter, allowing you to see the battle outside. The gates will also close behind you, but enemy fighters might try to fly in while it's closing, so look out for that!
There is also a new upper floor from which you can access the new hangar control stations, which allow you to have an overview over the hangars, and toggle the hangar gates manually. The fighters now also have a reworked interior UI, replacing the texts for HP, shields, speed, and laser heat with progress bars.

There are also new asteroid fields with destroyable asteroids of different sizes, you can shoot them or destroy them by flying through them with your capital ship, which will result in heavy damage on the hulls that get hit.
Additional changes that were widely requested and made it into this update include a class selection menu in the pre-game selection UI, and the ability to force open lockdowned doors which will take 20 seconds per door, and only half of that if you are playing as Engineer. There are also more minor additions, changes, and bug fixes that you can take a look at in the full changelog below. Full changelog: -ADDED: new hangar system that allows the hangar doors to open from both sides -ADDED: hangar lever that manually controls the hangar doors -ADDED: hangar doors automatically open/close when fighter starts flying/flies out -ADDED: new upper-level corridors and hangar control stations (for testing purposes only on the "Epic" battlesize) -ADDED: ability to force open enemy lockdowned doors (20s duration, 10s for engineers) -ADDED: class selection to pre-game selection screen -ADDED: asteroid fields, asteroids can be destroyed by lasers or by capital ships driving through (capital ships take a lot of damage if they do this) -ADDED: option to disable the battle zone limitations -ADDED: new upper floors to the capital ship vs capital ship battle size -IMPROVED: overall performance slightly -IMPROVED: made bridge/hangar screens smoother -CHANGED: increased hangar door hack open cooldown from 120s to 180s -CHANGED: collision system changes to increase CPU performance -CHANGED: small fighter cockpit instruments -CHANGED: increased battle limit size by 25% -FIXED: blue small fighters looking like the old blue-yellow design instead of the newer blue-white design -FIXED: repairing broken doors as engineer sometimes not working -FIXED: capital ship lockdown affecting frigate doors -FIXED: players and droids being able to walk through the hangar shields -FIXED: being able to fly through closed hangar doors -FIXED: players sometimes getting stuck when spawning on the frigate -FIXED: some minor turret UI selection issues -FIXED: multiple bugs regarding turrets -FIXED: multiple hangar bugs -FIXED: UI scaling issue introduced in the last beta update -FIXED: lights being very bright on "Normal" battle size -FIXED: multiple frigate respawn issues -FIXED: multiple hangar bugs -FIXED: UI scaling issue introduced in the last beta update -FIXED: lights being very bright on "Normal" battle size -FIXED: planets sometimes not being rendered if far away -FIXED: red team fighters spawning issues -FIXED: stuttering when flying capital ships through the asteroid field

This smaller update fixes a few bugs regarding turrets, especially the gauss cannon, adds a vsync option, and brings the first iteration of a work-in-progress ultrawide monitor support system, that focuses on the most important UI screens like the main menu for now and will be improved upon in future updates. Full changelog: -ADDED: V-Sync option -ADDED: first WIP version of ultrawide support (for the most important menus) -CHANGED: reduced gauss cannon explosion sound -FIXED: gauss cannon shooting 2 projectiles when manually shooting -FIXED: some smaller gauss cannon bugs -FIXED: log spam when opening the energy control screen -FIXED: frigate turrets not firing while friendly capital ships super laser was charging

This update adds the first version of the ping system, allowing players that are not using the voice chat to still communicate with their teammates quickly. You can do basic pings anywhere, and there are context-based pings for things like generators, keycards, and droids.
The newly introduced frigates are now also harder to invade for enemy players, which are now forced to go through the new vent systems of the frigate, triggering an intruder alert and killing intruders that are not careful enough.
There is also a new voting system, which you can use to change the AI difficulty, restart the round, or toggle between PVE/PVP without having to host a new server, which should make playing on dedicated servers a lot easier. There are also bug fixes, most notably for missing and not properly resetting keybinds, as well as the usual adjustments and improvements, all noted in the full changelog below. Full changelog: -ADDED: the ability to start a vote to change AI difficulty on a server -ADDED: current AI difficulty to the scoreboard -ADDED: players that died on a frigate will now respawn on that frigate (to be able to fight vs intruders) -ADDED: players that dock on an enemy frigate will now have to try to sneak in through the vent systems -ADDED: vents that kill players and stop from time to time -ADDED: vent intruder alarm system for frigates, giving the frigate crew enough time to prepare to fight an invader -ADDED: basic ping system (help, moving here, attack, protect) -ADDED: context-based ping system for things like generators, engines, droids, ... that also sends team chat text message -ADDED: keybinding support for number keys, right control/alt/shift, arrow keys and more -ADDED: votes to change the game mode to PVP or PVE and vote to restart the round -ADDED: frigate AI now will fly back to their capital ship to get repairs done -ADDED: some lights now fail if the generator is down -IMPROVED: increased keycard respawn rates -IMPROVED: removed red minimap icon color for teammates to avoid confusion -IMPROVED: AI movement when trying to dodge the players super laser -IMPROVED: keycard respawns, to make sure there is always one keycard of each color available in each ship at any time -IMPROVED: AI frigate flying -BUFFED: increased smaller fighter shield regeneration by 50% -BUFFED: super laser now deals damage to everything in range, instead of only the first thing it hits -BUFFED: increased frigate repairs while docked from 10% per minute to 20% per minute -NERFED: Heavy Fighters and Bombers now get their rockets/bombs replenished over time in a hangar, instead of instantly -NERFED: reduced Heavy Fighter rocket damage from 70 to 50 -NERFED: reduced Bomber mines amount from 8 to 6 -FIXED: minimap sometimes showing enemy ship interior while on your own ship -FIXED: destroyed frigate explosions not disappearing correctly -FIXED: Interceptor Drones not focusing enemy smaller fighters correctly -FIXED: some fighter keybinding issues -FIXED: player steam avatars sometimes not appearing on the scoreboard -FIXED: gap in the wall in the cantina -FIXED: sometimes being unable to dock frigate even though it was close enough to the capital ship -FIXED: planets sometimes being invisible through the bridge window -FIXED: potential fix for turret selection UI sometimes not appearing -FIXED: parts of the fighter UI not being removed after exiting a fighter -FIXED: multiple minimap bugs -FIXED: "Reset Keybinds" not removing some of the existing binds -FIXED: typo in the server browser -FIXED: B1 droids not spawning correctly on epic battle size

