ALPHA 13.1 Release - Changelog and discussion within

[rexspaceman]

Changelog ALPHA 13.1

BuildID 2820063

ALPHA 13.1 continues the transit point (aka wormhole and jumpgate) development from 13. It focuses on the creation and use of player made jumpgates. Now, you can make your own jumpgates, deploy them, and link them together to form your own travel networks. Ultimately, jumpgates are going to be a very advanced/late in the game feature, but for the duration of the alpha stage of development, they will be technologically cheap, requiring large amounts of easy to acquire resources.

The Deployable Jumpgate item can be found in the manufacturing labs. These items work similarly to the beacons; have one present in inventory, travel to the star system at warp speed, and then placing the item on the mouse, right click in space. This will consume the item, and create a new region specially made for the jumpgate. No AI or other structures should appear in that region.

The jumpgate can then be linked to another jumpgate. There are three states a jumpgate may be in: linked, charged and unlinked. When linked, a jumpgate will be active and when used, will transverse the vessel to the target jumpgate. Charged will allow an unlinked and inactive jumpgate to be linked to another gate. Unlinked is a dormant and inactive jumpgate. Unlinked jumpgates may be linked to by a charged gate. To charge a jumpgate, the item "Jumpgate Nexus Focus Crystal" is required (check a manufacturing lab) on the jumpgate in the Status Panel for jumpgate.

Additionally, regions can now be "inspected" in the same way vessels can, opening a dialog window on the left hand side of the screen. This window can be used to alter jumpgates. NOTE: At this time, any player can alter a jumpgate link state (does not include wormholes or jumpgates generated by universe), so be aware of that when playing in multiplayer.

The universe map has also been improved. It can now be panned with mouse, and the arrows previously indicating transit direction have been replaced with more visible lines.

Other Additions:

• Significant change to building. Previously when the cargo bays associated with an Assembler were full, certain things either stop happening, or would happen, but with the disappearance of items. Now, when the cargo bays are full, items will be dumped into space around the vessel being modified and be accessible for pickup. This mostly affects the use of loading larger vessels from templates, but can also affect small edits. We're very curious about players' thoughts on this, so please let us know on the Steam forums what you think.
  
• Added base64 encoded string based templates. This is a system to convert the underlying JSON data format for all vessel templates into a unique shareable (relatively simpler) string. To use this feature, visit any assembler, and see the Load Template window. The import/export buttons are used to create and convert the string to template data.

Fixes:

• Identified and fixed an issue from 13 concerning AI movement and aim. Stationary objects should still retain good aiming, while moving vessels should no longer result to ramming (or other new weird behavior) as a first choice of actions.
  
• Fixed an issue where mounts were potentially being orphaned due to a build error.
  
• Manufacturing keybind now toggles manufacturing panel while in warp
  
• Mouse clicks originating within the vessel window while in warp will not affect movement, while those outside the window but dragged over, will continue to register for warp movement. AKA You should be able to alter your components without spinning around while in warp.
  
• Changes to supply missions to better inform about item objectives.
  
• Fixed a major cause of damage based duplication. This issue has been around for a while, and mostly appeared when using torpedoes. We hope that this 100% removes this issue, but we'll continue to monitor it.
  
• Fixed an transparency issue with jumpgate frame graphics.
  
• "Clear All" button will now do additional pre-edit checks to attempt to verify that all items will fit in the Assembler's cargo bays. It will notify the player if it determines its not possible for an override confirmation.
  
• Part of universe map improvements: better zooming and element resolution for better readability.
  
• As part of universe loading/player connecting, now sends jumpgate and wormholes to players based on previously visited systems. NOTE: May not be 100% accurate based on visiblity and discoverability and may be different between players.
  
• Fixed problem when backing up large universes during universe version conversions.
  
• Fixed button tooltips on Load Template window.
  
• Fixed multi-tile mount offset in Load Template preview display.
  
• Improvements to background asteroid art movement.

COMING ALPHA 14
Trading!

Space Impossible ALPHA 13

Steam Build ID 2775920

Additions:

Introducing wormholes and jumpgates! These are both natural and artificial confluences of space and time which allow near instant travel between two remote destinations. They are found throughout the universe, and will naturally pop up. They exist as their own regions, and often have their own defenses. Each wormhole or jumpgate is linked to a single remote point, forming a bridge, which can be used. At this time, they cannot be created or destroyed by any player.

Also in ALPHA 13, the addition of star system conflicts are unveiled. These are system-wide conflicts that allow the transfer (only violently) of ownership of one faction to another. To start a conflict, a player (or players) must complete chaos missions, which allow the player(s) to determine which two factions go to battle. Once a faction within the system has enough points, the conflict begins. All new missions for that conflict will be generated, and previous missions will be cleared. Players can then complete these missions to influence who ultimately gains ownership of the system. If the attacker faction wins, then the star system will slowly change as regions are modified to reflect that faction.

Other Additions:

• Added restrictions for dialogue options to require certain faction standings
  
• Added some additional server connection validation. The game could hang when a malicious message was sent from a remote connection.
  
• System map now displays asteroid regions
  
• Added system regeneration process used by conflicts. This regeneration will attempt to replace regions with the previous faction with the current faction owner's regions. It attempts to leave all player objects (as well as home regions) but be wary that "bad guys" may now be closer than before. A full system regeneration can take up to 30 minutes.
  
