Hey there Stargazers and Sports Racers,

It’s been quite some time since the last patch, and we have some very large changes dropping this release.

Code Changes:

Absolutely massive changes to disk serialization (sorry reversers), which will allow us to never need to wipe players or ships again, and hopefully never need to wipe worlds again.
Related, we now have a proper versioning system for save files.
Added difficulty levels and permadeath characters to the game.
Packed assets into databases (speeds up startup significantly), and included asset packing and unpacking utilities with the distribution. This should also allow for easier distribution of mods, and easier construction and management of slimmed down distributions for dedicated servers (official server paks coming soon.)
Fix some graphical glitches with the wire nodes.
Fixed some pretty nasty deadlocking bugs with networking.
Fixed some very strange memory leak bugs stemming from a gcc lambda capture bug.
Fixed various crash bugs related to a number of different issues (thanks for the bug reports, keep em coming.)
Speed up improvements with falling sand and other projectiles.
More efficient databases storage layout.
Documentation for lua functions have been written, and we’re going to release them soonish.
Removed NaN floats from the code for performance reasons (reenabled -ffinite-math-only), we had been using them to signal that the float is disabled or in an invalid state, but we have a system for that now.
Some internal changes that make maintaining code much happier for us, including better enum to string handling and much faster compiles.
Other minor things, too numerous to list here.

Fun Changes:

It’s no longer the holiday, so we’ve removed the holiday stuff for now, we’ll put them back when we have a better way of enabling it for holiday time.
PVP is now forced enabled within Sector X. If you’re in a party there’s no team damage though.
All player drops are persistent now. So if you accidentally throw your diamond drill down a mineshaft, you don’t have to suicide trying to get it back before it disappears.
New Monster attacks (gravity slam! gust attacks! other stuff!)
Fixed Legendary Weapons damage (adjusted up to be more… well… Legendary.)
We’ve put in new Techs (such as a Glitch Mech).
New biome type enabled. Savannah.
Boss Lore!
No more eating bandages and stims, they have their own thing now.
Better, more featureful abc file support, and we have Wanderlust music in the game now. (Thanks Leth and D2!)
Made NPC chatter more configurable and slightly more varied.
Added new objects (such as lava biome treasure chests).
Added new items (like nightsticks and bonesaws).
Sword swooshes are only active for 0.6 seconds instead of 0.9 seconds. Making cooldown times actually matter without slowing down combat. Also fine tuned their hitboxes.
Viking helmet? Viking helmet.
Watch out for landmines.
Various changes to treasure drop pools (like avianguards actually dropping their guns…)
Minor tweaks to existing armors to make them look better.
Medieval Furnace now actually acts like a Furnace. (Rejoice).
Graphical upgrades to some existing plants, and new plants.
Other stuff!

We look forward to hearing what you think about the patch. This was a very big one this time around.

Heya! Long time no front page post.

After taking it easy over the holidays, we jumped straight into preparing the next patch. The reason it’s taking awhile? Bug fixes. Bug fixes everywhere. They can be a little slow-going and unpredictable, but I think you guys will find the improvements worth the wait!

We’re still working on a few things, so you can expect the patch in about a week’s time. Not all patches are going to take this long, of course. :)



Fixes:

.ds_store issue affecting OSX 9.1 users (A bug where Finder created an invisible file called .ds_store in the player folder which caused the game to crash).
A number of character creation/selection screen crashes related to loading corrupted save files
An issue that could prevent the launcher from starting (MSVCRT.dll)
DirectX crash bug (303 bug)
Several memory leaks, including the slow-but-significant server memory leak a lot of people were experiencing and GUI memory leak
Fixed a crash bug related to GUI controls
Reduced memory load of FTL animation
.abc files with comments no longer crash the game, plus various .abc fixes as far as key signatures/timing
A number of issues with players spawning underground
A bug where players spawned outside the ship if they’d previously saved the game while in the Captain’s Chair
Right shift key was not working as a shift key, now it is
An issue tech slots were unusable under certain conditions
Wiring system fixes– wires are rendered below UI elements, wires no longer break when crossed into an unloaded sector
Added image metadata caching, improved assets caching
Added a jeep mech that was supposed to have been in the last patch, but had mysteriously gone missing!
Object flipping issues
Sped up the crafting window
Fixed a sound issue that occurred after many concurrent weapon hits
Characters no longer blink while sleeping in beds
Assorted minor performance improvements


Additions:

New game modes! Permadeath and drop-everything-on-death modes.
Revolvers, pulse rifles, hand grenades, shivs, Floran needlers, Floran thorn hammer
Human guards now wear soldier uniforms
More decorative hats! Yay, hats!
More random encounters
Possibly more content, if it’s finished on time!


