Greetings, Commander.

There is a lot to digest in the patch notes below, so I'll cover some of the more noteworthy inclusions for update 0.20.0:

Chapter 4
3 new main story missions brings the player to the front lines of the war. Encounter tougher and bigger enemies than before. Chapter 4 side missions up the ante as well, if you want a real challenge then test your mettle with the 'Ambushed' side missions.

Corvette Ship Improvements
The Akkadian corvettes (Player faction) have been given additional equipment slots, varying by ship across primary, secondary, turrets and passive modules. The Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson have significant increases in Max Fitting Points to make the most of these.

Optional Player Assists
Near-Miss
Do you love flying into the enemy head on guns blazing, but hate how the enemy chews you up as much as you do them? Then hate no more, and increase the chances of enemies missing your entirely with the Near-Miss assist.

Find it from the main menu under Options > Game > Near-Miss Spread Angle
Increase the slider to make the enemies aim worse or reduce to 0 to turn it off entirely. Velocity changes, and relative speeds are factored into calculation, so you'll still need to make a few flight adjustments.

Homing Projectiles
You position the target in centre, your gimbal guns swivel to line up the perfect shot, squeeze the trigger and... Damn, the target fired its thrusters and adjusted its velocity enough for the projectile barrage to harmlessly pass by!

Feel more like a crack shot pilot at the extremes of your guns max ranges with the Homing Projectiles assist. When enabled any targeted vessel with the guns lined up for the kill will have their projectiles home in on the target. A bit like a heat seeking missile, but for projectiles!

This doesn't guarantee a 100% chance hit rate, if the projectile travel time is long enough the target has a chance to evade if they put enough thrust into it.

Find it from the main menu under Options ? Game > Homing Projectiles
A simple toggle on or off.

ːlunar2019coolpigː

Patch Notes 0.20.0 (Merged with 0.19.x Release Candidate Builds)
Overview

• Chapter 4 added to the story campaign
  

• Increased Prestige rewards for completing main missions
  

• FPS performance improvements
  

• Various additions, gameplay improvements and bug fixes
  

Added

• Chapter 4:
  

  • 3 Main Missions
    

  • New (tougher) Side Mission spawn pools for: Ambush, Ambushed, Seek and Destroy, Convoy Escort/Destroy, Distress Call
    

• Added weighting system to reduce the possibility of the same mission name types being overly repeated in side mission offers.
  

• Allowed Akkadian Combat Pilot Actors to use afterburners (does not apply to other factions as adding this feature dramatically changed the difficulty and timings of a variety of missions)
  

• Collision Avoidance conditions to stop AI Actor Pilots of larger ships evading much smaller ships
  

• Targeted Substructures now have subsystem health and substructure health bars and values displayed in relevant flight HUD sections
  

• Radar detection range can be adjusted on a per structure type basis (used to reduce detection range for specific structures in a Chapter 4 mission)
  

• Improved FPS during explosions (Object Pooling relevant)
  

• A couple of Particle Explosions missing from Object Pooling have now been included
  

• Burst Autogun XXSmall (as a replacement for Sumer fighter craft using the Prologue Autogun XXSmall within the main campaign)
  

• Projectiles being fired against the player (when the player is) will now calculate the chance that the projectile should be a near-miss based on local velocity and distance (All Blaster gun variations are excluded from this check)
  

• Gameplay Assists (Options > Game > Gameplay Assists) for reducing enemy accuracy against the player and improving player accuracy with homing projectile weapons (excluding Blasters)
  

Changed

• Luhansk Corvette:
  

  • Max fitting points increased to 404 (from 273)
    

  • Additional (+1) Primary Port group (x2 guns)
    

  • Additional (+1) forward launcher slot (Small fitting)
    

  • Additional (+1) Small Turret slot (rear keel)
    

  • Additional (+1) Small Passive Module slot
    

• Donetsk Corvette:
  

  • Max fitting points increased to 1200 (from 566)
    