This is the biggest update to the game yet, it got tested for months resulting in lots of new content, fixes, and improvements to the game.
The biggest new addition is the frigate, which is a new ship class that is quite a lot smaller than the capital ships and features fewer turrets but comes with more maneuverability. This new frigate will be available in the new "small" battle size, where each team gets one frigate, and the "epic" battle size, with each team controlling a capital ship as well as a frigate. The old capital ship game mode is still available by selecting the "medium" battle size.
The new frigate has systems similar to the capital ships, you will find turret and ship control seats, an energy distribution system, a generator, and an engine system. There also are new torpedo shafts in the engine room, that the frigate crew can load to fire high-damage torpedos at their enemies.
You can access the frigate through a gate from the capital ship interiors, and undock it with the lever next to the gate. You can also dock it again while being close to a capital ship, which will repair the frigate over time and allow you to enter the capital ship again. There are also 2 small shuttles inside the frigate, and you even can land in a frigate to try to board it.
There are also significant improvements to the AI, the bomber has a new screen that helps you pick your bombing targets, and the keybinding system has been improved, especially for controllers. There are also lots of changes, improvements, and fixes that I didn't mention here, but as always you can read about them in the full changelog below. Please let me know if you have any feedback! Full changelog: -ADDED: frigate with a small walkable interior, with respawn room, generator, engine, and a small bridge -ADDED: "small" (frigate vs frigate) and "epic" (capital ship + frigate in each team) battle sizes -ADDED: a system that warns and damages your ship if you fly too far away from the battle -ADDED: picking up a weapon or tool will now automatically equip it -ADDED: dumbfire rockets/torpedos now also explode when close to a target (but not directly hitting it, making them more reliable) -ADDED: frigate docking to capital ship mechanics -ADDED: radar table functionality for the frigates -ADDED: frigate torpedo purchase station -ADDED: interior and exterior explosions to destroyed frigates -ADDED: mechanic to enter frigates from smaller fighters -ADDED: two military shuttle spawn areas to the frigate -ADDED: frigate "auto dock" function, that you can toggle to have your frigate dock automatically if it gets close enough, makes single-handed docking easier -ADDED: frigate docking animation -ADDED: frigates get now repaired while docked (10% max HP per minute) -ADDED: torpedo targeting crosshair to the frigate if atleast one torpedo is loaded -ADDED: targeting screen to the Bomber small fighter cockpit -ADDED: server fps display on the scoreboard -ADDED: red/blue space clouds behind the capital ships -ADDED: red planet behind the red capital ship -ADDED: more controller keybinding options -ADDED: keyboard/controller toggle button to the keybinding menu (toggles if you get shown the current keyboard or controller keybinds) -ADDED: "Toggle camera" option to the frigate, locks the camera and allows players to move it with their mouse, similar to the smaller fighters -IMPROVED: keybindings system, now allows for one keyboard/mouse input and one controller input per keybind -IMPROVED: some minor main menu UI changes -IMPROVED: dumbfire rocket particle effects -IMPROVED: frigate performance and performance inside the ship increased -IMPROVED: lots of frigate improvements -IMPROVED: lots of performance improvements, especially in larger battles -IMPROVED: red team B1 droid now has a red light (instead of a blue one) -IMPROVED: host menu game mode descriptions -IMPROVED: increased planet size -IMPROVED: replaced weird small planet in the center with an asteroid -IMPROVED: server browser game mode display and font sizes to allow for larger server names -IMPROVED: Interceptor Drones now target Frigates as well -IMPROVED: AI turret targeting improvements -IMPROVED: B2 Attack droids now fire at Sweepo droids -IMPROVED: Commando Droid AI now needs to move to the energy station to adjust energy distribution (before he did it from anywhere, confusing players that boarded his bridge) -IMPROVED: greatly improved frigate AI turret targeting mechanics, now attacks the capital ship more if it seems like the best move -IMPROVED: bridge turrets now begin to smoke when getting below 50% HP -CHANGED: AI now takes less damage from being out of the combat zone -CHANGED: reduced broken interior lights sounds -CHANGED: reduced AI frigate torpedo firerate -CHANGED: B1 commander AI droid spawn location, so players can kill it on the bridge and have some time before he comes back -CHANGED: increased distance between the capital ship starting points slightly -CHANGED: AI now takes less damage from being out of the combat zone -BUFFED: AI interceptors can now target repair drones -BUFFED: increased Bomber mine drop speed from 1000 to 3000 -BUFFED: increased mine damage from 6-60 to 10-100 (based on distance to mine) -BUFFED: increased B2 Attack Pod HP from 25 to 40 -BUFFED: increased Fireo Pod HP from 25 to 30 -NERFED: bridge turrets HP reduced from 1000 to 800 -NERFED: reduced Heavy Fighter torpedo range from 200,000 to 100,000 -NERFED: reduced "Heavy Fighter" rocket damage from 100 to 70 -FIXED: Tactical Droid spawning inside the holo table -FIXED: some ship status UI bugs -FIXED: fighter purchases not reducing your resource points amount -FIXED: Barsk Security Guard getting stuck in their spawn room -FIXED: small delay before the victory/defeat screen appears in frigate only mode -FIXED: bug that made the frigate energy controls UI appear when it shouldnt appear -FIXED: turrets sometimes having messed up rotations (while still shooting in the right direction, was only visual) -FIXED: potential fix for frigates sometimes not spawning attached to the capital ship -FIXED: AI being able to move the capital ship and frigate while in hyperspace/preparation phase -FIXED: frigate AI being able to shoot torpedos very fast -FIXED: frigate not getting destroyed correctly in the capital ship + frigate mode -FIXED: lots of minor frigate bugs -FIXED: red frigate not having any fire extinguishers -FIXED: capital ship double laser turret seats controlling the frigate double laser turrets -FIXED: B1 Commander AI droid getting stuck in the radar table -FIXED: B1 Commander AI droid not being able to shoot back -FIXED: frigates not being displayed correctly on the bridge holo table -FIXED: potential fixes for players sometimes becoming invisible in the frigate gamemodes -FIXED: turret debug text being visible -FIXED: frigate AI commander droid not moving -FIXED: frigate AI undocking before the hyperspace/preparation phase ended -FIXED: capital ship AI firing torpedos in the hyperspace/preparation phase -FIXED: civilian shuttles spawning with 0 HP -FIXED: multiple civilian shuttle spawner bugs -FIXED: potential issue that resulted in players avatars still sitting on turret controller seats after leaving them -FIXED: frigate being able to fly trough planets -FIXED: frigate displaying zero distance to enemy ship when the enemy frigate got destroyed -FIXED: frigate ambient engine noise not playing correctly -FIXED: B2 Attack droids getting stuck near the hangars -FIXED: B2 Attack droids having trouble shooting the generator -FIXED: some frigate server errors -FIXED: frigate shuttles appearing on the capital ship ingame map -FIXED: Interceptor Drones not being destroyed when flying into a planet or ship -FIXED: turrets trying to fire through the planet -FIXED: fireo droids getting stuck in the tree room -FIXED: hearing firefights inside the capital ship while being inside the frigate -FIXED: tutorial UI text overlapping -FIXED: unable to move in the tutorial -FIXED: AI not being able to move to the bridge in some cases -FIXED: frigate energy controls UI not getting removed when pressing escape -FIXED: frigate energy controls UI not getting removed when player died -FIXED: "waiting for players" screen getting stuck in the frigate vs frigate mode -FIXED: AI frigate turrets not shooting at all in some situations -FIXED: capital ship frigate attach arms not being up/down correctly at the start of the round -FIXED: small gap in the walls in the room with the stairs to the bridge -FIXED: frigate turrets not firing when capital ships weapons energy was 0 -FIXED: potential fix for fireo droids and repair drones to appear in the tree room (but not moving or getting damage) -FIXED: increased capital ship collision size to prevent frigates from being able to get undocked inside the planet -FIXED: fire extinguisher related server error spams -FIXED: bomber radar display being visible in the other fighters -FIXED: B2 Attack droids sometimes not spawning correctly -FIXED: lots of bugs related to the keybinding system -FIXED: some frigate control bugs -FIXED: some keybindings missing after using "reset keybinds" -FIXED: controller looking up/down being inverted

While bigger things like frigates are getting worked on, this smaller update adds a bit more immersion by making lights flicker or completely fail if the ship section they are located in gets too damaged. There are also some fixes to the AI behavior when they are firing super lasers, and new outlines to the engine repair levers so they are easier to find for newer players!
Full changelog: -ADDED: lights flickering and failing completely if their section gets too damaged -ADDED: outlines to the engine levers so they are easier to find for newer players -IMPROVED: AI super laser aim, so they aim it at your ship more consistently -FIXED: AI firing their super laser when it would not hit the enemy ship

