Dogs Of War Vu

Sim/Strategy/War => Games Discussion => Topic started by: Asid on April 10, 2020, 01:10:20 AM

Title: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on April 10, 2020, 01:10:20 AM
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/header.jpg?t=1583784288)

A procedural co-op space sandbox where players can build their own space ships out of dynamically scalable blocks. Fight epic space battles, explore, mine, trade, wage wars and build your own empire to save your galaxy from being torn apart by an unknown enemy.


Home page  (https://www.avorion.net/)
Steam  (https://store.steampowered.com/app/445220/Avorion/)
Forum  (https://www.avorion.net/forum/)
Youtube  (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC5XZyOzM37lIVNgTrCtffw/)


Single-player, Online PvP, LAN PvP, Online Co-op, LAN Co-op, Cross-Platform Multiplayer


Avorion - Launch Trailer

https://youtu.be/CXg_VzDAMBQ


About

Several hundred years ago, a cataclysmic catastrophe nearly ripped your galaxy apart - an impassable ring of torn hyperspace fabric appeared in the center of the galaxy, which normal hyperspace engines can’t overcome.

Since this Event nobody has managed to get near the central regions of the galaxy. All you know is that the Event also spawned multiple untraversable hyperspace rifts throughout the entire galaxy, and that a strange race of aliens, the Xsotan, has appeared in the center. It looks like these aliens have found a way to cross over the torn hyperspace fabric, but so far nobody has managed to establish contact with them.

There are also rumors about a strange new metal called ‘Avorion’ which has appeared in the center of the galaxy around the same time as the Xsotan have arrived. Apparently the aliens use this material to build their ships.

Start out as a nobody at the edge and work your way to the center of a galaxy that gets more dangerous, but also more rewarding the closer you get to its core. Avorion takes sandbox aspects from games like X or Freelancer, throws in co-op multiplayer and lets you build your own ships. It features ships made of freely scalable blocks that can be procedurally generated and that break into pieces where they're hit in space fights.


(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/extras/combat.png?t=1583784288)

Equip your ship with chainguns, lasers and other weaponry to take on your enemies and enjoy the sight of completely destructible ships breaking at the exact points where you hit them.

Defend your allies from pirates, hunt down enemies for coin or even participate in wars between entire factions. Once you’re victorious, collect loot from defeated foes which you can use to upgrade your ship: new turrets with special abilities like autofire or repair beams, or system upgrades that allow you to install even more weapons. Build hangars and command squads of fighters in your battles or destroy enemy freighters to steal their cargo.


(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/extras/explore.png?t=1583784288)

Fly through beautiful nebulas and dense asteroid fields in search of hidden treasures and meet the many factions that populate and control their portion of the galaxy. Each faction has its own characteristics, such as peaceful, intelligent or aggressive, and its ships and stations have a distinct look.

Explore the galaxy at your own pace to find valuable goods in old ship wrecks, undiscovered asteroid fields rich in resources, gigantic asteroids which you can claim for yourself, or clues about what happened during the Event a few centuries back.


(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/extras/buildYourFleet.png?t=1583784288)

There are no limits to the size or complexity of your ship besides your resources. But there is also a creative mode where you can just build to your heart’s content. You're not bound to the standard voxel style and while building an awesome ship in Avorion you won't get lost in lots and lots of micro-management.

You can focus on building a great looking ship, without having to worry about making it work. But always keep an eye on your ship’s maneuverability and energy requirements. Adjust your ship perfectly to its operational purpose: everything from light and agile explorers to heavily armored battleships with strong shields.

And why build only one ship? Hire captains to fly your ships for you, manage your crews, weapons, hangars and fighters and build your own fleet of spaceships!


(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/extras/trade.png?t=1583784288)

Extend your ship with a cargo bay, find profitable deals and haul over a hundred trading goods across the galaxy to make a profit and buy your way up the food chain. Constructing a fleet of specialized transport ships with lots of cargo space will help you build up a trading corporation.

Extend your influence in the galaxy by founding asteroid mines and factories that attract NPC traders who will buy and sell their goods at your establishments. Install trading systems which detect trading routes and supply and demand over multiple sectors and become the richest commander in the galaxy!

Or maybe you're sick of being the good guy? Just raid freighters, smuggle illegal goods or become a headhunter.


(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/extras/coop.png?t=1583784288)

You don't have to face all of these challenges alone! Avorion features co-op multiplayer, so team up with your friends to build stations together and destroy pirates and enemy factions!

Everybody needs a copilot, and you can fly ships together, with one of you doing the steering and the other one taking care of firing weapons. Work with each other to extend your influence in the galaxy and build your own empire.
Or, you know, blow your friends apart in large PvP battles. It's a sandbox, you can do whatever you want!


In Avorion you choose your personal playstyle. Haul cargo, find profitable trading routes and found factories. Or maybe you're sick of being the good guy? Build your own battleship, equip it with powerful weaponry and blow away your enemies. Be the aggressor that starts wars with entire factions, raid freighters, smuggle illegal goods and scavenge old wreckages. Find your way to the center of a galaxy that gets more hostile, but also more rewarding the closer you get to its core.


(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_61c40366135498efcc959dd5ca55fcc3044c84cf.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_9d85507f8a97b427f67783aba03f3174b4a287a3.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_5ecd07c695f48055606ab68b82bd16f3ef4b40a6.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_51b061f31b00fd30492f5019366d95b48ec84b8c.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_9c2f12765f8fdea87f71846960512a87c41a0f68.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_b4205930ed894943dd4cb8983396e0314fc51187.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_cfba2426faec4df781b8a1b89c971ecb4b553fe7.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_438c8425670c6bd8edd405f31cd041d9bd957e88.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_48874ceeffa872d33721b5ef81fb038c32211da6.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_1b0266203533e6c1df2c9c086145ecf2fa7c1cc8.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_5ecfb367b10b829b5abb1317eeffa07ac264f641.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_af99bd25cd70590fc9d94e05f80adf19191a5f4b.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_40b5f223b88b74e945a4f7250d9ad3815278de34.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/445220/ss_a8267185ece3ef3271103d12b18e8c65f79410fc.1920x1080.jpg?t=1583784288)

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on April 23, 2020, 12:08:01 AM
Community Servers are coming!
Wed, 22 April 2020

Read everything you need to know about our community servers!

We are happy to announce that official community servers are coming! Due to the current Covid-19 situation, we are all encouraged to stay at home and we want to help you through this time. We have already made all the necessary arrangements and are currently working on the final touches to get the servers live.

After consulting with many server hosts, we have found out, that it works best if each community plays according to their own ideas. That's why we provide you with the servers for free and you can administrate and lead them the way you want! We only set some ground rules to ensure that everyone is treated fairly. You can decide how you run the servers, which community you want to build, how often the servers will be wiped and so on.

How is this going to work?
We have organized servers for you via 4NetPlayers, which we will provide to you for free. There will be several servers and it is important for us to work closely with you together, to get the best possible experience for you and to achieve improvements! The servers will be marked separately so that you can clearly see which ones are official and verified.
If you are interested in administrating a server, send us a quick application with the following content to server@boxelware.de :

- Your name
- A link to your Steam profile (must be public)

And please answer the following questions in your application:

- Are you already hosting a server or do you have experience in game server administration?
- How long have you been playing Avorion?
- Do you already have a community? If so, how big is it?
- How many administrators would manage the server?
- Please tell us, which kind of server you would like to have. For example, PvP or PvE?
- Why would you like to administrate a server, what is your motivation?

Please note that you must be a member of our official Discord Server, so please let us know your Discord ID in the email.
Here is the link to our Discord:
https://discord.gg/ebwtqkQ

Short Q&A
Will there be a charge for the servers?
- No, the servers are provided by us free of charge. We host them, you can use them.

Where will the servers be located?
- We will provide servers in the EU and the US.

Will we be able to mod our servers?
- For now they will be unmodded.

Will it be PvP or PvE servers?
- Both will be available, we have not yet determined the exact distribution.

What are the rules?
- In order to provide a good experience for a broad majority of players, there will be some ground rules set by us. Server admins are free to extend the rules, as long as they don’t revoke ours.

We are looking forward to hearing from you and we hope that we can assign the first servers soon! :)

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on April 25, 2020, 12:04:31 AM
Beta Branch Patch 1.0.2 - Patchnotes
Fri, 24 April 2020

Preparations for Official Community Servers

This small update is the next step in bringing you our official servers. For more details please read our previous announcement.

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

Official Community Servers
•   Official Community Servers are now marked in the server browser
•   Added "Rent A Server" button to the multiplayer menu which opens the website of our official server hosting partner 4NetPlayers

Server
•   Added configurable motd to server.ini that is displayed when a player logs in
•   One admin can now join over the maximum player limit to enable better supervision

Bugfixes
"Bug reports marked with [UBR] are user bug reports. Keep it up guys! :)"

•   [UBR] Fixed an issue that caused automatic miners and salvagers to get stuck
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the tutorial wasn't playable in creative mode

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on May 16, 2020, 02:12:35 AM
Official Community Servers now available!
Thu, May 14, 2020

Quick update about the Community Servers and further information!

We are happy to share good news with you today! Our official Community Servers are now assigned, and you can already explore the galaxy together with other players! The verified servers are clearly marked with a blue checkmark and are accessible to everyone without a password. The servers are provided free of charge in cooperation with 4NetPlayers and are managed by selected administrators.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the numerous applications! Unfortunately, we could not assign a server to everyone, so some applications are still on the waiting list if a server becomes available again in the future.
We will continue to work closely with both 4NetPlayers and the server administrators to ensure that you get the best performance from the servers.

We would also like to inform you that our friends from Stray Fawn Studio are releasing their game Nimbatus - The Space Drone Constructor! Today at 18pm CEST it will leave Early Access! 😊 For the launch there is a discount of 25% for everyone until 21.05.2020 9am PST! Take a look, because for all who love space games, it's definitely worth it!

Nimbatus - The Space Drone Constructor

Command the Nimbatus and craft drones out of hundreds of different parts. Survive unknown threats in a fully destructible, procedural universe, compete against other players in different arenas or enjoy complete creative freedom in the sandbox.
Indie
Simulation
Action
Sandbox
Building
-25%
£11.61



Concerning an update, we would also like to inform you that we are working on it with determination. Unfortunately, we can’t give you an exact date yet. We ask you for a little patience and understanding. In any case we will keep you always up to date! 😊

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on June 05, 2020, 01:24:55 AM
Beta Branch Patch 1.1 - Patchnotes
Thu, 4 June 2020

Bugfixes, QoL improvements, an improved tutorial, streamlined missions and better profiling tools for server admins
Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

Tutorial
"In this update we greatly improved the basic tutorial. It is now much more streamlined with less text to read and more to do. Wherever possible the new tutorial now features interactive sequences."
•   Added new Tutorial parts that explain missions, fighting and ship destruction (and reconstruction)
•   The Tutorial can now only be played in Singleplayer - set the checkbox to true while creating a new galaxy if you want to play it!
•   Player now starts Tutorial with a ship fully equipped to play
•   New missions that follow on from the tutorial to explain more advanced game mechanics

Story
"The Story in Avorion has always been rather a loose thread than a real story. With this update we introduce a more streamlined approach that helps players to find and complete all story missions."
•   Greatly streamlined the story missions with more subsequent missions
•   Added additional "guide" mission for story missions
•   Added shortened version of credits that is played when the story is completed

Galaxy Map
"We completely reworked the UI for commanding ships over the galaxy map. Enjoy!"
•   Reworked the UI for commanding ships over the galaxy map
•   Ships are now listed on the right of the map
•   Routes of ships through gates and wormholes now have different colors
•   Fixed several issues when rendering routes and icons on Galaxy Map

Gameplay
•   When founding a station, the style of the faction it was bought from can be used to create a plan for it
•   Camera settings of different ships are now remembered
•   Military ships of AI factions now respawn
•   Alliance privileges are now checked when transferring content between ships
•   Repair docks can now also restore ships for a player's alliance and vice versa
•   Fixed persecutors not spawning correctly in sectors without players but with player ships
•   Optional ingredients now double production speed of factories when used in a production

UI
•   Improved UI of trading upgrade
•   Squads in Hangar tab can now be moved around by Drag n Drop
•   Added text boxes for exact values to several sliders
•   Hire Crew UI now shows your current crew
•   FPS limiter combobox is now disabled when vsync is on
•   Display refresh rate can now be configured when using fullscreen
•   Added combobox to select the display to graphics settings
•   Common resolutions are now made available in windowed mode for convenience
•   Added a confirmation message box when disbanding an alliance
•   Added scrollbar to cargo tab
•   Alliance emblems are now shown in diplomacy tab
•   Added a bar to show how much cargo is on the ship
•   Fighters tab in Equipment Dock is hidden when player is outside Trinium regions and his ship doesn't have a hangar
•   Illegal, dangerous, stolen or suspicious trading goods now have a different color in the sales UI
•   Added tooltips for optional ingredients in factory config UI and what they do

Client
"We added localization for Chinese (Simplified), Russian and Spanish. Additionally, we improved performance of several particle systems and fixed a few crashes related to those."
•   Added first official support for Simplified Chinese, Russian and Spanish
o   Some texts are still missing, but will be added over the next weeks
•   Improved performance of thruster particle effects
•   Improved performance of loot & wreckage particles
o   Particles are now no longer spawned when they would be too far away
•   Cargo loot changes size depending on amount of cargo
•   Loot packets that float around now merge together over time to improve performance
•   Improved visibility of rare turrets and upgrades floating around as loot

Server
"In order to make administrating a (community) server a little easier, we added logging about which resources are being exchanged between players."
•   Added a "script-threads" command line argument
•   Improved logging of servers
•   Servers log when players enter the galaxy center for the first time
•   Server now logs the items and resources (not text) sent within mails
•   Server now logs when a ship from a disbanded alliance was claimed by a player
•   Server now logs boarding of ships
•   Server now logs alliance vault transactions, and other actions like joining, founding, disbanding, etc.
•   Server now logs which items and resources are exchanged in a player trade
•   Added option -t to /playerinfo command which prints last online time and total playtime of all players
•   Added option -p to /playerinfo command to display resources and other info of players
•   Added a /profile command that records a profiling benchmark for the next 30 seconds and then saves it to a file
o   Use this if your server / game has bad performance or lags and you want to help us fix it. You can send us the file alongside an explanation as to what happened.

Profiling & Performance
"In order to fix some very annoying performance issues, we revamped our diagnostics system to a more centralized approach. You can help us greatly by using these easy-to-use tools and sending us the collected data!"
•   Refactored profiling to find performance issues more reliably
•   Client: Press F10 to save performance stats of the past ~30 seconds to a file
o   Use this when you got consistent FPS problems
•   Server: Type /status to save performance stats of the last ~30 seconds to a file
o   Important: Set profiling=true in your server.ini for this to work
•   Server: New /profile command that records a profiling benchmark for the next 30 seconds and then saves it to a file
o   Use this if your server / game has bad performance or lags

Scripting API
•   Added AllianceEmblem class
•   Added a onSectorArrivalConfirmed callback when the client finished loading a sector
•   When a player enters the center of the galaxy for the first time, a value visited_center is set
•   Added a fullLogId property to players that prints a string fully identifying the player
•   Added fullLogId to client Player, client Alliance, Faction, Player, Alliance
•   Added a tagDescription property to TradingGood
•   Added a color property to TradingGood
•   Adjusted Y sizes of labels that are created with only a vec2 and not a Rect
•   Added controlPressed, shiftPressed, altPressed, modifierKeyPressed to Input class
•   Added lookAtSmooth function to GalaxyMap

Bugfixes
"Bugfixes marked with [UBR] are user bug reports. Thanks to everyone who reported! You can report bugs from within the game in the pause menu."
•   Fixed several issues in scripts
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where turret designs could get lost when merging blocks
•   Fixed an issue where the rotation arrows of the turret brush pointed in the wrong direction
•   Credits can no longer be scrolled back infinitely
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where fighter orders weren't applied when leaving a sector without them and then returning
•   Fixed several issues where turrets could be placed on blocks where they shouldn't be placed
•   Fixed an issue where turrets could get duplicated
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the ship name could protrude from its texture
•   Fixed an issue where transform mode was disabled when clicking the block button or pressing its keyboard shortcut
•   [UBR] Exodus mission corner sectors can now be found even if the mission is not active
•   Fixed several issues with translations
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where flat corner blocks couldn't be placed back-to-back
•   [UBR] Dangerous transformations to holo blocks are now prevented
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where width and height were swapped in craft stats
•   Fixed an issue where the "You need X, Y, Z resources" message could contain negative values
•   Fixed an issue with refreshing the servers list
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where collecting cargo could crash the game
•   Fixed an issue where "loot collected" sound effect would sometimes be played when loot despawns
•   [UBR] Block brush: Fixed an issue where the block size was messed up when rotating in voxel grid mode
•   Fixed a crash when lots of particles could be seen on screen
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where no traders could spawn at first when founding a new station
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where trading overview upgrade could display wrong values for the first sector after first relog
o   Also fixes the "sell price: error getting supply demand factor: 3" error message spam (which was not critical)
•   Fixed an issue where AI factions would rebuild the wrong factories after they were destroyed

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on June 16, 2020, 01:47:20 PM
Beta Branch Patch 1.1.1 - Patchnotes
Tue, 16 June 2020

More bugfixes and improvements to the new tutorial.

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

Gameplay
•   Added a frame draw selection to galaxy map
•   Added some cutscenes to tutorial
•   Engines now flicker when low on energy or on wreckages

Client
•   Finalized Spanish localization
•   Improved readability of text of tracked mission

Scripting API
•   Added renderBorder function to UIRenderer

Bugfixes
•   [UBR] Fixed issue where assigning too few power units in turret factory could result in turrets that never fired
•   [UBR] Fixed trading instruction quest not advancing after relog
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where cargo wasn't correctly transferred when founding a station
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where fighters that cost negative credits could be built
•   Fixed several issues in scripts
•   Fixed several issues in new tutorial
•   Fixed several crashes
•   Fixed several issues in faction name generator



Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on June 22, 2020, 11:22:58 PM
Beta Branch Patch 1.1.2 - Patchnotes
Mon, 22 June 2020

More bugfixes and getting ready for deployment to stable!

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

Galaxy Map
•   Added new checkbox to toggle if stations are shown in ships bar

Client
•   Updated Credits

Bugfixes
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where players couldn't log in properly
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where map wouldn't work correctly
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where adventurer wouldn't spawn correctly in multiplayer
•   Fixed black bars of cutscenes not being displayed correctly
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where mails button wouldn't stop flashing
•   Fixed several issues with new galaxy map ship overview
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue with duplicated names when founding a mine as an alliance



Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on June 23, 2020, 03:38:38 PM
Story, Tutorial & Galaxy Map Improvements!
Tue, 23 June 2020

New features in the tutorial, story and galaxy map, and performance improvements.
Hi everyone! Long time no update! Sadly, gaming studios like us didn’t get spared from the corona crisis either and we had to realize that work gets done a lot slower at home office than at our official offices. But nevertheless, we’ve been steadily working on the game and we’ve got a new update ready for you!

In this update, we're mainly improving the tutorial and story. Additionally, we also have some performance updates for you, so let’s dive right into it!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/bbd9f80d556c587ff12383edae5e8b9b69f71df7.png)

Updated Tutorial
The tutorial originally dates back to the year 2017, when we first released Avorion into Early Access on Steam. The game has been updated a lot since then and the tutorial was in dire need of an update to reflect the current state of the game better. So we completely revamped it to offer an updated introduction into the game. It explains more things like adding upgrades to your ship, building turrets, and that getting your ship blown up is also a part of the game. We also shortened some other parts, like looking around and steering the ship, which doesn’t usually need lengthy explanations.

Story Improvements
The loose story of Avorion tends to have people lost at some point and searching for clues in forums and the Wiki. While we do think that a mainly-intended-as-a-sandbox game’s story should not hold hands too much, we don’t think that requiring players to regularly look for clues outside of the game is the way to go. We’ve added tons of inter-missions (get it, haha..? okay, sorry.) to aid you gathering the parts required to cross the barrier.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/a708e9962e836bd1fdc296ca37058e3e8943d512.jpg)

Galaxy Map
The galaxy map has received a major update as well! Ships are now listed on the right side and can be commanded more easily, without the hassle of sometimes clicking on sectors and sometimes on other ship portraits. It’ll also help you see where ships/stations are stationed (last one, promise).

Localizations
We added Chinese (Simplified), Spanish and Russian as officially supported languages!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/1de7d7a33495313d9cdad72425dda1079c3a9ae7.png)

Performance Optimizations and Logging
We also improved performance on the client and servers (mainly for large servers) and we added some tools that will help us identify performance bottlenecks in the future. Particles are now less performance-hungry and we’ve fixed some crashes related to particle systems.
So things are looking up if you’ve been experiencing poor performance! Just keep in mind that Avorion was never designed as an MMO (and never will be) and hosting servers for dozens of people at the same time is still a challenge (which we intend to overcome though!).

Other changes
There are tons of other changes in many areas, like bug fixes, UI improvements, better station founding (use a station design of the faction you bought the founder ship from), visual updates to loot and wreckages, and many more! To get a complete overview, check out the complete patch notes here:

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 04, 2020, 12:06:33 AM
Beta Branch Patch 1.1.3 - Patchnotes
Mon, 3 August 2020

A small patch fixing some urgent issue while we're working on the bigger things.

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

Please note: Some translations for some languages (Chinese, Spanish, Russian) are still missing and will be added over the week.

Scripting API
•   Added Player [Client]:onJumpRouteCalculationFinished() callback

Bugfixes
"As always, bug fixes with [UBR] are User Bug Reports. Thanks for helping improve Avorion and keep it up!"

•   [UBR] Fixed several issues with translations
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue with the tutorial getting stuck when played on Chinese or some other languages
•   Fixed an issue where building mode buttons weren't correctly disabled during tutorial
•   Improved profiling on Windows machines
•   Fixed several issues in scripts
•   [UBR] Fixed a server crash that happened in large sectors after too many sectors were explored
•   Fixed an issue where some scripts were loaded more than necessary
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues in torpedo introduction mission
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where mining lasers didn't recognize asteroids as mineable after they were split into two pieces
•   [UBR] Fixed a rare crash when starting a singleplayer game
•   [UBR] Fixed a rare crash when connecting to a multiplayer game
•   [UBR] Trading Posts now no longer post resource shortage bulletins if they have enough in stock to fulfill request


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 10, 2020, 11:25:35 PM
Beta Branch Patch 1.1.4 - Patchnotes
Mon, 10 August 2020

Another small patch fixing some urgent issue while we're working on the bigger things.

