This is an ongoing changelog of improvements to GSB
Version 1.01:
- Using the Shift+F, E or C keys can cause additional orders to be added on the deployment screen
- Typing an F E or C on the challenge taunt window can bring up the orders window in the background and cause an invalid challenge to be submitted
- If you delete the currently selected ship from the deployment screen, the ship details window is now cleared, preventing an accidental click on the orders window and a subsequent crash.
- Crash when you delete every ship design you have, and then go into the ship design screen (a new empty ship design is auto-created in this instance now)
- Fixed bug where ship stats showed a weird character if you had zero armor modules.
- Crash bug when you save out certain combinations of upper and lower case ship designs
- Crash when trying to submit a blank serial code or username
- Scores no longer screw up when your fleet has zero hitpoints
- Removing that silly ‘error 41’ crash
- Menu Battle will now not be an option, until the crash is located
- Line Intersect crash should now be fixed
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version 1.02 - New bug I stupidly introduced preventing you from assigning formation and escort orders is now fixed
- New option added to invert the way the mousewheel zooms in and out on the battle screen
- The checkbox graphic now has a big tick on it to avoid any confusion
- The ship hull browser will now separately list the number of standard modules and hardpoints on that hull
- Map now supports edge scrolling by hovering the mouse cursor near the edges of the screen
- It is no longer possible to launch a battle when you have an empty fleet
- Drag selection rectangle on the deployment screen now work properly in all 4 directions
- Improved sortable and reversable and configurable challenge browser
- Fixed crash bug where you click a ships orders, then hit the delete key, then click the delete button.
- Changed tooltip delay for modules on design screen so it’s almost instant
- The ship stats button on the design blueprint now acts as a toggle for that window.
- You can now always close the ship stats window on the reduced ship design screen
- Limited the challenge browser so it doesn’t download an endless spam of ‘auto’ challenges
- Preventing modules scrambling if you save out a ship with empty sockets
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version 1.03 - Total rewrite of sound engine should fix any sound-related crashes now
- Fixed crash bug where clicking the title of the registration code window on the online screen crashed the game
- Fixed the ‘cautious’ AI order so that it works correctly (was using the inverse, so retreat at 25% damage meant 75%)
- Fixed typo in tutorial where Normal is referred to as medium
- Tweaked the typematic key repeat settings
- Fixed hitpoint value incorrect on cruiser laser module.
- Fixed display glitch on ship design module picker scrollbar when set to ‘all’
- Fixed missing display of the max range for fighter-launched rockets
- Correct automated frigate PD system to be named correctly
- Fix for infinite shock effect and possibly for vanishing ships within challenges
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version 1.04 - Fixed crash bug when editing a ship after clicking edit on the deployment screen from a challenge and then returning to the deployment screen
- Added option to change the number of maximum sound channels the sound system uses in prefs.ini
- Changed the way the ‘Attack’ orders work so now if you have no attack fighters order (for example) they are totally ignored until the enemy has nothing but fighters left
- Added new togglable option to enable or disable pitch-shifting sounds with game speed, as possible fix for the 1.03 slowdown bug
- Confirm dialog added for escape key on battle screen
- Fixed a number of bugs relating to modules changing into different modules when you save and load them
- The dialog for confirming that you admit defeat now pause the game while it is active
- The post-battle stats window now has a button to return you to the deployment screen, as well as the main menu one
- Re-design of the hull picker window so ships are selectable from a scrolling list, and also are sorted in both race and then ship class within a race
- Double-clicking an order in the order-selection window now adds it
- Changed the way shield stability recovers from disruptor bombs so it makes more sense on ships with a much larger shield system.
- Text-edit windows for renaming stuff now behaves better, with click-split, home, end and right left keys all working the way windows does.
- Increased variety of gratuitous ship names
- New AI-Order ‘Keep Moving’ will keep a ship meandering around it’s current position and maintaining it’s attack range (when attacking)
- Fixed crash bug when going from deployment to ship editor and back, then selecting one of the orders already displayed
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version 1.05 - Fixed bug where you can drag ships slightly off the bottom of the deployment zone without them being deleted
- Reduced the time it takes for tooltips to appear on the ship design picker on the deployment screen
- The deployment screen map grid is now in proportion to the map size
- New ‘snap to grid’ feature in deployment screen prevents the player from building ‘stacks’ of ships
- Escorting fighters are now auto-deployed as a cloud around the parent ship at the start of the battle
- The detailed information on each module is now automatically sorted in a sort-of alphabetical order…
- Redid the repair modules so that they only have limited repair resources and will eventually run out. This can be monitored from a progress bar on their in-battle icon. I also re-did their maths so the rate at which they repair makes more sense.
- You can now use exclamation marks in ship names, challenge names etc!!!
- New deployment UI mode: You can select ‘mass deploy’ from a designs right click menu, and then left click deploys a new ship of that type, right click cancels
- Escort behavior is improved, and now has a variable escort distance slider
- Changes to sound engine initialisation to possible correct low sound volume bug
- Maximum turn speed of all fighters increased by 50%
- Target ship name on set target window (deployment screen) now actually fits within that window, or is cropped.
