#46 Regular Update - Manage Settlement - Construction, QOL and UI Changes

Ahoy once again folks!

Most of this weeks update has been focused around the Manage Settlement screen, with a bunch of important bug fixes along the way and some nice QOL has been snuck in here and there :)

Manage Settlement: Buildings and Features [Early Pass]

An early look at the new Buildings and Features system is now in place! Finally you can upgrade and add features to your island to make it more efficient, exploitative and secure!

Please note that the feature isn't fully complete - but its close, from a campaign perspective. You can queue up buildings at your conquered / occupied islands in 4 different categories, each building having their own effect on the various other systems within the island. A full list of these buildings, their costs, effects and time to complete is available in game and on the discord.

I have plans to expand the functionality over the coming weeks and have something close to feature complete by the next Major update! There are some placeholder assets in place currently as we finalize details for some nice artwork to go with this massive feature which I'm looking forward to!

Bug Fixes & Spawn System rework improvements

Todays patch brings a bunch of bug fixes. Some awesome suggestions & reports were received over the past few weeks and got some much needed TLC.

The spawn system in the game has gone through alot of changes over the past month or so. With so many huge changes to such a core system, its only natural to have some issues pop up here and there. Thank you to all of you who have made reports and suggested improvements to the new stuff! Its been a huge help & I'm delighted with how its shaping up. A few more improvements here and there and It'll be in a really nice place.

I also identified an issue that's been lurking in the shadows for a long while and showing very seldomly to a few of you. Sporadic bugs are the absolute worst! So squishing one, and some knock-on effects in one fell swoop is fantastic.

New Difficulty Setting - Ship Hitpoint Bars

Something I wasn't really a fan of adding to the game was hitpoint bars. It's been suggested so many times though that I just had to add it! Personally, I'm a big fan of minimal ui - so I decided to add this as a difficulty setting. You can now enable Ship Hitpoint Bars in the difficulty settings for the game. Enabled by default in existing campaigns. :) New campaigns will have this setting disabled by default for Hard and Impossible difficulty.

RTS UI & QOL improvements

For this patch, I decided to add a new identifier to the UI for flagships. As I was in that scope anyway, and so many things have changed with the way a players fleet is represented - I added a flagship indicator to the ship ui. I have plans to improve and change things greatly in future for this, but for now - its in a decent spot.

The Objective list in the battle map has gone through some changes also, you can now hold shift during RTS to show the list at any time, and double click on an objective to zoom towards it. Reminder that you can hit TAB at any time to select your flagship, and double-tap TAB to bring your camera to your flagship.

Here' a full list of the items completed since the last Major Update.

New

• Manage Settlement - Buildings & Features early pass. Expect plenty of placeholders as art assets are being finalized.

• Added a new Difficulty Setting to enable visible HitPoint bars above vessels during battles. (enabled by default)

• Ship identification UI's now have a yellow glow for Flagships for easier identification.

• Battle Map Objective list is now double-clickable to zoom to location and has mouse-over cursor change.

Fixes

• Fixed major issue where friendly fleets would engage players.

• Fixed rare issue where ships might spawn in the sky.

• Fixed issue where Encounters would only happen with ships engaged in a Mission.

• Fixed issue where mission ships would disappear and reappear off-map.

• Allowed for sink missions to be complete after a retreat if the mission-ship was sunk during battle.

• Fixed offset issue on the Minimap.

• Fixed issue where multiple missions of the same type would sometimes not be complete when stacked with others with similar/the same target fleet items.

• Fixed issue caused by creation of multiple campaigns during the same run.

• Fixed issue with new spawning system where some Defending fleets would not take the same faction as the island they're defending.

• Fixed issue where some fleet ships could have mis-matched faction to the rest of the fleet.

• Fixed issue where some defending fleets would spawn as pre-surrendered.

• Fixed issue where some surviving ships of NPC-only battles would sometimes end up with negative HP and not sink.

• Fixed Campaign spawn issue where ships would sometimes spawn way above campaign map and gain invalid pathing mechanisms.

• Fixed issue with captured flagships not resetting after joining other fleets.

Changes

• Various balance changes were needed for impossible and hard difficulties regarding aggression of enemy fleets on the campaign map.

• Removed the concept of "Maximum Building Amount"

• Added some more safety around the "Surrendered ships take less damage" Difficulty setting.

• Added safety around the battle entry pathways to ensure correct Factions were applied to every ship involved.

Thank you :)

Thanks to all of you reporting and providing feedback especially as we get into these bigger roadmap items. I hope you all feel heard & see the influence you're having on the game as the patches come through.

Here is the link to the discord where most tracking / communication is happening: https://discord.gg/Ws9fjmHP5U

Until next time,

John