  • Additional (+3) turret slots on the keel
    

  • Additional (+2) forward launcher slots (Small/Medium fitting)
    

  • All small only turret slots on the deck can now fit Medium fittings (in addition to small fittings)
    

  • Additional (+1) Small Passive Module slot
    

• Kherson Corvette:
  

  • Max fitting points increased to 1542 (from 960)
    

  • Secondary weapon slot has been re-positioned to a forward launcher towards making it more useful and in keeping with every other secondary weapon slot on other ships
    

  • Additional (+1) forward launcher slot (Small/Medium fitting)
    

  • Additional (+5) turret ports on the keel
    

  • Additional (+2) Small Passive Module slots
    

• Adjusted Prestige rewards for completing main missions. Players will now have more Prestige to spend on ships and loadouts. This has been retroactively applied to existing campaigns
  

• Thruster Optimizer Module description has been improved for better clarity
  

• Thruster Tuning Modules description was using the original Thruster Optimizer Module description and has now been corrected to better summarise the modules' effect
  

• Collision Avoidance checks for AI Actors now exclude distinct debris in the world
  

• Improved FPS performance (linked to Radar system updates)
  

• Sumer Fighters and Gunships have reduced armour and hull points to make them feel much less spongy
  

• Reworked Subsystem damage through projectile penetration of armour layer:
  

  • Previously subsystem damage scaled down linearly based on the max armour hitpoints (HP) and current armour HP. If we have two armour quadrants, one with max 500 HP and the other max 1000 HP, they would offer the same level of subsystem protection based on their HP percentage. To make subsystem penetration more consistent a weapon has a defined threshold for how much HP it can 'pass' through to achive penetration. The subsystem damage is scaled based on the threshold (passing through more armour HP will reduce the projectile subsystem damage down to 0 when it reaches the penetration threshold). This make positioning and angle of attack more important when wielding penetrating weapons (with the railgun, and lesser the autocannons) for damaging deeply housed subsystems on armoured targets.
    

• Adjusted the main campaign mission progression unlocks due to C01M03 being made available immediately available after C01M02.
  

• Prologue Mission 6 (Based on feedback about objectives around destroying enemy turrets proved too difficult to manage for a tutorial mission - thanks StoneofTriumph):
  

  • Swapped out the Choke Blaster for Autogun player primary weapon (due to Choke Blaster limited range)
    

  • Disabled the offline repair ability for enemy turrets
    

  • Changed Xenia comms dialogue around turret repair
    

  • Added Medium Autocannon 8 to the frigates
    

• Chapter 2 Mission 3 (C02M03):
  

  • Reinforcing friendly cruiser now spawns as an Akaddian Cruiser (instead of Sumer Cruiser) and given some speed mods to get it into the action quicker
    

  • Reduced the reinforcing Akaddian Donetsk corvettes to 3 (from 4) allowing the Akaddian Cruiser more opportunity to get in on the action
    

  • Sumer Gunship loadouts' have been adjusted giving 2 (from 4) gunships bombs to drop (bringing mission balancing back in line with pre 0.19.0 changes)
    

• Chapter 3 Mission 2 (C02M02):
  

  • Fixed vessel names for several rebel frigate spawns
    

  • Admiral ship cannot be destroyed
    

• Chapter 3 Mission 3 (C03M03):
  

  • Adjustments to rebel frigate and tug loadouts to improve their threat
    

  • Renamed the station
    

  • Civilian frigates now use correct prefab for ship data
    

• Chapter 4 Mission 3 (C04M03):
  

  • Moved the starting spawn location of Sumer transports 15000 meters further away from the warp out point to provide the player more breathing room when engaging them (for a whopping extra 60 seconds)
    

• Adjustments to rebel frigate and tug loadouts to improve their threat and challenge during chapter 3 side mission encounters
  

• Combat Pilot AI: Adjusted calculation values for pilots deciding if they should change target to a bigger threat (should stick with designated targets for longer while under fire)
  