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

Bugfixes

"As always, bug fixes with [UBR] are User Bug Reports. Thanks for helping improve Avorion and keep it up!"

•   [UBR] Fixed some typos in new server.ini docs
•   [UBR] Fixed a hang when beating the MAD science lab
•   [UBR] Fixed a hang in torpedoes introduction mission
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues with localization
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the sector overview window was too big on small resolutions
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where file sectornamegenerator.lua wasn't moddable
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where reconstruction of ships sometimes didn't restore turret designs
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash when transforming a normal block to a holo block


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 14, 2020, 01:21:04 AM
Patch 1.1.4 now live on default!
Thu, 13 August 2020

After several weeks of beta, patch 1.1.4 has made its way to the default branch!

We're moving this small patch to the stable branch now after it performed well for several weeks on the beta branch. We are also aware of some issues that might be happening in relation to the torpedoes introduction mission; we're working on those!

Here's a quick summary of the latest patch notes:

1.1.4

Bugfixes
"As always, bug fixes with [UBR] are User Bug Reports. Thanks for helping improve Avorion and keep it up!"
•   [UBR] Fixed some typos in new server.ini docs
•   [UBR] Fixed a hang when beating the MAD science lab
•   [UBR] Fixed a hang in torpedoes introduction mission
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues with localization
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the sector overview window was too big on small resolutions
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where file sectornamegenerator.lua wasn't moddable
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where reconstruction of ships sometimes didn't restore turret designs
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash when transforming a normal block to a holo block

1.1.3
"A small patch fixing some urgent issue while we're working on the bigger things."

Server
•   Fixed some cheat- & security issues
•   Added a config option to server.ini to specify maximum receivable network message size
•   Server now writes out a server.ini documentation file

Scripting API
•   Added Player [Client]:onJumpRouteCalculationFinished() callback

Bugfixes
"As always, bug fixes with [UBR] are User Bug Reports. Thanks for helping improve Avorion and keep it up!"
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues with translations
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue with the tutorial getting stuck when played on Chinese or some other languages
•   Fixed an issue where building mode buttons weren't correctly disabled during tutorial
•   Improved profiling on Windows machines
•   Fixed several issues in scripts
•   [UBR] Fixed a server crash that happened in large sectors after too many sectors were explored
•   Fixed an issue where some scripts were loaded more than necessary
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues in torpedo introduction mission
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where mining lasers didn't recognize asteroids as mineable after they were split into two pieces
•   [UBR] Fixed a rare crash when starting a singleplayer game
•   [UBR] Fixed a rare crash when connecting to a multiplayer game
•   [UBR] Trading Posts now no longer post resource shortage bulletins if they have enough in stock to fulfill request


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 19, 2020, 11:29:56 PM
Beta Branch Patch 1.2 - Patchnotes
Wed, 19 August 2020

We're releasing a few quality of life features that came along during the development of the next big update. Enjoy!

"While working on the next big update, we also added a few more quality-of-life features. We're releasing a small patch with a selection of those features that are already done."

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

Client
•   Lights of wreckages can now flicker independently for each block & material type

Building Mode UI
•   Silhouettes of real-world monuments can now be shown in building mode for an improved sense of scale
•   Silhouettes can be modded
•   Block template brush's blocks are no longer all red while selecting a new anchor block
•   Improved controls for scaling blocks and shapes

General UI
•   The amount of goods of a ship is now directly visible in the fleet tab
•   Improved coloring of cargo overview in the fleet tab
•   When commanding ships, sectors reachable via gate are now highlighted
•   Claimed asteroids now show up on the map
•   Added sorting of DPS/Slot
•   Guidebook for captains and its introductory missions can no longer be abandoned

Server
•   Added new game settings variables for maximum ships & stations of an alliance
•   Added file clustering options to server.ini
•   When enabled, packs small files into larger ones on shutdown of server
•   Added a notification for when a player is assigned to be the new leader of a group

Scripting API
•   All setValue() functions for objects now return the previously set value
•   Player.craftFaction now returns the player faction if the player is not in a craft

Bugfixes
"As always, fixes marked with [UBR] are bugs that have been reported through our in-game bug reporting tool. Thanks to everyone who reported and keep it up!"

•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where directing ships over the galaxy map wasn't working correctly for bought maps
•   [UBR] Fixed a rare crash in building mode
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues in missions
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where alliance ranks with empty names could be created
•   [UBR] Fixed research satellites showing nil chatter after reload
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where upgrades would remain on ships after being removed from the game (ie. through enabling/disabling mods)

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on September 03, 2020, 02:45:31 PM
News: DLC - Black Market coming soon!
Wed, 2 September 2020

Get ready for some shady activities in the upcoming Black Market DLC!

https://youtu.be/Gpa9P1CHeMM


Hey everyone! Let's get the most important news out first. As announced in our Gamescom stream a few days ago: We are proud to announce our first DLC - the Black Markets! In addition to new content, we also added quite some improvements to the game that will be published in a free update at the same time as the DLC. Let's dive right in!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/bcac07e45670d016009bd168a9c497faff8d8e38.jpg)

Docking
Did you know that in space, even a tiny little spacecraft can move something gigantic? Ships can now dock to something else and take it wherever you might want it to be - if the owners of said object have no objections. Move your own stations and those of your friends, dock ships and jump around or just grab the containers that you want to hack, but that are too well protected in their sectors.
And the best thing? Docking will be available for everyone as part of a free update!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/5fc0961abb0192958f4933be3026942b6931188f.jpg)

Shady Business at Stations
You stole found a container that is protected by a good security system and can't hack it yet? Just take it to a Smuggler’s Market and they will open it for you - for a fee though. You should also check out the name-giving feature of this DLC: The new Black Markets. Discover the hidden identities of some inconspicuous looking stations and profit from what they have to offer!

Hacking
Have you ever wondered what might be hidden in those large container fields that can be found all over the galaxy? Now is your time to find out! Get ready to circumvent the security system of the containers and access the contents. You only need a hacking upgrade that is stronger than the container’s security level and you’re ready to go. But beware: the owners of the containers might not look too kindly on thieves.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/f53744d10aec87a32e0c30811ab1e95470efa2e7.jpg)

New Events, Missions & Bosses
Experience a new storyline in over 30 new missions and events! Your actions are relevant for shaping the future of the galaxy. Make sure that you choose the right friends and make the right enemies, and most importantly: Never forget keeping an eye on your own best interests!

There's also going to be a new server-wide late-game event with a convoy venturing towards the center of the galaxy - with its own missions and opportunities. You can decide for yourselves if you want to protect them from pirates or maybe do something more ... evil - provided you have enough firepower.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/a0af8cbb1684fcb05f815affd83d43c722d41a87.jpg)

New Weapons

We don’t want to spoil too much here, but we've got a few legendary turrets ready for you!


FAQ
Last but not least, we'll answer a few questions that have been coming up since our first announcement during the Gamescom stream:

Q: Will DLC owners and non-DLC owners be able to play together?
A: Yes! We don't want to split our community. Non-DLC owners will even be able to enjoy some of the DLC-only content while playing with DLC-owners.

Q: Will docking be part of the free update?
A: Yes!

Q: Can we jump around with objects or ships docked?
A: Yes!

Q: Will docking be a combat feature?
A: Docking will be a civil only feature. You'll be able to dock containers, asteroids, and the like, as well as your own or friend's ships. Docking other players (exception: alliances) will count as PvP.

Q: Will we be able to automate docking?
A: No. Due to a number of uncertain factors (AI, orientations, where to dock, which docks to use, etc), we decided against AI orders for docking. Everything else would result in finicky UI and would go beyond our scope.

Q: What else is in the update?
A: Together with the DLC content, we'll be releasing a free update for everyone which contains tons of performance improvements (servers especially!) that we spent a big portion of our time on, QoL improvements, and bugfixes.

Q: When is it coming?!
A: Fall 2020.

Q: What's the DLC going to cost?
A: We haven't decided on a final price yet, but it will be around 5 - 10 $/€.

If you have more questions, then you should definitely check out our reveal stream, where we're also talking about the DLC: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/725216666?t=00h59m22s


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on September 17, 2020, 11:55:39 PM
Patch 1.2 is now live!
Thu, 17 September 2020

Patch 1.2 brings a few QoL changes fixes that we finished early while working on the big update.

We're releasing a small patch to bring you a few important bugfixes and quality of life changes that were already finished while we're working on the next big update.

Client
•   Lights of wreckages can now flicker independently for each block & material type

Building Mode UI
•   Silhouettes of real-world monuments can now be shown in building mode for an improved sense of scale
      •   Silhouettes can be modded
•   Block template brush's blocks are no longer all red while selecting a new anchor block
•   Improved controls for scaling blocks and shapes

General UI
•   The amount of goods is now directly visible in the fleet tab
•   Improved coloring of cargo overview in the fleet tab
•   When commanding ships, sectors reachable via gate are now highlighted
•   Claimed asteroids now show up on the map
•   Added sorting of DPS/Slot
•   Guidebook and its tutorials can no longer be abandoned

Server
•   Added new game settings variables for maximum ships & stations of an alliance
•   Added file clustering options to server.ini
      •   When enabled, packs small files into larger ones on shutdown of server
•   Added a notification for when a player is assigned to be the new leader of a group

Scripting API
•   All setValue() functions for objects now return the previously set value
•   Player.craftFaction now returns the player faction if the player is not in a craft

Bugfixes
"As always, fixes marked with [UBR] are bugs that have been reported through our in-game bug reporting tool. Thanks to everyone who reported and keep it up!"

•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where directing ships over the galaxy map wasn't working correctly for bought maps
•   [UBR] Fixed a rare crash in building mode
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues in missions
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where alliance ranks with empty names could be created
•   [UBR] Fixed research satellites showing nil chatter after reload
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where upgrades would remain on ships after being removed from the game (ie. through enabling/disabling mods)


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on September 22, 2020, 11:29:21 PM
Free Content in the Black Market DLC Update
Tue, 22 September 2020

This is the content which will be available for free!

In our Gamescom streams, we announced Avorion’s first DLC, “Black Market”. Alongside the DLC there will also be a huge free update.

Now, we want to shine some light on what’s coming alongside the DLC.

We put a lot of thought into the update and invested a lot of work to improve Avorion and to offer more content and features. In order to clean up some misconceptions about which features will be free and which will be part of the add-on, we’ve created a small summary for you.

Playing Together
First things first: All players will still be able to play together, even if some of them own the DLC and others don’t. Also, everybody will have access to a lot of the DLC content while they play with somebody who owns it. For example, the big Convoy Event can be played by all players on a server, as long as somebody who owns the DLC starts the event.

Docking
Ships can now dock to other objects and take them to wherever you desire - as long as the owners of said objects don’t disagree. Clever captains are now able to steal take containers to safety and they can even have stations open them to see if there is anything of value inside. You can move your own stations or those of your friends, and dock ships or asteroids to your craft and do hyperspace jumps with them.

Controlling Ships
You will now have the ability to interfere with illegal trade and even profit from it. If you catch somebody smuggling illegal goods, you can inspect their ship and maybe earn some bribe money.

Legendary Weapons
Starting with this update, bosses will begin to drop newer, better, awesomer, legendaryer turrets. We went a little crazy on some of those - and would like to apologize in advance.

Performance Improvements
We’re aware that Avorion may require a lot of performance on some multiplayer servers. Of course, we want all of you to be able to play without lag. That is why we reworked the server backend engine. For you as players, this means: If there is a single laggy sector with a lot of action happening inside it, it will no longer slow down the entire server. As long as you’re not inside the problematic sector, you can continue playing without being bothered.
But please remember that Avorion is not an MMO, and just because you can increase the number of players in the server.ini, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good idea.

Bugfixes
It is our goal to squash all bugs in the game so that you can have as much fun as possible. You as a community help us daily to improve Avorion by sending us a lot of bug reports, and we’ve been busy fixing those. We won’t be listing them all here (we’re still fixing as I’m typing this text), so you’ll find the list of fixes in the patch notes. By the way: bugs that we fixed because of a report from the community are marked with [UBR] (User Bug Report).

Many Small Features and Quality Of Life Improvements
We want Avorion to be fun for both new players as well as veterans. That is why we added tons of small new features and QoL stuff, such as improving the Strategy Mode to have better camera controls, asteroid fields have been visually improved and we’re allowing you to assign icons to ships. Those changes will also all be listed in the patch notes.

Your Wish is Our Command
Okay, but on a more serious note: We care a lot about your feedback and we try to add as many of your suggestions as possible to Avorion. Sadly, it’s sometimes not possible to include everything people wish for since some things simply contradict each other or are not compatible with our vision of the game. However, we are working on implementing some of the most requested features:

- Torpedo launchers that shoot straight ahead
- Improving the AI in several different contexts
- Edge blocks for crew quarters
- Ships share their scanner data
- Better RTS mode controls
- Scripting API requests (for modding)
… and more!

You can suggest features and vote for them here: https://forum.avorion.net/index.php?/forum/8-suggestions-idea-voting/

Server Performance Statistics
We’ll continue supporting our server hosters, so in addition to regularly adding new features servers now log statistics about the their performance. Those include information like the number of players that are logged on at a time, storage used, CPU and much more. This way, hosters can see how their server is running and act accordingly.

Outlook: What happens after the DLC?
We saw from some reactions here that we gave a somewhat wrong impression with the DLC announcement. We will, of course, continue to make and publish free updates. The next big update after the DLC will be a free update again, and it will have a similar scope as the DLC. But we’ll give you more info on that later down the line. For now, we want to concentrate on finishing the current update!

By the way: Features that are highly relevant to fights or PvP (ie. things like Stealth) will never be published in a paid DLC but will always be available to everyone for free.

That's all from us for now! We hope we could clean up some misconceptions around here. Now we'll get back to the update! See you soon!

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on September 24, 2020, 02:16:17 PM
Black Market store page is online!
Thu, 24 September 2020

The store page for the Black Market DLC is finally available!

We are happy to announce that the store page for our upcoming Black Market DLC is now live!

Release: 19 Oct, 2020

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1357160/header.jpg?t=1600939194)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1357160/Avorion__Black_Market/


A lot of new content and over 20 new story missions are waiting for you. You can also look forward to new bosses and new upgrades and weapons! Stay tuned and add it to your wishlist to get started right on time at the release!

We can't wait and are very excited. Right now we are working hard on optimizing the last details and polishing the update.


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on September 25, 2020, 12:21:33 PM
Free Content in the Black Market DLC Update
24 Sept 2020

This is the content which will be available for free!


In our Gamescom streams, we announced Avorion’s first DLC, “Black Market”. Alongside the DLC there will also be a huge free update. Now, we want to shine some light on what’s coming alongside the DLC.

We put a lot of thought into the update and invested a lot of work to improve Avorion and to offer more content and features. In order to clean up some misconceptions about which features will be free and which will be part of the add-on, we’ve created a small summary for you.

Playing Together
First things first: All players will still be able to play together, even if some of them own the DLC and others don’t. Also, everybody will have access to a lot of the DLC content while they play with somebody who owns it. For example, the big Convoy Event can be played by all players on a server, as long as somebody who owns the DLC starts the event.

Docking
Ships can now dock to other objects and take them to wherever you desire - as long as the owners of said objects don’t disagree. Clever captains are now able to steal take containers to safety and they can even have stations open them to see if there is anything of value inside. You can move your own stations or those of your friends, and dock ships or asteroids to your craft and do hyperspace jumps with them.

Controlling Ships
You will now have the ability to interfere with illegal trade and even profit from it. If you catch somebody smuggling illegal goods, you can inspect their ship and maybe earn some bribe money.

Legendary Weapons
Starting with this update, bosses will begin to drop newer, better, awesomer, legendaryer turrets. We went a little crazy on some of those - and would like to apologize in advance.

Performance Improvements
We’re aware that Avorion may require a lot of performance on some multiplayer servers. Of course, we want all of you to be able to play without lag. That is why we reworked the server backend engine. For you as players, this means: If there is a single laggy sector with a lot of action happening inside it, it will no longer slow down the entire server. As long as you’re not inside the problematic sector, you can continue playing without being bothered.
But please remember that Avorion is not an MMO, and just because you can increase the number of players in the server.ini, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good idea.

Bugfixes
It is our goal to squash all bugs in the game so that you can have as much fun as possible. You as a community help us daily to improve Avorion by sending us a lot of bug reports, and we’ve been busy fixing those. We won’t be listing them all here (we’re still fixing as I’m typing this text), so you’ll find the list of fixes in the patch notes. By the way: bugs that we fixed because of a report from the community are marked with [UBR] (User Bug Report).

Many Small Features and Quality Of Life Improvements
We want Avorion to be fun for both new players as well as veterans. That is why we added tons of small new features and QoL stuff, such as improving the Strategy Mode to have better camera controls, asteroid fields have been visually improved and we’re allowing you to assign icons to ships. Those changes will also all be listed in the patch notes.

Your Wish is Our Command
Okay, but on a more serious note: We care a lot about your feedback and we try to add as many of your suggestions as possible to Avorion. Sadly, it’s sometimes not possible to include everything people wish for since some things simply contradict each other or are not compatible with our vision of the game. However, we are working on implementing some of the most requested features:

- Torpedo launchers that shoot straight ahead
- Improving the AI in several different contexts
- Edge blocks for crew quarters
- Ships share their scanner data
- Better RTS mode controls
- Scripting API requests (for modding)
… and more!

You can suggest features and vote for them here: https://forum.avorion.net/index.php?/forum/8-suggestions-idea-voting/

Server Performance Statistics
We’ll continue supporting our server hosters, so in addition to regularly adding new features servers now log statistics about the their performance. Those include information like the number of players that are logged on at a time, storage used, CPU and much more. This way, hosters can see how their server is running and act accordingly.

Outlook: What happens after the DLC?
We saw from some reactions here that we gave a somewhat wrong impression with the DLC announcement. We will, of course, continue to make and publish free updates. The next big update after the DLC will be a free update again, and it will have a similar scope as the DLC. But we’ll give you more info on that later down the line. For now, we want to concentrate on finishing the current update!

By the way: Features that are highly relevant to fights or PvP (ie. things like Stealth) will never be published in a paid DLC but will always be available to everyone for free.

That's all from us for now! We hope we could clean up some misconceptions around here. Now we'll get back to the update! See you soon!

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on October 21, 2020, 12:43:03 AM
Beta Branch Patch 1.3 - Patchnotes
Tue, 20 October 2020

Now on the beta branch: Docking, shady features, exploit fixes, balancing changes, and tons of quality of life!

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

Docking
"Docking's here! The feature is actually pretty straightforward. Slap a dock block on your ship and go have fun! :)"

•   Ships can now use Dock blocks to dock other objects
•   Docked objects are shown in building mode
•   Docked objects can be taken with you through gates, wormholes and hyperspace jumps
•   (Nearly) every object can be docked

Gameplay
"Aside from a few shady features that sneaked in from the Black Market DLC, we got Legendary Turrets, prettier asteroids, and a new, strange Xsotan Wormhole Device that seems to open wormholes to your Reconstruction Site."

•   Added new containers that can be hacked or taken to a smuggler's outpost to be opened
•   Added a new sector type with many containers and asteroids
•   Added the possibility to bribe ships that control you
•   Added the possibility to control & get bribed by AI traders that can now carry illegal goods
•   Added special, legendary turrets
   o   Some turrets will be available immediately, some only for DLC owners
   o   Turrets are dropped by bosses and other strong enemies
   o   More turrets to come over the next weeks

•   Added a new Xsotan Wormhole Device that opens a wormhole to your reconstruction site
   o   You get the item from the Adventurer after changing the Reconstruction Site or progressing with the story
   o   10 Minute cooldown, infinite usages
   o   Has a few other limitations so it can't be used during immediate combat

•   Improved visuals of asteroids with resources
   o   Developer Note: Asteroid shapes have been fine-tuned to ensure they have the same amount of resources as before

•   Some factions now always have bad starting relations (not as bad on low difficulties, very bad on high difficulties)
•   On higher difficulties, bad initial relations can trigger immediate war with factions the player hasn't met yet
•   When switching sectors, players are only placed in ships that are idle or passive from now on (unless otherwise specified) to not interrupt AI orders
•   Objects in sectors towards the middle are spread out a little further
•   Seeking projectiles can now lead very fast targets
•   When a warzone is called out or a freighter is raided, nearby players are notified
•   Reduced camera shake of sector jumps
•   Added edge & corner crew quarters blocks
•   Added a front-facing torpedo launcher block

AI
"We improved several aspects of the AI, like pathfinding, aim and salvage & mining AI."
•   A ship now waits for its fighters to land before flying through a gate
•   Improved aim of AI ships
   o   AI ships can now aim with coaxial turrets
   o   Strongly improved aim of AI ships for Expert+ difficulties

•   Salvage & mining AI now picks new objects to harvest close to the last one
   o   This way the behaviour is more consistent when objects break apart

•   Salvage & mining AI now keeps fighters active while collecting loot
•   Salvage & mining AI no longer keeps firing at tiny fragments that have negligible amounts of resources left
•   Salvage & mining AI no longer bothers collecting extremely tiny amounts of loot
•   Improved pathfinding when surrounded by many obstacles

Balancing Part I: General
•   Adjusted fines for smuggling
•   Slightly increased amount of petty upgrades being dropped in the outer regions
•   Slightly reduced amount of legendary upgrades being dropped on low difficulties
•   Railguns now always penetrate at least 3 blocks
•   5-slot turrets aren't automatically coaxial any longer
   o   Instead of every turret, only 25% of 5-slot turrets will be coaxial turrets

•   Explosive shots no longer deal potentially infinite amounts of damage through AOE, but are capped at 200%
•   Pulse Cannons now have a much higher shield penetration rate compared to other weapons with ionized projectiles
•   Increased projectile speed of 2+ slot turrets

Balancing Part II: Shields
"Let's face it: Shields are way too powerful for what they cost. They provide lots of HP that recharge extremely quickly for free and they protect all blocks at the same time. Shields are also more or less obligatory for combat, and this means that players avoid combat in the early game. We want to break free from these limitations and give players more means to fight early on. We're nerfing shield generators, but at the same time buffing integrity blocks & armor a lot. Keep in mind that these are experimental changes and we'll see how they fare. Please share your feedback with us on this!"

