Greetings, Cosmoteers! I'm Walt, the creator of Cosmoteer, and I'm here to tell you that The Meltdown Update, our biggest update ever, is now live! This massive update introduces an entirely new gameplay mechanic for both ship design and combat: heat management.

Check out the trailer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7rNHVOkTNM

The Meltdown Update is all about heat: both managing the thermal output of your own ship systems and wielding devastating heat-based weapons against your enemies. This isn't just about adding new content; it's about giving you a new optional layer of strategy for how you approach ship design, combat strategy, and tactical decision-making.

Your ships have become a thermal battlefield. You can now deploy new heat management technologies on your ships and exploit the enemy’s thermal vulnerabilities with heat-based weapons of your own. The heat generated by your ship’s systems and enemy weapons spreads between ship tiles, and hot tiles are more vulnerable to enemy attacks and can ignite into huge fires.

(Note: The new heat management mechanics and systems are optional and are not required on all ships; only those ships that use the new heat-based weapons and overclock modes described below require heat management.)

The new Thermal Resonance Lance is a massive roof-mounted heat ray that represents the pinnacle of thermal warfare technology. This isn't just another weapon; it will reshape how battles are fought.

The Thermal Resonance Lance melts through enemy armor, starts cascading fires, and makes their systems more vulnerable to your conventional weapons. Connect it to the new Lance Dilation Pumps to expand its thermal area-of-effect, or use Lance Amplification Pumps to intensify its thermal output.

Watching enemy ships melt under focused thermal bombardment is awesome. But here's the catch: the Lance generates enormous amounts of heat on your own ships, and that heat is just as deadly to you as it is to your enemies. Activate the Lance without proper heat management, and you might find your own ship melting down in spectacular fashion.

To prevent your ship from becoming a molten wreck, you'll need to master a suite of new thermal management systems:

• Heat Pipes create networks throughout your ship, transferring thermal energy between connected parts.

• Radiators safely exhaust heat into space, but their effectiveness depends on having clear space in front of them; no hiding your cooling systems behind armor!

• Heat Exchangers suckdangerous heat from your ship's hull and transfer it into your pipe network.

• Thermal Batteries provide heat storage capacity for your pipe systems, absorbing thermal spikes during combat.

The key is building efficient heat networks that can handle your ship's thermal output while remaining protected from enemy fire. It's an engineering puzzle as much as it is combat tactics. The team and I hope you’ll find it a satisfying new dimension to Cosmoteer.

Not all heat needs to be exhausted as waste. The Missile Launcher now launches Thermal Canister Missiles that actually use your ship's excess heat as a payload. These specialized heat-inflicting missiles can turn your thermal management challenge into a tactical advantage.

The hotter your ship runs, the more Thermal Canister Missiles you can launch. It's a risk-reward mechanism that lets skilled commanders turn potential weaknesses into strengths. That excess heat from your overclocked systems isn't just a problem to solve: it's ammunition to unleash.

This update isn’t just about brand-new weapons and systems. Nearly every existing weapon, defense, and ship system now feature Overclock Modes that dramatically enhance their performance while twisting their functionality in interesting new ways. Here are just some of the many overclock modes you can unleash:

Weapons Get Wild:

• Ion Beams destabilize near targets, creating chaotic lightning strikes that devastate large areas. (But can't directly hit their original target!)

• Large Cannons fire shells that explode into multiple incendiary fragments, each continuing to penetrate deeper into enemy ships.

• Chaingun projectiles become explosive-tipped for massive splash damage, but need to rest after every salvo.

• Laser Blasters fire instantaneous energy beams at high speed, trading individual shot power for an overwhelming volume of fire.

Defense Systems Transform:

• Small Shield Generators let you choose between massive area coverage or concentrated, nearly impenetrable protection.

• Point Defense Systems generate their own power through dynamos, firing indefinitely without batteries.

• Flak Arrays leave lingering shrapnel clouds that damage projectiles and block energy beams.

Even Utilities Get Upgrades:

• Tractor Beams can overcharge to emit massive gravitational pulses in all directions.

• Thrusters improve power efficiency and thrust force, but consume more energy.

• Factories work at blazing speeds while generating waste heat from their accelerated production.

Almost every overclocked system behaves differently. This opens up entirely new combat strategies and ship designs. But all this extra power generates heat that must be managed, creating many interesting risk-reward decisions.

