MEGA Update! XO 1.43

XO 1.43 Rolling the Hard Six

Version 1.43 brings several new ships, many new items, more events and a totally new way of starting the game!

NEW SHIPS:

Three new ships join the fleet in 1.43!

The Irenic Casino ship generates ore from passengers! When passengers are aboard, right click and select the Market action to open the Casino for business; ore will be created over time at a high cost of water and fuel. Also note that the Casino requires two water whether or not its market is open.

The Rover Planner takes any weapon placed aboard and creates a plan from it (destroying the original weapon in the process). As a reminder, an unlimited number of weapons can be created from plans (given sufficient ore), and a maximum of two plans may be stored at any given time.

The Rover Snarf is able to non-destructively extract weapons from ships, allowing you to move weapons between ships, salvage weapons from disabled or abandoned ships, or even use the Snarf as a type of attack. If you do this, active warships will target and fire on the Snarf if they can! There may be some strategies to uncover there...

NEW GAME - STARTING FLEETS:

You can now rename your battleship and avatar as well as customize the look of your avatar. Your avatar name and battleship name will persist between runs, or until you change it.

Starting a new game now gives a micro-tutorial if you select the beginner mode. Both modes now start you off with a laser. Only the tutorial starts with a weaponless battleship. Future modes will probably include “OG/Hard” mode with no weapon.

Just for fun we temporarily added a ‘tanked’ option that starts you off double-enemy with everyone, a frigate, a laser and a tanker.

You’ll also immediately notice that we have a proper main menu now. And you now start the game with different ship and loadout options. We plan to add more starting fleet options as unlockable achievements (in version 1.44 or 1.45)

WEAPON UPGRADE ITEMS:

There are four new items! The Supercharger, Overcharger, Extender and Optimizer are low-cost single use items that permanently upgrade one weapon’s stat at the cost of decreasing another weapon’s stat. Look for more such items in v1.44!

FEATURES:

We added a number of early game combat events to match the battleship’s now-beweaponed starting state.

We improved the flow of the tutorial as well.

New Harvester ships were modeled to better differentiate between classes.

The auxiliary can now be seized and repaired.

Boarding parties can now be launched from gunboats.

Added a number of more complex/varied early events as well.

BALANCE:

The Harvester wave now starts one or two jumps away from you at game start, depending on which type of new game you choose.

Harvester warship speeds were reduced. Harvester Investigator had 1 laser removed.

Rover Getter speed was increased.

Ships given an attack order no longer switch to the closest target.

Ships purchased at shipyards are now abandoned; you must have a crew or be able to seize them Covered off an exploit where you could fake a crew transfer and gain control of a ship.

Attempting to extract weapons from a ship that is not yours is now considered an attack.

Boarding parties now work even if a ship has no space aboard due to cargo, other passengers, or even weapons aboard. Cargo