Of course, there’s also the highly anticipated/possibly feared final character wipe– this patch contains a fix for save files so after this, you won’t need to worry about our patches destroying your characters or ships. This patch will wipe everything– characters, ships and worlds. It will definitely be the last time we’ll need to wipe characters or ships, and will hopefully be the last time we’ll need to wipe worlds. This explanation from Kyren should help clarify things a little:

“The problem is that the organization of planets may change so if they go muck with a planet, how do we put it in the celestial map? Or if they build on a biome we remove, or something. So no promises, but we’ll try. But promises on the player / ship.”

I hope that clears up a lot of your questions and concerns about the upcoming patch and wipe– I’m just as excited as you guys are. :)

New adventures await you!

A ton of new content in this update. We've added a bunch of new features to world generation,
which might require you to start on a new universe. To make sure you get access to all the new
crafting items you either need to unlock sectors again or create a new character.

Also..

- Added skyrails based on Apjjms mod!
- Added a brand new weather system, moddable weather/new environment effects
- Hydrophobic objects are destroyed by all liquids
- Trees can now be planted
- Critical items stay on the ground longer
- Some new monster behaviours
- You must now be orbiting a planet to set it as your home
- Free teleportation to home planet from ships teleporter
- add acid rain, meteor showers, water collecting during storms and more
- made species mods easier to combine with one another
- add support for keysignature and keysignature changes for the abc system
- Disable speedlimit for default projectiles to fix inaccurate bullets
- New craftable turrets based on healthire's mod
- You can now land on asteroid fields, based on hints mod
- Tech now has descriptive instructions
- Tons of Christmas stuff!!
- Pos no longer 1 hit kill you
- You can no longer breath on moons or asteroid fields without the proper equipment
- Better fix fall damage
- New barren planets perfect for building
- Gravity now varies from planet to planet
- Some planet backgrounds improved
- Existing biomes can appear with different liquid types
- You can now craft racial flags, to show you've been to a planet
- NPCs will now switch to melee weapons up close
- More random encounters
- Pos can now be captured
- Wiring station can now be built to access to a ton of different wiring tools
- fixed mech legs
- tons of server improvements
- more

* **NPC Spawners & Building Logic:** NPCs will scan the structures you build around them and the contents of chests; they will have improved inventories/behaviors depending on how secure they are.

* **Macro Terrain Changes:** Affect an entire planet's terrain and weather

* **More Planet Scanner Data:** See details in the planet scanner like planet occupants/dungeons

* **Underground:** More secrets will spawn below the surface

* **Space Combat:** Way in the future, expect space combat and the ability to board other ships.

* **Spaceship Dungeons:** Very large, size of a planet.

* **Biome Hazards:** Sandstorms, icestorms, meteor showers, toxic planets, airless planets.

* **Ore & Difficulty:** Higher difficulty planets will have improved ore distribution

* **Story Missions:** Eventually each tier will end with a story mission that ends with the bosses you see now.

* **Ship Navigator Changes:** Still not set in stone; but the new idea is to give a local map with fog of war. Instead of sector buttons you have to fly out of a sector and into the next one. The final sector would be infinite.

* **Smoother Difficulty Curve:** Better indication of the difficulty of an area. Difficulty will change within tiers as well as between tiers. There will be fractional difficulty (for example, Difficulty 1.12 in tier 1 would be easier than Difficulty 1.52, while still in T1)

* **Monster Generation:** Right now, monster parts just have stat boosts, but eventually rolled monster parts will affect their behavior and abilities. For example, monsters with spider legs can climb walls; fiery monsters inflict burning. You might get a burning spider dropping on you from the ceiling. Projectiles may be tied to specifically generated heads. Biome may influence monster part generation.

* **Mini-Map:** Rotating circular map showing highlights only such as the location of friendly players, spawn points--but no major details. For the details you'd use a mapping item to create a map as you travel.

* **Teleporters:** Stargates between planets and eventually between servers.

* **Dramatic Planet Modification:** Not going to be implemented any time soon. Ability for players to modify huge chunks of planets through things like orbital bombardment; removing the entire first layer of a planet and leave behind a lifeless surface.

* **Tech Priority:** Eventually all techs can be active at once, but a categorization system is in the works to assign priority to conflicting techs, preventing issues. A hotkey to switch the active tech will be added as a temporary workaround until the priority system is completed.

* **Server Commands:** More server commands and control for chat and port listening.

* **Villager AI:** Villagers will aggro when you steal from them and follow you more aggressively.

* **World Storage:** Improve world storage and organize *.pak files to improve modding. Add launcher integration.

* **Spawn Points:** Change spawn points on individual planets.

* **Controls:** Reconfigure controls; keybinding.

* **Ship Size:** Upgrade ship/increase size.

* **Racial Armor:** Racial abilities will not be inherent but will be tied to racial armor. For example, Avian armor can glide downward.

* **Capture Pods & Mercenaries:** May be able to capture NPCs with pods. Summon NPC Mercenaries by using the pod as a beacon.

* **Reduced Wipes:** Working on a system to patch without requiring as many character wipes in the future.

* **Other Changes:** Colorblind Mode & Engine Optimization. FTL animation being revamped to reduce memory strain.