- Fix for orders editing where selecting multiple ships you couldn’t assign them to escort or other linked orders in one go.
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version1.06 - Fixed new horrid crash bug when double clicking or clicking some ships on battle screen
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version1.07 - UI now toggles on if it was off when you hit the ESC key during a battle
- Stalemate timer now pauses properly when the game pauses.
- Added some more variety to the victory / defeat messages
- Huge long list of balancing changes for all the ship modules and hull types
- Fixed bug where ships jump out of position when you click them on the deployment screen
- Reconfigured the singleplayer AI fleets to make use of recent changes
- Fixed some minor repair-related bugs and improved the display of the module status in mid-battle
- Ships whose designs are no longer valid given the latest data will no longer be loaded, nor will ships based on those designs
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version 1.08 - Fixed bug where panning on the map seemed to not be working
- Change race button now disabled until it is an option
- Calculations for ship stats on design screen now correctly apply hull bonuses to the values displayed
- Ship design tooltips on deployment screen now explain why the design is not usable
- Added new tab button graphics so the module picker tabs are more obviously not normal buttons
- Added new system of being able to rate challenges for enjoyment and difficulty, and sort challenges by map or by difficulty
- Changed challenge browser so you can see challenges that you have posted, and removed the useless ‘auto’ challenges
- Force battle speed back to normal when a battle ends
- Changed the menu background stuff
- Added a main menu button to launch the manual (assumes PDF files can be read)
- Added explanatory tooltips for all of the different statistics for ship modules.
- Fixed bug where the choose mission screen stops working
- Re-did various tutorial features
- Updated the manual slightly
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version 1.09 - New system that allows you to save out default orders for a specific ship design, to be automatically applied to new instances of that ship
- Right clicking an order in the list now deletes it from the selected ship(s)
- The Mass Deploy mode now draws a feint outline of the ship behind the cursor while it is active
- You can now click on a point in the orders sliders and have that value selected (quicker than dragging the button)
- Fixed bug where new tutorial mission prevented you unlocking the top races
- Fixed crash bug if you go direct to challenges without going to battle first, then hit main menu later from the deployment screen
- Fixed graphical glitch were turrets would seem to ‘spasm’ for their first shot.
- Fixed bug where ship design tooltips on deployment screen may be wrong if they have previously been unavailable
- Added new area-of-effect detonation effect for frigate and cruiser destruction, based on powerplant output, affects all nearby ships
- weapons range circles on deployment screen now take into account scenario modifiers
- new icon button on the deployment screen allows you to change race from there…
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version 1.10 - Fixed horrible glitches with challenges
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version 1.11 - This time there is a much better system that arranges the module technical data in a sensible order for doing module comparisons
- Ships now correctly prioritize shooting fighters caught in tractor beams
- Fixed a number of niggles concerning what ships are selected and highlighted on the deployment screen
- Added 4 new modules to be unlocked
- Cruiser quantum blaster hitpoints increased from 10 to 100
- New ‘survival’ mode mission added
- Added more gratuitousness to the starfield
- Fixed bug where module data popup window on deployment screen was too small for all the data
- Fixed rare bug where ECM shock effects could be applied to ships after they had been destroyed, leaving a lingering sound
- You can now use commas and question marks in text edit boxes, unless it equates to a filename
- Doubled the absolute minimum chance of a weapon hitting a moving target to prevent tedious stalemates
- Possible fix for the fighters getting ‘stuck’ at a certain range
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version 1.12 - Fixed crash bug when abandoning a targeted order and then clicking the delete order button deployment screen
- Added hulks for the turrets, and stopped dead turrets rotating so you can now more easily visually detect destroyed weapons
- Fixed bug where ships would follow, but not actively fire upon ships not ordered to, even when all other targets were eliminated
- Fixed bug where scroll-drag could over-scroll on the challenge browser
- Fixed various problems and bugs relating to how the ships maintain their distance from enemies and use the ‘keep moving’ order
- The module icons no longer animate (grow) when you scroll that window on the ship design screen
- You can now scroll the modules in the module window on the design screen using the mousewheel
- WSAD support for map scrolling in battle screen
- Improved quality of the range indicator UI image
- Tractor beams now have a stronger disincentive to tractor already tractored targets, and try harder to prioritize fighters
- Fixed bug where you can’t change race if you haven’t beaten survival mode
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version 1.13 - Fixed bug where power consumed can seem to equate to power produced but still be shown to be invalid on ship design screen
- New feature : new minimap-button and hotkey ‘O’ turns on or off a green/red overlay to show friend or foe ships.
- Fixed bug where the size of a ship-destruction shock wave varied based on your zoom level at the time of detonation
- The option to turn off repair-drone effects now actually works correctly
- Better repair drones, in that they have better weld effects, and actually carry out visible repairs so ship’s damage now reflects their true status much better
- Added tooltips to the options
- Added a new ‘hardware sounds’ option you can disable on options if you want pitch shifting sounds without slowdown at fast speed and have certain sound cards"
- Added a new button on the deployment screen that lets you read all of the restrictions and spatial anomalies for this mission.