Finally, the Meltdown Update introduces The Great House Io, a faction that has mastered heat-based warfare and overclock technology. This is a completely new faction that adds over 90 new combat ships, 13 civilian trade and transport vessels, 9 defense platforms, and 7 space stations.

Great House Io ships are built around thermal warfare, utilizing advanced heat management systems, thermal weapons, and overclock modes. Fighting them isn't just about overwhelming firepower; it's about understanding and countering their heat-based strategies while managing your own thermal systems.

These thermal warfare specialists will appear in newly-created Career games, though they won't retroactively appear in existing saves.

Whether you're a veteran commander or a new arrival, the Meltdown Update offers new challenges and new ways to design ships and demolish your enemies. The team and I can't wait to see the heat-based ship designs the community creates and the new tactical innovations that emerge from mastering thermal warfare.

And lastly, I want to thank everyone who made this update possible, including the rest of the dev team, the ship architects, the balance council, and you, the Cosmoteer community. This update took longer than any of us anticipated, but without your hard work and support, it would not have happened at all. We're in this for the long haul, and we're now turning our focus to finishing and launching Career 2.0 as soon as possible. Thanks again for your support and patience!

The Meltdown Update is available now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/799600/Cosmoteer_Starship_Architect__Commander/

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• New Gameplay Mechanic: Heat Management

  • Some new weapons and part effects now apply "heat" to the hull of individual ship tiles.

  • Heat spreads out between tiles and slowly decays over time.

  • If a tile has enough heat, a fire can start.

  • Parts that are very hot will take more damage from enemy weapons.

  • Heat can also be stored within some parts transferred between parts, and radiated away using new heat management parts (see below).

  • Crew can now "repair" parts with hull heat even if the part has taken no direct damage.

• New Gameplay Mechanic: Overclock

  • Most existing weapons and functional ship systems now have an alternate "overclock" mode that enhances its power/functionality and twists is functionality, but produces waste heat as a byproduct. (See below for list of new overclock modes.)

  • In Career games, overclock modes must be unlocked for individual weapons/parts by purchasing them from a station's blueprints tab.

  • In Build & Battle games, overclock modes must be purchased separately from the base weapon/part and will not be offered until the base weapon/part has been purchased.

• Updated Gameplay Mechanic: Fires

  • Fires can now be started by heat in addition to being sparked by weapons and explosions.

  • In most cases, fires will no longer completely destroy most ship parts. Instead, a part that is sufficiently burned will become "scorched" and unable to function until repaired. The exceptions are parts that contain explosive munitions such as cannon ammo.

  • When a Fire Extinguisher puts out a fire, it will now leave anti-fire foam that will temporarily prevent any new fires from appearing where the foam is.

• New Part: Heat Pipe

  • Instantaneously transfers thermal energy between connected parts.

  • Can be connected to most parts in specific locations which will be indicated by yellow connection points in the ship editor. (In most but not all cases these are the same locations where doors can be added.)

  • All parts that are connected via pipes are part of the same "heat pipe system" and can share/transfer heat between themselves.

  • Comes in three variants: Interior Pipes, Exterior (structure) Pipes, and Crew Crossing Pipes (which allow crew to walk underneath).

• New Part: Radiator

  • Dissipates thermal energy from the connected heat pipe system.

  • Dissipation effectiveness is reduced if the area in front of the radiator is blocked.

• New Part: Heat Exchanger

  • Absorbs heat from the hull, transferring it to the connected heat pipe system while generating some additional waste heat.

• New Part: Thermal Battery

  • Safely contains large amounts of thermal energy, providing additional heat storage to the connected heat pipe system.

• New Weapon: Thermal Resonance Lance

  • A roof-mounted turret that fires a beam of pure heat energy but also produces a great deal of its own waste heat.

  • Can store a limited amount of its own waste heat, or the waste heat can be transferred to a connected heat pipe system.

• New Weapon Module: Lance Dilation Pump

  • Increases the heat area-of-effect for all Thermal Resonance Lances connected to the same heat pipe system.

• New Weapon Module: Lance Amplification Pump

  • Increases the heat intensity for all Thermal Resonance Lances connected to the same heat pipe system.

• New Weapon: Thermal Canister Missiles

  • Guided missiles that take waste heat from their own ship and apply it to their target's hull in a small area.

