I wanted to let everyone know that the Shipyard UI is just about complete and we are hoping to have it released this week, shortly after that I will be doing some tests with Mac and Linux versions. If everything goes well, I will be uploading them to steam as well and they will be available.

Its been about a week and a half since our last update, and I knew this part of the UI would take this long, its a very complicated interface.

Gibbed (Rick) has started working on weapon systems and we hope to roll some updates to thoes out in version 0.010.

Thanks for all of your support-

Sean

0.008

• Continuing with our UI update, the first pass for the new in-flight GUI has been implemented.
  
• The ‘G’ key will bring up the weapon manager. Here you can assigned turrets to weapon groups. In the future, it will also show weapon stats.
  
• The ‘K’ key will bring up the faction menu. It should be similar in functionality to the previous Scaleform version.
  
• The ‘M’ key will bring up the map. You can drag the map with the mouse and zoom with scroll wheel. There are also + and - buttons for zooming. The ‘R’ button will reset the map to the original zoom level and on the center of the galaxy. In the future, this will reset to the sector you are in.
  
• The radar will now let you select a radar contact by clicking the icon, instead of having to click over the object in space.
  
• Previously, only locking a target displayed its range. Now just selecting a radar contact will display the range as well.
  
• Upon locking a target, it will automatically be set as the focused target. This means that as soon as you lock a target, you can hit the weapon group key to immediately assign weapons instead of first having to use the F keys to set the focused target.
  Increased size of asteroids.
  

I wanted to take a moment to tell you all what we are working on and what our short term goals are right now.

Right now we are working on a massive user interface overhaul, this is taking some time to wrap up. However once it is done it will resolve many issues people are having with the UI, and will allow for a much more robust framework for future work when dealing with UI related issues.

The main menu screen has already been done and is in the current build. Right now we are working on the flight UI, once that is done it will be patched out to everyone and then the station UI will be worked on, we have saved it for last because it is the most complicated and probably the most time consuming.

With the completion of the UI overhaul we will also be able to release our Mac and Linux builds.

Next on the list will be ingame options menu including visual settings and key bindings, this will be a continued work in progress but we need to get the foundation in. We will also be working on combat, and bringing it's functionality back, including manual fire modes, and better behaving turrets.

After this we have some creative ideas on how to further optimize ships and NPCs. We feel that this will have a large impact on game performance and will see significant increases for all users.

Thanks for supporting Kinetic Void.

0.007

• Upon ship death (hull at 0% or destruction of all cockpits), the player will be returned to the shipyard. NPC ships should also be destroyed if one of these conditions is met.
  
• Adjusted planetary rendering FOV so that the player no longer notices any stretching when at the edge of the screen.
  
• Adjusted the warp particle effect so that it doesn’t turn with the ship as you exit warp.
  
• Adjusted MWD travel speed for better framerate.
  
• UI change: For compatibility reasons, we have begun a UI overhaul. The splash screen has been changed to a new framework.
  
• UI: the Splash scene’s Load screen now allows for deletion of saved galaxies
  
• UI: the Splash scene’s New Game scene will now ask for confirmation before overwriting saved galaxies
  

0.006

• Holding shift in the shipyard will allow repeat placement of a part.
  
• The AI ships were feeling a bit sluggish before, they will now go about their business.
  
• Asteroids can now be destroyed.
  
• Fixed planetary proximity warning distance.
  
• Some ship spawns will now be hostile. Reminder: Hit tab to quickly target hostile contacts, or use micro-warp (shift-T) to flee.
  
• Ships now have engine effects, these are still a work in progress
  
• Micro warp drive improvements: Upon toggling the warp drive (default shift-T), the warp drive will charge for a few seconds before initiating. It will then remain on until you toggle it again. After shutting down, the warp drive must charge for 20 seconds before it is used again. The new warp drive has accompanying sound effects for charge up, travel, and exiting warp.
  
• Adjusted transparency for space fog and space dust so it's easier to notice movement.
  
• Adjusted planet spawn axis for more variety - Will only affect newly generated galaxies
  
• Fixed stock ships not having any subsystems equipped
  

• Fixed issue with saving and loading ship files
  
• Added new ship to stock selection the "Mule"
  

You should be able to use previous build ship designs, if they cause any problems please delete them and create new ones.


Edit: Slight delay Steam Partner site is down for Mantenace will push build as soon as its up.
Edit 2: The site is still down, I am checking it every half an hour - 2:00PM CST
Edit 3: Just pushed the patch live - 4:32PM CST

0.005

• Optimized all hull colliders
  
• Optimized all engine colliders
  
• Optimized all C&C colliders
  
• Optimized all weapon Colliders
  
• Removed light source from projectiles for testing
  
• Adjusted speed readout to properly relay speed to scale
  
• Major shipyard update: By popular demand, the old node based part placing has been re-enabled as a toggle. The shipyard will start in node based placement, press tab or use the button below the part list to switch between freeform and node placement.
  
• Added an Exit to Desktop button to the splash screen
  
• Changed the part rotation increment to 15 degrees instead of 45
  
• Adjusted camera depth in splash scene to hopefully negate the UI only issue some users are getting.
  

This change has broken all previously built ships, sorry about that. When we make changes to the shipyard this is bound to happen. I will post a small update tomorrow replacing the stock ships with some new designs.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has purchased Kinetic Void over the last couple days.

Because of you, we are hiring on another programmer and he will start in April. This should means that our work will be better, and we can do more at once.

Thanks again everyone.

~Badland Studio Team

Just a small update but it should improve performance quite a bit, including you will no longer experience severe performance hits when getting near another ship in space.

0.004

• Added and escape menu to the Shipyard
  
• Performance tweak: set the player to use a more forgiving collision detection mode
  

It may be a while before we roll out 0.005 as we are working on an addition to the shipyard which will allow players to toggle between Free-form module placement and a Node-Based placement system.

Thanks for the support everyone!

This version should see substantial performance increases for a lot of users. It should also address many items of feedback from lastnight.


0.003

• Fixed an issue with the shipyard camera while rotating with right-click drag
  
• Fixed an issue that prevent players from accessing the weapon manager
  
• Fixed an issue: when zooming the map, the ship no camera no longer zooms as well
  
• Ambient fog and particle effects now disable during warp
  
• Added quit to desktop option to in-flight escape menu
  
• Hid the non-functional System and Shipyard buttons
  
• Moved the camera further away from the rootblock in the shipyard
  
• Made the rootblock larger.
  
• Reduced Space Particle density to improve performance
  
• Reduced Space Fog density to improve performance
  
• Moved target non-hostile from shift- to its own keybinding, default to z
  
• Corrected issue with pivot point on turret 01
  
• Switched slow zoom and fast zoom (Default to fast, hold shift for slow)
  
• Adjusted base zoom rate to be faster
  
• Increased max zoom distance in the shipyard
  
• Fixed planet collisions to actually damage the ship.
  
• The B key, which previously activated a debugging function in sector space, is now disabled.
  
• Right clicking on a placed part while placing another will no longer open the radial menu
  
• Some parts in the shipyard could exhibit strange behavior while placing them. They have been rebuked and should now behave as expected
  

as usual please provide as much feedback as you can it is very helpful.