•   Buffing Integrity Blocks & Armor
   o   Reminder: Integrity fields reduce incoming damage!
   o   Increased damage reduction of integrity fields from 50% to 75%
   o   Increased HP of armor blocks to 25 per 1 volume, from 15

•   Nerfing Shields
   o   Increased cost of shield generator blocks by 50%
   o   Reduced shield durability gained from shield blocks to 50 per 1 volume, from 70

•   Developer Note: In total, existing ships with shield generators and integrity blocks protecting armor will get:
   o   -27% shields
   o   +233% hull HP for armor
   o   +100% hull HP for other blocks


Balancing Part III: Exploits, Shipyards & Reconstruction Site
"We're seeing a lot of playstyles that abuse exploits that are ending up in guides and that are degenerating from how Avorion was originally designed. In addition to fixing exploits, we're adding some experimental changes through which we want to shift the gameplay a bit. We want to reintroduce the feeling of 'safe haven' sectors and the risk of venturing out. We do realize that this might take some comfort away but we think it's healthier for the game in the long run. This playstyle will also require a little more planning from you, which is why we're only enabling it on new galaxies. We'd love to hear your feedback and we'll monitor the situation closely!"
•   Building and repairing are now only possible without enemies attacking and only if the ship wasn't damaged in the past 30 seconds
•   New Saves: On Normal+ difficulty, Generators and Hyperspace Cores will need a neutral or friendly shipyard in the sector to be added to your ship
   o   Applies to new saves only
   o   Applies to ships, not stations
   o   Does not apply to Creative
   o   Can be turned on/off with a server.ini setting
   o   Ctrl-Z, Ctrl-Y and scaling will still work without a shipyard
   o   Repairing is still possible without a shipyard

•   Sectors with smuggler hideouts now have a shipyard
•   Sectors with resistance outposts now have a shipyard
•   Added an item that lets you return to your Reconstruction Site from anywhere (details see above)
•   Reduced cost for changing Reconstruction Site by 80%
•   Reduced cost for reconstructing without tokens to 80% of the ship's value, from 120%
•   Reduced cost for repairs at repair docks to 35% of ship's value (from 75%)
•   Reduced cost for founding a shipyard by 17.500.000 credits
•   Reduced cost for founding a repair dock by 7.500.000 credits
•   When reconstruction tokens are disabled, reconstruction site can still be set
•   Hyperspace engine now has to reboot and goes on cooldown after its range is changed

Strategy Mode
"We've massively tuned the Strategy Mode to make it a much more polished and easy-to-use feature. Enjoy!"
•   Added vertical lines to objects for a better sense of depth
•   Improved grid-plane for a better sense of depth
•   Camera can now be rotated and moved up/down
•   Pressing space centers the camera on the selected object(s)
•   Double click now centers the view, Ctrl-click toggles the selection
•   Player's current craft now has a player icon in the strategy mode overview list
•   Selection groups are now shown in overview list
•   Claimed asteroids are now shown in overview list
•   Added colors to sector ship overview list in strategy mode
•   "Fly through gate"-order is now visualized with a line to the gate
•   Mine and salvage orders issued via right click now start harvesting the clicked object (not the closest to the ship)
•   Improved button feedback

UI
"More UI and QoL improvements."
•   Galaxy Map: Pressing space centers the camera on the selected object(s)
•   Galaxy Map: Selection groups can now be used the same as in Strategy Mode
•   Galaxy Map: Notifications can now be disabled on the galaxy map
•   Mails: Mail buttons stops flashing for good when mails window is opened
•   Mails: Mail list updates when a new mail is received
•   Mails: Mail window's 'Delete' now takes all attachments first
•   Building Mode: Added ISS shilhouette for comparison
•   Building Mode: Transformation brush can now be rotated by holding R
•   Building Mode: Added "Show Templates Folder" button to blocks window
•   Building Mode: Turret designs can now be applied to all selected turret bases with one click
•   Building Mode: Implemented new, detailed tooltips for blocks in building mode
•   Improved UI for selling items
   o   Added various filtering, sorting and favoriting options
   o   Favorited (starred) items can't be sold accidentally any more

•   Added assignable icons for ships
•   Weapon base damage variation is now reflected in tooltips
•   When founding a new ship, "Alliance Ship" is now greyed out when not in an alliance
•   Pressing B while in drone now opens the ship founding dialog
•   Player ships in the same sector now share their scanner data
•   Added total crew salary to player and alliance fleet tabs

Client
•   Added more loading screen tips
•   Playmodes Normal & Creative Mode are now considered scenarios
•   Added more infos about savegames in singleplayer window
•   Added a checkbox to override a galaxy's mod settings
o   If not ticked, the save's previous mod config is used

•   Added a news window to the main menu
•   Added a warning window for loading a galaxy with a too high version
•   Added a warning window for loading a non-beta galaxy while on the beta branch
•   Added categories for assignable controls
•   Default controls layout of immediate (mouse) steering changed:
o   Free Look is now on right mouse button (was Ctrl)
o   Torpedoes are now fired with G (was right mouse)


Graphics
•   Improved visuals of swirly weapon beams

Server
"While tons of things were improved, the most important change is that the scheduling of the server update has been completely rewritten. A single slow sector no longer slows down the entire server. We also added quite a few new settings to tune your server to your perfect PvP settings."
•   Restructured the entire internals of the server
   o   A single slow sector no longer slows down the entire server
   o   Shenanigans of players no longer slow down the entire server but only the sector they're in
   o   Developer Note: This doesn't mean that the server now magically supports 100 players. Avorion is not an MMO, and will never be one because it was not designed as one.

•   Simplified callback handling & improved stability of the server
•   Increased time that sectors are initially loaded from 15s to 30s
•   Renamed server option "authenticate" to "vac-secure"
•   Renamed server option "isPublic" to "isMultiplayer"
•   Added a server.ini setting to allow/forbid boarding
•   Added a server.ini setting to enable saving of runtime stats (players, tick times, memory, sectors loaded, etc) into a .csv file
•   Added a server.ini setting to configure the amount of networking threads
•   Added a server.ini setting to configure minimum ship size
•   Added a server.ini setting to configure maximum ship velocity
•   Added a server.ini setting to configure maximum number of stations in a sector
•   Added a server.ini setting to configure shipyard-bound building

Scripting API
"A lot changed here, so we won't be listing every little change, but only the most important ones - especially when they might break existing mods."

•   Added class DockingClamps
•   Added class HyperspaceEngine
•   Added a new Sector callback "onPlayerArrivalConfirmed" which fires once the client has finished its loading screen
•   Added more possibilities to work with Mails
•   Added conversion from scancode to keycode and back (modders: See SDL2 docs for that)
   o   Developer Note: Modders: This might be important for you if you were using the Keyboard. We changed our internal structure from SDL Keycodes to SDL Scancodes

•   Entity:getDockingPositions() now returns a table
•   DockingPositions:getDockingPositions() now returns a table
•   DockingPositions:getDockingPosition(id) now returns a table
•   Removed Entity:getRandomDockingPosition()
•   Renamed Durability.setMaximum -> Durability.maximum
•   Callback "onMailReceived" is now called "onMailAdded" on server, same as client
•   Modder Request: Most properties of TextField are now readable as well
•   Added functionality to drop VanillaInventoryItem and UsableInventoryItem loot
•   Massive improvements to structuredmission.lua
•   Fixed an issue where scripts registered for updates before being restored
•   Fixed an issue where Galaxy:findFaction() didn't correctly return Player, Alliance, or Faction object depending on the internal type
•   Fixed an issue where some components in Entities created by Sector:createEntity() were missing
•   Fixed a crash when not passing a color to addShipProblem
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where it wasn't possible to directly set the Seed value
   o   Use tostring() to get and assign the string to set

•   Improved API documentation

Misc
•   Added a notification when a player is assigned to be the new leader of a group
•   Tons of small optimizations all over the place
•   Improved performance of performance measuring (yes really)
•   Improved several dialogs
•   Improved translations
•   Added several new bugs

Bugfixes
"As always, bug reports from the community are marked with [UBR] (User Bug Report). Thanks for reporting and keep it up! You'll be seeing quite a few more of these over the next weeks!"
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where torpedoes in Equipment Dock weren't as different as planned
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where trading posts and factories didn't have enough cargo space
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues where introduction missions got stuck when playing them in Alliance ships
•   [UBR] Fixed a few performance issues when opening the Equipment Dock menu while inventory is full
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues where the server could crash when being sent garbage over network
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the emblem of alliances weren't sent to players correctly
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships wouldn't keep their orientation upon sector change
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where some chat commands could crash the server
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in fighter tutorial mission where having more than 3 fighters didn't advance the mission
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where escort AI would falsely attack friends
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where armor blocks sometimes didn't stop penetrating projectiles
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships would chase each other out of the sector indefinitely
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where reconstruction token value of a ship would decrease when ship is built smaller
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where players without alliance vault permissions could trash/favorite alliance items
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where turrets were jittering while aiming with the mouse
•   [UBR] Fixed an exploit where ships could be healed by adding large stone blocks
•   Fixed an issue where chat messages sent by server didn't get their format strings filled in correctly
•   Fixed an error message that was sent too often to alliance members with insufficient permissions
•   Fixed an issue where turrets from the ship, when compared, would show up as blueprints
•   Fixed highlights of list entries in singleplayer window not working
•   Fixed several crashes
•   Removed unnecessary sector marker from station founding introduction mission
•   Fixed 43 typos (I didn't actually count that)


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on October 27, 2020, 03:04:44 AM
New Trailer, Suggestions Feedback and other News!
Mon, 26 October 2020

Read here what's new around Avorion!
We appreciate your feedback regarding the current beta version. With your help we have been able to adjust and optimize some features before the next update. If you have any suggestions, you can tell us about them in the #beta-feedback channel on our Discord:

https://discord.com/invite/avorion

Besides the beta and our hype about the upcoming Black Market DLC, there are a few other new features we would like to share with you.

New Trailer
On our Youtube channel and on the Black Market store page you can watch the new official trailer for the DLC. We'd be happy to hear your feedback!

https://youtu.be/0sN0Na8m4DU


Game suggestion feedback
We really appreciate your ideas and your enthusiasm to be a part of Avorion's development. That's why we went through your suggestions in our forum (ATTENTION: The most recent ones are not included here yet!) and put together a small feedback list for you. On this list you can read which of your suggestions are doable, which ones we are still thinking about and which ones are, unfortunately, on the "won't make it into the game" list.

You can find the list here:

https://forum.avorion.net/index.php?/topic/6734-suggestions-review/

You're welcome to continue to post your ideas in the forum. We will update the list regularly.
To vote you can follow this link:

https://forum.avorion.net/index.php?/forum/8-suggestions-idea-voting/


Giveaway
As a thank you to you, the greatest community in the galaxy, we would like to give something back to you! That's why we're giving away some Avorion Keys next Thursday, 29.10.2020 so that you and your friends can jump into new adventures! You can take part on our official Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/avoriongame

That's all for now, stay safe and stay healthy!


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on October 27, 2020, 03:07:11 AM
Beta Branch Patch 1.3.1 - Patchnotes
Mon, 26 October 2020


Adjustments to docking, some more features and QoL!

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.


Gameplay
•   30s repair restriction no longer applies when the damage was self-inflicted
•   Flinging asteroids into stations now holds the ship that threw the asteroid responsible for damages
•   Added the option to only repair all missing blocks, without ship health
•   Pirate encounters now respawn after 24h of playtime (newly discovered only)
•   Pirate encounters now reset after some time when players flee (newly discovered only)
•   Xsotan now turn hostile when ramming them

Docking Adjustments
"So far, docking has been a huge success and we're very happy with the results! You got really creative with what you could do, and sadly that's where we had to make some adjustments since you broke the game in far too many ways :("

•   Gates can no longer be docked in Normal (still in Creative)
•   Several story-relevant objects and characters can no longer be docked
•   Turrets of docked objects are now dependent on their parent's turret slots
•   Added little chatter messages when containers are being abducted
•   AI ships that don't want to be docked will now undock themselves
•   Added a 'Transport' mode for stations
   •   Stations must be in 'Transport' mode to be docked and moved
   •   Stations in 'Transport' mode lose their station-specific interactions and passive abilities (Shipyard, Equipment Dock)


•   Increased pulling force of dock blocks
•   It's now possible for docked objects to jump and take their parent with them (if they belong to the same faction)

Balancing
•   Relation loss by damage is now relative to maximum HP/shields of AI crafts
   •   This reduces relation loss for high-damage weaponry in late game

•   Increased repair speed for crew to 40min for the entire craft, from 60min

Client
•   Improved transparency rendering of green box in building mode
•   Added explanation for size of docking blocks and pulling force
•   Added a preview of integrity field size in build mode

UI
•   Galaxy Map: Added input hints
•   Strategy Mode: Grid plane is now more transparent
•   Strategy Mode: Camera can now be rotated by just holding right mouse, shift doesn't have to be held
•   Added a check box to hide/show green arrows in build mode
•   NewsWindow is now invisible while ModsWindow is visible
•   Added a little green icon that tells the player they can build advanced blocks in the sector

Misc
•   Added an introductory chat message when playing on the beta branch
•   Reduced RAM requirements while calculating background AI faction economy

Scripting API
•   Added several missing Player callbacks on Server side
•   Removed obsolete Entity:getWormHoleComponent() function

Bugfixes
"Thanks for reporting tons of issues! We're still working through the reports, and this is the first bunch of bugfixes that we've finished."

•   Fixed several typos
•   [UBR] Fixed a script crash when ordering ships to salvage/mine through interaction window
•   [UBR] Fixed a few issues when multiple docks are pulling the same object
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where collision damage wasn't taken into account for relation changes
•   [UBR] Fixed a few issues where weapons with high omicron would cost tons of reputation even though they hit a station that didn't even lose 1% HP
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where important artifacts weren't in the inventory of mobile merchants
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where stations would try pushing away their docking parent
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues in controls settings
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where shots of ships owned by players, but controlled by AI would cause reputation losses when hitting the wrong target
•   [UBR] Fixed stations pushing obstacles while they're docked to something
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where script commands that required Sector() access didn't work (ie. /addcrew)
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where interacting with a docked station would result in strange displacement of both objects
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where hidden resource asteroids had only a few resources
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where hazard zone being called out had string placeholders
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where all patrolling ships would fly to the same point in space and get stuck
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships wouldn't follow docked objects if set to escort
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where docking heavy objects sometimes didn't impact the ship's physics
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where modifying docked objects didn't impact the parent ship's physics


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on October 29, 2020, 03:03:04 AM
Beta Branch Patch 1.3.2 - Patchnotes
Wed, 28 October 2020

While the release of the Black Market DLC is getting closer, we're continuously fixing bugs!

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

Gameplay
•   Added a note to headhunter attacks showing which faction attacked the player
•   Repairing at a repair dock is no longer possible during combat
  •   The default repair rules apply same as in building mode
•   Docking & stealing wreckages in scrapyards is now illegal
•   Stations no longer automatically undock from other stations when transport mode ends

Balancing
•   Reduced firepower of tesla turrets by 33% and reduced their range to 2.5km - 3.5km (from 3km to 4.5km)

DLC Content
"We're currently fixing things in the DLC content that got reported during our closed beta. Thanks for reporting and keep it up! To avoid spoilers we won't be listing story-related fixes here."

•   Fixed several reported issues in DLC-only content
•   Fixed several issues where NPCs wouldn't interact with players
•   Improved tooltips of new upgrades

UI
•   Trade AI errors are now sent by the ship and contain the name of the ship in the chat message
•   Turrets can no longer be dismantled while favorited
•   Turrets & Upgrades can no longer be researched while favorited
•   Messages of containers when being abducted are more robotic
•   Added black market logo to main menu when black market DLC is owned
•   Adjusted news window to less obnoxious, especially on lower resolution
•   Adjusted size & position of server browser so that it's well visible on lower resolutions

Scripting API
•   Added a DockingParent class

Bugfixes
"As always, bug reports marked with [UBR] are user bug reports. Thanks for taking the time to report stuff and keep it up!"

•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where Swoks' friendly/enemy behavior didn't work for alliances
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where MAD Science Lab's friendly/enemy behavior didn't work for alliances
•   [UBR] Strategy Mode: Fixed an issue where the grid plane prevented shots and beams being rendered below it
•   [UBR] Fixed cultists not aggroing when trying to steal their precious asteroid
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where tractor beams weren't working correctly
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues related to station docks
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where sectors with only destroyed ships would be included in limited simulated sectors of a player
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where brake thrust and rotation wasn't calculated correctly
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where it was possible to select a turret with the ships tab
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where client-sided independent turrets would shoot ships and stations that were being boarded
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where hyperspace engine was always recharging after a relog if an upgrade was installed
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where mirroring of front-torpedo launcher didn't work properly
•   [UBR] Fixed some issues with being able to click through news window
•   Fixed several issues & crashes in scripts
•   Fixed several issues & typos in texts

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on October 31, 2020, 02:12:50 AM
Beta Branch Patch 1.3.3 - Patchnotes
Fri, 30 October 2020

More bugfixes and some last features!

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

Gameplay
•   Factories that are docked to each other can now directly transfer goods between them
•   While attacking, ships try to roll in a way that their strongest turret side faces the enemy
•   Stashes now drop their items instead of just giving them to players

Balancing
•   Adjusted damages of some new turrets

Client & UI
•   Build Mode: Hold R to set the orientation when using the transform tool
•   Added a basic mission marker instead of no icon in mission list
•   Economy messages by the alliance are now marked as such
•   Players can now choose if they want to receive economy notifications from their alliance
•   Added activity logs for alliances

Bugfixes
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where blocks weren't correctly mirrored when using the transform tool
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where anchors of permanently installed upgrades were visible through UI
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in rendering in build mode when green arrows are disabled
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where transfer vessel couldn't be completed if the vessel was to be delivered to a ship instead of a station
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where pirates from pirate shipyard sectors didn't count as pirates for pirate problem mission
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships lost upgrades when destroyed while not in the same sector as the player
•   [UBR] Fixed an exploit where operation exodus dropped too many artifacts
•   [UBR] Bad cargo warning is no longer shown when only a few unimportant ships of another faction are present in the sector
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where camera wasn't resetting behind the ship correctly when exiting building mode
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues with chat commands not finding the right players
•   Fixed several crashes and other issues in scripts
•   Fixed & adjusted several textss
•   Fixed a few crashes in scrapyard due to new variables and people using old saves


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on November 02, 2020, 02:14:51 AM
Beta Branch Patch 1.3.4 - Patchnotes
Mon, 2 November 2020

A few more adjustments and stability improvements before the big day tomorrow!

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

Gameplay
•   Adjusted strength of pirates when hacking

Balancing
"We improved the behavior for losing relations due to stray shots. We had to find a good balance between 'not punishing shooting things accidentally too much' and 'consequences for blowing up half a station'."

•   Reworked relation loss for hitting the hull of AI ships/stations
•   Relation loss per shot is now higher, but you can't lose more than 3000 relations per second through shooting only


Client & UI
•   Building Mode: Added new visualization when using the transform blocks tool
•   Building Mode: Added new input hints about the rotation status of the Transformation Brush (keep orientation / overwrite orientation)
•   Added a news window with most important changes
•   Added a log entry for alliance ships being destroyed
•   Tooltips of uncollectable loot are now shown when aiming at in in mouse steering mode
•   Speech bubbles are now rendered transparent when aiming at them in mouse steering mode
•   Improved clarity of container cracking UI
•   Targeters of docked stations are now always shown
•   Added community chatter messages

Bugfixes
•   [UBR] Fixed a wrong warning about sectors not being simulated when a ship was destroyed there
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where being tractored by stations while having objects docked didn't work
•   [UBR] Fixed a desync issues when commanding ships over the galaxy map
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where pre-1.2 stations couldn't dock objects
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where boarded stations couldn't be docked
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues where transport mode of stations confused traders
•   Fixed several server crashes
•   Fixed an issue where sender of a chat message was always replaced by the entity title
•   Fixed AI backup in boss fights arriving looking in the wrong direction
•   Fixed several issues in scripts
•   Fixed several issues in texts
•   Updated localizations


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on November 03, 2020, 12:29:06 AM
Patch 1.3.4 - Docking Update Final Patchnotes
Mon, 2 November 2020

Here are the final patchnotes for Update 1.3.4 - The Docking Update! Caution: Wall of text incoming!