  • Fired from the Launcher like the other missile types.

  • The Launcher must be connected to a heat pipe system and supplied with heat in order to fire.

• New Factory: Thermal Canister Missile Factory

  • Manufactures Thermal Canister Missile parts that can be delivered to the Launcher to fire Thermal Canister Missiles.

• New Faction: Great House Io

  • A new, 5th faction whose ships specialize in using heat management, heat-based weapons, and overclock modes.

  • Will spawn as a faction in new Career games. (Will not appear in existing Career save files.)

  • Adds 92 new combat ships.

  • Adds 12 new civilian trade and transport ships.

  • Adds 8 new defense platforms.

  • Adds 11 new space stations.

  • Adds 1 new hyper-jump beacon.

  • Added lore to the Codex describing the history of this faction and why it has suddenly appeared.

• New Overclock Modes:

  • Laser Blaster: Increases the rate of fire and replaces the laser bolts with instantaneous energy beams, but lowers the damage of each shot.

  • Heavy Laser Blaster: Increases the damage of each laser bolt and adds splash damage, but reduces the rate of fire.

  • Disruptor: Allows disruptor bolts to phase through solid materials and causes the energy drain effect to linger after the initial impact, but reduces shield penetration and the instant energy drain on initial impact.

  • Ion Beam Emitter: Causes the ion beam to destabilize near its target, creating chaotic and powerful lightning strikes in an area around it, but prevents the beam itself from directly hitting its target.

  • Standard Cannon: Fires salvos of multiple shells at higher velocity and longer range.

  • Large Cannon: Causes each cannon shell to break apart upon impact into multiple smaller incendiary shells that each continue penetrating into the target ship.

  • Deck Cannon: Increases shell damage, velocity, and accuracy, but lowers rate of fire and stops penetration once its damage potential is exhausted.

  • Railgun: Improves the efficiency of longer Railguns and increases projectile speed and damage, but requires a charge-up before firing and stops penetration once its damage potential is exhausted.

  • Chaingun: Projectiles become explosive-tipped, causing splash damage and greater overall destruction, but reduces rate of fire and requires the Chaingun to rest briefly after every four shots.

  • Small Shield Generator: Enables choosing between expanding the shield to cover a larger area or shrinking the shield to cover a smaller area while becoming stronger.

  • Large Shield Generator: The energy shield shrinks to cover a smaller area but becomes stronger and loses less power per hit.

  • Point Defense System: Turns on a dynamo that slowly regenerates power, allowing the Point Defense System to fire for short periods without ever receiving batteries.

  • Flak Array: Flak shells are packed with shrapnel that lingers in space for a short while after detonation, damaging any projectiles and blocking any energy beams that pass through.

  • Small Thruster (all variants): Greatly increases thrust and power efficiency while significantly improving dynamo power generation, but also increases power consumption.

  • Standard Thruster: Greatly increases thrust and power efficiency without affecting ramp times, but also increases power consumption.

  • Large Thruster: Greatly increases thrust and moderately improves power efficiency without affecting ramp times, but also increases power consumption.

  • Huge Thruster: Greatly increases thrust and minorly improves power efficiency without affecting ramp times, but also increases power consumption.

  • Boost Thruster: Greatly increases thrust and moderately improves power efficiency without affecting ramp times, but also increases power consumption. Additionally allows the Boost Thruster to be refueled while boosting.

  • M.R.T. Nozzle Module: Reduces the impact of Extender Modules on ramp-up time.

  • M.R.T. Extender Module: Increases both the Nozzle Module's base thrust and the thrust of every attached Extender Module.

  • Engine Room: Improves power efficiency when distributing power to attached thrusters, but forces all attached thrusters into Overclock mode. Additionally collects waste heat from attached thrusters, but produces additional waste heat while doing so.

  • Small Reactor Core: Increases maximum power capacity and generation rate.

  • Medium Reactor Core: Increases maximum power capacity and generation rate.

  • Large Reactor Core: Increases maximum power capacity and generation rate. Additionally increases battery size from triple-capacity to quadruple-capacity.

  • Power Capacitor: Triples the power capacity of both the Power Capacitor itself and the individual stored batteries.

  • Mining Laser: Adds an area-of-effect to both mining beams.