The new team selection menu will be improved in this update, allowing you to skip the 20-second timer if everyone has selected a team, so you have less downtime before you can jump into gameplay again. Before this update, there were some blindspots behind the engines that smaller fighters could abuse to deal lots of damage to your capital ship without you being able to return fire. To fix this issue, there are now two new turret slots directly below the engines, by default they are equipped with double laser turrets to counter enemy fighters, but you can of course customize which turret you want there at the start of the round. There are also some visual improvements to the capital ship engines, you will notice some heat distortion effects when they are running, along with some bugfixes for the engine status screen. Full changelog: -ADDED: heat distortion FX to capital ship engines -ADDED: team selection now ends before the timer runs out if everyone has selected a team -ADDED: two new turret slots below the capital ship engines -FIXED: issue where the engine could get both broken and overheated -FIXED: engine status screen displaying overheated and broken status at the same time resulting in them overlaying each other

This smaller update adds a team selection screen at the start of a new round, you can choose which team you want to join, as long as the team is not full already!

This smaller update adds a vote kick option, you can choose a player you want to kick in the in-game menu (Escape key), this will start a vote. After 20 seconds or if enough players voted, the vote will end. If more than 65% of the players voted "yes", the player will be kicked from the server. This update also deploys a potential fix for not being able to enter hangars sometimes. Full changelog: -ADDED: vote kick system -FIXED: potential fix for not being able to enter a hangar sometimes

Before this update, lasers dealt the same damage no matter how far they traveled, and then just ceased to exist after reaching their maximum range. Now they will have a damage falloff at range, and deal only 70% of their normal damage. To compensate for this nerf in damage, I increased the damage of all lasers slightly, so you shouldn't notice a big difference in the total damage output. Fighters are pretty strong right now, especially since you could just fly in a hangar and then enter the fighter again to fully restore its HP. Now, there are repair stations inside the hangars that repair your fighters slowly over time, to give damaged fighters a bit more downtime. The "Heavy Fighter" rockets also got their damage reduced from 150 to 100, since it was a bit too strong. There are also some minor additions and bugfixes, you can take a look at them in the full changelog below. One bug that is still in the game that I am currently working on fixing, is fighters sometimes being unable to enter the enemy capital ships, even if the hangar doors are destroyed/hacked. I added a small debug number at the top left of the screen, if you experience this bug please let me know what that number said at the moment you couldn't enter the hangar, this will help me out tremendously. Anyways, expect this bug to be fixed soon. Full changelog: -ADDED: damaged fighters now keep their HP when landing in a hangar -ADDED: repair stations to the hangars that activate when a damaged fighter is parked below and then start repairing it -ADDED: "distance to enemy capital ship" info to ship controls UI -CHANGED: laser weapons now lose some damage if their target is far away, instead of always dealing full damage and then disappearing if they reached their maximum range -CHANGED: laser weapons now deal 30% more damage at point-blank range, but 30% less damage at their maximum range (this is a small nerf for double laser turrets) -NERFED: reduced Heavy Fighter rocket damage from 150 to 100 -BUFFED: increased "Large Laser Turret" range from 120,000 to 140,000 -FIXED: capital ship hangar doors blue shield flickering through the doors sometimes -FIXED: volume setting not saving correctly

This update fixes some of the most annoying bugs, like lasers not appearing correctly if you would drive your capital ship far from its start point, which took quite some time to fix. Expect more content soon, now that these bugfixes are out of the way! There is also a new 20-second preparation phase at the start of each round, where you are traveling in hyperspace to the battleground, you can't control the capital ship and fly out in smaller fighters while in the hyperspace/preparation phase. There are also some smaller changes, like more camera shakes when your ship gets damaged, some extra lights for the engine switches so you can find them a bit easier, the AI now has better following behavior when driving the capital ship, as well as some minor bugfixes. Full changelog: -ADDED: more camera shakes when a ship part gets damaged and you are inside it -ADDED: 20 seconds preparation phase, the ship will jump out of hyperspace into battle after it -ADDED: hyperspace/warp visual effect and sounds -ADDED: small light above the engine side output switches to make them easier to find -CHANGED: increased engine sound volume slightly -IMPROVED: AI capital ship following behavior -FIXED: some server error spams -FIXED: some cases where the ship would continue to fly forward after its engine was destroyed -FIXED: lasers and other things disappearing or not appearing at all when the capital ship is far away from the center of the map

This update introduces a new repair system for the engine and a visual rework for the engine room. There are now multiple switches on the engine block, as well as an "Engine Status" screen that displays the current status of the engine, and how to fix it if it's broken or overheated for example. Fixing the engine now requires multiple steps, instead of just holding a key for a few seconds. The B1 droid and Barsk Security Guard got updated as well, so they are able to perform engine repairs with the new system, In the new engine room, you will also find a new "overclock engine" button there, which allows you to double the output of your engine but puts your engine at risk for overheating, so use it with care! You will also notice that there is a new fighter called "Heavy Fighter". Similar to the "Light Fighter" it is a very good allrounder, but it comes with even better stats and 6 dumb-fire rockets. This improvement will cost you 200$ of your upgrade budget per Heavy Fighter though, so you need to decide if it's worth it for your strategy. There are also lots of smaller improvements and bug fixes coming with this update, there are new keybinding and setting options, for example, some of the older ones that had issues with saving now save correctly and the stealth fighter now has a cloak effect instead of turning completely invisible when cloaked. You can have a look at all the smaller changes in the changelog below! Full changelog: -ADDED: new engine model, damage and repair system that allows for different types of engine damage -ADDED: engine status screen to the engine room, displays the current engine status and steps how to fix if it's broken -ADDED: engine overlock from the engine room, doubles your engine speed but can overheat your engine -ADDED: B1 droid and Barsk Security Guard can now perform multi-step repairs on the engine -ADDED: support for fighters that cost extra money that gets reduced from your overall upgrade budget -ADDED: "Heavy Fighter", costs 200$ extra, best overall fighter, comes with 6 dumb-fire rockets that deal lots of damage -ADDED: cloak shader effect to cloaked stealth fighters instead of making them just invisible -ADDED: part of the stealth fighter cockpit turns invisible from the inside as well so it's easier to see if you are cloaked -ADDED: "invert mouse y-axis only for fighters" option -ADDED: keybind option for opening the scoreboard (default is still "TAB") -ADDED: "Rotate Left" and "Rotate Right" keybinding options -IMPROVED: "Turn Input" fighter controls to allow for better smaller adjustments -CHANGED: increased firearm laser speed from 20,000 m/s to 35,000 m/s to make it easier to hit moving targets -CHANGED: engine exhausts are now only visible if the capital ship is accelerating instead of always as long as it was moving -CHANGED: updated tutorial so it works with the new engine changes -FIXED: smaller fighter collision sounds behaving inconsistently sometimes -FIXED: hangar door shield not being visible after the hangar door got destroyed -FIXED: players sometimes having weird view rotations after exiting a turret or fighter -FIXED: FOV and Fighter sensitivity not saving correctly since the last update -FIXED: turret zoom being hard-coded to "Right Mouse Button" instead of using the "Alternative Shoot Key" bind -FIXED: "Turn Input" being the default fighter input settings instead of "Direct Input" -FIXED: fighter input setting not saving correctly