Docking
"Docking's here! The feature is actually pretty straightforward. Slap a dock block on your ship and go have fun! :)"
•   Ships can now use Dock blocks to dock other objects
•   Docked objects are shown in building mode
•   Docked objects can be taken with you through gates, wormholes and hyperspace jumps
•   (Nearly) every object can be docked
•   Added a 'Transport' mode for stations
  o   Stations must be in 'Transport' mode to be docked and moved
  o   Stations in 'Transport' mode lose their station-specific interactions and passive abilities (Shipyard, Equipment Dock)
•Factories that are docked to each other can now directly transfer goods between them (direct partners only)

Gameplay
"Aside from a few shady features that sneaked in from the Black Market DLC, we got Legendary Turrets, prettier asteroids, and a new, strange Xsotan Wormhole Device that seems to open wormholes to your Reconstruction Site."
•   Added new containers that can be hacked or taken to a smuggler's outpost to be opened
•   Added a new sector type with many containers and asteroids
•   Added the possibility to bribe ships that inspect you
•   Added the possibility to inspect & get bribed by AI traders that can now carry illegal goods
•   Added special, legendary turrets
  o   Some turrets will be available immediately, some only for DLC owners
  o   Turrets are dropped by bosses and other strong enemies
  o   More turrets to come over the next weeks
  o   It is highly recommended to try them out before judging them :)

•   Added a new Xsotan Wormhole Device that opens a wormhole to your reconstruction site
  o   You get the item from the Adventurer after changing the Reconstruction Site or progressing with the story
  o   10 Minute cooldown, infinite usages
  o   Has a few other limitations so it can't be used during immediate combat
•   Improved visuals of asteroids with resources
  o   Developer Note: Asteroid shapes have been fine-tuned to ensure they have the same amount of resources as before

•   Some factions now always have bad starting relations (not as bad on low difficulties, very bad on high difficulties)
•   On higher difficulties, bad initial relations can trigger immediate war with factions the player hasn't met yet
•   When switching sectors, players are only placed in ships that are idle or passive from now on (unless otherwise specified) to not interrupt AI orders
•   Objects in sectors towards the middle are spread out a little further
•   Seeking projectiles can now lead very fast targets
•   When a warzone is called out or a freighter is raided, nearby players are notified
•   Reduced camera shake of sector jumps
•   Added edge & corner crew quarters blocks
•   Added a front-facing torpedo launcher block
•   30s repair restriction no longer applies when the damage was self-inflicted
•   Pirate encounters now respawn after 24h of playtime (newly discovered only)
•   Pirate encounters now reset after some time when players flee (newly discovered only)
•   Xsotan now turn hostile when ramming them
•   Added a note to headhunter attacks showing which faction attacked the player
•   While attacking, ships try to roll in a way that their strongest turret side faces the enemy
•   Stashes now drop their items instead of just giving them to players

AI
"We improved several aspects of the AI, like pathfinding, aim and salvage & mining AI."
•   A ship now waits for its fighters to land before flying through a gate
•   Improved aim of AI ships
  o   AI ships can now aim with coaxial turrets
  o   Strongly improved aim of AI ships for Expert+ difficulties
•   Salvage & mining AI now picks new objects to harvest close to the last one
  o   This way the behaviour is more consistent when objects break apart
•   Salvage & mining AI now keeps fighters active while collecting loot
•   Salvage & mining AI no longer keeps firing at tiny fragments that have negligible amounts of resources left
•   Salvage & mining AI no longer bothers collecting extremely tiny amounts of loot
•   Improved pathfinding when surrounded by many obstacles

Balancing Part I: General
•   Adjusted fines for smuggling
•   Slightly increased amount of petty upgrades being dropped in the outer regions
•   Slightly reduced amount of legendary upgrades being dropped on low difficulties
•   Railguns now always penetrate at least 3 blocks
•   5-slot turrets aren't automatically coaxial any longer
  o   Instead of every turret, only 25% of 5-slot turrets will be coaxial turrets
•   Explosive shots no longer deal potentially infinite amounts of damage through AOE, but are capped at 200%
•   Pulse Cannons now have a much higher shield penetration rate compared to other weapons with ionized projectiles
•   Increased projectile speed of 2+ slot turrets
•   Relation loss by damaging shields is now relative to maximum shields of AI crafts
  o   This reduces relation loss for high-damage weaponry in late game
•   Relation loss by damaging hull through shooting is now at max 3000 points per second
  o   This reduces relation loss for high-damage weaponry in late game
•   Increased repair speed for crew to 40min for the entire craft, from 60min
•   Reduced firepower of tesla turrets by 33% and reduced their range to 2.5km - 3.5km (from 3km to 4.5km)

Balancing Part II: Shields
"Let's face it: Shields are way too powerful for what they cost. They provide lots of HP that recharge extremely quickly for free and they protect all blocks at the same time. Shields are also more or less obligatory for combat, and this means that players avoid combat in the early game. We want to break free from these limitations and give players more means to fight early on. We're nerfing shield generators, but at the same time buffing integrity blocks & armor a lot. Keep in mind that these are experimental changes and we'll see how they fare. Please share your feedback with us on this!"
•   Buffing Integrity Blocks & Armor
  o   Reminder: Integrity fields reduce incoming damage!
  o   Increased damage reduction of integrity fields from 50% to 75%
  o   Increased HP of armor blocks to 25 per 1 volume, from 15
•   Nerfing Shields
  o   Increased cost of shield generator blocks by 50%
  o   Reduced shield durability gained from shield blocks to 50 per 1 volume, from 70
•   Developer Note: In total, existing ships with shield generators and integrity blocks protecting armor will get:
  o   -27% shields
  o   +233% hull HP for armor
  o   +100% hull HP for other blocks


Balancing Part III: Exploits, Shipyards & Reconstruction Site
"We're seeing a lot of playstyles that abuse exploits that are ending up in guides and that are degenerating from how Avorion was originally designed. In addition to fixing exploits, we're adding some experimental changes through which we want to shift the gameplay a bit. We want to reintroduce the feeling of 'safe haven' sectors and the risk of venturing out. We do realize that this might take some comfort away but we think it's healthier for the game in the long run. This playstyle will also require a little more planning from you, which is why we're only enabling it on new galaxies. We'd love to hear your feedback and we'll monitor the situation closely!"
•   Building and repairing are now only possible without enemies attacking and only if the ship wasn't damaged in the past 30 seconds
•   New Saves: On Normal+ difficulty, Generators and Hyperspace Cores will need a neutral or friendly shipyard in the sector to be added to your ship
  o   Applies to new saves only
  o   Applies to ships, not stations
  o   Does not apply to Creative
  o   Can be turned on/off with a server.ini setting
  o   Ctrl-Z, Ctrl-Y and scaling will still work without a shipyard
  o   Repairing is still possible without a shipyard
•   Sectors with smuggler hideouts now have a shipyard
•   Sectors with resistance outposts now have a shipyard
•   Added an item that lets you return to your Reconstruction Site from anywhere (details see above)
•   Reduced cost for changing Reconstruction Site by 80%
•   Reduced cost for reconstructing without tokens to 80% of the ship's value, from 120%
•   Reduced cost for repairs at repair docks to 35% of ship's value (from 75%)
•   Reduced cost for founding a shipyard by 17.500.000 credits
•   Reduced cost for founding a repair dock by 7.500.000 credits
•   When reconstruction tokens are disabled, reconstruction site can still be set
•   Hyperspace engine now has to reboot and goes on cooldown after its range is changed

Strategy Mode
"We've massively tuned the Strategy Mode to make it a much more polished and easy-to-use feature. Enjoy!"
•   Added vertical lines to objects for a better sense of depth
•   Improved grid-plane for a better sense of depth
•   Camera can now be rotated and moved up/down
•   Pressing space centers the camera on the selected object(s)
•   Double click now centers the view, Ctrl-click toggles the selection
•   Player's current craft now has a player icon in the strategy mode overview list
•   Selection groups are now shown in overview list
•   Claimed asteroids are now shown in overview list
•   Added colors to sector ship overview list in strategy mode
•   "Fly through gate"-order is now visualized with a line to the gate
•   Mine and salvage orders issued via right click now start harvesting the clicked object (not the closest to the ship)
•   Improved button feedback

Building Mode
•   Added ISS shilhouette for comparison
•   Transform Block tool's block orientation can now be rotated by holding R
•   Added "Show Templates Folder" button to blocks window
•   Turret designs can now be applied to all selected turret bases with one click
•   Implemented new, detailed tooltips for blocks
•   Improved transparency rendering of green box
•   Added a preview of integrity field size
•   Added a check box to hide/show green arrows in build mode
•   Added the option to only repair all missing blocks, without ship health

UI
"More UI and QoL improvements."
•   Galaxy Map: Pressing space centers the camera on the selected object(s)
•   Galaxy Map: Selection groups can now be used the same as in Strategy Mode
•   Galaxy Map: Notifications can now be disabled on the galaxy map
•   Galaxy Map: Added input hints
•   Mails: Mail buttons stops flashing for good when mails window is opened
•   Mails: Mail list updates when a new mail is received
•   Mails: Mail window's 'Delete' now takes all attachments first
•   Improved UI for selling items
  o   Added various filtering, sorting and favoriting options
•   Favorited (starred) items can't be sold, dismantled or researched accidentally any more
•   Added assignable icons for ships
•   Weapon base damage variation is now reflected in tooltips
•   When founding a new ship, "Alliance Ship" is now greyed out when not in an alliance
•   Pressing B while in drone now opens the ship founding dialog
•   Player ships in the same sector now share their scanner data
•   Added total crew salary to player and alliance fleet tabs
•   Trade AI errors are now sent by the ship and contain the name of the ship in the chat message
•   Adjusted size & position of server browser so that it's well visible on lower resolutions
•   Added a basic mission marker instead of no icon in mission list
•   Economy messages by the alliance are now marked as such
•   Players can now choose if they want to receive economy notifications from their alliance
•   Added activity logs for alliances
•   Tooltips of uncollectable loot are now shown when aiming at in in mouse steering mode
•   Speech bubbles are now rendered transparent when aiming at them in mouse steering mode
•   Added community chatter messages

Client
•   Added more loading screen tips
•   Playmodes Normal & Creative Mode are now considered scenarios
•   Added more infos about savegames in singleplayer window
•   Added a checkbox to override a galaxy's mod settings
  o   If not ticked, the save's previous mod config is used
•   Added a news window to the main menu
•   Added a warning window for loading a galaxy with a too high version
•   Added a warning window for loading a non-beta galaxy while on the beta branch
•   Added categories for assignable controls
•   Default controls layout of immediate (mouse) steering changed:
  o   Free Look is now on right mouse button (was Ctrl)
  o   Torpedoes are now fired with G (was right mouse)


Graphics
•   Improved visuals of swirly weapon beams

Server
"While tons of things were improved, the most important change is that the scheduling of the server update has been completely rewritten. A single slow sector no longer slows down the entire server. We also added quite a few new settings to tune your server to your perfect PvP settings."
•   Restructured the entire internals of the server
  o   A single slow sector no longer slows down the entire server
  o   Shenanigans of players no longer slow down the entire server but only the sector they're in
  o   Developer Note: This doesn't mean that the server now magically supports 100 players. Avorion is not an MMO, and will never be one because it was not designed as one.
•   Simplified callback handling & improved stability of the server
•   Increased time that sectors are initially loaded from 15s to 30s
•   Renamed server option "authenticate" to "vac-secure"
•   Renamed server option "isPublic" to "isMultiplayer"
•   Added a server.ini setting to allow/forbid boarding
•   Added a server.ini setting to enable saving of runtime stats (players, tick times, memory, sectors loaded, etc) into a .csv file
•   Added a server.ini setting to configure the amount of networking threads
•   Added a server.ini setting to configure minimum ship size
•   Added a server.ini setting to configure maximum ship velocity
•   Added a server.ini setting to configure maximum number of stations in a sector
•   Added a server.ini setting to configure shipyard-bound building

Scripting API
"A lot changed here, so we won't be listing every little change, but only the most important ones - especially when they might break existing mods."
•   Added class DockingClamps
•   Added class HyperspaceEngine
•   Added a new Sector callback "onPlayerArrivalConfirmed" which fires once the client has finished its loading screen
•   Added more possibilities to work with Mails
•   Added conversion from scancode to keycode and back (modders: See SDL2 docs for that)
  o   Developer Note: Modders: This might be important for you if you were using the Keyboard. We changed our internal structure from SDL Keycodes to SDL Scancodes
•   Entity:getDockingPositions() now returns a table
•   DockingPositions:getDockingPositions() now returns a table
•   DockingPositions:getDockingPosition(id) now returns a table
•   Removed Entity:getRandomDockingPosition()
•   Removed obsolete Entity:getWormHoleComponent() function
•   Renamed Durability.setMaximum -> Durability.maximum
•   Callback "onMailReceived" is now called "onMailAdded" on server, same as client
•   Modder Request: Most properties of TextField are now readable as well
•   Added functionality to drop VanillaInventoryItem and UsableInventoryItem loot
•   Massive improvements to structuredmission.lua
•   Fixed an issue where scripts registered for updates before being restored
•   Fixed an issue where Galaxy:findFaction() didn't correctly return Player, Alliance, or Faction object depending on the internal type
•   Fixed an issue where some components in Entities created by Sector:createEntity() were missing
•   Fixed a crash when not passing a color to addShipProblem
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where it wasn't possible to directly set the Seed value
  o   Use tostring() to get and assign the string to set
•   Improved API documentation

Misc
•   Added a notification when a player is assigned to be the new leader of a group
•   Tons of small optimizations all over the place
•   Improved performance of performance measuring (yes really)
•   Improved several dialogs
•   Improved translations
•   Added a few new bugs
•   Added an introductory chat message when playing on the beta branch

Bugfixes
"As always, bug reports from the community are marked with [UBR] (User Bug Report). Thanks for reporting and keep it up! You'll be seeing quite a few more of these over the next weeks!"
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where torpedoes in Equipment Dock weren't as different as planned
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where trading posts and factories didn't have enough cargo space
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues where introduction missions got stuck when playing them in Alliance ships
•   [UBR] Fixed a few performance issues when opening the Equipment Dock menu while inventory is full
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues where the server could crash when being sent garbage over network
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the emblem of alliances weren't sent to players correctly
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships wouldn't keep their orientation upon sector change
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where some chat commands could crash the server
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in fighter tutorial mission where having more than 3 fighters didn't advance the mission
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where escort AI would falsely attack friends
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where armor blocks sometimes didn't stop penetrating projectiles
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships would chase each other out of the sector indefinitely
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where reconstruction token value of a ship would decrease when ship is built smaller
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where players without alliance vault permissions could trash/favorite alliance items
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where turrets were jittering while aiming with the mouse
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where collision damage wasn't taken into account for relation changes
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where shots of ships owned by players, but controlled by AI would cause reputation losses when hitting the wrong target
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where Swoks' friendly/enemy behavior didn't work for alliances
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where MAD Science Lab's friendly/enemy behavior didn't work for alliances
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where sectors with only destroyed ships would be included in limited simulated sectors of a player
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where it was possible to select a turret with the ships tab
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where client-sided independent turrets would shoot ships and stations that were being boarded
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where anchors of permanently installed upgrades were visible through UI
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where 'Transfer Vessel' mission couldn't be completed if the vessel was to be delivered to a ship instead of a station
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where pirates from pirate shipyard sectors didn't count as pirates for pirate problem mission
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships lost upgrades when destroyed while not in the same sector as the player
•   [UBR] Bad cargo warning is no longer shown when only a few unimportant ships of another faction are present in the sector
•   [UBR] Fixed an exploit where ships could be healed by adding large stone blocks
•   [UBR] Fixed an exploit where operation exodus dropped too many artifacts
•   [UBR] Fixed a desync issues when commanding ships over the galaxy map
•   Fixed an issue where chat messages sent by server didn't get their format strings filled in correctly
•   Fixed an error message that was sent too often to alliance members with insufficient permissions
•   Fixed an issue where turrets from the ship, when compared, would show up as blueprints
•   Fixed highlights of list entries in singleplayer window not working
•   Fixed several crashes


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on November 03, 2020, 12:32:31 AM
Avorion Black Market DLC out now!
Mon, 2 November 2020

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1357160/header.jpg?t=1604337216)


The first Avorion expansion can be purchased now!

We are super proud and happy to announce that the first Avorion expansion, the Black Market DLC, is now available on the Steam Store! There are many exciting new tasks and missions waiting for you, so look forward to the new hacking feature and discover hidden dealers to trade illegal and stolen goods on the black market! You can join a convoy on its expedition to the center of the galaxy, make new friends or decide to attack the explorers. Shipbuilders and battle-hardened veterans can also look forward to exciting new legendary weapons which they can use to go into battles or simply equip their favorite ship.

All this and many more new features await you in the Black Market DLC, so don't lose any time and dive into new space adventures!

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1357160/Avorion__Black_Market/

Special Thanks
We would like to thank our community members who have been diligently testing the beta version! With your support and feedback you have helped us a lot and we are happy that you are a part of Avorion!

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on November 03, 2020, 12:40:55 AM
Avorion - Black Market DLC

Requires Avorion

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1357160/header.jpg?t=1604337216)


 STEAM (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1357160/Avorion__Black_Market/)


About This Content

This expansion brings the black market to Avorion. Three underground organizations with their own missions, storylines, tasks and bosses are waiting for you! Meet new characters, visit hidden black markets, trade illegal goods, and get access to new, shady upgrades!

New Storyline
Look forward to over 20 new story missions and additional side missions and events. Meet new characters and support or betray one of the three new syndicates on your way through the galaxy. Use your new connections to get the best prices in the shadiest places! Dare to fight against three new bosses and prove to everyone in the galaxy that you are the strongest!

Hacking
Haven't you always wanted to know what's in all those container fields? With the new Hacking Upgrade, you can now have a look under the hood! A lot of treasures are waiting for you, so as long as you don't worry about some disgruntled owners, it's worth to ... borrow ... a few containers.

Black Market
Uncover hidden traders at innocent-looking stations and deal with illegal and stolen goods. Get new weapons and upgrades that you won't find anywhere else! Start your career as a smuggler with new upgrades that shield your cargo from nosy inspectors. Use the gained influence to build good relations with the syndicates, rise through the ranks, and get rewarded with better prices!

The Convoy
Once the barrier has been surpassed, word of new opportunities is spreading rapidly. You're not the only one who wants to venture into the unknown! Once the biggest dangers of the center of the galaxy have been overcome, a huge convoy will start doing expeditions over the barrier. Join the expedition, let yourself be captivated by the convoy, and assist them to make some new friends. And in case you already have enough friends, then maybe you can gather them, lie in wait for the convoy and relieve them of their heavy cargo.

Legendary Weapons
Toss your old turrets to the scrap metal! With this expansion, a lot of new weapons are waiting for you, which will make every enemy shake and propel you to the top of the food chain!

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1357160/ss_6f8d7a9c9babc9875680b4575626332d065b2849.1920x1080.jpg?t=1604337216)

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1357160/ss_9ed04a0c90e246f85bce229527916d50e9894efa.1920x1080.jpg?t=1604337216)

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1357160/ss_2ca176970be4e47969e401fb765e78a5385584e7.1920x1080.jpg?t=1604337216)

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1357160/ss_e1151d5b90e57ffc4bb80caf011eedb48235b917.1920x1080.jpg?t=1604337216)

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1357160/ss_fa3cf7475d786ab10ba7489145fd886b2c8b6dd5.1920x1080.jpg?t=1604337216)

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1357160/ss_bbff5301002352fc9590e4939d9dca6515f17828.1920x1080.jpg?t=1604337216)


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on November 13, 2020, 01:06:29 AM
News: "Official Community Servers" and "Verified Servers"
Thu, 12 November 2020

We're transferring our "Official Community Servers" program into a "Verified Servers" program.

As you may know, some time ago we started the experiment with the “Official Community Servers”. During the Covid-19 lockdown, we provided some servers for free, to be run by the community. We marked them as “Official Community Servers”, to indicate that these are special, always-on servers managed by the community. After evaluating your feedback and all the statistics, we, unfortunately, came to the conclusion that it did not work out the way we planned it. We’re still working on some performance issues, and we realized that we gave a wrong impression by marking them with the word “Official”. Additionally, we had quite a few requests from passionate dedicated server hosters, saying they wanted to be part of the program as well, but with their own, private servers.

After having evaluated everything, we came to the conclusion that there is another, better way! So here is a little preview of our future plans.

In the next few weeks, we will transfer the "Official Community Server" program into a "Verified Servers" program. We have many dedicated hosters who host private, well-functioning servers at their own costs. We want to reward these people for their efforts and give them the opportunity to get a blue checkmark as well.

The current "Official Community Servers" will remain online and with the current hosters, but for the time being the blue checkmark will be removed. Alternatively, we will give everyone (who runs a server) the opportunity to apply for the “verified” checkmark. All of you, who have already invested hours in their own servers and gained experience are invited to apply for the “Verified” checkmark once the program starts over the next weeks. Of course, this also includes the servers now marked as "Official Community Servers".

We are still working on how exactly and under which conditions this will be possible. More detailed information will be available soon. So stay tuned!


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on November 14, 2020, 12:04:57 AM
Beta Branch Patch 1.3.5 - Patchnotes
Fri, 13 November 2020

Big Server Performance Optimizations & General Bugfixes

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.

Gameplay
•   Object detector no longer highlights valuable objects docked to the current ship

Balancing
•   Reduced drop chance for Defense System Upgrades relative to the other upgrades

Client & UI
•   Building Mode: Special folders in "Saved Designs" window are now sorted to the front
•   While on beta branch, version is shown on the bottom left of the screen
•   Improved responsiveness of the game during loading screen
    •   This fixes Windows thinking that the game crashed when it's actually just loading
•   Added some loading screen tips that explain size relations in the game

Server
"We made some serious progress over the past 2 weeks on the server side, and now it's time to share it!"

•   Implemented several important performance optimizations

Bugfixes
"As always, user bug reports are marked with [UBR]. Thanks for helping us improve the game and keep it up! :)"

•   [UBR] Fixed a crash when hiring a spy
•   [UBR] Fixed massive performance issues when changing the sliders for volume or scale in shipyard or station founder
•   [UBR] Fixed problems with hermit mission not updating when talking to adventurer
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where selling of all trash didn't work at a fighter factory
•   [UBR] Fixed IHDTX attacking during dialog on re-enter of sector
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash when using /playerinfo chat command
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where log would be filled with "Skipped queued callback because filter said no"
•   Fixed an issue where docked containers would turn invisible
•   Fixed several UI elements reacting even if the mouse is blocked by other windows
•   Fixed descriptions of missions flickering while changing sectors
•   Fixed several issues in black market story missions
•   Fixed several issues in scripts
•   Updated texts
•   Updated localizations


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on November 20, 2020, 01:56:47 AM
Patch 1.3.5 - Patchnotes
Thu, 19 November 2020

We implemented some important server performance optimizations, QoL improvements and bugfixes.