  • Tractor Beam Emitter: Significantly increases gravitational force in all modes, but restricts the force to always act upon the target's center of mass. Additionally, allows the emitter to be overcharged, depleting its energy and emitting a massive wave of gravitational energy in all directions.

  • Sensor Array: Increases the visual range of the Sensor Array.

  • All Factories (except Diamond): Significantly increases production speed. Produces waste heat while manufacturing resources.

• Balance:

  • Increased most projectile speeds by 20%.

  • Increased Point Defense and Flak damage vs projectiles by 20%.

  • Greatly increased the speed of construction and salvaging.

  • Greatly increased the speed of crew flying in space.

  • Greatly increased the speed of manipulator beams.

  • Greatly increased the damage of mining lasers when salvaging junk.

  • Ships no longer have a minimum hyper-jump distance.

  • The sun now applies heat to ships instead of direct damage.

• Crew:

  • If a crew is ejected from a ship because the room they are standing/walking in is destroyed, they will now be unassigned from whatever their current job is, allowing a different (now likely much closer) crew to be assigned to that job.

• Career:

  • Increased the size of the galaxy from 50 to 75 star systems.

  • Great House Io and its ships have been added as a new faction.

  • Reduced the drop rate of steel, coils, and hypercoils by 20%.

  • Trade station guard ships will now spawn farther from the station to prevent them from spawning on top of the player.

  • Police ships will no longer surrender to the player.

• Build & Battle:

  • One unlock slot will now always be reserved for an overclock mode.

  • Increased the number of available unlocks in the first round by 1.

• Domination:

  • It is now possible to remove crew quarters when inside the spawn circle. (Any crew deleted as a result will not be refunded.)

• User Interface:

  • Translation updates for all supported languages.

  • All weapons/parts with multiple sub-modules have been combined into single "part sub-tabs" that will expand when clicked. (Armor and the Launcher+Factories have also been put in sub-tabs.) Both the entire sub-tab or individual parts within them can be favorited.

  • Moved all thrusters to their own new "Thrusters" tab.

  • Combined armor and structure into a single tab.

  • The various metrics shown on the right side of the ship editor can now be individually turned on and off.

  • Added a toggle to display the ship's center of mass in the ship editor. (Due to technical limitations, the center of mass cannot be displayed in blueprint mode.)

  • If a tooltip is too large to fit on the screen, you can now hold Alt and use the mouse wheel to scroll the tooltip. For part tooltips, doing so will also show the stats.

  • Descriptions and stats for overlock modes in part tooltips can now be toggled by pressing the Ctrl key.

  • The stats for the Small and Large Shield Generators now show the stats for the shield arcs themselves in their own sections.

  • The Disruptor's shield penetration stat now shows penetration in "meters equivalent" units.

  • Right-clicking with the grab tool to select a part or decal type will now prefer to select it in a favorites tab if possible and it isn't selectable in the currently-opened tab.

  • Part toggle/mode changes made in blueprint mode will now only be applied to the physical ship once the "MAKE IT SO" button is clicked.

• Graphics:

  • Updated fire VFX and icons.

  • Centered the symbol_dash text decal.

  • Some ship parts such as corridors and crew quarters will now dim when their ship is junk or loses command.

  • The visual effects for ion beams, thermal resonance beams, and mining beams should now appear smoother.

• Bug Fixes:

  • Crash if a station is destroyed while the player is in comms with it and the Hire Crew tab is selected.

  • Crash when loading some saved game files with extremely high numbers of star systems.

  • Rare crash with error message "The 'takeFrom' pool had more objects than we had capacity for".

  • In Career mode, adding a part and then undoing it was not refunding any resources purchased from stations.

  • In some circumstances, ships moving at high velocities could fail to collide with each other.

  • Parts that take salvage damage while queued for repair would unintentionally cost resources to repair.

  • In some specific circumstances, replacing a ship's blueprints could load incorrect crew roles.

  • At low framerates, mouse clicks could sometimes be detected in the wrong location.

  • Explosions could sometimes break surrender truces.

  • Changes to "Log Deaths of Favorite Crew" setting wouldn't allow settings to be applied.

  • Developer menu options weren't working if U.I. animations were disabled.

  • Possible fix for the incorrect taskbar icon being displayed.

  • Ships that were heading to a jump gate after surrendering were not properly avoiding enemy stations.

