The last release I did a writeup on was 25 days ago, an eternity. This new version marks the twelfth public build since then, although the most recent stretch were in beta. Full notes here.
What's new?
- First up, we got GOG Galaxy support fully working, and also improved some of our Steamworks integration. Both of these are in preparation for multiplayer over (and potentially between) those two platforms. Overall we are having three options for how you can connect with people for multiplayer, and those were the two I'm least familiar with.
- As part of this, we also finally fully got the support for achievements in GOG Galaxy in there.
- As part of THAT, we also improved the performance of some of the achievement checks on Steam, and made it so that your offline achievements are properly stored no matter how you play.
- The Scourge got some minor buffs.
- The AI Reserves now announce themselves for a moment before attacking, versus just showing up out of the blue.
- The pathfinding between planets is now smarter when you are ordering your ships around, and there are three modes you can swap your ships between (Default, Safest, or Shortest).
- Non-scourge factions that use fireteams are now better about stacking their units (across fireteams, often), which helps enormously with performance in certain late-game situations.
- A whole heap of quality of life improvements to the text chat window (for upcoming multiplayer), including some new UI framework bits under the hood to make that possible.
- Techs that have already been fully unlocked now continue to show up on the tech sidebar, since having those disappear was freaking confusing.
- When viewing the tooltip for a unit, it now shows how many upgrades have happened out of how many upgrades for each tech line that benefits the unit.
- Lots of changes to how planets are stored and iterated-over, some of which are building toward some future DLC content as well as some future content for late-adding extra players to multiplayer games.
- Various minor UI improvements.
- Three new options for turning off beams of certain types under the Performance tab of Personal Settings. In certain super-lategame battles, turning off tachyon beam visuals can be an incredible performance boost. It may be to the point that we advise just turning those off in general.
- There's a new Journal tab, but it doesn't do anything yet. Coming soon!
- Command stations that die now come back still with any upgraded levels that you bought with science for their specific planet. It was an error that that was not already the case!
- Ships that you have not fully claimed yet, like golems, no longer charge you energy.
- In the escape/system menu, there is now a View/Edit Factions option that brings you into a new screen. This screen lets you edit the colors for any faction (even zombies and outguard, which never have been editable before).
- The V/E Factions screen also lets you edit any of the settings for Discoverable factions, up until you hack their beacon. This is incredibly helpful if you decide a bit of a way into the game that you'd like a really specifically-configured enemy or allied faction of whatever sort to come in... now you can configure that rather than just getting the faction defaults when hacking them to bring them in.
- Lots and lots of bugfixes!
More to come soon!
Please Do Report Any Issues!
If you run into any bugs, we'd definitely like to hear about those.
The release of this game has been going well so far, and I think that the reviews that folks have been leaving for the game have been a big help for anyone passing by who's on the fence. For a good while we were sitting at Overwhelmingly Positive on the Recent Reviews breakdown, but there have been a lot fewer reviews lately and so that has definitely had a material negative effect. Go figure. Having a running selection of recent reviews definitely is helpful, but at least we have a pretty healthy set of long-term reviews. If you've been playing the game and enjoying it, we'd greatly appreciate it if you'd drop by and leave your own thoughts, too.
More to come soon. Enjoy!
Problem With The Latest Build?
If you right-click the game in Steam and choose properties, then go to the Betas tab of the window that pops up, you'll see a variety of options. You can always choose most_recent_stable from that build to get what is essentially one-build-back. Or two builds back if the last build had a known problem, etc. Essentially it's a way to keep yourself off the very bleeding edge of updates, if you so desire.
The Usual Reminders
Quick reminder of our new Steam Developer Page. If you follow us there, you'll be notified about any game releases we do.
Also: Would you mind leaving a Steam review for some/any of our games? It doesn't have to super detailed, but if you like a game we made and want more people to find it, that's how you make it happen. Reviews make a material difference, and like most indies, we could really use the support.
Enjoy!
Chris