Gameplay
•   Object detector no longer highlights valuable objects docked to the current ship

Balancing
•   Reduced drop chance for Defense System Upgrades relative to the other upgrades

Client & UI
•   Building Mode: Special folders in "Saved Designs" window are now sorted to the front
•   While on beta branch, version is shown on the bottom left of the screen
•   Improved responsiveness of the game during loading screen
  o   This fixes Windows thinking that the game crashed when it's actually just loading

•   Added some loading screen tips that explain size relations in the game
•   Added small question marks to indicate that scrapyard dismantling doesn't guarantee goods

Scripting API
•   Added documentation for displaying dialogs

Server
"We made some serious progress over the past 2 weeks on the server side, and now it's time to share it!"
•   Implemented several important performance optimizations

Bugfixes
"As always, user bug reports are marked with [UBR]. Thanks for helping us improve the game and keep it up! :)"
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash when hiring a spy
•   [UBR] Fixed massive performance issues when changing the sliders for volume or scale in shipyard or station founder
•   [UBR] Fixed problems with hermit mission not updating when talking to adventurer
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where selling of all trash didn't work at a fighter factory
•   [UBR] Fixed IHDTX attacking during dialog on re-enter of sector
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash when using /playerinfo chat command
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where log would be filled with "Skipped queued callback because filter said no"
•   [UBR] Fixed "Show Hints" setting not doing anything
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where some blocks would drop resources even though they shouldn't
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where players wouldn't be written out properly on servers
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues with tooltips on the galaxy map
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues with ships bumping into each other when ordered to escort
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues where jump orders on the galaxy map wouldn't get executed properly
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where flight assist would use up more and more energy after docking
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where traits of DLC syndicates wouldn't show up properly
•   Fixed an issue where docked containers would turn invisible
•   Fixed several UI elements reacting even if the mouse is blocked by other windows
•   Fixed descriptions of missions flickering while changing sectors
•   Fixed several issues in black market story missions
•   Fixed several issues in scripts
•   Updated texts
•   Updated localizations


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on December 03, 2020, 01:05:11 AM
Verified Server Program
Wed, 2 December 2020

The Verified Server Program is launching now, you can get all the important infos here!

Community members can now apply to have their server marked as a "Verified Server"! All verified servers will get a blue checkmark next to the server name in the list. The "Verified Server" checkmark is used to mark servers that we, Boxelware, recommend as great to play on. We want to highlight servers of passionate community members and reward those who are doing an amazing job running their own dedicated servers.

Since the verified server checkmark is a quality seal, a verified server must follow certain guidelines (see link below). This gives verified servers better visibility and increased server traffic. Additionally, we will provide a direct connection for verified server owners to us to provide high priority support!

You can find the complete list of rules & prerequisites on our forum: https://forum.avorion.net/index.php?/topic/6846-verified-servers-ruleset-prerequisites/

Here are some of the most important points:
- The server specs must meet certain requirements to ensure smooth gameplay
- The server must be public and accessible without password
- The server admin must be reachable by us
- The server admin must have at least one month of experience running similar servers
- The server main language must be German or English

To apply with your server, please send us an e-mail to server@boxelware.de. Make sure to check out the forum post first, though!

We are looking forward to your applications!

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on December 10, 2020, 01:48:19 AM
Beta Branch Patch 1.3.6 - Patchnotes
Wed, December 9, 2020
The latest update with some QoL features, updates and bugfixes is now live on the beta branch!

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.
Gameplay
•   Reduced amount of container fields in massive container field sectors to improve performance
•   Note: Only applies to newly discovered sectors


•   Container fields now respawn similar to asteroid fields
•   Docking dock blocks with dock blocks now aligns them perfectly
•   Added cooldowns of 30 minutes to story boss fights
•   Made several improvements to gameplay flow of investigate missing freighters mission
•   "Free Slaves" mission timer now stops after slaves have been surrendered, returning them has no time limit
•   Morale drop for missing officers only happens if there are actually too many crewmen for all officers, instead of projected numbers being too high

Client
•   Camera adjustment to ship now also supports back and forth (ALT + mouse wheel)
•   Galaxy Map: Temporary (unstable) wormholes are now shown as yellow paths
•   Building Mode: Turret designs can now also be scaled all at once
•   Building Mode: Improved scale-step icon
•   Building Mode: Moved workshop items that are tagged "Segment Template" to a new folder "Workshop Segment Templates"
•   Improved tooltips to clarify that some items can also be reserved for AI factions
•   Alliance message of the day is displayed on login
•   Permanently installed, but disabled upgrades are now shown correctly in upgrades tab
•   This happens when an upgrade is installed permanently and then the ship is shrunk down, disabling the used slots


Misc
•   Updated localization
•   Added more debugging output

Bugfixes
"As always, bugs marked with [UBR] are User Bug Reports, submitted through our in-game bug tracker. Thanks very much for helping and keep 'em coming!"

•   Fixed an issue where players that just logged in would cause logs that look like crashes
•   Fixed several issues in Black Market campaign
•   Fixed an issue where smuggler ships could attack player after having told them that they wouldn't
•   Fixed a crash when using StrategyMode in scripts while not actually in strategy mode
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the artifact of the brotherhood could be dropped multiple times
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where mining AI could try to mine objects attached to itself
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where mining AI didn't use double-harvesting turrets for salvaging or mining and vice versa
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ship name and emblem blocks of small objects weren't displayed correctly
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where productions of factories weren't started properly while players weren't in the sector
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where enemies would start standing still after being out of reach for too long
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the chat would remain scrolled up even when not currently open
•   [UBR] Fixed several synchronization issues of upgrades in inventory selection of upgrades tab
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where convoy ship would call out to players that they have missions even though they don't
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue with pathfinding where the ai would not fly through a gate
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where tutorial would get stuck if player left the sector in a certain phase
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where "Rebuilding Geometry" was displayed forever when turning off ambient occlusion and removing a block
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where delivery missions handed out cargo even though player was unable to pay deposit
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where exodus mission's next beacon location would be shown before player talked to current beacon
•   [UBR] Fixed a resource duping bug
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where selecting didn't work when select was bound to other mouse buttons
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships would be restored immediately after selling them at a scrapyard
•   [UBR] Fixed an exploit where unique upgrades could be installed more than once
•   [UBR] Fixed some mistakes in encyclopedia
•   [UBR] Fixed casino not talking to player after they leave and return to sector in 'The Family'



Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on January 21, 2021, 03:01:32 PM
Beta Branch Patch 1.3.7 - Patchnotes
Thu, 21 January 2021

Beta branch patch 1.3.7 is now live, fixing more bugs!

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.

UI
•   Shield & Hull repair rates are now factored in when sorting by damage
•   Players no longer get notifications for shot down torpedoes and fighters

Misc
•   Various smaller performance improvements and code cleanups

Bugfixes
"As always, bugs marked with [UBR] are User Bug Reports, submitted through our in-game bug tracker. Thanks very much for helping and keep 'em coming!"
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where there were no Xsotan attacks at all happening when only Xsotan infected asteroids were in the sector
•   [UBR] Fixed Adventurer not talking to player after player leaves and returns to sector in 'Torpedo Tests'
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues where boarded ships couldn't be commanded or were otherwise behaving strangely
•   [UBR] Fixed issues where the coordinates were swapped in the descriptions of the final Cavaliers and Family storylines
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash that occured when clicking 'Show in Workshop' button in mod upload window when no mod was selected
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the end-game convoy would spawn in 0:0
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where fighters and turrets could have negative costs
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where some russian letters couldn't be entered as ship names
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where AI ships of players didn't fire torpedoes
•   [UBR] Fixed some rounding issues in hyperspace and radar upgrades
•   Fixed some issues where mining & salvaging turrets were coaxial when they shouldn't be
•   Fixed several issues in mining and salvaging AI scripts
•   Fixed several crashes in scripts
•   Fixed several issues where missions weren't restored correctly
•   Fixed several typos
•   Fixed some issues in documentation

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on January 27, 2021, 03:20:01 AM
Roadmap 2021
Tue, January 26, 2021

Get a taste of the changes that are coming!

We are hoping that you had relaxing holidays and an amazing start into the new year and that you are ready for the great news we’d like to share with you!

So without further ado, here it is:

At the moment we are working on a large (free ;) ) update for Avorion that will introduce many new features and massively rework some aspects of the game in Q2 2021. We don’t want to spill too much info at this point, but we would like to share some details to get you hyped up a bit!

You all know about independent targeting and we hope you will be excited to hear that we are reworking it. In the future, you will be able to decide for yourself which of your weapons will be able to fire independently, and the damage of these weapons will no longer be reduced by 50%.

There will also be changes concerning the game progression and the collection of materials. We know this sounds exciting, but you'll have to be patient for a little longer before you can discover your journey to the center all over again.

Now that we have dropped some spoilers, we would like to tell you that we have thought long and hard about what we want Avorion to be like in the future and which direction we want to go to improve it!

We have been taking a closer look at the gameplay and we have realized that you guys are forced to spend a lot of time on (annoying) micro-management. This is one of the things that we want to change in the future.

As you know, there are countless adventures and experiences to be enjoyed in Avorion. But we have noticed that we introduced a few features in the past that only scratched the surface and that have caused the game to feel a little rough in some respects. But now it’s finally time to smooth those edges! This means that we might have to tackle some (annoying) gameplay mechanics and reduce their scope. We are even planning on replacing some (micro-management intensive) mechanics with more intuitive systems. Our goal is to make sure that in the future, we won’t be spreading our efforts too thin and that we will be able to make our vision of the game bloom!

We are looking forward to the update and we can’t wait to receive your feedback! In the meantime, take a look at one of our verified servers, marked with a blue checkmark in the server list. Who knows, maybe you’ll find new allies there!

And if you still haven’t read enough, check out this wormhole that leads directly to our roadmap:

https://avorion.gamepedia.com/Roadmap

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on February 12, 2021, 01:23:58 AM
Patch 1.3.7 is now live on branch default!
Thu, 11 February 2021

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/445220/ss_61c40366135498efcc959dd5ca55fcc3044c84cf.1920x1080.jpg)

Patch 1.3.7 is now live on branch default!

After performing well on the beta branch, patch 1.3.7 is now live on the default branch for everyone. You can find full patch notes for 1.3.7 and 1.3.6 are in the above posts

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on March 09, 2021, 11:34:49 PM
Avorion Update 2.0
Tue, 9 March 2021

We’re celebrating our anniversary and want to tell you more about our next huge update!
It's crazy how time flies! It’s been a whole year already since Avorion left Early Access!

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/49ff7c30a7d4a99769e878fc1b94b989497e01fe.gif)

We are super happy with how things have been going! That’s why we have a little surprise for you:

https://youtu.be/Mb71_NYhesM


Update 2.0 will introduce massive changes that will fundamentally improve many aspects of the game:

- New progression system in which players acquire building knowledge of the various materials
- New “Classic Avorion” scenario without the new progression
- Fully configurable “Free Play” scenario
- Captains with specialized talents and personalities
- Improved AI orders to send your ship to go mining, trading, scouting and more
- Improved UI visuals
- Improvements to the independent targeting mechanics
- Many QOL improvements like less micro management, easier traveling to far away sectors and crew management, autopilots, many balancing changes, UI improvements like a sector overview that shows available missions, goods and crew members of all stations, and many more!

Update 2.0 will improve game mechanics that might not feel perfect at the moment. Many of these changes will make Avorion feel like a new game, that is why the title of the update will be “Avorion Update 2.0”.

More details about the specific changes will be coming over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on March 13, 2021, 11:53:24 PM
Avorion Update 2.0
Tue, 9 March 2021

We’re celebrating our anniversary and want to tell you more about our next huge update!

It's crazy how time flies! It’s been a whole year already since Avorion left Early Access!

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/49ff7c30a7d4a99769e878fc1b94b989497e01fe.gif)

We are super happy with how things have been going! That’s why we have a little surprise for you:

https://youtu.be/Mb71_NYhesM


Update 2.0 will introduce massive changes that will fundamentally improve many aspects of the game:

- New progression system in which players acquire building knowledge of the various materials
- New “Classic Avorion” scenario without the new progression
- Fully configurable “Free Play” scenario
- Captains with specialized talents and personalities
- Improved AI orders to send your ship to go mining, trading, scouting and more
- Improved UI visuals
- Improvements to the independent targeting mechanics
- Many QOL improvements like less micro management, easier traveling to far away sectors and crew management, autopilots, many balancing changes, UI improvements like a sector overview that shows available missions, goods and crew members of all stations, and many more!

Update 2.0 will improve game mechanics that might not feel perfect at the moment. Many of these changes will make Avorion feel like a new game, that is why the title of the update will be “Avorion Update 2.0”.

More details about the specific changes will be coming over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on April 13, 2021, 11:20:45 PM
Update 2.0 News Flash: New Captains!
Tue, 13 April 2021

Infos about the new captains

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/42dbff6a5e98d74105a6dd6b2223284847efd22c.jpg)

Captain’s Classes
We noticed that hiring captains used to be a bland affair that was necessary but rather boring. This did not go in accordance with our vision of the game. The new captains will have up to two classes, for example “Merchant”, or “Scavenger”, with their own individual capabilities. Captains will gain experience when completing commands, and leveling up will make them even more effective.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/f4245628c8a684cd0d178dc6c760a1369feb6501.jpg)

Captain’s Perks and Quirks
To show that each captain has their own personality, we also added character traits that make each captain special. These traits influence how well a captain is able to perform a certain task, so always make sure to put the right person on a certain job! Which captains you will be able to hire depends on at which stations you look for them and how much you are willing to pay. But don’t worry: none of the new captains will be able to do less than the old captains, but many of them will be capable of doing so much more!

Stay tuned for another Update 2.0 news flash next week!

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on April 20, 2021, 11:38:35 PM
Update 2.0 Newsflash - New Progression
Tue, 20 April 2021

We will be introducing improvements to the progression with Update 2.0

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/1f67adc50c9432da3e2438baff733d96d02df5b5.jpg)

Building Knowledge
Today we’ll give you some info on the new progression system! We want the journey towards the center of the galaxy to be more challenging. From now on, you’ll have to unlock Building Knowledge about each new material (starting with Naonite, you’ll start out with knowledge about Iron and Titanium) before you’ll be able to use it for ship building. Unlocking the next material will also unlock the ability to build bigger ships with higher subsystem socket numbers.

There will be different ways to get your hands on above Building Knowledge. In any case, we want players to prove themselves in a new area before they can unlock the next building tier. You can get the knowledge for the next material by either beating a boss in the area or a difficult pirate encounter. In case you’re not the fighting type you can also buy the building knowledge at a shipyard from an allied faction in the specific region.

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/f8d78b88da5bfa84798066a8dd4ee0395de865e8.png)

Processing Power Revisited
Building Knowledge will not only allow you to use the materials, but the higher-material knowledge you acquire, the more functional blocks you will be able to add to your ships. Adding functional blocks will not only increase the processing power but also the number of subsystem sockets of your crafts. This has always been part of the game, but now we’re visualizing it better. While taking a hard look at the processing power requirements for subsystem sockets we realized that some number tweaking might be necessary, so from now on you’ll unlock new upgrade sockets earlier (less processing power required)!

Existing Saves & Avorion Classic Scenario
Finally, the new progression will only be active for newly created galaxies. All your old savegames will remain the way they are. In case you’re not a fan of the new progression and prefer the more sandboxy approach, we are also going to introduce a new “Classic Avorion” scenario which allows you to play without the new progression. Whenever you create a new galaxy you will be able to select the option in the main menu.

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on May 25, 2021, 11:27:15 PM
Beta Branch Patch 1.3.8 - Patchnotes
Tue, 25 May 2021

French and Japanese localization are now available, plus some bugfixes!

We're introducing official French and Japanese localizations, and while we're already at it, fixing a few bugs.
Beta Branch Note:
These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for
testing experimental changes
and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.

Languages
"As our community is growing all over the world, we want to support more languages. In this patch we happily introduce the new supported languages of French and Japanese."

•   Added French localization
•   Added Japanese localization

General
•   Torpedo shafts can now fire when not assigned to a group
•   Reduced default size of damage numbers
•   Improved performance of durability weakness effects
•   Improved performance of line break algorithm
•   Implemented a prototype functionality to enumerate all values in an Enum
o   Enums can now be converted to a table via enumerate() (ie. BlockType.enumerate())

•   Implemented a setting for servers to enforce steam networking and not fall back to TCP protocols

Bugs
"As always, bugs marked with [UBR] are User Bug Reports, submitted through our in-game bug tracker. Thanks very much for helping and keep 'em coming!"

•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where all players end up in the same sector once 3000+ players are registered
•   Fixed an issue where safe mode was always on (even when turned off) when transforming a shipyard-requiring block into a non-shipyard requiring block without a shipyard in the sector
•   Fixed an issue where colors weren't correctly translated in building mode
•   Fixed an issue where hyperspace engine didn't go on cooldown properly when changing reach
•   Fixed an issue where upgrades of ships could disappear through breaking blocks
•   Fixed an issue where clicking coordinates in chat was possible while mouse was visible or obscured by windows
•   Fixed an issue where the Hermit Dialog wasn't shown when another player already spawned Swoks in that sector
•   Fixed an issue where Exodus Mission wasn't updating correctly
•   Fixed a GPU memory leak
 
Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on July 01, 2021, 12:24:38 AM
Update 2.0 Newsflash - Dev Progress
Tue, 29 June 2021

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/d5b3e927706ff02d92409ba5b98eff33f960d7c3.png)

We're bringing you up to speed to the current development state of Update 2.0!


Hello everyone!

The big update 2.0 is nearly done and we are working on the last few open points! We’d like to use this week’s announcement to update our development roadmap and show you the progress that we’ve made:

DONE:
•   Better UI visuals
•   New progression system based on knowledge for different materials
•   Scenario: "Classic Avorion" without the new progression
•   Improvements to Independent Targeting
  o   Removal of the 50% damage penalty
  o   Amount of independently firing turrets can be increased with various existing and new upgrades

•   Less micro-intensive commanding of ships
  o   10 new or updated commands (ie. go fly a trade route, go salvage, go explore)
  o   Captains with classes & perks
  o   Improved performance for remotely operating ships

•   Bounties on Bulletin Boards
•   More civilian ships for improved flair
•   Improved visuals for busy sectors
•   Tons of QoL
•   More diverse faction areas on the galaxy map
  o   Central vs. outer regions where different rules apply

•   Player Profile w/ Milestones
•   Crew Improvements
  o   QoL; Sergeant, Lieutenant, etc. will be ranks within professions and no longer separate professions

•   Hyperspace Jump Improvements
  o   QoL; Improvements to game flow, jumps, reduction of waiting times

•   Fighter Improvements
  o   QoL; Fighters will be remote-controlled, will support boosting, will be cheaper to build but require stricter preconditions to have them on the ship

•   Autopilots
•   Scenario: "Free Play" that can be configured to your individual liking
•   Torpedo loot drops
•   Improvements to the tutorial
•   Listing of build mode features & "tricks" in the encyclopedia

IN WORK:
•   A Secret Boss
•   Various community-requested & QoL features
•   Updates to the Encyclopedia
•   Polishing, Bugfixing

STILL TO DO:
•   Nothing - we don’t have any other big topics that we’re not already working on! :)

Release Roadmap
So by now, you’ve probably realized that Update 2.0 won’t release in Q2. The good news is that the big topics are done (hooray!) and we’re currently still working out some last kinks and bugs. As we’ve stated in another announcement a few weeks ago, game development is highly iterative (compared to “regular” software development) and we don’t want to burn our 5-person dev team out. That wouldn’t help anybody. We don’t want to ruin the 2.0 update hype with a buggy and rushed release. Also, we’re currently deciding which community-suggested features we’ll be adding to the game, so go vote on our forum, if you haven’t already!

So what’s coming next? One thing we can promise: It won’t be too much longer! Right now we're doing stress-testing, PR stuff like a trailer and informing influencers and media, etc. Over the coming weeks, we’ll get some closed beta-testing started (if we decide to include some community members, you will definitely hear from us), followed by the update being made available on the beta branch, just like any other regular release. After it performs well on beta, it’ll be released to the default branch.

See you next week!



Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on July 06, 2021, 11:39:16 PM
Update 2.0 Newsflash - Loot Transporter & Ship Reconstruction
Tue, July 6, 2021

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/8a5485878fc421b78d1f12d2d169bfccfd51bdba.jpg)

News about the improvement of the Ship Reconstruction and the new Loot Transporter!

Loot Transporter
Getting really good loot usually takes a bit of work... With Update 2.0, we're making it a little easier for you, as the Loot Transporter is a sure way to know that there's some really great stuff to be captured! The transporter sometimes travels with pirates and is responsible for transporting the loot of their raids. You can imagine what he has in his bags! Since he has a lot to haul, there was unfortunately no room on his ship for turrets, so he makes a relatively quick getaway as soon as you attack him. The lucky ones among you who manage to destroy his ship despite the restricted time limit will be rewarded with a bunch of valuable loot!

Ship Reconstruction
Who has never wrecked a ship? Nobody, probably. In such a case, the well-known reconstruction token is usually the first thing you need to get the destroyed ship ready to go again - as long as you have a token at that time.
We would like to make this feature less complicated and more comprehensible, so it should be easier to understand for Avorion beginners in the future.

The tokens will no longer exist starting with Update 2.0, instead we are implementing a new Towing Service at Repair Docks! In the future you will be able to simply fly to a Repair Dock and ask them to pick up the broken ship. The ship will then be brought to you and made ready to use (read: quickly cobbled together) again for a small price, so that you can immediately continue flying! Some additional repairs might be necessary, though. Good thing you’re already at a Repair Dock.

If you don't feel like looking for a Repair Dock first, you can purchase a Reconstruction Kit. With those you can make your ship ready to fly again on the (destruction) spot. You’ll be immediately ready to go, but will need a few more repairs.

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on July 13, 2021, 11:33:24 PM
Update 2.0 Newsflash - Community Suggestions
Tue, 13 July 2021

Check out which of your suggestions will be implemented with Update 2.0!

Hello everyone!

You have actively posted your game suggestions for Avorion in our forum and voted for them. At this point, first of all, thank you from the whole team, it makes us very happy to see how much passion you all bring in!
So here's a summary of the suggestions that made it into Update 2.0:

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/bacc5469f43d88e219b719aa36730f6a68c253f2.jpg)
*Right click on the Screenshot - Open in new tab*

Directly implemented suggestions:
•   Build mode: set root block manually
•   Free camera in build mode
•   Optionally selectable: show faction colors instead of relationships on the galaxy map
•   Ships calling for help die too fast
•   “Captain, do this. Even if I am there” / command your own ship - activate autopilot
•   Improvements to Legendary turrets
•   Pirate Carriers
•   Improve the storage proportioning of the factories

Indirectly Implemented Suggestions:
•   Fighter speed (Has been improved in the Fighter Rework)
•   Easy applying of a fighter skin to a squad (Has been improved in the Fighter Rework)
•   Easier configuration of factory to factory trade (e.g. cargo shuttles, supply command)
•   Easier supply of torpedoes (torpedo loot drops)
•   Difficulty options update (scenario: free play)
•   “We really need a better repair system” (Towing service)
•   Bulletin board improvements (Has been improved with the sector overview)

Unfortunately we can't take over all your ideas,since sometimes they do not match with our vision of Avorion. Nevertheless, we have added tons of smaller improvements, which would go beyond the limits of this post. We have implemented for example a workshop filter to select materials according to already learned material knowledge and improved the unbranding of stolen goods. In addition, the trading subsystems have been buffed so that low rarities are now more effective.
It is definitely worthwhile to visit the forum from time to time, to suggest and vote, maybe next time your personal favorite will be on the list!

https://forum.avorion.net/index.php?/forum/8-suggestions-idea-voting/


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on July 20, 2021, 11:53:30 PM
Update 2.0 Newsflash - Fighter Improvements
Tue, 20 July 2021


Today we're giving you a sneak peek of the fighter improvements!