This update further improves the new resource points system, fixing a few issues with it and adding a 50% discount on bridge mid-round upgrades for the Officer class, as well as 40% more resource points for the Crew class, since all other classes get discounts related to their position now. There are also some quality of life improvements like hit markers for turrets, an UI info panel when looking at droids so it's easier to understand which are from your team, and which droids are from the enemy team. The AI has been further improved as well, the AI ship will now move more often while trying to chase you down, or gain some distance between you. Playing against the AI is now a bit easier, especially on lower difficulty levels, with some nerfs to respawn timers, and overall droids the AI can spawn. Lots of upgrades have been adjusted to make them more viable in this update as well, you can get a detailed list of the changes in the full changelog below. Full changelog: -ADDED: hit marker for turrets -ADDED: Officer class now gets 50% discount on bridge mid-round upgrades -ADDED: Crew class gets 40% more passive resource points -ADDED: "class will be changed at the start of the next round" info to the ingame class change menu -ADDED: enemy AI ship will now move more often, trying to chase down the player ship, or back off a bit if the ships get too close to each other -ADDED: UI info if the droid you are looking at is a friendly or enemy droid -CHANGED: Titanium Hull cost reduced from 650->550, Bridge Hull cost reduced from 400 to 250 -CHANGED: "Optimized reactor core" cost from 400 to 550, bonus energy from 5% to 10% -CHANGED: "Overloaded shield generator" cost from 300 to 450, shields regenerate 10% faster instead of 5% faster -CHANGED: killed droids on the AI ship will now take longer to respawn (10 seconds instead of 5 seconds) -CHANGED: less B1 droids on the AI ship (medium difficulty: 2 instead of 3, highest difficulty: 5 instead of 7) -CHANGED: AI ship torpedo/b2 pod/interceptor frequency will now not increase as drastically as before when there are multiple players in the players team -CHANGED: halved the amount of B2 Attack Droids/Interceptor droids that the AI uses at once (medium difficulty: 1 at once instead of 2 at once) -CHANGED: increased torpedo cost from 250 to 300 -CHANGED: reduced fighter resource point cost from 300 points to 200 points -CHANGED: increased zoom in turrets -CHANGED: default turret mode is now "Manual Fire" to make it more intuitive for newer players -CHANGED: revolver sound -CHANGED: round won't restart anymore if a second player joins while in coop mode -FIXED: some resource point purchasing UI bugs -FIXED: lots of server error spam, especially for coop mode -FIXED: fighter sensitivity resetting if opening the settings menu again -FIXED: some AI issues -FIXED: some resource point bugs -FIXED: double laser turret only firing out of one barrel if shooting manually

This smaller update adds icons for the resource point purchasing stations to the map so they are easier to find for newer players, it also fixes some bugs with the resource point systems like the UI sometimes not working correctly, and engineers not getting a discount on droid purchases. Kills you make while in a smaller fighter or in a turret now also appear on the killfeed, and you get points for destroying enemy fighters. There are also lots of bug fixes related to the new fighter sensitivity option, changing classes, and the AI droids. Full changelog: -ADDED: resource point purchasing stations to the in-game map -ADDED: capital ship icon for your ship to the fighter UI -ADDED: killfeed for smaller fighter kills -ADDED: you now get 2 scoreboard points and 10 resource points if you kill an enemy fighter (works if you sit in a fighter yourself, or in a turret) -CHANGED: smaller fighters now can always start to shoot as long as their heat is below 100 (before only when heat was below 50) -IMPROVED: AI pathfinding so they don't always walk to the hangars when just roaming around -IMPROVED: Droids now aim for the small Fireo droids correctly -FIXED: some smaller fighter heat bugs -FIXED: some mid-round droid purchasing UI bugs -FIXED: engineers not getting a discount on mid-round droid purchases -FIXED: fighter sensitivity not saving correctly -FIXED: resource point purchasing menus not disappearing after you died -FIXED: selected class sometimes not updating/saving correctly -FIXED: another potential fix for longer interactions not working on Linux

Until now, most rounds of the game tended to take quite long, and you usually run out of torpedoes and upgrades like that quite soon, and you usually don't have any fighters left at that point as well. This makes the round take much longer, since no one is able to run coordinated attacks anymore, and it makes the rounds less fun. This is why a new resource points system gets introduced, you gain these points passively, and for killing enemies and repairing your ship. You can then purchase selected upgrades like torpedoes and B2 pods for these points, and you can also buy new fighters if you have free hangar slots as well. The Pilot class receives a big buff in this update as well, they can purchase fighters mid-round for half of their usual price. Another thing that got improved in this update are the turrets, manually shooting a turret did not make much sense before, but now you have double the usual firepower while manually controlling a turret, and you now can see the turret you are using, making it look a lot nicer. There are also lots of bugfixes in this update, the bridge screen should now be a lot smoother, your shield energy can not fall below zero no matter how fast you click, the tutorial received some improvements, and the hangars and turrets had multiple issues fixed. Full changelog: -ADDED: resource points system, you get 5 points every 10 seconds, and bonus points for killing enemies and repairing your ship -ADDED: upgrade purchasing station where you can purchase some upgrades mid-round with the new resource points -ADDED: fighter purchasing station where you can purchase fighters mid-round with the new resource points -ADDED: "Pilot" class can purchase fighters for 50% of the normal resource points price -ADDED: you now also gain scoreboard points for killing enemies and repairing your ship -ADDED: turret viewmodels, you now see the turret you are controlling -CHANGED: increased fire rates for manually controlled turrets by 100% to make controlling a turret manually more useful -CHANGED: bridge screen will now reduce its frame rate if your fps fall below 30 (before it reduced the frame rate when your fps were below 60) -CHANGED: renamed "Heal Drone" to "Repair Drone" -FIXED: energy sometimes falling below zero -FIXED: being able to fly the capital ship too far in the tutorial, resulting in the rest of the tutorial being impossible to complete -FIXED: some ion turret bugs -FIXED: some bugs related to landing with smaller fighters in hangars

Due to issues with the new capital ship movement, the last Update #19 was reverted to make sure the game was in a playable state and the issues were resolved on the beta branch of the game. Since everything looks fine now, all changes from Update #19 are added back to the game with this update. Another issue that only affected players that installed the game for the first time in the last few weeks was a weird bug that caused the players mouse to be inverted, resulting in nearly unusable controls. This issue has now been fixed completely. If you have any other issues with the keybindings please try the new "Reset keybinds" option, or contact me. The Barsk Security Guard got buffed a bit after a recent nerf that was a bit too much, its base HP are now 300 instead of 200. There are also some collision fixes, especially for smaller fighters, and after a recent buff that made them too strong, mines now deal around 20% less damage, and Bombers only come with 8 instead of 12 mines. There are also fixes for repairing not working correctly on Linux and some achievements and steam stats not updating correctly. Full changelog: - REWORKED: smaller fighter movement system once again to a much more reliable system - REWORKED: capital ship movement systems once again to a much more reliable system - IMPROVED: capital ship collision lag reduced - IMPROVED: added more realistic acceleration to the capital ship - BUFFED: increased small fighter laser speed by 50% to make it easier to hit things that go very fast - BUFFED: increased Barsk Security Guard HP from 200 to 300 - CHANGED: reduced mine damage to 6-60 (before: 10-80) and reduced amount of mines inside the Bomber to 8 (before: 12) - FIXED: some smaller fighter bugs - FIXED: players that are not on your ship sometimes appearing on the map (on the right or left edge of the map) - FIXED: adjusted fighter description speed and damage bars to adjust for the recent changes -FIXED: keybinding issues resulting in new players having an inverted mouse in some cases

