I have a mental trigger than once I’m past 11 things on the ‘recent bug fixes and improvements’ list then I need to get off my ass and release a new patch for all you lucky beta players of Gratuitous Space Battles.
So hopefully some time earlyish tomorrow I’ll be doing that with version 1.13. Here is what will be in it:
1) Fixed bug where power consumed can seem to equate to power produced but still be shown to be invalid on ship design screen
2) New feature : new minimap-button and hotkey ‘O’ turns on or off a green/red overlay to show friend or foe ships.
3) Fixed bug where the size of a ship-destruction shock wave varied based on your zoom level at the time of detonation
4) The option to turn off repair-drone effects now actually works correctly
5) Better repair drones, in that they have better weld effects, and actually carry out visible repairs so ship’s damage now reflects their true status much better
6) Added tooltips to the options
7) Added a new ‘hardware sounds’ option you can disable on options if you want pitch shifting sounds without slowdown at fast speed and have certain sound cards”
8) Added a new button on the deployment screen that lets you read all of the restrictions and spatial anomalies for this mission.
9) Added some better spatial anomalies
10) Fixed bug where tutorial got stuck at ‘select orders’
11) Various scenario deployment changes to take into account the new spatial anomalies
12) Missiles that are en-route whilst their target explodes will now autodestruct rather than fly on aimlessly (regardless of missile type).
13) Fixed major bug involving engine modules where damage to an engine module is ignored until the next time the ship is damaged (should make fighters more vulnerable)
14) Rebel atlantis bomber now has it’s drifting space hulk triggered
15) Attempting to load a design of ship into the editor that is invalid now gives a nicer, in-game error rather than a crash!
16) New delete button on file opening windows lets you delete existing ship designs and deployments.
It’s the usual mixture of minor niggles like 1) and usability stuff like 2) plus big enhancements such as 5) which I already blogged about. The big ones here are definitely 5) and 9). You might enjoy trying out the emerald nebula again, and the last skirmish mission, as these now have some more interesting spatial anomalies. Hopefully this will make for some good new challenges too, because people who hate fighters or love frigates can now have their fun.
Also, fighters have been nerfed a bit, partly by huge balance change improvements to anti-fighter missiles (not listed here), but also more subtely by 13). This means that it’s all fun and giggles in your high speed mega fighter until you take a single lucky hit. Then you are just some slowly drifting piece of metal with ‘target’ written on your ass.