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/2f2c926a4b0e7fcf8d7efcbaab8909d2a3eb35b6.jpg)


Fighters
We all know them - we all love them: Fighters! The only problem is that our little helpers have brought a lot of work with them until now. We want to improve on that front with Update 2.0 and save you a lot of time!

Let’s start with the fact that the fighter pilots will no longer sit in the fighter itself, but will stay on your carrier and control the fighters remotely. That way you no longer have to worry about your pilots constantly dying in combat and won't have to look for replacements anymore!

Starting with update 2.0 you will get one skin per squad and not per fighter. The new system will introduce rendering performance improvements when fighters are deployed, and network performance improvements for the mothership when they aren’t.

And on top of that: Fighters will only cost 50% of resources to produce in the future, plus they'll start boosting when flying longer distances! Yaaay!

Insiders know that Fighters can be SUPER OP, so we’ll have to introduce some restrictions, too, sorry!
In order to equip your ship with more than one squad of fighters, you will need the right subsystems installed. We want to make the carrier playstyle easier, but it will require more specialization of your ship. 10 squads on a full carrier are equal to 40 turrets! So the effort will definitely be worth it! We will also keep an eye on this feature and tweak it some more if necessary.

Finally, one more community request: Fighter squads can be grouped now!

Cargo shuttles
Cargo shuttles the way you know them now will be removed. The effort behind them is too time-consuming and nerve-wrecking. We’ll replace the cargo shuttles with NPC shuttles to reduce the effort for transporting goods between factories. NPC shuttles will automatically fly between the factories you’ve configured to trade with each other. You will no longer have to hire pilots, create hangars and so on...

And last but not least: We are planning to start the beta for update 2.0 next week! ;)


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 11, 2021, 11:51:32 PM
Beta Branch Patch 2.0.1 - Patchnotes
Wed, August 11, 2021


First round of feedback was received, heard, checked, analyzed, melted, and reshaped into code! Enjoy!
Beta Branch Note:
 These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for
testing experimental changes
 and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.
"You want the big patchnotes? Alright, you shall have the big patchnotes!"

Gameplay
"We made many improvements to ships deployed on operations: They can now show up in the area they're deployed in. But be warned, captains don't like being monitored at work. We also improved some clarity about size limits, processing power and other potential misconceptions about these mechanics."

•   Ships with captains now show up from time to time in the area they were deployed in
•   Renamed "Smart Blocks" to "Functional Blocks"
•   Rephrased several messages to improve clarity about functional blocks and processing power
•   Added a new section to the tutorial to explain processing power
•   Adjusted naming of Building Knowledge
•   Pirate shipyards now also drop building knowledge
•   Building knowledge can now be bought by alliances, too
•   Building knowledge now drops for all players in the sector, regardless of them hitting the enemy that drops the item
•   Harvest and Repair AI now only use the best possible turrets and search for a new target or terminate if none are available. This means a ship equipped with Iron and Titanium Mining Lasers will use only the Titanium ones on Naonite asteroids.
•   Harvest and Repair AI additionally no longer reorder a ship's weapon groups
•   Tier 0 captains now gain a class determined by their last fulfilled operation once they reach level 5
•   When ambushed, a ship tries to fight pirates if it has weapons (not just the escorts)
•   When ambushed, a ship's hyperspace engine is exhausted
•   Large, empty Iron & Naonite asteroids now have the shape of Titanium asteroids to make them distinguishable from claimables
•   Added an alternate version of the hyperspace upgrade that is high reach, high cooldown
•   This is basically the hyperspace system from pre 2.0 as an option, but boosting to reduce cooldown is still possible


•   Tutorial now starts with the same player resources regardless of difficulty level
•   Additional resources are then given to players after completing the tutorial


Fighters
"We said this before: 3 fighters should about equal one turret. The thing is that, contrary to turrets, you can lose fighters while deployed. Our goal with fighters is that we want carriers to be a viable playstyle, that can be powerful but requires specialization of the ship of more than just a few hangar blocks. We spent some more time on fighters and we think we're now at a point where we reached that goal."

•   Increased durability of fighters
•   Durability now scales with tech level and used material


•   Increased boosting powers of fighters to +500% (from +200%)
•   Rebalanced costs of fighters to match the "3 fighters = 1 turret" design philosophy
•   Reduced fighter production costs to material costs equal to 10% of their credits costs
•   A ’100.000 Xanion fighter now costs 10.000 Xanion to produce on the ship


•   Fighter production time is now 50% linked to their tech level and 50% to their durability
•   Fighter production time is now always at most 1h
•   Fighter production time now can be reduced by at max 90%
•   Fighter production time reduction is now 1min per 1000 production capacity on the craft
•   Fighters now always take at least 30s to produce, down from 60s
•   Increased amount of fighters available at stations

General Balancing
"We want the general early game to be more fun and less grindy, and for that we're making it easier to gain resources through other ways than mining. Apart from that, we've made some general adjustments to improve overall gameplay quality."

•   Increased amount of resources available at Resource Depots
•   Reduced cost of resources at Resource Depots
•   Increased profit when selling resources at Resource Depots
•   Reduced amount of necessary reputation for buying Building Knowledge to 65.000
•   Titanium Building Knowledge now gives 5 Slots
•   Increased likelihood of finding captains from every 4th station to every 3rd
•   Increased likelihood of finding tier 1 or 2 captains at stations
•   Decreased base salary of captains by 5000
•   Increased reach of higher-tier hyperspace upgrades
•   Increased time to flee of pirates to 6.5 seconds from 5 seconds
•   Reduced price for sector renaming beacon
•   Increased amount of very rich hidden ore asteroids to every 4th, from every 8th
•   Sped up trade frequency via shuttles between factories by 40%
•   Decreased influence of pirates and Xsotan on hazard zone trigger when destroying freighters by 75%
•   Reduced max velocity of NPC ships closer to the galaxy center
•   Improved influence of positive perks of captains on operations
•   Captains can't have more negative than positive perks anymore
•   Most missions now additionally give resources as reward
•   Bounty Hunt missions now improve relations to commissioning factions

Mining & Salvage Operation
"We added some clarity about the mining and salvaging operations, how they work and how to best fine-tune them for maximum yields. This, plus some QoL additions targeted at larger fleets."

•   Delivery interval is now 15 minutes for durations of 30 minutes or 1h
•   Added an option for immediate delivery
•   Added a new "Area Efficiency" line to show how good/bad the area is
•   Discovered asteroid/wreckage fields now boost area efficiency
•   Implemented mining & salvaging support from escorts
•   Escorts now mine/salvage, too, if they have the equipment for it


•   Increased maximum duration that Miners and Scavengers can be sent on an operation from up to 6h to up to 8h
•   They get a flat +0.5h bonus and each tier now gives +1h (up from 0.5h)


•   Reduced time taken to refine
•   Increased mining yields in outer faction area by 50%
•   Resource asteroid/wreckage setting in Free Play mode now affects Mining & Salvage Operations
•   Mining subsystems now boost mining yields
•   They have the largest effect in areas with few asteroids


Other Operations
"Some balancing adjustments for the other operations. Also fixed some bugs, which you'll find more down below in the Bugfixes section."

•   Increased area size of Scout operation from 15x15 to 21x21
•   Scout Operation now reveals estimations about the amount of asteroids and wreckages
•   Scout Operation is now 60% faster per sector
•   Reduced general pirate attack chance in outer faction area
•   Operations related to trading now improve relations to the local faction
•   Increased gains from Expedition to make it more viable in early game

Galaxy Map
"We improved the general feel of sending your ships away - they shouldn't feel like they're completely gone."

•   Added more buttons for showing/hiding different ships (distinguishes between "on screen" and "on operation")
•   Ships are no longer automatically hidden from the list when sent on an operation
•   Ships now get their area highlighted when going on an operation
•   Added a checkbox to toggle those areas


•   Adjusted some descriptions in map commands for improved clarity
•   Sectors can now additionally be tagged with an icon when adding a note
•   Map orders can now be given to ships piloted by a player

UI
"Much clarity stuff, and some more quality of life. Using pre-2.0 builds should now be a lot easier."

•   Added arrows that show if a selection can be scrolled further up or down
•   Wormholes selected in Strategy Mode now show their distance
•   Changed colors of symbols indicating enemy strength to make them better distinguishable from one another
•   Adjusted text in subsystems tab to hint towards functional blocks
•   Added a different background for functional blocks
•   Added more loading screen hints about captains, commands, processing power and more
•   Renamed captain's level 0 to level 1
•   Added the captain icon to captain mission
•   Improved looks of blocks in block icons
•   Added a slider to saved designs window in Build Mode to scale a design 2 slots up or down
•   Adjusted names of orders in orderchain window for improved clarity
•   Added explanation to max ship size slider in Free Play
•   Updated "Build 5 slot ship" milestone in Player Profile to reflect Titanium Building Knowledge now allowing up to 5 slots
•   Captain assessments in operation UI are now colored yellow or orange if they contain warnings
•   Improved autopilot and craft orders interaction window
•   Improved German, French, Russian, Japanese and Chinese localization

Bugfixes
"We got tons of feedback and bug reports, thanks for all the commitment! As usual, User Bug Reports reported through our in-game bug reporting tool are marked with [UBR] below."

•   [UBR] Fixed a crash in “Eliminating Rivals” mission
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash in “Propaganda Materials” mission
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash in “Display of Strength” mission
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash in “She’s Innocent!” mission
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash in “A Lost Friend” mission
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash in “The Guardian” mission
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash in “Wanted Dead, Not Alive” mission
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where NPCs that were needed by missions ran away after they were damaged
•   [UBR] Mined ores and scrap are no longer tagged as stolen when picked up by someone else after the reservation timer runs out
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash in Refine AI Command
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where player-built shipyards sold building knowledge even though the player didn't have it yet
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the trade command income scaled infinitely with the used ship's cargo bay
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where building knowledge didn't unlock on servers that first had it disabled, then enabled
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the engine drained too much power after a hyperspace jump
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the energy system didn't drain energy for a few seconds when going into drain
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where torpedoes and other icons weren't displayed properly
•   [UBR] Fixed a bug in asteroid field generation
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in simplified simulation where ships would always boost and always hit no matter their energy, distance from target or reach of their weapons
•   [UBR] Fixed pirate attack event not finishing properly sometimes when pirates flee
•   Fixed an issue where recalled ships didn't return when a certain script crashed
•   Fixed an issue where max amount of items gained from salvaging could be unlimited
•   Fixed Mining Operation wrongly declaring enemy faction sectors as safe
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where cooldown of hyperspace engine could go to 0, leading to unexpected issues and crashes
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where it was possible to jump over rifts
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where some special characters weren't properly captitalized
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where normal hull wasn't available in turret design mode
•   Fixed an issue where changes in material weren't reflected in costs of saved designs window
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where alliance ships couldn't escort other alliance ships
•   [UBR] Fixed some issues in sell/procure commands where they took too long for simple tasks
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in procure command where attack chance was 60 times too high (whoops)
•   Fixed alliance ships being marked with wrong colors
•   Fixed an issue where the Procurement Contract UI wasn’t reset correctly
•   Fixed Typos
•   [UBR] Fixed a bug where the autopilot would continue its last order after player leaves the ship
•   Fixed a bug where captain tooltips had some lines missing in restock and expedition operations' UI
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue that led to thrusters always firing when 'always turn ship' option was active
•   [UBR] Fixed Saved Designs Window being empty on reopen


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 18, 2021, 11:32:41 PM
Beta Branch Patch 2.0.2 - Patchnotes
Wed, August 18, 2021

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/d5b3e927706ff02d92409ba5b98eff33f960d7c3.png)

Next patch is here, this time adjusting some more balancing and fixing issues you've reported to us!

Beta Branch Note:
 These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for
testing experimental changes
 and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):

Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.

Gameplay
"Autopilot can now boost more, and NPC ships boost less! This should make combat feel a lot better."

•   Autopilot can now use boost
•   Expedition now yields a Daredevil, not an Explorer on level up
•   Added a safety conversation line for Swoks when picking "I'll pay", to confirm that player actually wants to pay

Balancing
"Adjusted fighters and the upgrades necessary for them some more to make them more viable for a specialized ship style. We also took a long look at the Expedition and made some very much needed improvements."

•   Increased damage of (new) fighters by 33%
•   Fighter production time reduced for all materials lower than Avorion, depending on their tier (lower material: less time)
•   Legendary Hydra fighter upgrade now gives +4 slots
•   Uncommon+ Hydra fighter upgrades now give a boost to production speed
•   Improved boosts at Travel Hub, reduced costs
•   Fighters now boost until they are in weapon range
•   Reduced prices of fighter production
•   Relaxed the amount of damage to prevent a ship from going on operations to 5% of ship's value missing in blocks
•   Super-rich hidden asteroids are now in every 5th from every 4th
•   Relation gain for repairing for money at repair docks is now similar to shipyard
•   Relation gain of all bulletin board missions increased
•   Resource yields from expedition now have a more random variation instead of a fixed value
•   Resource yields from expedition now scale with distance to center of the galaxy
•   Reduced amount of items yielded by salvage command
•   Shuttles can now transport up to +400% more volume between factories per flight (ie. 5x as much)
•   Xsotan Artifact II now gives +6 auto turret slots
•   Xsotan Artifact III now gives +6 auto turret slots
•   Xsotan Artifact IV now gives +6 auto turret slots
•   Xsotan Artifact VII now gives +7 Hyperspace Range (up from 5)
•   Increased base time for trade command by 2 minutes
•   Reduced too massive boosting of AI ships

UI
"Clarity improvements and overall polish to the UI, enjoy!"

•   Improved visuals of strategy mode plane
•   Ships unable to escort/support show up in escort list now, with tooltips why they can't help
•   Improved UI of expedition operation to show how much can be earned with the operation
•   Renamed "Crew Shuttles" to "Boarding Shuttles"
•   Added entries about captains to encyclopedia
•   Added an icon to bulletin board to quickly identify a mission
•   Improved usability of galaxy map tag icon
•   Added error message in captain assessment of supply operation to point out that no route was found
•   Adjusted some strings in tutorial to ensure they always fit on-screen
•   Added description line with instruction to read mail in pirate raid mission

Bugfixes
"As always, bug fixes marked with [UBR] are from User Bug Reports, that were submitted through our bug reporter! Thanks for your help and keep it up! :)"

•   Fixed a crash in fighter factory
•   Fixed several crashes in bounty hunt mission
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash when dragging a blueprint out of a squad
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where players could get the Titanium knowledge mail while tutorial was active
•   [UBR] Fixed a visual issue with the icons of sectors uncovered by the scout operation
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where fighters just disappeared when starting
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where fighter icons in squad UI were empty
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where switching to alliance ships over the map wasn't possible
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where expedition operation could yield too advanced ores and scrap metal
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues with fighters being transferred between ships
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues with tooltips on the galaxy map
•   [UBR] Fixed wrong english string in supply operation
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue when loading key bindings that used Ctrl, Shift or other modifier keys
•   You might have to reset controls or reassign the controls for them to work again


•   Fixed some issues where AI-controlled ships didn't calculate their braking distance properly
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where reconstruction kits didn't rename when the ship was renamed
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where some missions didn't continue when switching into ship when it's in the sector where the mission happens
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the Coop Flying tab wasn't shown
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where turret orders weren't saved and restored properly when a ship went into background simulation and returned
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash in mining / salvaging AI when selected target has no resources to mine/salvage
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where heal rates of fighters in fighter factory were too high
•   Fixed some issues with autopilot and order chains
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where lower building knowledge wasn't dropped if the player had higher knowledge in their inventory
•   [UBR] Jump Range boost is now only depleted on actual hyperspace jump, not just changing sectors
•   Fixed pirate title not being translated in dialogs
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the trading operation could generate goods that were not paid for
•   [UBR] Fixed swoks and his goons having a personal feud with literally anything neutral
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where esort ship weapons sometimes dealt no damage
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where payday of a crew was reset when sent on an operation
•   [UBR] Fixed an exploit where crew payday was reset when crew of the ship was empty
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where projectiles didn't properly collide with objects very close to the turret
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where cursor had the wrong icon on the galaxy map when selecting a ship on an operation
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships on trading operation had a 50% lower chance of being attacked when only a single flight was necessary
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships could hang when destination sector was suddenly out of reach
•   Fixed several issues with translation
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the sector didn't have the correct name on the galaxy map after renaming it
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where gates to a sector didn't have the correct name after renaming it
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships were using the wrong turrets for some jobs
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues where auto pilot would get stuck while salvaging or mining
•   [UBR] Fixed a bug where installing an upgrade into the next system slot (which was blocked due to building knowledge) would destroy the upgrade
•   Fixed a crash in scavenger highlighting when highlighting wreckages with no resources but cargo
•   [UBR] Renaming beacon now has the faction of the ship from which it is spawned
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where perma destruction and precise AI aim weren't reset after going back down from harder difficulties
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where autopilot tried to stop the ship while interacting/building



Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 25, 2021, 11:32:07 PM
Beta Branch Patch 2.0.3 - Patchnotes

Improved Fighter AI, balancing adjustments, and some major UI improvements!

Beta Branch Note:
 These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for
testing experimental changes
 and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.


Gameplay
"A few AI adjustments (mostly fighters) and some minor goodies."

•   Added a buyable beacon that can be deployed with a customizable message
•   Ship AI is no longer limited by range of PDCs when they have other weapons they could use
•   Self-pulling into a dock via tractor beam now pulls slightly longer to avoid edge-cases where it's just barely not possible to dock
•   Improved fighter AI when returning to mothership
•   Player fighters without mothership (and thus without pilot) now fly in circles
•   NPC fighters without mothership (and thus without pilot) now explode
•   Dropped building knowledge is now reserved for 1h instead of 2min

Balancing
"We're adjusting fighters slightly again because this time we overdid it a little. Those changes should tone them down slightly from their current status as indestructible killing machines. We're also giving the different shield upgrades a more distinct use."

•   Increased resources necessary for production of fighters on ship slightly
•   Increased range of Anti-Fighter cannnons by 1km
•   Once all guaranteed dodges of a fighter are used, they get a 0.25s cooldown until the next random dodge can be done
•   Guaranteed dodges recharge over a period of 60s instead of 120s
•   Fighters now get (3 + 2 x [PilotLevel]) guaranteed dodges up from (3 + 1 x [PilotLevel])
•   Strong escort ships and escorting commodores now reduce base attack chance (which couldn't be reduced before)
•   Slightly reduced yields from mining & salvaging safe mode
•   The trader that is attacked by pirates no longer dies in 2 seconds
  •   It's now 120s, except when you're helping them with the dying
•   Increased amount of shields provided by energy to shield converter subsystem
•   Shield boosters now give a flat bonus to shield instead of a percentage
•   Reduced maximum amount of goods available for Trade Command in early game
•   Reduced random spawn rate of bosses slightly, since people jump more often now
•   Reduced prices of torpedoes by 56%

UI
"We're now communicating better what the different intricacies of the different operations are. And we've got a brand new scenario selection for Singleplayer games! Apart from that: More UI QoL and other good stuff!"

•   Improved UI of operations
  •   Colored price percentages of sell command
  •   Added better communication about sell command prices, captains and trading subsystem
  •   Added a warning sign to sell command for dangerous or otherwise problematic goods
  •   Added better communication about procurement contract prices, captains and trading subsystem
  •   Scout operation now communicates which hidden mass sectors the captain will uncover
  •   Refine operation now communicates speedup through a nearby owned resource depot
•   Added a new scenario selection UI for singleplayer games
•   Added a slider to configure loot highlighting (starting at which rarity)
•   Added filtering by ship & station in the fleet overview
•   Context menu in ship weapons overview is now disabled when in drone
•   Added a 'Travel Hub Blue' color for Travel Hub beams
•   Added an encyclopedia line to Travel Hub entry on how to build the beams in player-owned Travel Hubs
•   Added little markers to turret icons for the different slot types
•   Improved text for leveling of captains
•   Added a loading screen tip for turret placement, to avoid unfortunate placement of turrets on the front of the ship
•   Added a hint for turning dead zone of turrets, to avoid unfortunate placement of turrets on the front of the ship
•   Building mode orientation arrows are now no longer rendered if UI is hidden
•   Added keybinds to move main plane in Strategy Mode
•   Tag icons set in name of alliance are now shown on map
•   Assigning a captain no longer triggers the passenger notifications
•   Assigning from/to vanilla crewmembers will no longer trigger a notification
•   Added loading screen tips about several intricacies of operations
•   Energy Tab is now more compact and fits on screen for lower resolutions

Misc
•   Added debug output to find some bottlenecks
•   Fighter engine trails are now longer when boosting on particle setting "High"
•   Added a hotkey binding to select own ship (unbound by default)

Bugfixes
"No patch without some good old bug fixing! As usual, User Bug Reports that were submitted via our bug reporting tool are marked with [UBR]! Thanks to such a great community and keep it up!"