The movement system the game used before this update features nearly instant acceleration for the capital ship and the smaller fighters, making them feel very responsive but at the same time very unrealistic. Another issue was a sometimes inaccurate collision system, that led to huge lag spikes on bigger collisions. I completely reworked the movement and collision systems, so now they should feel a lot more realistic, with better collision response, basically no lag on capital ship collisions, and a much more believable acceleration. To compensate for the lag of instant acceleration, the smaller fighters now can fly up to 80% faster, and they also have a new little warning system that alerts you if an enemy fighter is close to you and aiming in your direction. There were also some balancing changes you can read further below in full detail, a new "Reset Keybinds" option was added, and lots of bugs fixed, most notable a bug that led to players falling through the floor and a bug that led to the energy of some parts of the ship being set to values far too high. Full changelog: -REWORKED: smaller fighter movement system, more realistic acceleration, better collision response -REWORKED: capital ship movement system, more realistic acceleration, less buggy collision and no more lag on collisions -ADDED: alert in smaller fighters if there is an enemy fighter close behind you -ADDED: "reset keybinds" option -ADDED: B1/B2 droids and Barsk Security Guards now shoot enemy Fireo Droids -ADDED: Tactical Droid AI will now try to chase your capital ship if it gets too far away -ADDED: ability for engineers to repair broken doors -CHANGED: broken door effect now consists of sparks instead of flames -CHANGED: changed "Auto Pilot" key when controlling the capital ship from the ShootKey (default: LMBT) to the look around key (default: ALT) -CHANGED: updated the "enemy capital ship" icon in smaller fighters -CHANGED: lower respawn time on higher life support energy values, but higher respawn time on lower values -BUFFED: smaller fighters top speed increased by 80% -BUFFED: mines from the "Bomber" fighter now deal 10-80 damage based on proximity (before: 5-60 damage) -NERFED: Bomber now holds only 8 mines instead of 12 -NERFED: Barsk Security Guard HP lowered from 400 to 200, still takes no damage if you hit his energy shield -FIXED: a few hangar doors bugs -FIXED: reworked energy system to prevent a few bugs -FIXED: tutorial not progressing after shooting the engine -FIXED: respawn time display in the energy controls UI now correctly takes damage to the bridge into consideration -FIXED: bottom turret bars not having the correct colors in the selection screen -FIXED: Tactical Droid AI can now longer dodge super lasers if their engine is disabled -FIXED: collision issues after sitting in one of the chairs on the bridge, which could lead to falling through the floor -FIXED: capital ship still moving after its engine was disabled if you keep holding the movement keys -FIXED: "Repair Droid" option still displaying on the Barsk Security Guard, even though you cant repair it

As an addition to the recent gun changes, this update introduces a new headshot multiplier for players, hitting your opponent in the head now results in 50% more damage dealt. To keep the time to kill somewhat the same, the overall damage dealt to players was reduced by 20%, so it will take a bit longer to kill players if you only hit body shots, but you can kill them much faster if you aim for their head. There are also some bugs fixes related to capital ships sometimes still being able to manouver with broken engines, the new revolver being held upside down in third person, and issues with control inputs like looking around, especially for controllers Full changelog: -ADDED: headshot multiplier (1.5x) -CHANGED: removed all weapons damage by 20% to compensate for the new headshot multiplier -FIXED: revolver being held wrong for other players -FIXED: quick comm menu displaying wrong message when inside the enemy ship -FIXED: possible bug that allowed capital ships to keep flying with a disabled engine -FIXED: potential fixes for looking around not working, especially for controllers

One of the biggest issues with the way the games gun system before was that it only supported the player having one equipment piece at once before, so the player had to drop his weapon if he wanted to pick up a fire extinguisher for example. This resulted in a player being left defenseless if he equipped the fire extinguisher, and lots of default pistols just lying around. The better weapons in the gun lockers were quickly swapped by the players, leaving the gun lockers only with the less useful standard pistols. This update allows players to equip tools without having to drop their weapons, and adds class-specific starting weapons, so you only need to swap your weapon with one from the gun lockers if you want to swap from a close-quarter shotgun to a more versatile rifle for example. There is also a new weapon, the revolver, and brand new animations for all weapons, as well as lots of changes to existing weapons you can find below in the full changelog.

Another common complaint was that some players kept swapping upgrades and turrets their teammates chose for their own preferred choice, much to the displeasure of their teammates. The system where everyone could choose everything was something that works amazingly well if all team members communicate, and allows everyone to take part in the ship customization progress, but it can be ruined by a single less communicative player. I attempted to fix it by giving the Captain of a team the ability to basically have the last work in choosing upgrades, but that did not go far enough with players still being able to sabotage their team with their turret and fighter picks. Now, Captains can choose to prevent any changes from their team, if he feels there is not enough communication. This is disabled by default and can be enabled or disabled again by the Captain of each team.
There also is a new system that kicks players that are AFK for too long, and lots of improvement for keycards, controllers, the server browser and smaller fighters as well as the usual bugfixes. Full changelog: -ADDED: reworked weapon system so you can pick up tools like the fire extinguisher without having to swap it for your weapon -ADDED: ability to drop tools like the fire extinguisher (default key: "G") -ADDED: Revolver weapon: 60 damage, 75 RPM, 75 DPS -ADDED: animations to all weapons -ADDED: ability to change your class ingame, will take effect once the next round starts -ADDED: AFK kick system (current AFK timer is 10 minutes) -ADDED: toggle for the Captain to allow/prevent team from making changes to turrets, fighters, and upgrades -ADDED: dropped keycards from dead players now also can respawn in the crew quarters/cantina so other players can find them again if they dropped at not accessible spots -ADDED: default weapons for all classes (Crew: pistol, Engineer: shotgun, Ranger: rifle, Pilot: SMG, Officer: revolver) -ADDED: basic controller support and controller keybind options -REMOVED: players not being able to sell upgrades when not captain -BUFFED: Officer now has +20% firerate for manually controlled turrets -BUFFED: shotgun damage from 5x15 to 5x20 -BUFFED: increased pistol firerate from 75 RPM to 100 RPM and damage from 35 to 40 (43 DPS to 67 DPS) -BUFFED: Crew class now has +50% firerate for manually controlled turrets (was 20% before) -NERFED: removed "+20% firerate with pistol" bonus for the Crew class -CHANGED: added revolver to the gun locker (now holds 5 instead of 4 weapons) -IMPROVED: keycards dropped by dead players now do not all spawn at the same spot, so it's easier to pick them up -FIXED: "Repair Droid" option removed from dead Barsk Security Guards -FIXED: fix for "engine/generator destroyed" alert appearing when enemy engine/generator is broken -FIXED: mouse being inverted by default -FIXED: capital ship HP bars at the top of players HUD sometimes having the wrong color -FIXED: killfeed showing that B1 droid killed somebody when B2 droid killed someone -FIXED: smaller fighters sometimes spawning inside the capital ship after leaving the hangar -FIXED: server browser not showing "PvP" tag for PvP servers

