Alien Interactions

Aliens will now interact with each other. They might fight each other, they might run away from each other ... they might do stuff that makes little sense, but that's the point! The goal is to have more emergent gameplay. This, combined with other things like the more robust explosions added last week, will slowly build Star Explorers into a much more dynamic environment.

Here is a strange animal confronted by a star shaped floater

Additional Revisions since 5.2.5a

I've made a few tweaks since the testing branch release a few days ago. Most notable are the increase in alien distance from one another, they used to spawn really close to one another, but now they will be spread out a bit. A couple of other minor issues were also addressed.

• I adjusted how flashing messages work. They flash on and off like before, but I extended the on period and shortened the off period, so they are more readable.
  
• The game now prevents the gun from firing when clicking on tutorial messages in the interactive guide.
  
• Non-lava planets can now have volcanoes.

Weapon Tiers

I have updated the whole weapons system, now weapons have three tiers. Yellow weapons represent the lowest quality weapons. Blue are the middle quality, and red are rare, and highly powerful weapons. From a gameplay standpoint, these kinds of weapons, in terms of the increase in firepower, already existed in the game, but they were not color coded and all looked the same.

I think it adds a certain level of comprehension, so you can tell at a glance which weapons will be more useful. I also might actually update the models, so each tier has more interesting looking weapons, but for now color coding was a fast and easy way to get this system started.

Here, you can see two different color laser pistols (yellow and blue) among other things

Alien Weapons

Bipedal aliens have been given an upgrade. Instead of just standard laser pistols, they can now have assault rifles and even rocket launchers! I have abstained from giving them access to sonic cannons because they would be likely to kill off their friends.

Weapon Costs

Weapons now have a working system of differentiating the cost of the weapon from the cost of any ammo that has been loaded into the weapon. You can still buy and sell loaded weapons. But if you unload them, the price drops accordingly. Rocket launchers and sonic cannons are considerably more valuable when loaded.