  • Police ships weren't leaving the star system when no longer hunting the player.

  • In Domination games, ships that were jumping didn't count towards the player's maximum fleet value.

  • Ion Beams unintentionally did double damage to neutral ships.

  • The Small Imperium Trade Station III was missing its standard resource loadout.

• Modding:

  • In developer mode, can now press Ctrl+Shift+Tilde/Backtick to open up a side-menu from which part/tile statuses such as heat and fire can be applied and modified.

  • Added a whole new "part network" system that allows parts to connect to each other and share resources. This system is used for heat pipes and transferring heat between parts.

  • Added a whole new moddable "status system" that allows new per-tile or per-part "status effects" to be created. This system is used for both hull heat and the new fire mechanics.

  • All values that were previously "buffable" are now "modifiable" and support a wider range of ways to dynamically modify them and combine modifiers, including by the new status system.

  • BREAKING CHANGE: Due to the above "modifiable values" change, effect scales are no longer applied applied by default. Mods that use effect scales will need to be updated to properly apply them.

  • Shader files now support 'geom' (geometry) sub-shaders.

  • In developer mode, saved game files can now be drag-and-dropped into Cosmoteer to load them.

  • Many new components, effect types, and small modding features as part of all the new gameplay features. (There are too many to be listed individually; please see game rules files for examples.)

Cosmoteer release candidate 0.30.0 is now available for testing! (To play this release candidate, you must opt in to test it. Please see this post for info on how to test release candidates.)

This is a release candidate for the long-awaited "MELTDOWN UPDATE", which adds new heat management mechanics, heat-based weapons, overclock modes for almost all other weapons and ship systems, and a new faction.

Thanks for testing!

RC1 Patch Notes:

• New Gameplay Mechanic: Heat Management

  • Some new weapons and part effects now apply "heat" to the hull of individual ship tiles.

  • Heat spreads out between tiles and slowly decays over time.

  • If a tile has enough heat, a fire can start.

  • Parts that are very hot will take more damage from enemy weapons.

  • Heat can also be stored within some parts transferred between parts, and radiated away using new heat management parts (see below).

  • Crew can now "repair" parts with hull heat even if the part has taken no direct damage.

• New Gameplay Mechanic: Overclock

  • Most existing weapons and functional ship systems now have an alternate "overclock" mode that enhances its power/functionality and twists is functionality, but produces waste heat as a byproduct. (See below for list of new overclock modes.)

  • In Career games, overclock modes must be unlocked for individual weapons/parts by purchasing them from a station's blueprints tab.

  • In Build & Battle games, overclock modes must be purchased separately from the base weapon/part and will not be offered until the base weapon/part has been purchased.

• Updated Gameplay Mechanic: Fires

  • Fires can now be started by heat in addition to being sparked by weapons and explosions.

  • In most cases, fires will no longer completely destroy most ship parts. Instead, a part that is sufficiently burned will become "scorched" and unable to function until repaired. The exceptions are parts that contain explosive munitions such as cannon ammo.

  • When a Fire Extinguisher puts out a fire, it will now leave anti-fire foam that will temporarily prevent any new fires from appearing where the foam is.

• New Part: Heat Pipe

  • Instantaneously transfers thermal energy between connected parts.

  • Can be connected to most parts in specific locations which will be indicated by yellow connection points in the ship editor. (In most but not all cases these are the same locations where doors can be added.)

  • All parts that are connected via pipes are part of the same "heat pipe system" and can share/transfer heat between themselves.

  • Comes in three variants: Interior Pipes, Exterior (structure) Pipes, and Crew Crossing Pipes (which allow crew to walk underneath).

• New Part: Radiator

  • Dissipates thermal energy from the connected heat pipe system.

  • Dissipation effectiveness is reduced if the area in front of the radiator is blocked.

• New Part: Heat Exchanger

  • Absorbs heat from the hull, transferring it to the connected heat pipe system while generating some additional waste heat.

• New Part: Thermal Battery

  • Safely contains large amounts of thermal energy, providing additional heat storage to the connected heat pipe system.

• New Weapon: Thermal Resonance Lance

  • A roof-mounted turret that fires a beam of pure heat energy but also produces a great deal of its own waste heat.

  • Can store a limited amount of its own waste heat, or the waste heat can be transferred to a connected heat pipe system.

