Patch 1.3.4 - Docking Update Final PatchnotesMon, 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