Patch 0.8.9.0 (Sunday 10 April 2022)

This patch contains improvements, bug fixes and tweaks mostly related to the damage model changes introduced in 0.8.8.0. It should also improve client and server stability as 3 important crash bugs were identified and fixed.

Please also note that we decided to shut down the US West and Australia servers to consolidate our player base as these two servers sometimes saw no players for entire days or weeks. We may reintroduce them for 1.0 if there is demand for it.

Gameplay / Balance

• Fixed warp interruption that was getting triggered on environmental damage even if the shields were at 100%. It will now only trigger when shields are depleted
  
• Fixed AMS laser not being affected by shields. Since they do no energy damage, AMS lasers will no longer affect any target that has shields up;
  
• Fixed damage model's energy depletion that happens when energy damage hits depleted shields. It should now be coherent for all weapon/damage types
  
• Fixed AI corvette kinetic/blaster turrets all firing at the same time, which players cannot do
  
• AI rank/skill level will now be taken into account for the reactivity time to switch between weapon types (kinetic vs blasters) on smaller ships (previously it was a constant time no matter the AI skill level)
  
• Added a reactivity/delay factor for taking the target's acceleration into consideration for turret's lead auto aim. This should make the turret's aiming less precise but still take their target's acceleration into account. The problem with not taking acceleration into account at all is that ships are constantly moving and adjusting their course, meaning that they're always under some form of acceleration. If turrets do not take acceleration into account, they basically have almost no change of hitting their target unless it's very close. That was the problem in the previous versions of the game. Now the turrets will try to estimate their target's acceleration, but with a delay, which should feel more human-like/natural, while still giving them the chance to hit a far-away target that moves in a predictable course
  
• Updated battle rating calculation after a battle ends: the number of points gained/lost is no longer symmetrical. The higher your rating, the more difficult it will be to increase it further. The lower your rating, the more difficult it'll be to decrease it further. This means that players with a very high rating will not be able to increase it higher all that much, but will easily lose their points when they die/lose in a battle
  
• Added 4 new propulsion loadout upgrades: lateral boost, forward boost, pitch boost and yaw boost
  
• Reverted converging angle rotation speeds on converging weapons (halcyons and plasma cutters). Increased their spread a bit to be less binary at distance; Increased their projectile speeds and max range (now 5 Km)
  

Bug fixes

• Introduced fall backs if crashes do not generate a minidump/log file, as many users had reported crashes that did not generate a dump file in their documents folder
  
• Fixed a client crash related to a short desync between client and server information, which caused the HUD to look up for an icon that does not exist
  
• Fixed two server crashes related to the squad system when a player is leaving a squad or disconnecting from the game while still being in a squad
  
• Fixed "show input rotation forces" that could still get displayed on the tactical view screen, or in third-person camera. It will now only show up in first-person/cockpit view
  
• Fixed ship debris spawned upon despawning at a hangar/docking bay
  
• Fixed issues when loading obsolete/no longer coherent hardpoint layouts
  
• Fixed energy weapons that were able to pierce/bounce off hulls like kinetics when they shouldn't
  

HUD / UI / Controls

• Fixed target selection utilizing hidden navigation cursor in joystick control scheme. Now utilizes the screen center as the reference
  
• Fixed dot reticle displayed at screen center when looking around with the camera or in TrackIR mode
  
• In the ship loadout menu, the details stats will be the default tab (instead of the ship's general info) if the player is sufficiently experienced
  
• Swapped social/squads and stats/leaderboard tabs in the main menu
  

Misc

• Replaced repair beam impact sound effect with a new one
  
• French localization file update thanks to Argopeilacos