• New Weapon Module: Lance Dilation Pump

  • Increases the heat area-of-effect for all Thermal Resonance Lances connected to the same heat pipe system.

• New Weapon Module: Lance Amplification Pump

  • Increases the heat intensity for all Thermal Resonance Lances connected to the same heat pipe system.

• New Weapon: Thermal Canister Missiles

  • Guided missiles that take waste heat from their own ship and apply it to their target's hull in a small area.

  • Fired from the Launcher like the other missile types.

  • The Launcher must be connected to a heat pipe system and supplied with heat in order to fire.

• New Factory: Thermal Canister Missile Factory

  • Manufactures Thermal Canister Missile parts that can be delivered to the Launcher to fire Thermal Canister Missiles.

• New Faction: Great House Io

  • A new, 5th faction whose ships specialize in using heat management, heat-based weapons, and overclock modes.

  • Will spawn as a faction in new Career games. (Will not appear in existing Career save files.)

  • Adds 90 new combat ships.

  • Adds 13 new civilian trade and transport ships.

  • Adds 9 new defense platforms.

  • Adds 7 new space stations.

  • Added lore to the Codex describing the history of this faction and why it has suddenly appeared.

• New Overclock Modes:

  • Laser Blaster: Increases the rate of fire and replaces the laser bolts with instantaneous energy beams, but lowers the damage of each shot.

  • Heavy Laser Blaster: Increases the damage of each laser bolt and adds splash damage, but reduces the rate of fire.

  • Disruptor: Allows disruptor bolts to phase through solid materials and causes the energy drain effect to linger after the initial impact, but reduces shield penetration and the instant energy drain on initial impact.

  • Ion Beam Emitter: Causes the ion beam to destabilize near its target, creating chaotic and powerful lightning strikes in an area around it, but prevents the beam itself from directly hitting its target.

  • Standard Cannon: Fires salvos of multiple shells at higher velocity and longer range.

  • Large Cannon: Causes each cannon shell to break apart upon impact into multiple smaller incendiary shells that each continue penetrating into the target ship.

  • Deck Cannon: Increases shell damage, velocity, and accuracy, but lowers rate of fire and stops penetration once its damage potential is exhausted.

  • Railgun: Improves the efficiency of longer Railguns and increases projectile speed and damage, but requires a charge-up before firing and stops penetration once its damage potential is exhausted.

  • Chaingun: Projectiles become explosive-tipped, causing splash damage and greater overall destruction, but reduces rate of fire and requires the Chaingun to rest briefly after every four shots.

  • Small Shield Generator: Enables choosing between expanding the shield to cover a larger area or shrinking the shield to cover a smaller area while becoming stronger.

  • Large Shield Generator: The energy shield shrinks to cover a smaller area but becomes stronger and loses less power per hit.

  • Point Defense System: Turns on a dynamo that slowly regenerates power, allowing the Point Defense System to fire for short periods without ever receiving batteries.

  • Flak Array: Flak shells are packed with shrapnel that lingers in space for a short while after detonation, damaging any projectiles and blocking any energy beams that pass through.

  • Small Thruster (all variants): Greatly increases thrust and power efficiency while significantly improving dynamo power generation, but also increases power consumption.

  • Standard Thruster: Greatly increases thrust and power efficiency without affecting ramp times, but also increases power consumption.

  • Large Thruster: Greatly increases thrust and moderately improves power efficiency without affecting ramp times, but also increases power consumption.

  • Huge Thruster: Greatly increases thrust and minorly improves power efficiency without affecting ramp times, but also increases power consumption.

  • Boost Thruster: Greatly increases thrust and moderately improves power efficiency without affecting ramp times, but also increases power consumption. Additionally allows the Boost Thruster to be refueled while boosting.

  • M.R.T. Nozzle Module: Reduces the impact of Extender Modules on ramp-up time.

  • M.R.T. Extender Module: Increases both the Nozzle Module's base thrust and the thrust of every attached Extender Module.

  • Engine Room: Improves power efficiency when distributing power to attached thrusters, but forces all attached thrusters into Overclock mode. Additionally collects waste heat from attached thrusters, but produces additional waste heat while doing so.

  • Small Reactor Core: Increases maximum power capacity and generation rate.

  • Medium Reactor Core: Increases maximum power capacity and generation rate.

