Here's the list of changes made in the dev version since the 0.51a release.
Standard disclaimer: it's probably missing a few small things here and there that I didn't write down.
Not save-compatible with the 0.51a release.
Changes as of April 30, 2012
Miscellaneous:
Fighter repairs:
Fleets with carriers (ships with flight decks) repair fighter wings immediately outside of combat (costs supplies)
Repairing fighters in combat costs supplies
When out of supplies, fighters will still be repaired, but lost fighters will not be replaced
Increased stack sizes for supplies/fuel/crew/marines to 1000
Improved itemization somewhat (more light weapons and missile pods delivered by convoys)
Changed behavior of UI tab shortcuts - they will now close the current tab, EXCEPT in the trade UI. Let's see how that feels.
Added option to repair your fleet at non-hostile orbital stations. Still costs supplies, but not credits.
Autofiring weapons will prefer the ship's target (if set, and if not a PD weapon with a missile or fighter in its arc)
Reduced Thumper damage and flux cost
Added icons for most hull mods (in hull mod selection dialog)
Campaign fleet rendering optimization: will now only show up to 20 ships in any given fleet in the campaign view
Changes as of April 26, 2012
Ship AI:
No longer "cheats" by being able to see through fog of war while in Search & Destroy mode
Fighter wings returning to a carrier will try to avoid enemy ships throughout their return
Improved choice of strafing direction to better avoid being flanked
Escorting ships a bit more defensive, less likely to get themselves killed
Will use omni shields against multiple threats instead of just the biggest one, when possible
Has higher-level tactical awareness and tries to avoid being swarmed
Improved escort behavior yet again - *much* less likely to get in the way
Made aware of when a ship's best firepower is a broadside (either due to overall loadout or temporarily disabled weapons)
Weapon balance:
Railgun: reduced rate of fire
Heavy Autocannon: increased damage
Arbalest Autocannon: increased damage
Ship balance:
Aurora: reduced shield efficiency
Conquest: increased flux capacity and dissipation, greatly reduced shield efficiency
Hammerhead: increased arc of medium hardpoints to 10 degrees (up from 5)
Modding-related:
Mods in the mod selection dialog now listed in alphabetical order
Made many more colors used in the game available for modding (in settings.json)
Improved logging so you can see which file is being loaded before a potential error can occur
Added support for mods to add their own music
Opponents that can be picked for the simulation available from the refit screen can be set in data/campaign/sim_opponents.csv
Added the following fields to the descriptor.json for a mod:
"author" - displayed alongside the description
"totalConversion":"true" or "false" - makes it so that selecting this mod unselects everything else, and selecting another mods unselects this one - i.e., you can't combine this mod with other mods
"replace" - a JSON array of filenames for files that the mod replaces entirely, instead of merging with data from the base game. Useful for a total conversion that may want to entirely replace the list of missions (so that the vanilla missions don't show up at all), the player.faction, or the list of available simulation opponents. Example: "replace":["data/missions/mission_list.csv",] - will replace mission list with ones from mod.
Only needed for .csv and .json files that would otherwise be merged by the game
Command interface:
Improved quality of picks for light escort, destroyer escort, and capture assignments
UI improvements:
Added "Run Simulation" option to the refit screen (deploys current variant, lets you pick some opponents)
Trade UI changes
Presents the tabbed UI, allows to switch between different tabs while trading
Can refit ship while docked with station and purchase weapons from station from the refit screen
Added "refit ships" option to orbital station dialog
Ship refitted at a station are fully fitted immediately and do not need to wait a few days for hullmods to take effect
Updated look and feel of refit UI to match the rest of the UI better
Added tooltip with detailed ship stats to refit UI (hover over OP bar to see)
Added arc indicator to weapon list in weapon group dialog (so you can tell which weapon is which in cases where it's ambiguous)
Can set groups to have autofire toggled on automatically before battle
Stock variants adjusted to set groups to do this where appropriate
Opening the refit tab when coming from the fleet tab pre-selects the moused over ship
For UI consistency, pressing TAB no longer closes the map when on the map tab
Added detail of what crew level does to tooltip