- Added some better spatial anomalies
- Fixed bug where tutorial got stuck at ‘select orders’
- Various scenario deployment changes to take into account the new spatial anomalies
- Missiles that are en-route whilst their target explodes will now autodestruct rather than fly on aimlessly (regardless of missile type).
- Fixed major bug involving engine modules where damage to an engine module is ignored until the next time the ship is damaged (should make fighters more vulnerable)
- Rebel atlantis bomber now has it’s drifting space hulk triggered
- Attempting to load a design of ship into the editor that is invalid now gives a nicer, in-game error rather than a crash!
- New delete button on file opening windows lets you delete existing ship designs and deployments.
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version 1.14 - Fixed data bug where cruiser high speed point defense would get confused with regular PD.
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version 1.15 - Bullet firing lasers that have multiple turrets now fire each turret independently, rather than all at once, which looks and sounds way cooler
- New communications window for added gratuitous flavour.
- Fixed a crash bug relating to turning off certain graphics options, and fixed bug where turning off turrets turned off repair bots.
- Improved performance relating to large ships exploding and slowing the game down over time. Also possible memory leak of sorts.
- Improved performance of shield impact effects
- Survival mode timer now pauses when the player switches to a different application
- Survival mode gets slightly harder over time (reinforcements arrive faster), and a new wave is added to the original survival level
- Fixed minor visual bug where stars could sometimes move weirdly if you were in follow-cam mode
- Deployment ranges on range editing dialog now show the reduced ranges due to anomalies in brackets and also now set the adjusted, rather than the original ranges. (so if 50% reduced, clicking them sets it to 50% reduced)
- Selected mission name is now highlighted on the choose mission screen
- Typo in rebel victory message fixed
- Weapons modules now carry out a threat assessment, and de-prioritize shooting at ships with no functioning weapons
- Fixed bug where tooltips shone through the survival high scores
- Ship design window now auto-sorts locked modules to the end and they are much fainter
- A lot more modules now come locked at the start of the game.
- Added a bunch more loading-screen tips
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version 1.16 - Fix for bug where the scenario choosers scrollbar can be incorrect
- Hopefully fixed the bug where the deploy the fleet button can vanish
- Improved tractor beam UI. There is now a range shown for details, and on the in-battle overlay option. Also its strength will drop if it is damaged, and it acquires targets more rapidly. Plus progress bar now works.
- Autorepair systems no longer target themselves, or other repair systems that have no more supplies.
- Vulture orders now override any calculation of threat assessment
- Softened one of the gui sounds
- Increased volume of the battle sounds
- Introduced new sound effect specifically for cruiser quantum blasters
- New sound effect for failing shields
- You can now click directly on a turret on your ships in the battle screen and have the range overlay shown.
- Status bars on the ship details window (battle screen) now correctly reflect hull status for ships with a hull strength bonus
- Fixed bug where the drag and scroll movement method on the battle screen didn’t scale correctly with the amount of zoom.
- Fixed mass-deploy exploit that let you mix ships from two different races
- Fixed bug/mistake so that you can now delete open challenges that you have posted.
- Turrets now drawn properly fading in during warp
- Fixed bug where hull integrity bonuses might not be calculated correctly
- New icons differentiate skirmish and survival modes on the choose mission screen
- Mouse wheel now scrolls the scenario list on choose mission screen
- new survival map
- Some extra technical stuff added to the manual
- Rewrite of some of the code to select targets
- Ship names no longer show as tooltips when the UI is toggled off(‘U’ key)
- Game now only checks for a new version once per day, to prevent delays and problems if offline.
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version 1.17 - When you change hulls on cruisers in ship design screen, module selector now updates correctly.
- Fixed crash bug on deployment screen with escort orders.
- Fixed issue where hull damage effects seemed to trigger even though the shields were intact.
- Fixed bug where some modules couldn’t be obviously scrolled to on the fleet HQ window.
- Fixed phantom text flashing in top left of choose mission window.
- Fixed glitch where tooltips ‘shone through’ the hull picker.
- Removed misleading and redundant cost data from ship design config files.
- Corrected some misleading text on buttons.
- flow of UI from deployment screen has been improved.
- Added missing power consumption data to camoflage shield and droid bay.
- Changed UI for adding formation and escort orders so it is less clunky, and also added notes about short cuts to their descriptions.
- ECM shields actually work now. ooops.
- Renamed ECM beam to Guidance Scrambler beam, and changed a lot of its data as it is more effective now due to 13).
- Changed Point Defence and ECM beams so neither focuses on a missile that is already targeted by an ECM beam.
- Added scrollwheel support to the design picker on deployment screen and the HQ screen.
- Fixed bug where fighters would fly towards but not engage ship classes for which no priority had been assigned, regardless what enemies were left.
