Release notes here.
Reminder: to play the beta, you MUST go into your Steam properties for the game, go under the Betas tab, and choose the “current_beta” option. Otherwise you’re going to be stuck on the pre-fleets version of the game.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about regarding fleets, then reading this link is a really good thing to do or you are likely to be mighty confused.
So what’s new in this build? This is obviously an incremental one, headed towards the non-beta full release of 0.900 that we’re aiming at in the next… weeks? That timeframe is unclear, and will be based on testing feedback, which has been rolling in well so far; but there will be loads of incremental beta releases during this period. Anyway, what’s new:
- Your ships no longer go through a rally phase from the factories they are built at to the centerpieces they will then join. This was slow and annoying and caused all sorts of intractable issues when it comes to you wanting your fleet to act cohesively. Now things just directly come out of their centerpiece and inherent the behaviors and orders of the centerpiece. It’s not like any one factory was doing all the construction, anyhow, in most cases. This directness solves a lot of logistical irritations, and prior to 0.850 I’d been wondering if I needed to do this. Turns out yes!
- Your tooltips now show you what techs upgrade a ship, if any. Yay! It also talks about upgrading fleets as a whole, which isn’t in yet but will be soon.
- AI Command Stations that exist after an AI has reconquered a planet have been a minor pain in the rear for a while. They seem to suggest that more AIP will be charged to you when in fact that is not the case. They also allowed more recently for some exploity behavior when you farm them for scouting intel. All of that stuff is now fixed up by having them simply be split into their own new category of command station that notes that they are a result of reconquest.
More to come Monday. Enjoy!
Problem With The Latest Build?
If you right-click the game in Steam and choose properties, then go to the Betas tab of the window that pops up, you’ll see a variety of options. You can always choose most_recent_stable from that build to get what is essentially one-build-back. Or two builds back if the last build had a known problem, etc. Essentially it’s a way to keep yourself off the very bleeding edge of updates, if you so desire.
The Usual Reminders
Quick reminder of our new Steam Developer Page. If you follow us there, you’ll be notified about any game releases we do.
Also: Would you mind leaving a Steam review for some/any of our games? It doesn’t have to be much more detailed than a thumbs up, but if you like a game we made and want more people to find it, that’s how you make it happen. Reviews make a material difference, and like most indies, we could really use the support.
Enjoy!
Chris