Saves zoom level in the campaign, and zoom level and view location in the campaign map
Added tooltips for fuel/cargo/personnel/fleet points/hangar space with breakdown of related information
Ammo counter now shows 4 digits
Miscellaneous:
Improved mod selection dialog (more space, more readable font)
Optimized rendering performance of fleets in the campaign screen
Added an abandoned storage facility in orbit around the sun-scorched world of Covrus I
Missions: ships can now be refitted for each mission
Optimized save file format a bit (takes about 25% less space)
Fixed issue with ships bumping into each other at spawn if a faster ship ended up behind a slower one
Added music/SFX volume controls (under the in-game settings menu)
Bug fixes:
Fixed autoresolve bug that was causing fighters with hullmods to have sky-high hitpoints
This would also cause the game to stutter due to auto-resolves taking far longer than expected
Fixed issue where wrong tooltip would show up in the refit screen for ships with weapons that are close together
Changes as of April 12, 2012
Ship balance changes:
Eagle: improved top speed and maneuverability, improved turret coverage (in particular, the 3 small frontal turrets overlap)
Falcon: improved top speed and maneuverability, improved turret coverage
Sunder: improved flux capacity and dissipation significantly, improved turret coverage
Brawler: increased flux capacity and dissipation, improved shield efficiency, improved shield coverage
Xyphos: improved shield arc
Longbow: changed shield to omni-directional
Dagger: changed shield to omni-directional, removed PD laser
Broadsword: reduced flux dissipation rate (only a factor in *very* prolonged firing)
Thunder: reduced number of ships in wing to 2, reduced fleet point cost to 7
Hull mod balance changes
Reduced cost of capital-sized Augmented Engines and Advanced Optics
Weapon balance changes:
Increased the beam speed for all beam weapons significantly
Increased ammo counts for most ballistic high-explosive weapons
Sabot SRM: reduced the accuracy of the 2nd stage projectile
Significantly increased the launch speed of the Reaper torpedo launcher line of weapons
Command interface:
Ships that are the target of an escort command will not be assigned to escort duty themselves
The Intercept assignment will now cause the assigned ships to pursue their target in a single-minded manner - making it both more effective and more dangerous for the ships carrying it out
Ships ordered to retreat will now attempt to avoid nearby enemies first
Support fighters (at this point, just the Longbow) will go along on Strike assignments
Changed "Light Escort" and "Destroyer Escort" to only ever accept one ship. Using a direct order to assign a specific ship to escort duty will assign the originally-picked ship elsewhere.
Admiral AI:
Fully re-vamped
Picks from several strategies to use
Makes better use of available orders (in particular, escort)
Less susceptible to defeat in detail
Ship AI:
Improved friendly fire danger detection for weapons that fire long bursts (Tachyon Lance, Plasma Cannon, Heavy Needler, etc)
Will detect when disabled ships are blocking the way and will not fire
Will fire guided missiles in odd-angled slots (such as the Apogee's or the Buffalo Mk2's side-pointed ones) without needing to face the enemy
Improved logic for spreading ships out when multiple ships fight a single enemy
Will now consider the seriousness of an incoming missile threat when deciding whether to shield against it or against incoming weapons fire
Better about when to vent
Less likely to spend all Sabot-class missiles immediately
Now considers incoming damage and its likelihood to overload shields
Note: this greatly affects the balance of the Broadsword. Some example matchups with the new AI behvaior:
Assault Enforcer vs 3x Broadsword Wing: Enforcer wins with full hull and armor in good shape
Attack Medusa vs 3x Broadsword Wing: Medusa loses a tough fight (its armor isn't good enough, and a reliance on shields makes it weak vs the Broadswords)
Standard Lasher vs 1x Broadsword Wing: Lasher wins, but it's a tougher fight
Will turn to take incoming damage on intact armor when appropriate
Non-fighters will no longer try to flee from fighters
Increased flux level at which AI considers enemy ship to be vulnerable to missiles - was set a bit low, leading to too many missiles wasted
Decoupled collision avoidance from turning - AI can now keep facing an enemy while avoiding collisions
This improves the survivability for ships with front shields drastically
Improved escort behavior - less likely to get in the way, better about surviving and staying in formation
Auto-firing weapons a bit more lenient about thinking they're aimed correctly. Example: both Apogee's medium side turrets will fire at a target in front.
