v0.890 Released! "Lighting and Darkness"

[x4000]

Release notes here.

This one is pretty huge!

• The visuals for the 3D parts of the game have been hugely updated. Things had gotten very dark, and were hard to see as well as having bloom that was too harsh. There's a long explanation for that here, if you're into that sort of thing, but suffice it to say the game just looks vastly better now.
• There's an new Technology Vault that you can hack to get a free tech!
• Firing from under forcefields now comes with a damage penalty, like in the first game. We'll see how this one plays out; it's kind of experimental.
• There are a huge number of revisions to the techs in the game, breaking them into weapon and hull categories and in general making the pricing and balance for them a lot more consistent and interesting. There are other categories beyond those two, but those are the main ones for turrets and offensive ships. Thanks to Puffin for orchestrating this.
• The way AIs act after death -- those parts of an AI that are still remaining -- is a lot more interesting now, with them "going rogue" in multi-AI games.
• The energy collectors have been removed, since they were kind of unclear to say the least, and now command stations generate energy directly. The differences between the command stations are now a lot more clear in the description text, too, so we should hopefully no longer see an over-reliance on military command stations from people who previously couldn't see the massive benefits that having a few logistical or economic ones would have.
• The way that techs show the details of what they improve is also now completely overhauled, this one thanks to some cleverness by Asteroid, with it showing just a single section for each one and having the changes in parentheses. The readability is incredibly improved, without us having to re-code things in such a messy way since instead it's using DiffLib for textual analysis.
• The fog of war in the game has been overhauled, in terms of planets you have explored but are not actively watching. Now it doesn't tell you about threat there, and you can see easily by a tiny little question mark next to the strength numbers that your data for that planet is stale. This lets the AI sneak up on you much more easily, and in general feels more appropriate and consistent with the rest of the game in terms of what information is communicated when you actually look at a planet that is explored-but-not-watched.
• There is also an option for getting the old fog of war behavior, if you preferred it. Thanks to Badger for these two!
• We fixed a bunch more bugs, including the last of the "ships going through wormholes still go off to somewhere else nonsensical on the other side."
• There are a bunch of new and improved ship graphics outside of the lighting changes we mentioned, too. The game is a lot more attractive in general, when you are zoomed in.
• And there are a lot of other balance tweaks and bugfixes, some of them very significant, that we just didn't have time to mention here. This one is indeed huge!

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 be much more detailed than a thumbs up, 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

[BadgerBadger]

I think people will really like this release!

I'd love some feedback for the colour-based hacking difficulty estimator.

[kasnavada]

Ummmm. So ok.

Feedback.
- I like the idea of a tech capturable, however...  https://clips.twitch.tv/ImpossibleHonorableAxePicoMause Also: https://clips.twitch.tv/ArbitraryUnusualPorpoiseAllenHuhu . So I'm supposing they "fill" one level of research, as I've not been able to hack one yet. I'd rather have them litterally, like their description says, give a +1 bonus to research, so that your research costs are independant. Else I'm going to NOT use them until I explored all the map... because I don't want to waste research. That you have a permanent bonus to the research level should be shown in the tech screen IMO.
- I tried a game with 2 AI and the blue lines between both AI are weird. Especially since I had red and orange AI.
- ARS when with a game with 2 AI spawn troop from both AI. It's funny. https://clips.twitch.tv/HappyAverageJayFutureMan Intended ? It's really minor though.
- the fleet power indicator for the player is white instead of blue for some reason, when I have no fleet. It's like my buildings lost their colors. It's weird.
- Going to level max in a research hides the research in the list ?

I like the changes about stations, and the fog of war is ok. Not fond of the forcefield change.

About tech changes, not sure yet, but looks good. I think it gives more goals to research as taking a planet sounds like you get a "EZ" weapon tech out of it, or you can get a lot of planets to get a huge hull tech.

[Asteroid]

The hackable tech is broken ATM it seems, it requires science.

I like that it gives you a specific random tech, reinforces the roguelike/work with what you get aspect of the game.

[kasnavada]

The fog of war in the game has been overhauled, in terms of planets you have explored but are not actively watching. Now it doesn't tell you about threat there, and you can see easily by a tiny little question mark next to the strength numbers that your data for that planet is stale. This lets the AI sneak up on you much more easily, and in general feels more appropriate and consistent with the rest of the game in terms of what information is communicated when you actually look at a planet that is explored-but-not-watched.