- Fixed bug where deployment screen seemed to assume normal difficulty incorrectly if you returned to it.
- Prevented possibility of accidental ship icon double clicks on the deployment screen.
- Redid the race selection window so it is a separate full screen thing and which has a vertical rather than horizontal list, better in various ways.
- The checkbox settings on the challenge list window are now remembered rather than resetting every time you use that screen.
- Ship hulls now listed in the racial order in which races are unlocked
- You can now type in any name you want to rename a ship on the deployment screen
- Challenges now store the date the challenge was issued, and the race of the fleet in the challenge. And the challenge browser is updated to handle this sort of thing
- Challenge browser window now will not get the list of challenges from the server until you click the refresh button
- Scrollbar now works on high score tables, plus your own score gets highlighted if in the list
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version 1.18 - New multi-threaded asynchronous wonder-message keeps you updated while new challenge lists get downloaded. ooh
- unusable ship icons on deployment screen now have a tooltip that explains exactly why each one can not be used.
- Icons on the fleet HQ window are now sorted in order of expenses, with already-unlocked icons pushed to the end.
- Gratuitous cinematic wipes added.
- There is a new option ‘run in background’ to let the game continue running while you use another program.
- The order of modules in the ship design screen module-picker is now organised around module type and capabilities, so less confusing
- Added new graphics for federation megaton missile turret and cruiser light shields to make visually recognizing the modules a bit easier, also changed some of the graphics used by certain modules.
- Fixed crash bug if you assign 2 ships to have formations with each other, then start the game.
- Revamp of the whole unlocking system, where the amounts all changed, and you now have to unlock certain ship hulls and races as well as modules.
- ECM shock renamed to EMP cannon.
- Some balancing of the achilles fighter.
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version 1.19 - Transitions are now optional, and auto-disable if they have made the game crash
- The current deployment is now saved out and reloaded after you finish a battle and return to deployment, right up until you quit out to the main menu (at which point you should have saved it if you want to keep it)
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version 1.20 - Optimisation so that selecting many ships on the deployment screen does not slow down on lower spec machines.
- You can now select the change race button to browse races even when they are not selectable.
- Optimized drawing the challenge browser so its much faster on older PCs.
- New window lets you view who played the challenges you submitted, and when.
- Challenge browser now defaults to sorting by date
- New module type: Carrier Support module allows for mid-battle fighter repairs.
- Fighters no longer fly en-masse above other ships, but are now more realistically distributed so they fly above and below cruisers for added 3dness
- Fixed crash if the game loaded an old challengelist file with missing data.
- Priorities for orders now cannot be set at zero percent, which could cause weird behavior.
- Made ship design screen ship icons slightly bigger and re-arranged a number of the slots so they overlap less.
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version 1.21 - Fixed horrid bug when setting weapons ranges
- Fixed bug where repair supplies UI didn’t show
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version 1.23 - Fixed bug where fighters inside carriers that exploded still distracted enemy ships
- Fixed bug relating to incorrect date ordering on the challenge browser
- Improved fighter AI so they abandon a return to carrier order if the carrier runs out of supplies whilst en-route
- Carrier modules now undock all fighters when they run out of supplies
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version 1.24 - Mouse input system rewritten to use the windows mouse cursor, and to work much more fluidly than before
- You can now no longer unlock a ship hull until its owning race is already unlocked
- Leaving the deployment screen now always closes the module details dialog if it is open.
- Fixed crash bug where it crashed on fight or save if playing a challenge on a map that was not unlocked yet.
- Fixed minor graphics glitch where some beam weapons drew reflections very slightly before the beam hits a shield.
- Challenge history window now closes automatically when you leave the challenge screen.
- Fixed bug where the game would be too far zoomed in with large monitors and small maps, giving rise to a graphical glitch on the far right of the screen.
- Docked ships are no longer incorrectly drawn on the minimap.
- Added variable fighter squadron sizes feature.
- Fixed bug where the frigate point defense and automated point defense modules could become confused with each other.
- Fixed bug with fighters returning to carriers with multiple bays where they would dock at a bay with no supplies and then undock
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version 1.25 - Added support for totally separate mod folders
- Fixed alt+tab black screen hang
- Fixed bug where some rebel missile turrets would not render correctly
- Fixed the rare but dreaded ‘turret mapping not found’ bug.
- Added a trio of new mini buttons to the deployment screen to let you filter the list of deployable ships by class.
- Added confirmation dialog for when you quit the deployment screen after making some changes
- This time I really reckon I’ve fixed the display bug for larger than 2048 width monitors…
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version 1.26 - Fixed crash bug in survival mode
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version 1.27 - Fixed bug relating to squadron sizes of fighters.