Fixed bug that caused the AI to not fire the Thumper
Fixed bug that caused the AI to improperly evaluate the weapons range of its target
Fixed bug that caused the AI to think frag damage wasn't terrible vs shields
Fixed error in logic that was causing an occasional unnecessary lowering of front shields
Content:
Added music (written by Stian Stark, one track so far)
New graphics for the Hellbore and the Hephaestus Assault Gun
New graphics for Flak, Dual Flak, Light Assault Gun
Added new large ballistic weapon: "Mark IX Autocannon"
Adjusted several variants to use it, made available in campaign (pirate base)
Miscellaneous:
Changed fleet speed calculation
Based on slowest ship in the fleet
Size based penalty only caused by ships not sufficiently faster than the slowest ship, and capped at 20%
Fighter speed penalty weighted by hangar space (0 when not over)
Missiles no longer "cheat" by being able to acquire targets through fog of war
Increased the amount of credits gained from combat by 30%
AI fleets will dump excess resources and go back to base to resupply when necessary
Added button to auto-generate weapon groups for a variant. Also happens if you forget to create the groups.
Leaving a battle midway through when some enemy ships are retreating will result in the auto-resolve counting them as retreated instead of deployed
Ship names and ship name prefixes are now faction-specific
Some significant rendering optimizations
Removed Brawler as starting ship
Optimized ship tooltips (eliminates minor hiccup when showing mission detail screen, ensures ship tooltips are always up-to-date)
Significantly optimized rendering of ship damage decals
Combat map with 5 objectives can now get 2 Nav Buoys tops
Increased memory available to the game to 512MB
Modding related:
Ship refit screen now automatically adjusts the minimum zoom level to make bigger ships fit the screen
Added "GUIDED_POOR" ai hint for weapons to indicate that it should be aimed when possible, but *can* be fired unaimed
Added ability to specify faction-specific ship name prefix and source of ship names (can be added to data/strings/ship_names.json)
Fixed bug that caused planets.json from multiple mods not to be merged correctly
Fixed bug that caused multiple missiles on a HIDDEN mount to be rendered too close together
Added "RENDER_LOADED_MISSILES_UNLESS_HIDDEN" tag to force HIDDEN weapons to hide externally-mounted missiles
Bug fixes:
Fixed bug that would cause fighters to always go to the nearest carrier, even if all its flight decks are occupied
Fixed bug that would force-set the speed of a ship to its maximum when it's decelerating, instead of adjusting it gradually
Fixed bug that would sometimes cause a ship to go off the map without retreating, preventing a battle from ending
Fixed crash bug resulting from a damaged ship with no weapons (and an empty weapons group) being deployed
Changes as of 3/26/2012
Features:
Added "Accidents" mechanic to handle fleets over various limits
It's assumed that the fleet can improvise various containers/fuel cells/life support systems etc to go above its standard capacity
You can go up to 50% over capacity at the cost of increased supply use to maintain all the improvised solutions
Going over 50%, or running out of supplies, carries the risk of an accident
An accident causes a loss of stuff handled by the capacity in question (i.e., cargo for being over cargo capacity), in addition to a loss of other items that are over capacity (i.e., a minor cargo-related accident can cascade into a huge loss of over-capacity fuel)
Accident severity depends on how much over capacity you are / how long you've been out of supplies
Accident consequences go all the way up to the loss of a ship
Accident consequences stay consistent upon reloading the game, so save/loading until you get a favorable result isn't an option
Increased amount of supplies gained from scuttling your own ships and salvaging disabled ships after battle
Ship AI:
Autofiring PD weapons should switch off from ships to target incoming missiles and bombs
Will select a non-autofiring group to make sure it doesn't override autofire unintentionally
Ships with forward-facing shields more careful about backing away instead of turning tail to run
More inclined to ignore beam damage that it can just absorb with shields
Improved calculation to determine whether a ship is civilian - now relies on OP cost of equipped weapons
Admiral AI:
Reduced likelihood of retreat
Ballistic weapon balance changes:
Light Assault Gun: increased range, projectile speed, improved accuracy
Light Autocannon: increased projectile speed, reduced accuracy
Light Dual Autocannon: increased projectile speed, reduced accuracy
Light Mortar: increased range, projectile speed
Light Machine Gun, Light Dual Machine Gun, Heavy Machine Gun, Flak Cannon, Dual Flak Cannon: increased projectile speed
Vulcan Cannon: increased projectile speed, increased ammo
Arbalest Autocannon, Heavy Autocannon: increased projectile speed, reduced accuracy
Railgun: increased projectile speed, improved accuracy (perfect, in line with the Hypervelocity Driver and the Gauss Cannon)
Heavy Mauler: increased range, projectile speed
Assault Chaingun: increased range, projectile speed
Gauss Cannon: increased flux cost
Hellbore Cannon, Mjolnir Cannon, Hephaestus Assault Gun: increased range slightly, increased projectile speed
Energy weapon balance changes:
LR PD Laser: increased range, improved turn rate
Graviton Beam: increased range
Phase Beam: increased range (for now)
High Intensity Laser: increased damage
Tachyon Lance: increased flux cost
Burst PD Laser, Heavy Burst Laser, Guardian PD Laser: these now use ammo ("charges") that regenerate. Charges regenerate slower than the fire rate of the weapons, allowing a front-loaded burst of damage before slowing down to fire at the regeneration rate (rather than the actual rate of fire).