Additionally to the most recent changes to the Captain role, Captains that do not want that role anymore can just walk to another crew member and promote them to Captain, losing the role themselves. Captains now also get correctly displayed on the map. One of the biggest issue with the AI got fixed, they no longer get stuck when trying to exit the bridge near the elevators, before more and more AI units would get stuck in that spot. The Barsk Security Guard also received an update, it now will have equipment in their team color, making it easier to understand for newer players that it's a friendly crew member. The scoreboard also received some visual improvements and now will display the class of each player. There are also some fixes for the game modes of player-hosted servers not displaying correctly in the server browser, key-locked doors closing again after being shot open, the intruder alert system and a few minor bugfixes for the in-game map. Full changelog: -ADDED: Captain can now give his rank to other teammates -ADDED: class info to the scoreboard -ADDED: Barsk Security Guard now has different colors, depending on the team he is in -CHANGED: Barsk Security Guard now has unique sounds instead of making the same sounds as the B1 Droid -IMPROVED: scoreboard UI looks a bit cleaner now -FIXED: Military Shuttle map icon having 2 shuttles instead of one -FIXED: some intruder alert bugs -FIXED: player hosted server not displaying the correct game mode in the server browser sometimes -FIXED: key-locked doors sometimes closing again after being shot open -FIXED: Captains name not showing on the map -FIXED: AI getting stuck in some places

While most of the newly released class system seems to work fine, the "Officer" class feels a bit weak, and the system that chooses the Captain of a ship was a bit inconsistent, so this update tackles these issues by buffing the "Officer" class, giving it 30% damage resistance while on their own bridge, and by making it clearer who will become Captain. Now every ship will be guaranteed to have a Captain, the "Officer" class will still be preferred when selecting the Captain, but if there are no players with that class, another player will be chosen. The Captain now also has a unique icon and color on the map, as well as a unique model in-game. There were also a few bugs like showing the wrong map or having incorrect UI popups that you need to repair your engine even if it wasn't damaged, these resulted in an issue where the game would get confused about which capital ship you were on in that moment, these issues are all fixed now. Additionally, a few other minor bugs were fixed like fireo droids not showing on the map. Full changelog: -ADDED: Captain now has his own map icon and color -ADDED: Captain now has a unique model with golden shoulder plates so he is easier to identify -BUFFED: Officer class now takes 30% less damage while on his bridge -BUFFED: Captain now takes 20% less damage while on his bridge -IMPROVED: if there are no Officers in a team, a random other player will become the Captain, so every team always has a Captain -IMPROVED: if a Captain quits the game, another player of his team will be assigned Captain -IMPROVED: if a player joins a team that has no Captain, he will become the Captain -FIXED: fixed fireo droids not showing on the map -FIXED: map staying the map for the enemy ship after dying and respawning on your own ship -FIXED: sometimes getting "Generator/Engine repair" UI on-screen if the enemy generator/engine was destroyed and not yours

The biggest new feature in this update is a much-requested class system. You can choose between Crew Member, Engineer, Ranger, Pilot, and Officer in the main menu. Each class has unique advantages, boosted stats or abilities, the most unique one is the Officer class. Each team now has a Captain, the Captain gets chosen from one of the Officers. The Captain can kick players out of their bridge stations and is the only one who can un-purchase upgrades in the upgrade selection menu, to prevent chaos in the selection phase with players selling the upgrades other players chose to add their own. Currently, you can only select a new class from the main menu, to prevent players from switching classes mid-round to get an advantage, expect a better system for in-game class-changing soon. Repairs now take 4 seconds instead of being instant, the Crew and Engineer class can repair much faster, taking 3 or only 1 second respectively. There are also some improvements to the server browser, server hosting, the new in-game map and lots of improvements for the AI. Full changelog: -ADDED: class system with 5 different classes, each with unique perks and abilities -ADDED: random Officer becomes Captain at the start of each round, or if he joined and there is no Captain yet -ADDED: panel, engine, and generator repairs now take 4 seconds instead of being instant -ADDED: floor above the engine room to the map -ADDED: true offline mode to the game host options (no one can join you, not listed in the server browser, works even if Steam is down) -ADDED: server browser now displays if the server is a PvP or PvE/coop server, and displays the AI difficulty -IMPROVED: interact UI now shows an icon of the key you need to press -IMPROVED: lots of map improvements -FIXED: B2/Barsk spawning in the ceiling if spawning lots of them at once -FIXED: some bridge stations bugs -FIXED: some AI pathfinding issues -FIXED: sweepo droids not showing on the map

This update adds a ship interior map to the game, that you can open with the "M" key by default. It will display the location of yourself, your teammates, your droids, enemy droids, fighters in your hangars and things that need repairs as well as possible targets if you are in the enemy ship. Every teammate will have a unique color, so you can easily see where each one of your teammates is currently located.
There are also lots of AI improvements, a Sweepo droid joined the crew of the Tactical Droid, which can now also shoot Fireo pods at your ship! The Barsk Security Guard upgrade also received much-needed fixes regarding its movement which did not work well before, and can now also repair generators and engines to make it more useful. A few bugs with the radar table have been fixed, and the fighter models on the radar table now have class-specific models, so you can distinguish a "Bomber" from an "Interceptor" fighter for example. There will now be logs again that get created inside your games folder to assist with tracking down bugs and fixing player-specific issues. A few issues with the hangar numbers have been fixed, and the engine will now have smoke coming out of it when disabled, so it's easier to understand when it is broken and when it's still working. Full changelog: - ADDED: ship interior map (default key: "M") that displays the location of yourself, your teammates, your droids, enemy droids, fighters in your hangars and things that need repairs - ADDED: smoke effect for a disabled engine (so it is clearer it is disabled) - ADDED: AI Tactical Droid now has a Sweepo Droid in his crew - ADDED: AI Tactical Droid now will spawn Fireo Pods as well (does not increase its launch frequency, just replaces some torpedo/B2 pod launches) - ADDED: fighter models at the radar table now have fighter class-specific looks (bomber looks different to stealth fighter for example) - ADDED: game logs system for players - ADDED: fighter models at the radar table now have fighter class-specific looks (bomber looks different to stealth fighter for example) - ADDED: game logs system for players - CHANGED: quick callouts menu default key from "M" to "N" - BUFFED: Barsk Security Guard can now repair generators and engines like the B1 droid - FIXED: Barsk Security Guard not walking correctly - FIXED: potential fix for fire extinguisher foam sometimes being invisible for other players - FIXED: tutorial telling you to go to "Hangar 1" instead of "Hangar 3" - FIXED: multiple radar table bugs - FIXED: hangar numbers making no sense

This update introduces a new upgrade, the Fireo droid. Costing 200$ each, they look similar to their less aggressive predecessor, the Sweepo droid. Unlike the fire-fighting Sweepo droids, the new Fireo droid will set the interiors of enemy ships on fire, if it survives the flight to it. There are multiple fixes for fire and fire extinguisher in this update as well, and you can now get a bit closer to fires before being damaged, allowing you to extinguish them without hurting yourself if you are careful, of course. The AI-controlled units like droids now will try to avoid each other, preventing them from gettings stuck in each other, and there are some collision improvements for smaller props that the AI got stuck in before. I also fixed some issues with dedicated server configs, and added a new "aidifficulty" config variable, that can be set to a value between 1 and 6, with 1 setting the difficulty to "Easy", while 6 sets it to "Impossible". Full changelog: -ADDED: "Fireo" upgrade, gets shot at the enemy ship and will try to start fires inside their ship -ADDED: "aidifficulty" option for server configs, sets difficulty (1=easy to 6=impossible) -IMPROVED: AI collision avoidance -IMPROVED: AI/players no longer get stuck on smaller props -IMPROVED: bridge screen quality -IMPROVED: fire damage system now is a lot more accurate for players and has a smaller damage zone -FIXED: being able to use the fire extinguisher without having it pulled out -FIXED: server always having the bot disabled if "disablebot" was added to config, even when false -FIXED: multiple other fire/extinguisher bugs