• Added server setting for conflict resolution timer. /sv_conflictresolvetime <time in msec>
  
• Added ability to click on beacons, directly opening the UI
  
• Added warp particle effects. Mostly visible in multi-player at this time.
  
• Added discreet "enter wormhole" button that is used separately from "warp" button when present in a wormhole or jumpgate area.
  
• Added additional sound logic. Should no longer hear engine or shield sounds during warp-in.
  
• Changed background scaling and positioning. How the local planets/moons/asteroid rings get translated into a background is now different, and we feel is better cosmetically.
  
• Wormholes and jumpgates will be added to existing universes only if a star system has not been previously visited by the player.
  
• Added networking for warp spool and cancelling
  
• Added logic to create a new region if something being dragged with a tractor is suddenly dropped (like tractor beam is unequipped).
  
• Added universe seed print to log file. How we made it this long without, who knows?
  
• Added 6 chaos missions and 96 conflict missions.
  
• Improved dialogue when completing a trade mission.
  
• Added some graphs for different system performance measurements. Located under "F5" menu.
  
• Added community sourced Russian lang file. Thank you Sensitive Souris. Update to date as of ALPHA 13 Pre-Release 2.
  
• Added /removeregion and /removeallregions as admin commands. These work on all regions including dynamic regions.
  
• Added "HAIL VESSEL [KEY]" to tooltip when mousing over a target. NOTE: Just because you hail, doesn't mean they want to talk to you.

Fixes:

• Fixed setting faction for player, which in some situations which caused AI to improperly react or caused a game error
  
• Fixed a bug when removing tile(s) from a multi-tile cargo bay during building.
  
• Fixed a number of UI anchoring issues. Should work better in different or changing aspect ratios.
  
• Fixed admin commands for /getfaction and /setfaction
  
• Fixed a number of issues regarding mission and template selection from A12. Regions create or selected for missions should be better choices now.
  
• Fixed a number of file I/O issues regarding data validity concerning region and star system data. You should see less oddly named regions now.
  
• Improved engine activation when switching between rotation and strafing.
  
• Fixed loading of universes where discovery state of previously discovered regions would be incorrect.
  
• /spawnregion can now take a position, as well as a specific remote system (instead of current player system)
  
• Fixed /warpto command, can now go directly from region to region as well as region to remote star system
  
• Fixed an issue with system seeds that were resulting in similar regions
  
• Fixed our Shuffle method. This may affect things like tile loot.
  
• Fixed mission region selection to avoid selection regions controlled by players (aka players in warp).
  
• Fixed seeding for random name generation of mission objects and regions
  
• Fixed background cloud issue. This is used to generate asteroid clouds, and in some cases was overflowing and causing errors.
  
• Changed how AI weapon arcs are calculated. This should improve turret and station firing behavior (aka blast you more).
  
• Fixed cutoff on mission titles on the mission board.
  
• Fixed substitute text within dialogues not being set correctly.
  
• Fixed loot table references for item pools "hull2", "hull3" and "hull4"
  
• Fixed an issue with region server parsing suit networking data incorrectly.
  
• Fixed a number of issues with networking data pools. All data packets should be recycled properly now.
  
• Fixed camera not always lerping back to center when accessing inventory.
  
• Multiple changes to mission dialogue and naming.
  
• Fixed universe map not always going 100% opaque when opened.
  
• Fixed ESC button not closing maps.
  
• Hopefully fixed chat fade issues once and for all.
  
• Potential fix for tractored objects materials (aka inappropriate glowiness)
  
• Partial fix for dynamic regions (ships) restriction to sectors. Does not work when reloading a universe.
  
• Damage masks are now recycled properly on object deconstruction (should improve performance).
  
• Fixed a number of issues regarding ESC button and beacon related dialog boxes.
  
• Fixed a bug where shields would appear to be uncharging.
  
• Fixed a bug when trying to place a component on a tile where no mount was present.
  
• Fixed another bug in mission generation where the templates were becoming corrupted at run-time and would only spawn with those corrupted parameters.
  
• Mission generation will not pick dynamic regions by default when attempting to search for existing regions. This means only regions like stars, planets, moons, asteroids and stations will be used. Less doubling up should occur.
  
• Fixed UI issue where the UI would become unresponsive when a button error occurred. This change should make the UI more robust to errors.
  
• Fixed Kal'Giri mission #41 "Ticeroy ♥♥♥ for Tat" to give the correct faction on completion.
  
• Fixed an issue with "phantom" nav scanner bars.
  
• Fixed an issue where "Force Clear" while in building mode, wouldn't always remove 100% of tiles and components.
  
• Fixed an issue where mission list wasn't always updating, especially in Multi-player.

Removals:

• None

COMING NEXT:

ALPHA 13.1 will definitely be coming out. We'll be adding in the ability to construct and link jumpgates around the universe.

ALPHA 14 will see trading being re-introduced, with a new totally redesigned interface and dynamic.

[lahyeneart]

/Warpto (system or region) works super fine, maybe add it in the thread "In-game commands" as it will be super useful for all the testers :)

For players : To use the /warpto command, you'll have to write something like "/warpto system 16 22" or "/warpto region 16 22 4" for examples

[Stuffie]

Thanks for reminding me, I have updated the commands list with some of the more recently added commands including /warpto