- Balance changes: Cruiser quantum blaster damage increased from 5 to 8, tracking speed increased from 1.1 to 1.5, shield penetration increased from 40 to 48
- Balance changes: Cruiser rocket crew reduced from 12 to 8, Damage increased from 14 to 19, fire interval reduced from 1170 to 950, armor penetration increased from 30 to 36
- Balance changes: Cruiser guidance scrambler weight increased from 99 to 130 and crew increased from 4 to 8
- Fixed bug where challenges from players with the tribe installed but not ticked were unplayable
- Added new ‘hidden’ option to change the maximum zoom out (minzoom) in config.txt
- The length of challenge taunts is now 256 characters, and you can see the full text by hovering your mouse over a challenge on the challenge browser
- Added new feature: Supply limits which is currently only implemented for the Gravity Well level.
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version 1.28 - Fixed occasional crash in ship design screen
- Fixed exploit where player could save ship designs containing zero modules
- Added basic new messaging system to inform players of new challenges, or attempts against their challenges, or give challenge feedback.
- Improved online screen so that the username, news and messages window are hidden until your game is registered.
- New feature: Custom challenges can now be sent with a new custom challenge editor screen
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version 1.29 - Fixed a number of typos (thanks david!)
- Game now automatically creates a new almost-empty default design if you delete every ship design, to prevent empty design list crash.
- The range circles are now also shown on the currently dragged ship on the deployment screen
- Fixed display bug where the tooltips over the deployment screens ship blueprints didn’t take race and ship bonuses into account.
- Fixed crash bug when changing races before you have ever viewed the choose mission screen.
- Fixed bug relating to messages corrupting or not being deletable.
- Tweaked the expert fleet for the multari mission to make them harder.
- Added a new rebel ship hull -> The Midgard frigate.
- Made the startup online message check multi-threaded, to speed up startup times.
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version 1.30 - Added new UI for shield modules to show individual module shield strength.
- Fixed bug for speed of salvo-enabled weaponry.
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version 1.31 - Added flickering and slow growth in visual effect for missile flares.
- Improvements to performance of various bits of the battle screen.
- Fixed bug that rendered the module icons for ships on the deployment screen unclickable.
- Added a new tutorial pop-up to explain that you get more honor when re-fighting a mission.
- Slight improvements to some cruiser explosion effects.
- Fixed a graphical bug where some turrets seemed to fire but no bullets would appear.
- Fixed graphical glitch with pulsing text on text edit boxes.
- Stopped the current scenario details reloading every time you scroll on the battle screen.
- Fixed hang on start-up involving multi threading message checks on certain PCs. (pending feedback).
- Fixed crash bug when you hit the delete key on deployment screen whilst also dragging a ship.
- Fixed range indicator UI on deployment screen so they are the right size now…(oops)
- Added new tribe-specific debris, so they don’t re-use another races.
- Changed the tribe and alliance engine glow particle effect to be less blocky
- Changed engine glow effect so it oscillates smoothly in size rather than flickering suddenly
- Fixed minor rendering bug on the deployment screen (window 3d highlight was wrong)
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version 1.32 - Performance: Speed increase for drawing the deployment screen.
- Bug Fix: Fix for design picker scroll buttons not always working right if you have used the design filter buttons.
- Performance: UI performance improvement for scrolling on the challenge browser screen.
- Usability: Various Improvements to range-setting UI on the deployment screen.
- Performance: Differential challenge data downloading means that refreshing the challenge list is much faster now.
- New Feature: Fleet overlay UI for the battle screen showing every ship on your fleet and it’s current status.
- Bug Fix: Shield modules that are destroyed no longer count towards calculating shield resistance.
- Usability: Mouse cursor now changes to the hand icon when over something clickable.
- New Feature: Added module stat comparison window when you click any item of module data.
- Bug Fix: Weapons will now fire at anything within range correctly, even if ordered not to attack a certain class, providing that no other suitable targets are in range.
- Bug Fix: Fixed missing hulk for the rebel atlantis bomber.
- Bug Fix: Fixed bug where armor module reduced effectiveness through stacking was not always calculated correctly for UI purposes.
- Bug Fix: Apostophes in challenge map names and taunts are no longer preceded by a forward slash.
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version 1.33 - Bug Fix: Fixed bug where the challenges didn’t update their ratings, attempts and so on, when you clicked refresh.
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version 1.34 - Bug Fix: Fixed calculation bug regarding targeting boosters so they work correctly now.
- New Feature: Fighters returning to carriers now return to that module’s location rather than the ships center.
- Bug Fix: Fighters hopefully no longer ‘stutter’ in their movement.
- New Feature: Missiles now launch on top of parent ship if observed, and MRV style decoys launch smoothly from the parent missile now.
- Bug Fix: Moved debug files to an offshoot of \mydocs so they are always writeable, and fixed some minor debug reporting issues.
- Bug Fix: Fixed bug where tutorial highlighted the wrong window on the ship design screen.
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version 1.35 - Bug Fix: Fix for missing DLL.
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version 1.36 - Bug Fix: Limpet launcher UI no longer shows it tracking targets and firing if all mines are currently launched.
- Bug Fix: Limpet launchers no longer draw if cloaked.
- Usability: Ship icons on the deployment screen now list their speed and cost in the mouseover tooltips.
