[p]Hi there, space travellers![/p][p]We are back with a medium sized update, preparing the release of Chapter 3 and some further QoL-enhancements. We listened to a lot of your feedback over the past months and improved areas like trading and mining and added some new areas and npcs to the world. ElZanco also created a tool for easier weapon/equpiment and item balancing, which will make it easier for us to keep an overview of the endless amount of stuff already in the game and change things in the future more quickly.[/p][p][/p][p][/p]
Experimental Mining Re-Balancing
[p]Mining was always one oft most attractive moneymakers in the game, but the differences between the various mining laser still didn't feel right. Also, mining laser still felt pretty powerful in combat situations, so most of the time switching between mining and combat equipment wasn't even necessary. Some things we did to make mining more interesting and challenging again, but also more rewarding with time:[/p]
- [p]Rebalancing asteroid HP[/p]
[p]The difference between various sizes of asteroids and their HP is now more extreme. While tiny and small asteroids might still be tackled with normal weapons, bigger ones might now prove more of a challenge. Even a low-level mining laser might be too weak for the biggest asteroids – so necessary upgrades and better lasers are needed. The result we're aiming for: At the start of the game you won't be able to mine down all the big asteroids, you'll need to find smaller ones or buy better equipment first. This makes it a bit tougher in the beginning and prevents too much quick money by mining.[/p]
- [p]Rebalancing mining lasers[/p]
[p]Weaker mining lasers won't be able to harvest bigger asteroids in a proper manner anymore. BUT the stronger ones will, and they'll be much better now. Power levelling should feel more rewarding, tiny and small asteroids will melt on sight with the right equipment and even the giant asteroids won't stand a chance, but it will take a bit of time to get there. Also mining lasers are now way weaker in fights. They still do a good amount of damage against any ship's hull, but they won't be as effective as in earlier versions of the game. This may require a switch from mining to combat equipment in certain situations or think about other compromises regarding your ship configuration, instead of just sticking with one OP-config from mid-game on.[/p][p][/p]
More possible trading routes
[p]We want to keep improving the trade system and make it an equally good option for income in the game, comparable to mining. Some players complained about not being able to find many trading opportunities, so we increased the producers and consumers, added a lot more items to the network (stuff like luxury items, fruits, iron, gold, silver, helium-3 and more should all have better trading opportunities now) and fixed/changed some of the old stuff. We also increased the amount of credits some bigger traders have and some of the producers offer way higher amounts of the produced item than before.[/p][p][/p]
Independent Science Academy Lectures
[p]We've finally added our first lectures for the ISA. At certain days in-game you can visit the Auditorium on Phobos and maybe a professor will teach something about something. Maybe you might get some interesting information there or even something else… [/p][p][/p]
The Aethercorder
[p]Added a new device, which you might get during one of the ISA lectures… It will enable you to "hear" electro-magnetic waves. The professor can tell you more about it… There are some "secret" sounds already in the game, ready to be discovered, but we will add some more stuff later on ;).[/p][p][/p]
🇮🇹 Italian translation
[p]Huge thanks to our community member
Cosmicpixels for this brand-new translation![/p][p][/p]
New achievements
[p]These ones are not so easy to get – play the alternative route of the Sphere Arc to get a better chance.[/p][p][/p][p]
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World
- [p]added a new J-12 station, SMD Abbott[/p]
- [p]a lot of dialogue has been improved (some edits, cuts and some extended dialog) and a lot of text errors have been corrected.[/p]
- [p]some new characters have been added, which might have some interesting informations to share[/p]
- [p]added some more "details" (like "look_at_target/player" functions for certain npcs in space etc.)[/p]
- [p]added a few more pirate bounty target sidequests[/p]
- [p]added 2 more sidequests[/p]
- [p]added the Shiro diary entries and Xentron transmission logs[/p]
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UI
- [p]A couple of layout tweaks to make room for the Italian translation and make it bulletproof for other localizations (we didn't think that many languages would be even more screen-hungry than German ;))[/p][p][/p]
Balancing
- [p]More indirectly: We've developed a fancy internal tool that gives us real-time access to all of the game's databases and lays the groundwork for making future balancing processes a lot more efficient and seamless![/p]
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Portraits
- [p]Player "constructor" portrait polishing[/p]
[p]"
Jeez, I feel like a new person today!"[/p][p][/p][p]
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- [p]Analysis HUD: Population text is misleading[/p]
- [p]Dialog HUD: Text flickers shortly when tags are used[/p]
- [p]Trade Missions: The reward amount is shown as far too low in the dialog list[/p]
- [p]SOS Signal icon is not scaled to the screen resolution[/p]
- [p]Vex's note is now removed from the player's inventory after solving the riddle[/p]
- [p]Chondros dialog can no longer reduce the mission progress during 'The Siege of Pluto'[/p]
- [p]Some respawn timers and pirate positions[/p]
- [p]Imperial Garden should now be locked at game start[/p]
- [p]Belana's stew can be repeated endlessly[/p]
- [p]CTRL x2 doesn't toggle tooltips back on[/p]
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[/p][p]Let's have a chat on Discord:[/p][p]Learn more & stay tuned! [/p]