This update brings a much-requested change to the "Bomber" small fighter, the mines it drops now fall downwards (relative to the bombers location/rotation of course), making it easier to execute bombing runs on the enemy capital ships for example. While working on the new mines, I also decreased their size a bit and fixed a few bugs with them like their explosions not playing a sound sometimes. Another change you will notice is the upgrade purchasing menu will feel more responsive now, and if you purchased the same upgrade multiple times, it will display a multiplier on the upgrade instead of having the same upgrade added to the "purchased upgrades" list multiple times, making it look a lot cleaner.
There also was a bug with the AI getting stuck behind doors after the doors were in lockdown mode and opened again, which is now fixed. Full changelog: -ADDED: mines now fall downwards (relative to the bombers location/rotation), to make bombing easier -CHANGED: decreased mine size -CHANGED: updated "Bomber" small fighter description to reflect the other changes -IMPROVED: made upgrade purchasing more responsive -IMPROVED: choosing the same upgrade multiple times now displays "3x" for example instead of having 3 different entries in the chosen upgrades UI -FIXED: AI getting stuck on doors that were locked down and opened again -FIXED: mine explosions sometimes having no sounds

This update introduces hitmakers for the personal defense weapons and the small fighter lasers, making it clearer to understand when you hit something. There are also lots of improvements for co-op play, there are now two more difficulty options, both harder than the current ones called "extreme" and "impossible" for the players who are looking for a bigger challenge. The Tactical Droid AI will now also install and use the super laser if the difficulty is set to "Hard" or more difficult, the amount of AI interceptors spawned by the Tactical Droid now scales with the difficulty level, resulting in fewer interceptors at lower levels, and more on higher levels. I fixed some bugs for the Tactical Droid too and increased the size of the torpedos and B2 pods to make them easier to hit. Full changelog: - ADDED: hitmarkers for players and small fighters - ADDED: "extreme" and "impossible" coop difficulty options - ADDED: amount of spawned AI Interceptors by the Tactical Droid now scales with the coop difficulty - ADDED: Tactical Droid will now install and use the super laser if difficulty is at least "hard" - CHANGED: increased torpedo and B2 pod size to make them easier to hit - FIXED: some Tactical Droid bugs

This update brings the first version of in-game team voice chats to improve communications, you can bind a key you would like to push-to-talk and then communicate with your teammates in-game. There are also some improvements for the quick callouts that you can use to send pre-determined text messages to your team, like requesting them to hack the enemy hangar doors. Capital ships now also look a lot more damaged if they are low on HP with additional, larger fires and new smoke effects. You can also set new config values for your dedicated servers to allow for co-op play on them or to disable the Tactical Droid AI. Also, there are fixes for AI not shooting intruders, players sometimes being invisible, and hopefully, a fix for players occasionally falling through the floor after respawning. If you experience any issues, please let me know! Full changelog: - ADDED: first experimental version of team voice chat - ADDED: more exterior damage representation - ADDED: "coop" dedicated server config option (true = coop enabled) - ADDED: "disablebot" dedicated server config option (true = AI bot disabled) - IMPROVED: quick callouts menu - FIXED: Droids/Barsk not shooting intruders on Linux servers (like the official servers) - FIXED: players being sometimes invisible on round start - FIXED: potential fix for falling through the floor

There are a few changes to the lockdown mode in this update, there are now notifications if the ship you are currently on is in lockdown mode to make it easier to understand for players. You can now also shoot doors to unlock them, but this takes around one minute per door, and two minutes for a keycard-locked door. The scoreboard now can display more players at once, and also shows the steam avatars of the players. This update also brings fixes for shotgun shots having no sounds for other players, dedicated servers not working with passwords, and players not being kicked out of the bridge seats after disconnecting, blocking them for other players. This update also should reduce the lag spikes when the two capital ships collide. You can now also change the upgrade budget when hosting a server, and the costs for the "Overloaded Shield Generator", "Laser Crystals", "Optimized Reactor Core", "Heal Drone", "Sweepo Droid" and "Bridge Turrets" upgrades were reduced. Full changelog: - ADDED: can shoot doors to eventually open them, takes very long (~1min with the rifle for normal doors, 2mins for keylock doors) - ADDED: lockdown notifications - ADDED: scoreboard now shows players steam avatars - CHANGED: reduced costs for "Overloaded Shield Generator", "Laser Crystals", "Optimized Reactor Core", "Heal Drone", "Sweepo Droid" and "Bridge Turrets" upgrades - IMPROVED: scoreboard can now display more players at once - FIXED: giant lag spikes when the two capital ships collide - FIXED: shotgun having no sounds for other players - FIXED: dedicated server passwords not working - FIXED: bug with players remaining in their seats after disconnecting preventing others from using them

This update introduces 2 new upgrades: The "Sweepo" firefighter droid and the "Bridge Turret" defense option. The Sweepo patrols your ship and extinguishes any fires that may occur in battle. The bridge defense turrets are placed on the three entrances of your bridge and will protect you from any intruders as long as your generators are not disabled. Also, there now is a button to disable the door lockdown in your spawn room, so you can always access your bridge even if the enemies gained control of it and enabled the door lockdown. Another issue were players shooting their teammates to access the stations they were using, so I disabled friendly fire to prevent toxicity between teammates. There were also some issues with the new interior fires, they should now be fixed. The new extinguisher now also has sounds, the elevator no longer kills you and the password screen has better visibility as well. Full changelog: - ADDED: sound to fire extinguisher - ADDED: "Override door lockdown" button to spawn room - ADDED: Bridge defense turrets upgrade - ADDED: firefighter droid upgrade - CHANGED: disabled damage to teammates and you can no longer kick your teammates out of stations - IMPROVED: password screen visibility - FIXED: some fire/fire extinguisher bugs - FIXED: elevator no longer kills players

This update once again tries to improve the immersion inside the capital ship by adding new fuse boxes that get broken if their sector gets too damaged, and fires are now dealing continuous damage to the sector they are in until they get extinguished. A brand new fire extinguisher will be introduced in this update, they spawn on designated positions inside your capital ship. You might also want to try to repair the new fuse boxes when they break due to too much damage in their sector since every broken fuse box will bring your available energy down by 2% until repaired. There are 2 fuse boxes in each sector of the ship, so there are 10 in total.
There are also new sounds for interior fires, fixes for Linux dedicated servers, the respawn timer in the "Energy Controls" screen now gets updated correctly if you increase the Life Support Energy and the AI will now try to dodge the super laser instead of just dying to it. Full changelog: - ADDED: AI Tactical Droid now will dodge enemy super lasers if possible - ADDED: circuit panels all around the ship, if their ship sector gets too damaged, the break and need repairs, your ship loses 2 energy for each broken circuit board - ADDED: fire extinguisher (can extinguish small fires inside your ship) - ADDED: small interior fires now deal damage to the sector of the ship they are in (only 0.1-0.2% of max HP per minute right now, but they stack!) - CHANGED: interior damage fire sound effect - FIXED: "Energy Controls" UI now displays the correct respawn timer (scales with Life Support Energy) - FIXED: fixed a few minor fire bugs - FIXED: updated Linux steam libraries so everyone can now host dedicated Linux servers