Autopulse Laser: Uses the same "charge" mechanic as the above, with an expanded "clip" of 15 charges. No longer fires in a burst, only while the fire button is held down.
Hull mod balance changes:
Doubled the effect of Flux Capacitors (200 flux per, up from 100)
Integrated Point Defense AI: reduced OP cost
Expanded Magazines: reduced bonus to 50%
Advanced Optics: reduced turret turn rate penalty to 40% (from 50%)
Modding-related:
Added "separateRecoilForLinkedBarrels" parameter to projectile weapon definition. Makes recoil be regenerated for every barrel fired in LINKED mode.
Fixed bug with getEntityByName where it would sometimes return null for an orbital station (only when called inside generate()).
Fixed bug where having multiple engine flames on a missile would cause each flame after the first to be progressively dimmer
Fixed bug where a MIRV splitting into missiles with proximity fuses would do no damage
Added ammo optional regeneration for weapons ("ammo/sec" in weapon_data.csv)
Miscellaneous:
Added UI element that breaks down all the effects affecting your ship (nebula, flux damage boost, engine boost, etc)
Fighters and frigates no longer benefit from Nav Buoy and Sensor Array bonuses (presumably, their on-board computers aren't up to the task)
Added 5th weapon group, adjusted some stock variants to make use of it
Burst weapons in an "alternating" weapon group now properly alternate
Added some PD Lasers to the Hegemony station's inventory
Crew and marines now consume supplies (0.01 per day each)
Added Resistant Flux Conduits to Assault Brawler
Game should auto-detect display refresh rate correctly, instead of assuming it's 60
Moved Tri-Tachyon base to fifth planet, where it was supposed to be
Reduced amount of crew killed when a ship takes hull damaged
Increased the amount of crew in all the faction fleets
Increased chance of uncrewed ship to be sabotaged by the enemy (instead of captured) to 90% (up from 50)
Increased chance of for each weapon of a surrendering ship to be sabotaged to 80% (up from 50)
Reduced chance to capture fighters in auto-resolve battles to better match normal battles
Fighter drones fight at the "regular" experience level, instead of "green"
Capital ships and cruisers no longer assigned to "Harass"
Bug fixes:
Fixed bug where burst laser type weapons would do an incorrect amount of damage
Fixed bug where occasionally a nearby ship would not be assigned to an Intercept, in favor of one further away (most prominent with nearby Tempests)
Fixed bug where deleting a savegame would sometimes not work
Fixed bug where holding down the left mouse button to move in the campaign screen would not give the fleet its maximum speed unless the cursor was far enough away
Fixed bug with fleet stats (such a travel speed) not being updated correctly when hull mods take effect
Fixed bug where combat would end while both sides had some ships in play
Fixed load game crash when the player is going to engage another fleet in the next frame after the game is loaded
Fixed bug with not re-calculating whether ships should be considered civilian when they're refitted
Fixed omni shields bug where it would point behind the ship
Fixed bug where the player would get one battle auto-resolved behind the scenes if they happened to engage two fleets in a single frame
Fixed ship tooltip not updating stats properly when fleet members were moved around for crew reassignment
Fixed rare crash when clicking on fighter wing in command UI just as it is being destroyed
Fixed bug that caused the effects of hull mods to apply to campaign related stats immediately, rather than after refit completion
Fixed bug with "load game" progress bar flashing
Fixed bug with crew assignment that would occasionally result in more uncrewed ships than was correct
Fixed bug where small missile weapons would get the "PD" flag from the Integrated Point Defense AI hull mod
