Trading Stations, Jump Drive, Ship Coloring, and Much More

Hi everyone!

I have released a new game update. It introduces many new features, improvements, and changes that I announced in the April news post. Below you will find an overview of the most important additions and fixes.

New Features

Ship Coloring

I have added a ship coloring system.

After opening the radial menu with the F key, select the palette icon to open the ship coloring panel. Then aim at the part of the ship you want to recolor and confirm your selection with the left mouse button.

Trading Stations

Trading stations have appeared in space. They allow you to buy and sell materials, modules, and discovered technologies.

There are several trading stations spread across space, so finding them should not be a problem.

Jump Drive

I have added a jump drive, which allows the player’s ship and its escort to travel quickly.

For the escort to perform a jump, it must have the follow order active. Escort ships will not jump if they are idle, heavily damaged, or stationed at a base.

Pressing the J key will trigger a quick jump toward the selected target.

Jump drive technology plans can be obtained by destroying a pirate research station.

New Pirate Stations and Threat System

The threat level is now shown by four bars in the lower-left corner of the screen.

1st bar When fully charged, it triggers an attack on the main base.

2nd bar When fully charged, it creates a pirate research station and then resets to zero.

3rd bar When fully charged, it creates a pirate bunker and then resets to zero.

4th bar Shows the threat level in the current sector and the chance of an attack.

Each pirate research station increases the armor of all pirate structures by 50%.

Each pirate bunker increases the damage dealt by enemy units by 25%. In addition, bunkers periodically launch missiles toward the main base.

New Ground Structures

Radar

Radar detects long-range threats and warns about incoming missiles.

It also allows intelligence data to be analyzed in order to detect hidden pirate research stations and bunkers.

A higher radar level increases the initial chance of detecting an enemy station and extends the missile warning range. This gives ground-based anti-missile systems a better chance of shooting down enemy missiles.

Force Field Generator

The generator charges the protective shield created by force field emitters.

The building allows you to decide how much energy will be allocated to powering the shield.

Force Field Emitter

The emitter creates a protective area around itself. Once charged by the shield generator, it protects the covered area from enemy missiles.

Anti-Missile Silos

Anti-missile silos launch interceptor missiles used to shoot down projectiles fired by pirate bunkers.

Particle Accelerator

The particle accelerator is used to build jump engines and produce jump fuel.

Improvements

Collecting materials left on asteroids

I have added the Collect from asteroid action.

If materials have been left on an asteroid, you can send a recycler to collect everything and transport it back to the main base.

To use this option, press Tab, go to the Fleet tab, and select Send Ship.

Structure Expansion and Reconstruction

After building a colony, you can now order its expansion.

If there is an available transporter in the main base, it will deliver materials to the colony and upgrade each building added to the queue one by one.

Destroyed structures can also be rebuilt in the same way.

Ship Radial Menu

The ship radial menu has been expanded with new options:

• defensive – makes the ship take part in defense,

• passive – the ship will not engage in combat,

• remove ship – removes the ship; it can later be rebuilt in the shipyard panel,

• unload – empties the ship’s container,

• color – opens the coloring panel.

Ship Enhancements

The ship statistics tab has been divided into two sections:

• Progress Shows the ship’s current development progress.

• Enhancements Every 50 levels, you can assign 1 point to special enhancements that significantly improve the ship’s parameters.

New Signal Type: Temporary Boosts

I have added a new signal type that temporarily boosts the ship for 30 minutes after being collected.

The type of boost depends on the ship that collected the signal. For example, a mining ship receives different bonuses than a combat ship.

Recyclers

Recyclers now automatically collect debris within the base area.

Ports

You can now build up to 3 ports on a single asteroid.

Transporters choose the less crowded port when landing.

Attack Alerts

I have added messages informing you when your ship or colony has been attacked.

Ship Refilling

After using the arrow that drops all cargo from the ship onto an asteroid, the ship will automatically refill its fuel and ammunition.

Settings Panel

New options have been added to the game settings:

• field of view,

• separate mouse sensitivity for the ship and the character,

• combat sound volume.

Difficulty Settings

I have added new options to the difficulty settings:

• chance of a pirate counterattack,

• pirate research station progress bar setting,

• pirate bunker progress bar setting,

• time until a missile attack after the bunker position is selected.

Other Fixes and Changes

• The mining ship can use lures starting from tier 2.

• While piloting a mining ship, recycler, or transporter, you can mark attack targets for your escort with the left mouse button.

• The escort automatically attacks units that attack the player.

• The tilde key can now be used to mark various targets, such as asteroids, signals, pirate bases, or larger units.

• Directional arrows, such as the main base, selected target, or currently attacked target, have been moved closer to the center of the screen, near the crosshair.

• The values of modules added to ships have been changed.

• Resource weights have been reduced.

• The asteroid list now shows energy, available habitat space, and marks asteroids that are under attack.

• During an attack, enemy ship markers are now more visible.

• Escort behavior has been improved.

• Recyclers now flee to the base after taking damage.

• The voxel saving system has been changed, which should improve game performance and asteroid loading.

• The return-to-base panel has been replaced with the Select Target panel and divided into tabs: trading stations, colonies, and pirate bases.