Naev v0.13.0 released!

It’s time for the Naev yearly release. This is a big one that paves the way for plugins as first-class citizens of the Naev ecosystem. The development manual has also been changed to be web-based instead of a clunky PDF, and has been updated with many of the engine changes. It should be much more accessible for those wanting to make plugins and content for Naev, and will be constantly updated as development continues.

We would like to thank all the contributors who participated and helped in the making of this release that we hope will both surprise new players and veterans alike!

What’s new?

1. Engine migration begins: Rust + SDL3: The engine now uses SDL3 and the port to the Rust programming language has started, improving stability and paving the way for major future upgrades. This brings better support for newer platforms and fixes a lot of minor quirks with window creation and rendering.

2. Plugins as First-Class with Integrated Plugin Manager: Naev now includes a native plugin browser, installer, and updater, all with access to the online plugin repository built right in.

3. Major content additions with focus on exploration: Lots of space objects are now landable and provide different secrets for the player to find.

   • 28 new missions and events

   • Treasure maps!

   • New intertwined Imperial minor houses

   • New systems, anomalies, portraits, objects, and more

   • 20+ new songs

   • New and reworked outfits

   • 11 new ship variants

4. RemovedSignificant gameplay tweaksHeat mechanism removed, pirates are less dangerous to new players, camera is truly isometric, improved forward weapon aiming for the player, and core outfits have been reworked to use a 1 or 2-slot system.
5. AdjustedLots of fixes, balance work, and internal cleanupFrom physics touch-ups to mission fixes, weapon tweaks, save robustness, and API consistency, a lot has been improved in this release.

Platform support changes

With the move to Rust and SDL3, Naev now only supports macOS 11+ (previously 10.13+) and Windows 10+ (previously Windows 7+). We will keep a [c]0.12.x[/c] branch on Steam as the last version supporting the older operating systems, and those older releases will remain available on Codeberg and itch as well.

Changes since 0.13.0-beta.5

• Lots of fixes relating audio spatialization

• Change and exposed intrinsic audio spatialization settings

• Mass of batteries has been decreased

• More guards against NULL dereferences

• Adaptive camouflage plating got a bit of jamming

• Fixed Lua SPFX erroring out when SFX are omitted

• Fixed creating Audio objects when they should be AudioData in several places in the code

• NPCs using “The Bite” will no longer turn off the player’s afterburner

• Allow passing Audio to LuaSpfx although warn

• Adjusted02_sciwrongsimplified logic a bit

• Fixed Taiomi intro event

• Fixed game freezing when finishing race with too many owned ships

• Fixedtaiomi10fixed final cutscene

• nelly01/02: minor fixes and streamlining

Full Changelog

Gameplay

• Removed heat mechanic (to be re-added as a new mechanic in the future)

• Made pirates less dangerous to new players

  • Marauders are now intrinsically weaker than other pirates, especially with low pirate presence

  • Made pirates less aggressive

  • Change pirate spawning to be mainly marauders in low presence areas

• Fuel from outfits has been tweaked a bit

• NPCs now have skill levels that can affect their targeting and fighting ability

• Bioships have had their skills and modifiers slightly reworked to be better balanced

• Light, medium-heavy and ultra-heavy ship now have two core hull/systems/engine slots, one main and one secondary

  • Effects of heavier cores can be obtained by stacking smaller ones

• Engines have been reworked to be more coherent and consistent

  • Tricon engines have much higher acceleration to