•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where Xsotan artifacts didn't stack in inventory
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where several bosses didn't react to alliance ships as enemies
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where loot transporter wasn't set as a friend during dialogs in mission encounters
•   Fixed an issue where faction languages could degenerate when saving
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the adventurer could change names
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in a Family mission when there was no associate
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where fighters could become slightly too big (ie. monstrous)
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where it was possible to send a ship into background simulation even though it had a durability malus
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where fighter models could be too small
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships sometimes used repair turrets on enemies while attacking them
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where a resource depot's icon wasn't properly set even though it had missions available
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where block textures weren't rendered correctly in UI
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where tooltips of escort ships weren't translated correctly
•   [UBR] Fixed some wrong tooltips in captain tooltip
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in crew tab where text could read 'due in 0 seconds'
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where "Pirate Raid" mission could get stuck when there were too many holo blocks on the ship
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the Sell Command could show the wrong prices
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the map could be opened while in build mode (or paused in general), causing problems and making the game hang
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the highest price of a good in Sell Command never went into negative regions
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues where missions didn't yield reputation when doing them in an alliance ship
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships could get stuck for a certain time during mining and salvaging
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships returning from background simulation would drop cargo when having cargo subsystems installed
•   [UBR] Fixed loot not being synced when reservation values are changed
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in auto fire mode where turret didn't attack currently selected target
•   [UBR] Fixed some issues in localizations
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues in search and rescue mission:
  •   Spawned wreckage can no longer have captain logs with conflicting dialog
  •   [UBR] Dialog option to give information is no longer shown on any ship or station
  •   [UBR] Location bulletins are now immediately updated if correct sector was found
  •   Only correct sector is now marked as target location if correct sector was found
  •   Added description line to tell player what to do with the wreckage
  •   Wreckage of search and rescue is now constantly chattering to emphasize auto message system the dialog talks about
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues where legendary turrets had wrong crew members
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in trade command where doing 2 consecutive flights caused double the profit even if it was just 1 more good being transported
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where players could have bad starting relations to their home sector faction
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where destruction of pirates or Xsotan didn't give reputation when other factions helped destroy them
•   [UBR] Fixed broken display of stats in shipyard
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where player to player damage could still happen even when disabled
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where fire power of a ship didn't update properly when all turrets were removed
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where turrets could show up in System Upgrades inventory
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where not all captain commands were listed on lower resolutions
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where turret factories showed the wrong turrets sometimes

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 27, 2021, 11:25:07 PM
Beta Branch Patch 2.0.4 - Patchnotes
Fri, August 27, 2021


We're making some nice improvements to the fighter UI and the galaxy map, and fixing tons more bugs!

Beta Branch Note:
 These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for
testing experimental changes
 and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.

Gameplay
•   AI can now use multi-harvest turrets to both mine or salvage

Balancing
"Buffing energy to shield converters a little more to make them more competitive. We're also reducing pirate HP to speed up combat encounters a little and make things a little easier, since especially in the core they could quickly overwhelm. Their firepower will remain untouched, this only concerns their HP, and also only for pirates."


•   Energy to shield converters now stack with other shield bonuses
•   Improved shields given by energy-to-shield converter to give better shield +% than previous shield boosters
•   Reduced pirate HP/shields by 20 - 25% since the game has become more challenging with the limitations on ship size
•   This also speeds up combat with pirates in general


•   Adjusted building knowledge drop (and mission) to be more on par with actual material spawn

UI
"We made some major improvements to the fighter UI and the galaxy map! Plus some more generall UI goodness."


•   Fighters
•   Added small HP bars for fighters when showing the entire squad
•   Added small markers for fighters
•   Added HP bars for deployed fighter squads


•   Galaxy Map
•   Alliance ships are now no longer shown in galaxy map ship list when alliance infos are hidden
•   The currently tracked mission can now be shown on the galaxy map
•   Galaxy map now remembers its configurations for each save


•   Wormholes are now selectable in strategy mode
•   Ships can now be sent through wormholes in strategy mode
•   Added more localization strings (almost done with all languages, yay!)
•   Force turrets are now also compared by force when sorting by damage in inventory

Bugfixes
"As always, bug fixes marked with [UBR] are from User Bug Reports, that were submitted through our bug reporter! Thanks for your help and keep it up! :)"


•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where players' ships and stations were attacked by bounty hunters when it should have been other factions (when at war) or pirates
•   [UBR] Fixed some localization issues
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the trader attacked by pirates still died too quickly
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where energy to shield converter subsystem showed the wrong stats for permanent installation
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where energy to auto turret subsystem showed the wrong stats for permanent installation
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the news window didn't update properly
•   [UBR] Added fail safes to tutorial to progress according to underlying mission so that destruction phase always works
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where title/class of ship wasn't properly restored when returning from background simulation
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where pirates attacked each other in 'Eliminating Rivals'
•   Reading this I realize the irony of the bug with the mission's name


•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where factories could use shuttles to overdeliver more goods than they had in stock
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where salvage command displayed an error about weapons being used when in fact it wasn't relevant
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where introduction missions could spawn on the other side of the barrier
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the reticle of beacons was visible in build mode
•   Fixed several server-side crashes
•   Fixed an issue where turret factory ingredient mission didn't get properly tracked on restart
•   [UBR] Fixed a few issues in display of texts of captains' perks and orders
•   [UBR] Fixed coaxial turrets triggering the hint for unfortunate turret placement
•   [UBR] Fixed stations triggering the hint for unfortunate turret placement
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where mothershipless fighters' models weren't cached, leading to performance issues
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash when getting destroyed or jumping with the weapons overview window open
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash when jumping via auto pilot with the strategy mode open
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where invalid characters could be added to ship name text box
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ship names could overflow the UI
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where some projectiles were displaced after being fired
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where enablers of different input contexts would block other keys
•   ie. Ctrl-W in StrategyMode blocked pressing W (while Ctrl held) in build mode, even though there was no Ctrl-W combination in build mode input context


•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where wrong stats were displayed in ship tab
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where stations were limited in sockets by building knowledge
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where turret designs weren't restored correctly when repairing
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where turret designs flickered on undo/redo
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in "A lost friend" where sometimes captains didn't have a primary class
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in "A lost friend" where it wasn't available at Casinos and Habitats
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in "A lost friend" where it would never yield a Daredevil
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue in "A lost friend" where the marker for a wreckage wasn't rendered at the correct position
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue with icons not being cleared in fleet overview
•   [UBR] Fixed a crash when jumping with the ship window open
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships behaved strangely after salvaging or mining is finished
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where Harvest and Repair AI no longer used existing turret groups with enabled autofire
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where fighters could mine hidden treasure asteroids even though the mothership didn't have the equipment nor captain to detect them
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships couldn't mine hidden treasure asteroids even though the mothership had the captain to detect them
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships didn't mine nor salvage when they only had fighters and no mining/salvaging turrets

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 31, 2021, 11:48:53 PM
Beta Branch Patch 2.0.5 - Patchnotes
Tue, August 31, 2021


We're adding some more QoL improvements and fixing crashes!

Beta Branch Note:
 These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for
testing experimental changes
 and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.

Gameplay
"More general QoL for everyone! Ships now stop when they don't have a salvaging license in a scrapyard, gems now have a purpose, and we've added a 'stealthy' swiftness so that you can tell your ships more safely to fly somewhere with minimal attack problems."

•   Salvage AI now stops when its salvaging license runs out
•   Gems are now bought by Habitats and Casinos
•   Added a "stealthy" swiftness for travel command with very low attack probability but high travel time
•   Commodores of escorting ships now properly reduce attack chance for Travel Command
•   AI ships can now use armed auto turrets to defend themselves while mining/salvaging
•   'Dock to station', 'peaceful patrol' and 'refine ores' AI states now set the ship to 'passive' instead of 'idle' to avoid spinning
•   Asteroids are now guaranteed in scrapyard sectors to avoid mining ships appearing and doing nothing
•   Captains can now no longer be Intimidating and Harmless at the same time

Balancing
"We're buffing the normal delivery missions to make them more worthwhile, and there will be more missions available in general. We're also changing the mine/salvage operation safe mode, and you won't be able to use absolute minimum effort ships in areas where they're obviously outclassed. It's been pointed out to us that sending a 2 slot iron ship to mine for 4h in (1:1) without it being in any danger doesn't feel balanced and we agree. They'll need to be at least a little bit on par with ships in the area or you'll have to use an escort to protect them."

•   Doubled base rewards for delivery missions
•   Delivery mission bonus reward now scales with location in the galaxy
•   Doubled base rewards for resource shortage missions (now 4x the good's price)
•   Resource shortage mission bonus reward now scales with location in the galaxy
•   Increased number of available bulletin board missions
•   Increased likelihood of Tier III captain mission
•   Mine Operation's safe mode now reduces attack chance by 90% instead of setting it to flat 0%
•   Salvage Operation's safe mode now reduces attack chance by 90% instead of setting it to flat 0%
•   Energy drain of energy to shield converter is now static for each rarity
•   Increased prices of energy to shield converter upgrades to be more on par with other upgrades
•   Increased fluctuation of the amount of goods available through trade contracts
•   Reduced reputation gain of a few side missions from +10000 to +7500 to make them more on par with other missions
•   Clearing out a pirate sector now grants +3500 reputation to a nearby faction

UI
"Some more UI QoL improvements, enjoy!"

•   Added an alternative view for ship weapon overview that doesn't fill out the selection by slot, but by turret
•   Added better error messages as to why a captain can't sell something (esp. which good is problematic)
•   Readded display of total crew salary
•   Escorting ships now additionally show the description of their escorted ships
•   Added a config option to enable/disable encyclopedia pop ups
•   Improved Translations
•   Improved rendering performance of map tag icons when there are many icons

Bugfixes
"As always, bug fixes marked with [UBR] are from User Bug Reports, that were submitted through our bug reporter! Thanks for your help and keep it up! :)"

•   [UBR] Fixed some wrong translations
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where fighter AI was not properly detecting wreckages
•   Fixed an issue where unowned objects were shown as purple instead of grey
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where seeker shots of autopiloted ships targeted the wrong objects on the client
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where autopiloted ships aimed badly on the client
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where mines didn't buy things as intended
•   [UBR] Fixed several issues where jumping into some specific sectors could cause the game to crash
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships on operations (and NPC ships) always used all weapons on the ship for everything
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where auto turrets were shooting ships that were assigned as friends
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where permanently installed upgrades could get lost when the ship was too massively damaged
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where upgrades could get lost on reconstruction
•   Fixed a few script crashes
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where the boost of ships would continue over loading screen, draining too much energy on hyperspace jump
•   Fixed a performance issue in UI of Mine and Salvage Operation
•   Fixed an issue where missions weren't tracked correctly
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where academy was reset when a ship went on an operation
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where cloning pods were reset when a ship went on an operation
•   Fixed an issue where repairing turret bases crashed the game
•   Fixed an issue where players would get Black Market DLC rewards even though they don't own the DLC
•   Fixed some crashes in commands when using them with alliance ships
•   Fixed a crash in strategy mode when hovering an object that was just destroyed
•   Fixed an issue where hangar didn't properly detect highest material of deployed fighter
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where mining/salvaging fighters were recalled all the time by its mothership while mining
•   [UBR] Fixed rigid and coaxial turrets being able to shoot through the ship
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where procurecommand's "stolen" checkbox was still checked and used even though it was invisible
•   [UBR] Fixed an issue where hyperspace engine cooling would show the wrong times

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on September 07, 2021, 11:59:05 PM
Update 2.0 - Now Available!
Tue, 7 September 2021

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/e5b281954e157f2860150c585e778e203b445c06.png)

New Progression, better UI and tons of improved features!

We’re incredibly happy to announce that Avorion is now finally ready to have another version increase! With update 2.0 we bring you a ton of Quality of Life improvements. We have streamlined several features and massively improved the UI! We’re absolutely thrilled about this update and hope that you are, too!

Thank you for buying Avorion, supporting us and for helping us make this game better and better!

https://youtu.be/ZLQMTILp8H0


New Progression
With this update we’re introducing a new experience that makes the game a ton more fun. The new progression keeps players on their toes, challenging them in a new way and encouraging them to try new things.

Instead of being able to build everything right from the get go, the new system requires you to build with the materials at hand and limits the processing power and size a ship can have. To unlock the next material you have to acquire the building knowledge for it. This can be done by either fighting a boss or a difficult pirate encounter, or, if you’re not the fighting type, it can be bought at Shipyards.

With this you can experience the game in a new way! Explore regions and their materials and learn how to use their advantages to build the perfect ship to overcome the next challenges.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/b16825da371eff4420edbfbf6edb07e5105a5c89.jpg)

And if we weren’t able to convince you - you can simply go back to the old system and play the game in the new Classic mode, too!

Captains, Commands and Crew Improvements
Our old captains got some love with this update. They now have personalities, perks and quirks and are much more autonomous. Instead of having to click a ton to set up a good mining route, you can now simply make a contract with your captain. You tell them where to go and which ships to take as an escort, and they will handle everything around it. From finding the sectors with asteroids to refining the collected ores, and regularly sending you their yields, everything will be taken care of.
Of course, we’ve done that not only for mining. The new commands include everything necessary to live a comfortable life in the galaxy, such as trading, scouting and even traveling long distances!

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/56001d07e02abf0a5e892fd66f5eabd895e83a83.jpg)

With the introduction of the captains we’ve also reworked how the crew in general works. In short - you now need less crew, but can over-assign posts to achieve up to 200 % efficiency! And you no longer need to hire higher ranked crew members, as your crew automatically promotes crew members as soon as higher officers are needed. This should make finding enough crew for your awesome battleship much easier!

Player Profile
To keep better track of what you’ve achieved on your playthrough, we added a new Player Profile section. In this section you get an overview of all the things you can do in Avorion. We hope that you’ll have just as much fun unlocking the milestones as we do!

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/7f75efb3ce852e72fed0ceb116a937c36cb0e16e.jpg)

Fighters
We’ve rebalanced fighters and among several changes to their stats we’ve also improved their overall gameplay feel. With improvements to their AI, pilots now staying on the ship and not getting lost if the fighter is destroyed and fighter production having been reworked (both in cost and time), the carrier playstyle will feel much more viable now.
Additionally squads now get one overall squad skin, so that all fighters within a squad have the same look. This also means that the game performance around fighters is much better!

Hyperspace engine
The hyperspace engine got lots of love as well. In short, your hyperspace engine will now charge before the jump and can even do several consecutive jumps without having to reopen the map every time! Additionally, hyperspace jumps need much less energy in total now and with the new animation and sound they feel a lot smoother.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/46eb815d9dc7f818e2a0dcd2d02e719ce321400e.jpg)

Autopilot
And last but not least, the universally most wished feature is here! Every ship is now equipped with a powerful autopilot that can do menial in-sector tasks for you. Docking to a station, flying somewhere, mining or salvaging, repairing or attacking ships, … Give the order and lean back while your ship does all the work!

This is only a small selection of what is actually contained in the new update. For full details check out the final patchnotes for Update 2.0

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on September 16, 2021, 11:41:06 PM
Beta Branch Patch 2.0.7 - Patchnotes
Thu, 16 September 2021


We're making a few adjustments to mine, salvage, procure, and fixing more bugs!

Beta Branch Note:
These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.

Gameplay
"Some of the changes and bugfixes in this update were already introduced on the default branch, but are listed here as well for the sake of completion."

Added possibility to repeat the dialog with a wreckage in "A lost friend"
Player now starts with 3 Turrets named exactly the same as hint suggests into tutorial to avoid confusion
Mining/Salvaging carriers now need proper working fighter/squad/pilot configurations to get full yields on Mining/Salvaging Operations
Mining/Salvaging ships now return to the sector they were sent away from upon return

Balancing
"We're adjusting the Procurement Contract a little to base it more on reality when procuring large amounts of goods. Right now it's possible to very quickly procure huge amounts of goods, that would never be available in some regions. We'll keep an eye on the numbers and will be adjusting when they don't feel right."

Procure command now takes more time when very large amounts of a single good are bought
Once a certain threshold of value (per single good) is reached, it takes +45min per time the threshold is overstepped
Threshold ’1.500.000 at the outer edge, ’30.000.000 at the core
Threshold is still always at least 100 of a single good (in case you enjoy procuring Mining Robots or Accelerators)

UI
Xsotan artifacts II and V now say "arbitrary" instead of "armed or unarmed"
Shortened German translation of label in scout command UI for better alignment
When under attack, the map now shows the name of the attacked station or ship

Bugfixes
"As always, bug fixes marked with [UBR] are from User Bug Reports, that were submitted through our bug reporter! Thanks for your help and keep it up! :)"

[UBR] Fixed a crash in dedicated server tool UI
[UBR] Fixed an issue where Building Knowledge wasn't properly dropped in multiplayer
[UBR] Fixed an issue where trader in black market mission got destroyed too fast to safe them
Fixed some script crashes in scout command
Fixed in-sector orders sometimes not longer being persistent over restart
Fixed an issue where strategy mode buttons weren't working properly
[UBR] Smuggler Hideouts now handle missions and captains the same way as the Smuggler's Markets do
[UBR] Fixed an issue with Commodore captains and the “careful” trait
[UBR] Fixed an issue where operation exodus would give an invalid code fragment
The cavaliers mission “Protect the Transport” can now handle dialog partners being killed during dialog
[UBR] Fixed an issue in AI mission where player couldn't find AI again after they were destroyed by it
[UBR] Fixed several issues in investigate missing freighters mission
The mission can no longer send player to the other side of the barrier
Player now needs to dock to the station to receive potatoes

Fixed an issue with crew strikes
Fixed an issue in torpedo introduction mission if player had already started it in an old version
[UBR] Fixed a script crash in player profile
[UBR] Fixed a crash in Strategy Mode
[UBR] Added offset in captain's certificate to account for difference in shown vs actual level
[UBR] Orderchain is now cleared on relog if an invalid order is contained
[UBR] Saved Designs auto save now checks if folder is write-accessible before trying to save to it, giving an error message if not
[UBR] Only 1/3 of resources delivered during a resource shortage are added to the stock of the station now to avoid exploit by instantly rebuying for a better price
[UBR] Fixed an issue where captains had a size of four instead of two crew members
[UBR] Fixed an issue where some bosses won’t spawn if a player switches to ship instead of jumping in themselves
[UBR] Fixed an issue where dialogs were interrupted after loading screen leading to missions being stuck
[UBR] Factions can no longer have none coaxial weapons with coaxial in their name
[UBR] Fixed an issue where turrets' autofire states were reset after scaling the ship
[UBR] Fixed autopiloted ships trying to boost to target position and immediately stopping again
[UBR] Trade and procure commands now show error if ship has no cargo bay and doesn't allow to press start
[UBR] Fixed an out of memory crash
[UBR] Fixed an issue where ships would stand still while mining/salvaging while their defensive turrets were firing
[UBR] Fixed an issue where a pirate in the bounty hunt mission wasn't properly registered as a friend during a dialog
[UBR] Fixed an issue where Scout command didn't uncover some sectors
Fixed an issue where final exodus beacon's indicator was visible in building UI
[UBR] Fixed an issue where sell command UI was filled wrongly when reinspecting configuration of a sent-away ship
[UBR] Fixed an issue where auto turrets were reset when scaling the ship
[UBR] Fixed an issue where "Damage" property was wrongly compared in tooltips
[UBR] Fixed an issue where building stats configuration would stay open when closing Build Mode
[UBR] Fixed an issue where some UI grid selections didn't scroll back up when cleared


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on September 29, 2021, 11:40:22 PM
Patch 2.0.7 is now live!
Wed, 29 September 2021

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/445220/ss_3e6fb8ae3e9e13ac20a34aa3f28d2e91a2207679.1920x1080.jpg)

Balancing improvements and bugfixes

After performing well on the beta branch, patch 2.0.7 is now live on default!

Gameplay
"Some of the changes and bugfixes in this update were already introduced on the default branch, but are listed here now for the sake of completion."

    Added possibility to repeat the dialog with a wreckage in "A lost friend"
    Player now starts with 3 Turrets named exactly the same as hint suggests into tutorial to avoid confusion
    Mining/Salvaging carriers now need proper working fighter/squad/pilot configurations to get full yields on Mining/Salvaging Operations
    Mining/Salvaging ships now return to the sector they were sent away from upon return


Balancing
"We're adjusting the Procurement Contract a little to base it more on reality when procuring large amounts of goods. Right now it's possible to very quickly procure huge amounts of goods, that would never be available in some regions. We'll keep an eye on the numbers and will be adjusting when they don't feel right."

    Procure command now takes more time when very large amounts of a single good are bought
        Once a certain threshold of value (per single good) is reached, it takes +45min per time the threshold is overstepped
        Threshold ’1.500.000 at the outer edge, ’30.000.000 at the core
        Threshold is still always at least 100 of a single good (in case you enjoy procuring Mining Robots or Accelerators)


UI

    Xsotan artifacts II and V now say "arbitrary" instead of "armed or unarmed"
    Shortened German translation of label in scout command UI for better alignment
    When under attack, the map now shows the name of the attacked station or ship


Bugfixes
"As always, bug fixes marked with [UBR] are from User Bug Reports, that were submitted through our bug reporter! Thanks for your help and keep it up! :)"

    [UBR] Fixed a crash in dedicated server tool UI
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where Building Knowledge wasn't properly dropped in multiplayer
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where trader in black market mission got destroyed too fast to safe them
    Fixed some script crashes in scout command
    Fixed in-sector orders sometimes not longer being persistent over restart
    Fixed an issue where strategy mode buttons weren't working properly
    [UBR] Smuggler Hideouts now handle missions and captains the same way as the Smuggler's Markets do
    [UBR] Fixed an issue with Commodore captains and the “careful” trait
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where operation exodus would give an invalid code fragment
    The cavaliers mission “Protect the Transport” can now handle dialog partners being killed during dialog
    [UBR] Fixed an issue in AI mission where player couldn't find AI again after they were destroyed by it
    [UBR] Fixed several issues in investigate missing freighters mission
        The mission can no longer send player to the other side of the barrier
        Player now needs to dock to the station to receive potatoes

    Fixed an issue with crew strikes
    Fixed an issue in torpedo introduction mission if player had already started it in an old version
    [UBR] Fixed a script crash in player profile
    [UBR] Fixed a crash in Strategy Mode
    [UBR] Added offset in captain's certificate to account for difference in shown vs actual level
    [UBR] Orderchain is now cleared on relog if an invalid order is contained
    [UBR] Saved Designs auto save now checks if folder is write-accessible before trying to save to it, giving an error message if not
    [UBR] Only 1/3 of resources delivered during a resource shortage are added to the stock of the station now to avoid exploit by instantly rebuying for a better price
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where captains had a size of four instead of two crew members
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where some bosses won’t spawn if a player switches to ship instead of jumping in themselves
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where dialogs were interrupted after loading screen leading to missions being stuck
    [UBR] Factions can no longer have none coaxial weapons with coaxial in their name
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where turrets' autofire states were reset after scaling the ship
    [UBR] Fixed autopiloted ships trying to boost to target position and immediately stopping again
    [UBR] Trade and procure commands now show error if ship has no cargo bay and doesn't allow to press start
    [UBR] Fixed an out of memory crash
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where ships would stand still while mining/salvaging while their defensive turrets were firing
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where a pirate in the bounty hunt mission wasn't properly registered as a friend during a dialog
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where Scout command didn't uncover some sectors
    Fixed an issue where final exodus beacon's indicator was visible in building UI
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where sell command UI was filled wrongly when reinspecting configuration of a sent-away ship
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where auto turrets were reset when scaling the ship
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where "Damage" property was wrongly compared in tooltips
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where building stats configuration would stay open when closing Build Mode
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where some UI grid selections didn't scroll back up when cleared
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where the boxes displaying the amount of cargo to dump did not scroll
    [UBR] Fixed an issue that led to AI ships attacking gates
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where prices of subsystems could overflow
    [UBR] Fixed and issue where the name of one color in the building menu was not displayed
    [UBR] Fixed an issue in Trade Contract where captain perks could reduce time of flight too much
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where generation of captains' perks wasn't deterministic, leading to other captains being received in the captain mission than displayed in their certificate
    Fixed an issue where obsolete or destroyed ships could be selected on the galaxy map
    Fixed several issues in bounty hunt mission, captain mission and a family storyline mission
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where camera didn't properly reset when exiting Strategy Mode
    [UBR] Fixed an issue where blueprint filtering in turret factory didn't properly reset when changing tabs


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on November 12, 2021, 11:46:35 PM
Beta Branch Patch 2.0.10 - Patchnotes
Fri, November 12, 2021


Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.

