Patch 0.10.4.0 ( 6th of April 2024 )

Hey everyone, this is an intermediate patch focusing on polishing and smaller improvements. The sandbox mode got a couple of fixes & new gameplay mods, and three new Gas giant planets with new visuals were added to the game (at the moment, the medium-size solar system only uses one of them at once, but we're working on a full solar system that makes use of multiple gas giants & moons).

It is now possible to create new custom input profiles (wihtout having to copy files in your documents folder manually !) or to assign a specific input profile to certain ship classes only. We also have a bunch of bug fixes, menu/UI improvements and addressing some issues with attacking bases outside of the match loop.

Meanwhile, we're working on the next set of tutorials and the backend/infrastructure rework.

-Flavien Brebion

Offline Sandbox mode

• Fixed unlocked weapons and upgrades in sandbox mode that were still checking the player's rank requirement
  
• Replaced variable sandbox gameplay mods by a slider instead of a bunch of check boxes, to simplify the UI
  
• Added a heat slider and a battle size (=amounts of ships per battle) slider for the sandbox mode
  

General Improvements

• Improvements to gas giant's visuals: new cloud noise, curls, hurricanes, more variety, etc.. Three new gas giants were added (Althea, Silenus and Eole)
  
• Input profile can now be customized per ship class. This means that you can use a certain profile (Keyboard & mouse) on certain ships and another one (ex.: a Joystick) on other classes. The switching of profiles happens automatically on-the-fly as you switch ship classes
  
• You can now toggle head tracking per ship class as well (Note: untested yet)
  
• Added a button to create a new input profile (from an existing one) in the keybindings menu
  
• Added a button to delete a custom profile in the keybindings menu
  

Gameplay/Balance Tweaks

• Revamped sun's radiation damage: more warning time when approaching the sun from a distance, but more agressive damage before reaching its surface. This should prevent ships (even capital ships) from entering the sun's surface before dying, while giving plenty of warning time to smaller ships to turn back as they approach the sun
  
• Base shields now power up when there's at least 500 SP worth of nearby enemy ships (previously: it required 3 ships, independently of their class)
  
• Fixed an issue where the core reactors of a base could be destroyed even if no battle was happening (the reactor now takes no damage and a warning is issued)
  
• Off-battle defense reinforcements will now be more reactive, and spawn ships more quickly as an attacker comes near a base
  

UI/Menus Tweaks

• Fixed issues with the hierarchical display of some planets/moons in the starmap list. Sometimes some planets/moons/bases were not correctly linked to their logical parent
  
• Small visual improvements to showing planet names and orbits on the starmap. The names should now properly appear on top of everything else
  
• Added a "reset grid orientation" option to the right-click context menu of an entry in the starmap
  
• Mission menu now dynamically changes the campaign name to match the closest planet's (before: it was always "Rethe Prime Campaign")
  
• Default starmap view when there are multiple planets is now top-down
  

Generic Bug Fixes

• Fixed a small potential server crash bug with EMP shockwaves
  
• Fixed a small transparency issue with the "skip" text on transmissions dialog
  
• Fixed a bug in the basic combat tutorial that made the instructor attack the target drones in stead of the player
  
• Fixed asteroids often being spawned with the same orientation in an asteroid ring, resulting in an unnatural look
  
• Fixed massive framerate issues when rendering HUD's warp tunnel while the target was very far away ( millions of Km )
  
• Fixed an issue with smaller, very far away planets that could potentially get streamed in by the client when approaching them, causing a freeze for many seconds. They should now be properly pre-loaded
  
• Gas giants quality is now dependent on the "planets quality" graphical setting (previously, it was using the generic "texture quality")
  
• Fixed a glitch with the rendering order of asteroid rings around a gas giant planet
  

Misc

• Added community Spanish translation (thanks to SrDarki !)
  
• Tweaked tutorials descriptions & tags