- Usability: The post challenge button greys out once you have actually submitted the challenge
- New Feature: New option after a challenge victory to retaliate with the fleet you just won with.
- Usability: The ‘go to fleet hq’ button isn’t an option any more for the outcome window during challenges, when you don’t earn honor anyway.
- Bug Fix: Fixed bug where some fighters, depending on speed, may not be able to dock with a carrier.
- New Feature: New ‘challenge details’ screen, complete with retaliation list and image previews.
- New Feature: ‘stick together’ order for fighters, keeps them clustered in squadrons.
- Bug Fix: Intel GMA 450 video cards now correctly default to software processing and don’t crash on startup
- Bug Fix: The ship design screen now correctly calculates armor resistance, which was previously wrong!
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version 1.37 - Bug Fix: Random distribution of damage impacts is more random than before.
- Bug Fix: Plasma torpedoes and ECM effects no longer animate for a while after pausing when at high speed.
- Usability: All battle sounds now stop when you end the battle.
- Bug Fix: random loading screen choices are now more truly random.
- New Feature: Complete overhaul of the post-battle statistics screen with better charts and graphs showing who damaged who.
- Bug Fix: Frigate tractor beam now correctly displays all its data on the ship design screen.
- New Feature: For mods… Game now supports variable parallax terrain items to allow fixed backgrounds.
- New Feature: Flickering nebula lightning effect in background of selected scenarios.
- Ship engine noise is now also controlled by the sound effects volume slider.
- Balance: A number of balance changes have been made.
- Bug Fix: The list of ship name categories no longer spills out of the rename window if you have too many lists.
- Bug Fix: If you uninstall an expansion or mod with the current race set to a now not-installed race, the game defaults silently back to federation now.
- Bug Fix: Fixed crash bug (rare) when splash damage from ship detonations detonated an already just-exploded ship.
- Bug Fix: The retaliate button at the end of a challenge now correctly only appears if you won.
- The original four races now have twice as much variation in their debris.
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version 1.38 - Bug Fix: Added support for scrolling lists of ship-specific bonuses, so you can now have more than three per ship.
- Debris support added for the next expansion pack.
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version 1.39 - Bug Fix: Turning off camera shake effect now works properly (was linked to debris by mistake).
- Bug Fix: Adding more than 500 or so extra modded modules, hulls or other items no longer crashes the game.
- Bug Fix: Point Defence modules now stick properly to their fire intervals, and degrade when damaged.
- Bug Fix: Point Defence modules now are allowed multiple attempts on a missile, if at first they fail.
- Bug Fix: Guidance Scramblers do not now claim to be restricted by fire intervals when this is not the case.
- Performance: Memory Usage for screen resolution of 1024 width dramatically reduced for older video cards.
- Bug Fix: Turrets on ships now start each battle facing the same direction as the parent ship.
- New Feature: Added new circular transition effect.
- Usability: The tutorial points out some minor things people miss the first time. (stick together orders, module compare window,right click ship menu)
- Usability: You can now drag the module stats comaprison window to one side to see the other stats better.
- Bug Fix: The ‘Add order’ button is now correctly highlighted when referred to by the tutorial.
- Bug Fix: Harmless duplicate angle entry removed from deployment data files.
- Usability: Finally managed to get pasting text working for the serial code dialog for registering the game.
- Usability: Added a new tutorial hint and edited another to better explain how online challenge UI works.
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version 1.40 - Usability: The module slots on the design screen now fade out to show cases where you cannot drop the currently dragged module onto them.
- Bug Fix: Fixed bug that gave occasional rare startup crashes on some peoples systems.
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version 1.41 - Bug Fix: Fixed missing swarm smartbomb tooltip.
- Usability: Clarified some tooltips.
- New Feature: Added optional damage-indicators to battles to show damage.
- Demo Changes: Demo can now unlock modules.
- Usability: A number of previously ‘free’ modules are now locked. This reduces the games initial complexity.
- Bug Fix: fixed bug where tutorial highlight may linger if tutorial is cancelled.
- Usability: Added a new section to the ship design tutorial pointing out the module data comparison window
- New Feature: Clicking a turret on the battle screen now shows real-time data on hits,misses and damage done.
- Bug Fix: Fixed bug where very rarely some attacks seemed to damage the shields graphically, when in fact they reflect from the shields.
- Bug Fix: Blueprint slots on ship designer now revert from unhighlighted state correctly after you drop a weapons module.
- Usability: The ship design screens ‘hull picker’ now filters out ships from a different race, unless launched direct from the main menu.
- Usability: Ship design loading dialog now lets you sort by name, class or race and displays thsoe 3 attributes.
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version 1.42 - Bug Fix: Fixed problem where in rare cases a ships power may be displayed as invalid, but the design can still be saved and loaded.
- Bug Fix: Game will now silently ignore invalid designs like it used to do, rather than crashing when opening the design loader.
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version 1.43 - Bug Fix: Fixed crash when clicking on a turret without the ship viewer already visible on the battle screen, in certain module slots.