• Combat Pilot AI: Logic on afterburn useage has been tuned towards reducing the overshooting targets and inappropriate usage overall
  

• Removed peneration ability from Autogun and it can longer apply damage to covered subsystems
  

• Mini Gun (used by the Sumer Gunship) renamed to Cannon and increased direct damage by 5DPS (30DPS total) and increased subsystem damage by 10DPS (60DPS total)
  

• Player HUD Weapon Panel now counts down number of rounds remaining to be fired from a trigger pull (i.e. Burst Autocannons) on the weapons reload status bar
  

• Updated the equipment text stats format and layout in the fitting screen
  

• Sorting order improvements for inventory items listed in the fitting screen
  

• Reinforced Armor Plating (Small) changes
  

  • Type I = Fitting points increase to 18 (from 6)
    

  • Type II = Armor HP increase to 3000 (from 2000), Fitting points increase to 84 (from n) and Prestige cost increase to 1120 (from n)
    

  • Type III = Armor HP increase to 7000 (from 3000), Fitting points increase to 270 (from n) and Prestige cost increase to 4992 (from n)
    

  • Percentage values are now penalized (reduced with multiple modules affecting the same stats) instead of just being a additive flat value
    

• Progression with Equipment Unlock time changes
  

  • Artillery Medium X1 TURRET unlocks after completing C02M03
    

  • Autocannon/4 X1 (61) unlocks after completing C02M01
    

  • Autocannon/4 X2 (62) unlocks after completing C02M01
    

  • Autocannon/4 X3 (63) unlocks after completing C02M02
    

  • Burst Autocannon/2 X3 (59) unlocks after completing C01M01
    

  • Burst Autocannon/2 X3 (60) unlocks after completing C01M01
    

  • Explosive Damage Enhancer I unlocks after completing C01M03
    

  • Explosive Damage Enhancer II unlocks after completing C02M03
    

  • Explosive Damage Enhancer III unlocks after completing C03M03
    

Fixed

• Replaced ship loadout secondary weapon references to old MLRS Launcher to new MLMS Launcher(s).
  

• Skirmish Menu: Players will no longer be able to see or select factions not intended for use by the player
  

• Sumer Light Frigate was incorrectly used as friendly unit in Ambush mission, and has now been replaced with Donetsk Corvette
  

• Burst Autocannon/04 X1-X3 Turret Gun DPS has been increased to expected output values (due to wrong reload time being applied)
  

• Gunship now uses its own unique XS turret
  

• Corrected typos in various mission texts
  

• Explosive Armor Protection III (S) module had a vastly inflated price
  

• Null Reference Exception when a turrets target warps out
  

• Sumer Gunships' secondary launcher slot size was forgotten and has been restored back to Extra Small
  

• AI Actor will no longer use full throttle when in a sweet spot behind a target
  

• Disabling AI Actor causing Invalid Operation Exception error
  

• Resolved an issue with mission scripting logic for checks on subsystem health when the subsystem is attached to a damageable (and destructible) substructure which would return incorrect values when the substructure is destroyed
  

• Null reference exception when an engine substructures(s) health reaches 0 on the Sumer Cruiser
  

• A wingman with their own wing will not spawn their wing in formation when playing a Skirmish match
  

• Vessel Loadout Screen: Equipped ship weaponry DPS overview list are significantly over inflated for primary weapons
  

• Explosions hitting a dying substructures will continue to feed additional damage through to the main structure
  

• Projectile guns which fire off multiple rounds on a single trigger pull start the reload timer as soon as it starts firing instead of after the last round being shot off (affecting Burst Autocannons and Blasters)
  

• Blaster/4 Primary Gun was using a Medium slot size when it should be Small slot size and has been corrected
  

• Ship overview panel in the fitting screen now shows individual applied stat values and correctly shows applied weapon damage stat values
  

• Stopped the filter being re-applied when equipping an inventory item into a slot in the fitting screen (which would reset the scroll view back to the top each time)
  

• Corrected known typos across several main mission briefings, debriefings, and communication dialogue