Soooo if I get this correctly.

Let's say I captured 20 planets, on a 100 planet map. I more or less have to watch all my possible borders and the path to the AI homeworld, so that about 40 planets to watch (more or less).

That means that, out of the 600 hacking point I get, I NEED to spend 400 of them, just so I'm not flying blind in any enemy territory, including my own borders ? Also, I'm making the AI send a counterattack on me about 40 times ?

I think it's a bit harsh. I'd suggest that building a command station somewhere gives permanent vision on this system even if the command station is destroyed. And that "active" command stations gives vision on planets that border where they are.

Also, with this, we are warned about where instigator are located when they spawn. Please show them on the map... thank you =).

[I-KP]

Big improvement with the planet model visuals.

Also, I kinda like the way small ships explode now. The white flash is a clear and obvious indicator of losses.  Happy accident? Maybe.

The new FOW does seem rather harsh. That's not necessarily a bad thing as long as there's a reasonable way to tackle it. Perhaps make the Watch Planet Hack a bit less in terms of cost and immediate reprisal for neighbouring planets only; keep it the way it is now for the more remote planets.

[Asteroid]

The fog of war in the game has been overhauled, in terms of planets you have explored but are not actively watching. Now it doesn't tell you about threat there, and you can see easily by a tiny little question mark next to the strength numbers that your data for that planet is stale. This lets the AI sneak up on you much more easily, and in general feels more appropriate and consistent with the rest of the game in terms of what information is communicated when you actually look at a planet that is explored-but-not-watched.

Soooo if I get this correctly.

Let's say I captured 20 planets, on a 100 planet map. I more or less have to watch all my possible borders and the path to the AI homeworld, so that about 40 planets to watch (more or less).

That means that, out of the 600 hacking point I get, I NEED to spend 400 of them, just so I'm not flying blind in any enemy territory, including my own borders ? Also, I'm making the AI send a counterattack on me about 40 times ?

I think it's a bit harsh. I'd suggest that building a command station somewhere gives permanent vision on this system even if the command station is destroyed. And that "active" command stations gives vision on planets that border where they are.

Also, with this, we are warned about where instigator are located when they spawn. Please show them on the map... thank you =).

I think the idea is to force you to make hard choices, as obviously you can't afford to spend 400 hacking on vision, so you have to pick which critical points you want to watch and prepare yourself for the worst elsewhere. It allows the AI to make interesting manoeuvers without the surprise being spoiled instantly.

While I think it's a good goal, I'm a bit concerned that restricting vision brings back the need to send scouts, which the game wanted to move away from. It's easy to dispatch single cloaked ships to do this job, but it's also very tedious.

I'd be in favor of at least having full vision on planets bordering any territory that's connected to your command station in an uninterrupted chain.

Alternatively or in addition to this we could take a page out of MOBAs and have your stations send a constant stream of automated scouting drones toward planets you don't have vision on. Those unarmed drones would get shot at but wouldn't aggro guard posts. It will add CPU load, but would at least give you vision on lightly defended or neutered planets and their neighbours, freeing the player from a boring manual chore.

[x4000]

I think that the new way vision works is better because it is consistent (what you can see at the planet level and what you can see on the galaxy map).  BUT I do think that it can highlight some issues with the balance of vision in general at the moment.

I'd be open to:

1. Planets adjacent to your own planets are automatically watched.

2. Hacking planets adjacent to your own to watch them are vastly cheaper and don't have a big reprisal thing or whatever.

I'm curious what folks think.

[I-KP]

Be honest, are you ever going to not choose the cheap Hacking option to Watch a neighbouring planet? One then might ask, if it's always going to happen, and the cost is almost negligible anyway, then make Watching of neighbouring planets automatic and not cost anything.

[Asteroid]

Be honest, are you ever going to not choose the cheap Hacking option to Watch a neighbouring planet? One then might ask, if it's always going to happen, and the cost is almost negligible anyway, then make Watching of neighbouring planets automatic and not cost anything.

In my last game which I won on difficulty 6 I was always short on hacking points since GCAs and Coordinators are so expensive to hack, but you pretty much need to hack them they're in a remote location you can't afford to capture or even permanently defend AIP/Energy-wise. Spending 10 hacking points just to watch a planet among 80 feels like a lot when you're trying to save up to 120 points for the next GCA.