- Graphics: Better smoke clouds now for cruiser and frigate explosions.
- Bug Fix: Fixed wrong value for frigate small beam laser unlock.
- Fixed bug where kinetic weapon misses were not being correctly reflected in the statistics.
- Bug Fix: Fixed crash bug when quitting from a battle with lots of overlapping ships, then fighting another battle.
- Usability: Victory or defeat music at the end of a battle no longer loops.
- Bug Fix: Player can no longer use the maximise window option in windows mode to stretch the window size, which caused problems.
- New Feature: Shield support beam added for the empire.
- Bug Fix: Challenegs that have been posted to you with some wrong capitalisation (Cliffski/cliffski) now show up properly in the challenge browser.
- New Feature: If you post a challenge to a non-existant username, it now gives you a red error message and does not post the challenge.
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version 1.44 - Bug Fix: game no longer crashes when a ship explodes whilst having it’s shields reinforced by the shield support beam.
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version 1.45 - Balance: Shield Support beam being drastically re-balanced with lower beam rate and capacitor, and only able to have one beam at a time on each shield. Also now auto-selects the lowest friendly shield available.
- Balance: Frigate disruptor bombs damage increased from 60 to 75
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version 1.46 - Bug Fix: Fixed crash bug where assigning fighters to escort fighters, then trying to edit the range on the invalid order caused a crash.
- Bug Fix: Unlocking now works if you beat the previous mission on hard or expert, you don’t specifically have to beat it on normal.
- Usability: Game now lets you toggle between old and new stats screens after each battle
- Bug Fix: It’s now impossible to put an apostrophe in your username, which was breaking challenges.
- Bug Fix: It’s now not an option to fight your own challenge and rate it yourself.
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version 1.47 - Usability: The battle sounds now work much better in cases where they overload from playing too many identical sounds at once.
- Usability: Added a new tutorial hint to point out the range overlay in the battle screen.
- Bug Fix: The supply limits window on the choose battle screen now sizes to show all limits correctly.
- Bug Fix: When creating a custom challenge, the ‘challenge’ button is not correctly disabled until some ships have been deployed.
- Bug Fix: Improved code to prevent ‘stacking’ of ships on the deployment screen (works more reliably now).
- Usability: New feature, there are now short strips under each icon on the deployment screen to show the name of the ship to aid selection.
- Mod Support: Added new ‘num_submunitions’ (limit 6) and ‘flaresize’ (default 16) to missile data for modders.
- Mod Support: Found the bug that prevented modded ships from being larger than 256. No known limit now.
- Usability: The game now checks that any challenge you are about to fight has not been removed from the database, so you are prevented from running corrupt and deleted challenges.
- Usability: The buttons that filter ships by size on the deployment screen now remember their settings.
- Bug Fix: Limpet launchers now record shots fired and hit like other weapons.
- Bug Fix: Usernames that are too long to display now get sensibly cropped in challenge list.
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version 1.48 - Performance: Major rewrite of tons of areas to reduce memory usage and squash lots of small memory leaks.
- Bug fix: Tractor beam turrets are no longer drawn when a ship should appear cloaked.
- Bug Fix: Limpet launchers and Plasmas are now fired from the correct position when placed in multiple-hardpoint slots.
- Bug Fix: Fixed a few minor miscalculations that meant ship damage looked (purely visually) like it was being repaired faster than it actually was, especially when cloaked.
- Bug Fix: When you leave the ship design screen, any open module stat comparison windows are now closed.
- Some playbalance tweaks
- Bug Fix: Imperial fighters with tiny engine glows (also a nomad fighter) now no longer get drawn when the parent ship is docked at a carrier.
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version 1.49 - [campaign] Anomaly icons are also now above a world, rather than to the right of it
- [campaign] Threat and loyalty indicator bug fixed
- [campaign] stats at top of campaign map screen no longer get out of date
- [campaign] fighter quantity at shipyard bug fixed
- [campaign] crash bug when clicking repair on planet details window fixed
- [campaign] swarm smart bomb launchers are no longer immune to damage
- [campaign] fed-elite ships and other modded hulls no lonegr show up in enemy campaign fleets
- [campaign] pre-battle campaign challenge histories are now date sorted
- [campaign] scrapping a fughter squadron now gives you a cash refund for each scrapped ship
- [campaign] multiple-dragging icons to empty a fleet no longer leaves an invalid empty fleet icon.
- [campaign] Scrapping a ship with shipyard window open now refreshes which ships are affordable and crew-able.
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version 1.50 - Added post-battle stats summary popup dialog.
- [campaign] Fixed rare crash bug when you have conquered a factory/academy with very very small fleets.
- [campaign] Fixed crash bug when attacking a system with two fleets, then merging them.
- [campaign] Fixed bug where deployment ships from earlier non-campaign battles appeared in campaign deployments.
- [campaign] You can now repair captured ships, but only at a class A shipyard.
- [campaign] Removed ability to right click a ship icon in the deployment picker list.