Gameplay
Added new option to free play mode to have building knowledge limit only block materials and not processing power
Added more ways to acquire building knowledge
Building knowledge can now be bought for ores at Resource Depots
Building knowledge can now be bought at a Smuggler's Outpost for a lot of money

Starting at Titanium, with each material tier you can now found +4 ships (up from +2 Naonite; +3 Trinium; +3 Xanion; +4 Ogonite)

Balancing
Increased jump range added by hyperspace blocks by 50%

UI
Improved highlighting in tutorial

Bugfixes
"Bug fixes marked with [UBR] are from user bug reports. Thank you very much for reporting and keep it up! :)"
Fixed crashes in the package mission
Fixed a crash when a station that is currently pulling a ship to its dock is deleted
[UBR] Fixed an issue where alliance relations weren't considered when interacting with resistance outposts
[UBR] Fixed an issue where boarding a pirate ship could result in non finishable events
[UBR] Fixed an issue where wrong sector was displayed in a dialog in investigate missing freighters mission
Pirates now also attack players when they are in an alliance ship in investigate freighters mission

[UBR] Added missing header and sender to insurance mail
[UBR] Fixed an issue where patrolling ships with a velocity bypass installed travelled really far into the distance
[UBR] Fixed issue where allies couldn't get organized with alliance relations
[UBR] Fixed repair order sometimes using armed turrets on allied targets
[UBR] Fixed craft's weapon overview resetting scroll position on every update
[UBR] Fixed an issue where coaxial turret shots instantly collided with the shooting ship when flying in the direction of the shot
[UBR] Fixed an exploit where ships without captains could mine a whole sector
[UBR] Fixed an issue where salvage AI couldn't use MultiHarvest turret properly
Fixed players getting stuck in the tutorial while building
Fixed a rare issue where players could get stuck in the tutorial when the torpedo from the pirate didn't hit them
Fixed possible crash on sector change
Fixed a crash where scaling with mouse not hovering over ship in block brush crashed the game
[UBR] Fixed an issue where torpedo weapon groups could not be unassigned
[UBR] Fixed an issue where the financial records of a factory weren't updated correctly when configured to buy/sell with other stations in the sector
[UBR] Fixed an issue where operations that remove goods from the cargo bay could return and still have some of those goods
[UBR] Fixed an issue where turrets were not removed when changing the block material they were placed on to something too low


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on November 18, 2021, 11:41:18 PM
Patch 2.0.10 is now live!
Thu, November 18, 2021

Gameplay
Added new option to free play mode to have building knowledge limit only block materials and not processing power
Added more ways to acquire building knowledge
Building knowledge can now be bought for ores at Resource Depots
Building knowledge can now be bought at a Smuggler's Outpost for a lot of money
Building Knowledge can now be found in stashes and hackable containers

Starting at Titanium, with each material tier you can now found +4 ships (up from +2 Naonite; +3 Trinium; +3 Xanion; +4 Ogonite)

Balancing
Increased jump range added by hyperspace blocks by 50%

UI
Improved highlighting in tutorial
Updated localizations

Bugfixes
"Bug fixes marked with [UBR] are from user bug reports. Thank you very much for reporting and keep it up! :)"
Fixed crashes in the package mission
Fixed a crash when a station that is currently pulling a ship to its dock is deleted
[UBR] Fixed an issue where alliance relations weren't considered when interacting with resistance outposts
[UBR] Fixed an issue where boarding a pirate ship could result in non finishable events
[UBR] Fixed an issue where wrong sector was displayed in a dialog in investigate missing freighters mission
Pirates now also attack players when they are in an alliance ship in investigate freighters mission

[UBR] Added missing header and sender to insurance mail
[UBR] Fixed an issue where patrolling ships with a velocity bypass installed travelled really far into the distance
[UBR] Fixed issue where allies couldn't get organized with alliance relations
[UBR] Fixed repair order sometimes using armed turrets on allied targets
[UBR] Fixed craft's weapon overview resetting scroll position on every update
[UBR] Fixed an issue where coaxial turret shots instantly collided with the shooting ship when flying in the direction of the shot
[UBR] Fixed an exploit where ships without captains could mine a whole sector
[UBR] Fixed an issue where salvage AI couldn't use MultiHarvest turret properly
Fixed players getting stuck in the tutorial while building
Fixed a rare issue where players could get stuck in the tutorial when the torpedo from the pirate didn't hit them
Fixed possible crash on sector change
Fixed a crash where scaling with mouse not hovering over ship in block brush crashed the game
[UBR] Fixed an issue where torpedo weapon groups could not be unassigned
[UBR] Fixed an issue where the financial records of a factory weren't updated correctly when configured to buy/sell with other stations in the sector
[UBR] Fixed an issue where operations that remove goods from the cargo bay could return and still have some of those goods
[UBR] Fixed an issue where turrets were not removed when changing the block material they were placed on to something too low
Fixed a potential crash in bulletins for the bountyhunt mission
Fixed an issue when trying to buy items with the drone
[UBR] Fixed a crash in Travel Operation UI
Improved highlighting of mission targets in complete collection mission


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on May 31, 2022, 11:49:27 PM
New Avorion DLC Announced: Into The Rift
Wed, April 13, 2022

New Avorion Add-On DLC Announced: Into The Rift

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/2c282d1498d04d02ef567d2ddb832902ffe53953.jpg)


Hey spacefarers and builders!

We're glad to announce that we've been busy over the past few months since the 2.0 update! Apart from moving offices, Christmas Holidays, New Year's, taking some time off from the 2.0-update stress, and upgrading some of our internal processes, we've been working on some new exciting stuff!

So here it is: We'd like to officially announce the next DLC add-on for Avorion: Into The Rift!

Without spoiling too much, the add-on will be tailored around the rifts that have formed in the galaxy and researching them. It will also focus more on the Xsotan and Xsotan Lore in general! Just like with Black Market, the add-on will be fully multiplayer compatible and there won't be servers you can't play on just because you don't own the Into The Rift DLC. Finally, the add-on will arrive together with a free update that will contain some improvements for everyone.

Alright, that's all for now! The excitement is real and we can't wait to share more news over the coming weeks. So stay tuned!

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on July 29, 2022, 12:06:42 AM
Almost Biweekly Stream 26.07.22
Tue, 26 July 2022

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/27258641/5bbe353512d3951891cb7dcf515db8ee76166fc8.png)

Closed Beta Feedback!

Head over to Twitch (twitch.tv/boxelware) to find out what kind of insights we have collected from the two closed beta(s)! What kind of feedback did we receive? What are the resulting decisions we have made for the DLC? We will then continue talking about the further developments we're working on right now and of course answer questions from twitch chat in the QnA at the end of the stream.

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 05, 2022, 01:18:31 AM
Into The Rift DLC - Out Now!
Thu, 4 August 2022

The Into The Rift DLC is now available for purchase!

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//27258641/2c282d1498d04d02ef567d2ddb832902ffe53953.jpg)

DLC: Into The Rift
In this hardcore add-on you'll explore the mysterious and dangerous Rift dimension. Thanks to new technology, it is now possible to send smaller amounts of mass (i.e. a few ships) into the Rifts. Scientists are now intensively researching these Rifts - and they need your help. Travel into the Rifts and uncover their secrets. Face their dangers, complete research expeditions, and earn powerful new rewards.

 


Avorion - Into The Rift

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1905970/header.jpg)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1905970/Avorion__Into_The_Rift/

£7.49
 

•   Into The Rift
  o   You can now find Rift Research Centers close to rifts, which will give you specific Rift Missions
  o   Prepare your ship accordingly to master the dangerous new environments and uncover the secrets surrounding the origins of the Rifts
  o   Complete Rift Expeditions for the Rift Research Center, and receive new, powerful hybrid subsystems in return - or simply keep everything you find in the Rifts
  o   Discover a new dimension unlike anything you've seen before in the galaxy
  o   Remember, the deeper you venture into the Rifts, the more lucrative and dangerous they become

•   Explore the Secrets of the Rifts
  o   Collect research data and sell it, or trade it for new powerful subsystems
  o   Mine new, higher-yielding Rift rocks and refine them for huge returns
  o   Explore wrecks untouched for centuries and find lost treasures

•   New Story Campaign
  o   Meet new characters and work with them to explore the secrets of the Rifts and finally end the war against the Xsotan plague. The future of the entire galaxy is at stake!

•   New Captain Classes
  o   A Scientist will help you collect valuable research data in Rifts that you can either sell or trade for powerful subsystems
  o   A Xsotan Hunter will attract large Xsotan specimens in Rifts that you can take down for epic loot

•   New Dangers & Enemies
  o   Master the extremely hostile environment in the Rifts
  o   Fight never-before-seen Xsotan, new bosses, and centuries-old defenses - or take advantage of them

•   New Legendary Subsystems
  o   Over a dozen new hybrid legendary subsystems for every play style

•   New Legendary Turrets
  o   Many new Legendary Turrets that will give you the edge you need to succeed in the Rifts

•   Play with Friends
  o   Rifts are unforgiving and dangerous. Be sure to bring a few friends and explore them together to improve your chances of success
  o   Full co-op support for Rift missions

 
Patch 2.2 is now live!

Patch 2.2 is now live - Into The Rift, New Blocks, QoL, Some Balancing and Fixes

Patch notes here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/announcements/detail/3374903891713762471



Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 17, 2022, 11:45:34 AM
Avorion 2022 Roadmap
Tue, August 16, 2022


Here are some of the big milestones that we've got planned for 2022!

Hello, space farers and rifters!

We're currently working on tons of stuff, but now that the release of the DLC is done, we'd like to share what we'll be working on next. Keep in mind that this list is definitely incomplete, as there are tons of other small things that we're also working on.

For the remainder of 2022, we'll focus on smaller, more frequent, free content updates. These are the things that we'll be working on. They're not in any particular order:
Exposing several central DLC configs and files for modding
Secondary colors for blocks
More Blocks (those will be most likely purely aesthetic)
More Events (ie. Distress Calls, Attacks, etc)
More Bulletin Board Missions
Reworking Restock Command to Maintenance Command
Maintenance will restock torpedoes, fighters, repair, refill crew
More Boss Fights
Photo Mode
More Features (still secret)
Performance Improvements (always!)
Bugfixes (always!)


The roadmap is an ever-changing work in progress, and things aren't necessarily carved in stone. You can also check it out on the Avorion Wiki here: https://avorion.fandom.com/wiki/Roadmap

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 21, 2022, 01:50:40 AM
Beta Branch Patch 2.2.1 - Patch Notes
Fri, August 19, 2022

We're busy fixing bugs and other issues, here's the list that we've got so far!

Beta Branch Note:
 These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.

Bugfixes
•   Fixed an issue where 'Fight the Swarm' mission spawned infinite numbers of Xsotan
•   Fixed an issue where captain icons in sector ship overview were not visible
•   Fixed an issue in sector ship overview where not all available missions were shown
•   Fixed an issue in 'Rescue of a Lost Expedition' where the beacon could be attacked by Xsotan
•   Fixed an issue where wormhole generator could be spawned in non-rift sectors
•   Fixed several issues in Xsotan Swarm Event
•   Fixed an issue where Xsotan Core of 'Xsotan Core Extraction' could be collected into alliance inventories
•   Fixed an issue where rift extraction button wasn't working properly for alliance ships
•   Fixed an issue where rift research center could send people over the barrier
•   Fixed an issue where new rift mining subsystem would not uncover hidden resource asteroids
•   Fixed an issue where achievements were wrongly unlocked
•   Fixed an issue where scout command didn't reveal faction home sectors
•   Fixed an issue where Zach's Xsotan Reinforcement Spawner could continue spawning Xsotan after ship was towed
•   Fixed an issue where 'Elimination of Corrupt Officials' Mission would send too many mails
•   Fixed an issue where 'Mega Thor' turret could use too much energy
•   Fixed several issues where commands would behave erroneously with 0 cargo space

Hotfixes 2022-08-09
"Hotfixes of the past week for completeness' sake."


•   Fixed an issue with ship autosaves and filesystem-incompatible characters in ship's name
•   Tutorial: Camera movement is no longer prohibited in building mode
•   Fixed several crashes reported through our crash reporter
•   Fixed an issue where speech bubbles of alliance ship hunter captains weren't displayed
•   Fixed a few performance issues when rendering portraits of resources/money
•   Improved docking pull-in mechanics
•   Fixed an issue when restoring turrets of a craft where automatic and weapon group settings could be lost
•   Key bindings for Autopilot, Trading Overview and Object Detector can now be assigned explicitly
•   Quick Access 4 & 5 remain and can be used by mods. Use it by defining the getControlAction() function in the desired script.


Hotfixes 2022-08-05
"Hotfixes of the past week for completeness' sake."


•   Fixed an issue where turret factory couldn't build Exotic rarity turrets
•   Fixed several crashes reported through our crash reporter
•   Fixed Research Station trying to feed unresearchable items in auto research
•   Added some debug support to help us find more crashes & issues

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 31, 2022, 11:05:58 AM
Beta Branch Patch 2.2.2 - Patch Notes
Tue, August 30, 2022


We're improving the experience inside rifts and fixing bugs!

Beta Branch Note:
These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.

Gameplay
•   Added more rift missions to mission boards of Rift Research Centers
•   Rifts: Gravity anomalies are now further away from mission targets to avoid interference
•   Rifts: Reworked "Applied Xenology" rift mission to make it easier to defend the probes
•   Rifts: Contents of rifts are now less far apart on lower rift depths
•   Rifts: Added Free Play settings (and corresponding .ini settings) for allowed mass and Xsotan damage in rifts

UI
•   Added a button to request new rift missions at Rift Research Centers
•   Sectors with Rift Research Centers are now specially highlighted on the Galaxy Map
•   Added an explanation on how to get Rift Research Data in Research Center Shop
•   Rifts: Improved highlighting of nearby objectives
•   Rifts: Monoliths and buoys of nearby paths are now highlighted to make it easier to navigate in rifts

Bugfixes
•   Fixed an issue where identical captain clones were received from 'A Lost Friend' mission
•   Fixed several issues where new subsystems gave too few turret slots
•   Fixed an exploit where autopilot could refine more ores than available
•   Fixed an issue where salvage and mining fighters didn't return to the hangar when a jump is ordered
•   Fixed an issue where splitting the procurement of goods reduced the duration and chance of attack
•   Fixed an issue where the corrupted AI did not become hostile to alliances after dialog
•   Fixed an issue where patch notes window did not reset scrolling
•   Fixed an issue where autopilot did not recognise when all required turrets were deactivated
•   Fixed an issue where the Hermit quest did not continue if a player traveled to them via command
•   Fixed an issue where ships could get lost/destroyed in rifts on higher difficulties when the game crashed or the server was shut down
•   Fixed several crashes in rifts


Update 2022-08-31
•   Rifts: Added Free Play settings (and corresponding .ini settings) for allowed mass and Xsotan damage in rifts
•   Fixed several crashes


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on January 20, 2023, 12:41:44 AM
Patch 2.3.1 is now live on the default branch!
Thu, 19 January 2023


Drastic improvements to loading times as well as general performance and RAM improvements!


Performance
"While working on our next free content update (more on that here) we've made major improvements to sector loading times, as well as some adjustments to our RAM management, that we didn't want to keep from you, so, enjoy!"

    Improved performance of base game loop (client & server) by 0.6ms (ca. +4% better performance at 60FPS)
        Note: This was on our office workstations, impact on other machines can differ, but there should be a notable impact especially for older hardware
    Improved performance of loading screens when ambient shuttles are enabled, but none are active in the sector
    Drastically improved performance of loading screens
    when there are lots of asteroids and shaders are set to "Normal"
        Note: 24s loading screen down to 6s loading screen for massive asteroid fields on our workstations at the office
    Improved general performance of scripts
    Strongly reduced memory usage of scripts
    Improved server performance when leaving rift sectors
    F10, /profile and /status no longer stall client/server during the output filedump


Modding

    Dev-Script lib/entitydbg.lua
    is no longer added to everything by default but when pressing F4


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 02, 2023, 11:11:54 PM
Avorion Team Announcement
Wed, 2 August 2023

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/27258641/9a3b4c2c9e6921eb6e5c5108215c9c7445f2fb1a.png)

Greetings, Space Pilots

After listening to all the amazing feedback, you’ve provided us with. We took some time to focus on improving our internal structures and workflows to ensure that the upcoming updates help improve your overall Avorion experience.

New updates are around the corner, so make sure to keep an eye out for them, as a new Free DLC
and Free Update
is lurking in the abyss! Get behind-the-scenes insights on what exactly to expect in the spectacular changes coming!

We’d like to thank all of you for taking part in this project of ours. Without you, all of this wouldn’t be possible!

Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on August 22, 2023, 02:37:40 AM
DEVLOG: Behemoths DLC & Updates
Mon, 21 August 2023

(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//27258641/0f5c2831743fab3273fadfd228b72f41aa5006f0.jpg)

Hello dear Spacefarers, Explorers, Pirates and Xsotan Hunters!

We are excited to be back to Avorion with many updates and a free DLC in the works! We have some new world minibosses, we made some improvements to escort AI, ship management, and more! We truly hope that you enjoy these changes, and of course, enjoy experiencing them when the time comes!


Mini World Bosses

We all love exploring space, and to make sure it won’t get too boring, we added various Mini World Bosses! Now you’ll be running into some ‘friends’ as you travel around the galaxy… Oh, also, be careful, we can’t be held accountable for any property damage made to your vessels. These mini world bosses will each have their own unique designs as well as backstories! Some will even feature new and unique weapons!

(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//27258641/a78621617c438e36832a83d18bf15d72d23c5944.jpg)

(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//27258641/6a7e9c7c2c8e0386105af52efe51461b3ffd7752.jpg)


Escort AI

Over time we’ve collected quite some feedback for the escort AI. We tried our best to improve the escort AI as much as possible with all the suggestions we’ve received, here are some of the changes we’ve made:
Behavior improvement of ships set to “escort”,

Read on: https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/announcements/detail/3644028211969519140
Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on November 16, 2023, 12:13:12 AM
Beta Branch Patch 2.4.1 - Patchnotes
Wed, 15 November 2023

Beta Branch Note:
These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes
and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'Beta Branch - Newest Changes & Experimental Features'.

Behemoth Events

    Increased number of bonus turret slots for Behemoth Combat/Civil Turret Control Systems
    Adjusted slightly misleading Behemoth Carrier Systems description


Remote Ship Management

    Remote managing the selected ship now requires the player to hold "I"
        Briefly pressing "I" while having another ship selected now just opens your current ship's management window again
    Added visual clues to the remote manage window to make it more clear it is not your current ship's window


Fleet Tab

    Improved compact view to take currently selected ship or station into account
    Ships that have yield ready to claim will now display an icon in compact view


Misc

    Updated Credits


Bugfixes

    Fixed a crash on Linux related to recent Steam client updates affecting singleplayer and hosting multiplayer games
    Fixed a crash when opening system tab in ship window while having a subsystem installed in a locked slot
    Fixed an issue where escorting ships prioritized gates over jumps even when target sector was in jump range
        They will still attempt to use gates if their hyperspace engine is on cooldown
    Fixed an issue where escorting ships did not immediately jump with the leader when possible
    Fixed an issue that caused error messages "You can't modify the component ControlUnit"
    Fixed an issue where player owned resource depots gave incorrect amounts of resources and money
    Fixed an issue where the filter for stolen goods overruled other cargo bay filter settings
    Fixed an issue where toggling compact view off and on resulted in the wrong row being expanded
    Fixed an issue where a Long-Distance-Trader subsystem's tooltip claimed to provide software for Transporter Blocks even when it didn't


Title: Re: Avorion : A procedural co-op space sandbox
Post by: Asid on February 26, 2024, 12:26:35 PM
Patch 2.4.3 is now live on the default branch!
Mon, February 26, 2024

Patch 2.4.3 improves docking behavior and addresses an AMD driver crash

After performing well on the beta branch, patch 2.4.3 is now live on the default main branch.

We've fixed a few bugs (like the station-says-I'm-docked-but-I'm-not-actually-docked-what-the-hell-is-happening-bug) and implemented a workaround for an AMD driver crash.

UI
Improved consistency of subsystem tooltip descriptions

Bugfixes
Fixed an issue where client and server disagreed about docking state (This should resolve cases where the ship was shown as docked but various menus sent errors about not being docked)
Implemented a workaround for an AMD GPU driver issue
Fixed an issue where ancient gates could be connected to world boss sectors
Fixed an issue where it was possible to give orders meant for ships to stations
Fixed a crash when a station was ordered to support a ship and the ship left the sector
Fixed an issue where boss health bars were visible in build mode
Fixed a crash related to destroyed entities in scrapyard sectors
Fixed an issue where a tooltip obstructed the confirmation dialog when removing a subsystem with shift-click


More details about the AMD driver situation can be found in the previous Beta-Branch Announcement