This update introduces 2 new levers that can be operated from the capital ship bridge. The first one enables or disables the new "Lockdown Mode", which disables all doors (except your spawn room door) which can help you deal with unwanted intruders but limits the mobility of your teammates as well. The second lever suppresses the intruder alert, in case you want to disable it. Since it had no functionality right now, I removed the captains' seat in the middle of the bridge to give players a bit more room to stand there and interact with the new levers, but it will be readded soon with an actual gameplay use. There will be a lot more of these levers and buttons, that can be interacted with directly instead of through an UI if the feedback from the community is positive. One thing the game is currently lacking is the feeling of danger while being inside the capital ship, there are just a few rumbles and fires and not a lot of sound effects. This is something I want to work on in the future, for this update I already added a lot more interior fires, that spread the more damage their corresponding part of the ship has suffered. These fires currently deal damage, but can't be put out which is something that will be added in the future. I also optimized these fire a bit more and added a sound effect to them. There are also still some players being killed by the elevator, this update introduces more fixes which hopefully resolves the issue. I also improved some floor collisions to make the movement on the smoother, fixed an issue that caused dedicated servers to shut down after not being restarted for a few days, and you no longer have to press the key to change target modes twice if you want to switch from the "Barrage" mode inside a turret. There also was an issue that prevented Linux users from starting the game through Steam, it has now been resolved, sorry for the inconvenience! -ADDED: "lockdown doors" lever on the bridge, locks down all doors except the spawn room door -ADDED: "disable intruder alert" lever on the bridge -ADDED: more interior fires when the ship gets damaged -ADDED: fire sound to the interior fires -REMOVED: removed captains chair for now (had no functionality, will be added back on a later date with an actual function) -IMPROVED: made some floor collisions smoother -FIXED: fixed some cases where the elevator would kill you -FIXED: having to press the target mode change key twice after firing in barrage mode

This update introduces a new collision detection for smaller fighters, they now get damaged when they hit a capital ship or another object, this damage scales with the speed the fighter had on impact. There will also be a new sound effect playing when the fighter collides with something. There also were some issues with the tutorial, some parts were confusing to newer players, and some parts did not work correctly when the player flew too far with the capital ship. There are now measures implemented that makes the tutorial less frustrating for newer players and easier to understand. Full changelog: - ADDED: collision effects and collision damage for smaller fighters - IMPROVED: tutorial small fighter dummy now adjusts its location to make it easier for players to see it - IMPROVED: tutorial now limits the movement of the capital ship to prevent unforseen situation making the tutorial hard to complete - IMPROVED: engine increase tutorial part now has a blinking button, making it easier for players to understand what button they need to press

After the fix released yesterday allowed players to join password-protected dedicated servers, player hosted servers with password protection still had issues. These issues are now completely fixed and you can join private servers hosted by your friends again! This update also introduces an on-screen target assistance for capital ships that have the "Super Laser" upgrade equipped, to make it easier to understand why your super laser is not on target. The "US Official" dedicated server also experienced some minor lag issues due to some dedicated server code issues, these are now resolved and server performance should stay consistently good even after not being restarted lately. There were some improvements made to droids pathfinding and their behavior when chasing players, they should behave a bit more consistent now as well. There were also changes made to the Tactical Droid AI, there are now multiple difficulty options you can choose from so both newer and more experienced players can have a challenge. The Tactical Droid also spammed B2 attack pods to often, making it very overwhelming especially for players that played alone, they now won't use them if the player is already being attacked by a B2 Attack Droid to give players the chance to fight back. Since they were very hard to hit due to their small size and high speed, the torpedos and B2 attack pods HP were both decreased from 40 to 30 to make destroying them a bit easier. Full changelog: - ADDED: added target crosshair while controlling your capital ship if you have the super laser upgrade equipped to assist aiming - ADDED: added garbage collection for dedicated servers, server performance should not be stable no matter for how long the server is running - ADDED: host menu AI difficulty options (easy, normal, hard, very hard) - FIXED: server passwords not working correctly (definitely fixed this time, sorry!) - FIXED: droid bugfixes and pathfinding improvements - FIXED: fixed some server errors and a server crash issue - FIXED: smaller fighters no longer play the explosion effect when they just entered a hangar and did not get destroyed - CHANGED: Tactical Droid now won't spam B2 Attack Pods anymore, has a limit depending on the AI difficulty - CHANGED: reduced torpedo HP from 40 to 30 - CHANGED: reduced B2 pod HP from 40 to 30

This is the first bigger update for the game that introduces a new gameplay element: the barrage fire mode. It allows you to create an area of denial, your turrets won't just shoot at one location, but in one general direction so you can hit multiple areas of the enemy ship at once. I also was told that players who invert their mouse only want to invert their y-axis, not their x-axis, so I updated the in-game "invert mouse" settings to only affect the y-axis. Another issue was the Tactical Droid AI being too strong, especially for newer players. They now don't start attacking immediately after a new round started to give players more time to prepare their ship for battle. The frequency of their special attacks like torpedos got reduced as well, but now increases with every player in the enemy team. You can now also choose the "co-op mode" in the server host menu, this will allow you to play together with other players against the Tactical Droid AI. Full changelog: - ADDED: "Barrage Fire Mode" to the turrets, which lets all of the turrets of that type shoot in a general direction - ADDED: "Co-op mode" option to the server host menu allowing you to play with multiple players against the AI - CHANGED: reduced main menu music volume - CHANGED: "invert mouse" option to "invert mouse y-axis" option - CHANGED: AI Tactical Droid now has a delay of 30 seconds after a round start before beginning to attack - CHANGED: AI Tactical Droid now has a lower attack frequency against 1 player, but the frequency increases the more players he faces

This is the first update for the game and a relatively small one to fix some current issues and add some quality of life improvements. Patchnotes: - FIXED: turret damage no longer counts for the fighter achievements - FIXED: B2 Attack pod sometimes getting destroyed too early - FIXED: doors sometimes not closing correctly - ADDED: link to the games discord in the main menu - ADDED: "Invert Mouse" option to the settings menu

After more than 2 years of development, and nearly one year of pre-alpha testing with the community, the release of Deep Space Battle Simulator is only one month away. This post is meant as an overview for all interested players of what to expect from the game at launch, what will happen while being in Early Access and how the final release will look like. Currently, there is a tutorial and the main game mode, where 2 teams of players fight as the crew of their capital ship to defeat the opponents' ship. From the bridge of their capital ships, players can control said ship, manage the energy distribution to the shield and weapon systems or the engines. The interiors of the capital ships are completely accessible, for example after taking lots of damage the crew might be required to locate their engines or main generator to fulfill repairs. You might also try to board the enemy ship to sabotage it and fight their crew. Each ship also features 4 hangars with 3-4 smaller fighters inside each, which can be customized at the start of the round. Currently, there are 6 different fighters to choose from, as well as 5 different turret types to place at over 20 turrets slots on your capital ship, and dozens of upgrades you can purchase at the start of the round to complement your strategy and secure victory. Each round currently takes 5-15 minutes, depending on the strategies of the teams and their chosen ship loadouts. You can either choose to host your own server from the main menu with optional password protection or join one of the dedicated servers we or other players host for you. Since the main game mode is multiplayer-only right now, if you are the sole player on a server, there will be a tactical droid placed in the enemy team, that is able to control their ship, make tactical decisions and challenge you in different ways to ensure you will have fun while waiting for other players to join! The early access version is already completely functional, the only thing left to do are Steam achievements and cosmetic rewards for players that will have no effect on gameplay and will be unlockable through gameplay, not microtransactions. The game is in a very playable state, but there will always be bugs unaccounted for that will be fixed as soon as possible. In the last 10 months, I have been developing the game under the constant feedback of our discord community that currently includes around 300 players, and I am looking forward to further improve the game and add singleplayer and coop-missions as well as even more features to the main game mode.