- [campaign] Fixed bug where the planet details window overlapped the final victory / defeat screen on low resolutions.
- [campaign] Added pilots as a new resource for the campaign, acting as a break on the spamming of fighters.
- [campaign] Where possible, fleets will now not retreat to systems where techncially they cannot all travel to, due to anomalies
- [campaign] Fixed issue where enemy fleets would not always persist properly between battles.
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version 1.51 - [campaign] Fixed exploit where you get 1 crew when you scrap a fighter.
- Added new order ‘Last Stand’ which overrides the auto-behavior of ships retreating if all of their weapons are destroyed.
- [campaign] Some difficulty balance changes.
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version 1.52 - [campaign] Fixed bug where viewing the post-battle statistics after you retreated would result in a missing fleet.
- [campaign] Fixed glitch where the attack arrows had sections missing briefly as you zoomed in to them.
- [campaign] Fixed occasional crash under certain circumstances when retreating.
- [campaign] Some more tweaks to difficulty.
- [campaign] Fixed bug where the ‘build’ button was enabled for a fleet that was attacking an enemy-held system, before battle.
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version 1.53 - The game now prevents you deleting any ship design currently used by a campaign. This should fix at least 3 seemingly unrelated bugs and crashes.
- [campaign] Bug Fix: Deleting a campaign now works on all system configurations.
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version 1.54 - [campaign] Bug Fix: Fixed bug where campaign background would be blank
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version 1.55 - [campaign] Bug Fix: Fixed rare crash bug when retreating from battle
- Performance: Reduced memory usage.
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version 1.56 - Performance: Freed up memory usage of challenge list now once you quit the challenge list screen.
- Bug Fix: Hopefully a final fix for the unclickable buttons and occasional flicker at the top of the screen in fullscreen mode on certain video cards.
- Mod Support: You can now have a comma-separated list of randomly picked weapon sounds in module files.
- Mod Support: Module stacking effectiveness can now be positive values (> 1.0) and this value is no shown in the GUI alongside everything else.
- [campaign] Support for extra maps for the campaign.
- [campaign] Rebalancing of campaign game to make it easier overall and start with higher resources
- [campaign] Fixed corrupt data in new ships log entries. Existing entries may remain corrupt though.
- [campaign] Added 3 new maps!
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version 1.57 - New Feature: Support for longer race descriptions.
- New Feature: Modding support for custom bullets textures.
- Support for return-to-sender capability on missiles.
- Support for more than one plasma missile in flight at any one time, per launcher (if configured for that module)
- Support for flak guns (bullet modules with area-of-effect damage).
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version 1.58 - Bug Fix: minor tweak to custom bullet support
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version 1.59 - Bug Fix; Fixed campaign crash bug where you fought a battle with multiple fleets, captured enemy ships but your first fleet was lost.
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version 1.60 - New Feature: Direct control now lets you (optionally) issue orders or edit existing orders for ships mid-battle.
- New Feature: Shockwave distortion and shield impact distortion effects have been added.
- Tripled the maximum supported submunitions per missile from 6 to 18, as requested.
- Game now supports instant re-start with new settings from the options screen.
- In mass-deploy mode you cannot now accidentally snap out of it by selecting an existing ship, which was annoying.
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version 1.61 - Bug Fix: Drag selecting now launches ship inspector for the first selected ship, not the first ship in the fleet…ooops.
- New feature: Support for the cruiser decoy projector module.
- Bug Fix: AI now works differently, and less stupidly when assessing which target to move towards.
- New feature: pulse-glow effect now supports two new variables ‘min alpha’ and ‘max alpha’
- Support for new two-stage missiles.
- Bug fix: Ensuring that regardless of framerate or missile speed, missiles that would hit, will actually hit.
- Support for new multi-point tractor beams.
- Improved design of load-ship dialog in the design screen so it scales to fill the available space and shows (and can sort by) hull name too.
- Support for modding plasma torpedoes to use style CUSTOM and plasma_texture = “texture.dds” for custom effects
- Support for weapons firing from cloaked ships using the “fire_while_cloaked=1” setting
- Reverted the Area-of-effect code so it only happens on hits, not misses, as requested.
- Added support for modded music.
- Fixed obscure timing issue where when at 4x speed and a low FPS, theoretically some very-rapid fire weapons may have been ‘dropping’ shots. Game now supports multiple shots per frame.
- Removed now redundant ‘internet news’ dialog.
- Stats summary screen now closes properly when exiting the stats screen without closing it.
- restricted race field for modules now supports comma-separated list for multiple races (for modders)
- races can now be locked out of all vanilla tech (for modders)
- hulls can now be hidden from the player (for modders)
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version 1.62 - Fixed bug where outcasts decoy projectors did not display turrets correctly.
- Fixed bug where list didn’t update on load design dialog after ship deletion.
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version 1.63 - Added new progress bar for camoflage shield showing power for the unit.
- Fixed support for moddable ‘fire whilst cloaked’ ability for modded modules.