  • Large Reactor Core: Increases maximum power capacity and generation rate. Additionally increases battery size from triple-capacity to quadruple-capacity.

  • Power Capacitor: Triples the power capacity of both the Power Capacitor itself and the individual stored batteries.

  • Mining Laser: Adds an area-of-effect to both mining beams.

  • Tractor Beam Emitter: Significantly increases gravitational force in all modes, but restricts the force to always act upon the target's center of mass. Additionally, allows the emitter to be overcharged, depleting its energy and emitting a massive wave of gravitational energy in all directions.

  • Sensor Array: Increases the visual range of the Sensor Array.

  • All Factories (except Diamond): Significantly increases production speed. Produces waste heat while manufacturing resources.

• Balance:

  • Increased most projectile speeds by 20%.

  • Increased Point Defense and Flak damage vs projectiles by 20%.

  • Greatly increased the speed of construction and salvaging.

  • Greatly increased the speed of crew flying in space.

  • Greatly increased the speed of manipulator beams.

  • Greatly increased the damage of mining lasers when salvaging junk.

  • Ships no longer have a minimum hyper-jump distance.

  • The sun now applies heat to ships instead of direct damage.

• Crew:

  • If a crew is ejected from a ship because the room they are standing/walking in is destroyed, they will now be unassigned from whatever their current job is, allowing a different (now likely much closer) crew to be assigned to that job.

• Career:

  • Increased the size of the galaxy from 50 to 75 star systems.

  • Great House Io and its ships have been added as a new faction.

  • Reduced the drop rate of steel, coils, and hypercoils by 20%.

  • Trade station guard ships will now spawn farther from the station to prevent them from spawning on top of the player.

  • Police ships will no longer surrender to the player.

• Build & Battle:

  • One unlock slot will now always be reserved for an overclock mode.

  • Increased the number of available unlocks in the first round by 1.

• Domination:

  • It is now possible to remove crew quarters when inside the spawn circle. (Any crew deleted as a result will not be refunded.)

• User Interface:

  • Translation updates for all supported languages.

  • All weapons/parts with multiple sub-modules have been combined into single "part sub-tabs" that will expand when clicked. (Armor and the Launcher+Factories have also been put in sub-tabs.) Both the entire sub-tab or individual parts within them can be favorited.

  • Moved all thrusters to their own new "Thrusters" tab.

  • Combined armor and structure into a single tab.

  • The various metrics shown on the right side of the ship editor can now be individually turned on and off.

  • Added a toggle to display the ship's center of mass in the ship editor. (Due to technical limitations, the center of mass cannot be displayed in blueprint mode.)

  • If a tooltip is too large to fit on the screen, you can now hold Alt and use the mouse wheel to scroll the tooltip. For part tooltips, doing so will also show the stats.

  • Descriptions and stats for overlock modes in part tooltips can now be toggled by pressing the Ctrl key.

  • The stats for the Small and Large Shield Generators now show the stats for the shield arcs themselves in their own sections.

  • The Disruptor's shield penetration stat now shows penetration in "meters equivalent" units.

  • Right-clicking with the grab tool to select a part or decal type will now prefer to select it in a favorites tab if possible and it isn't selectable in the currently-opened tab.

  • Part toggle/mode changes made in blueprint mode will now only be applied to the physical ship once the "MAKE IT SO" button is clicked.

• Graphics:

  • Updated fire VFX and icons.

  • Centered the symbol_dash text decal.

  • Some ship parts such as corridors and crew quarters will now dim when their ship is junk or loses command.

  • The visual effects for ion beams, thermal resonance beams, and mining beams should now appear smoother.

• Bug Fixes:

  • Crash if a station is destroyed while the player is in comms with it and the Hire Crew tab is selected.

  • Crash when loading some saved game files with extremely high numbers of star systems.

  • Rare crash with error message "The 'takeFrom' pool had more objects than we had capacity for".

  • In Career mode, adding a part and then undoing it was not refunding any resources purchased from stations.

  • In some circumstances, ships moving at high velocities could fail to collide with each other.

  • Parts that take salvage damage while queued for repair would unintentionally cost resources to repair.

  • In some specific circumstances, replacing a ship's blueprints could load incorrect crew roles.

  • At low framerates, mouse clicks could sometimes be detected in the wrong location.

  • Explosions could sometimes break surrender truces.

  • Changes to "Log Deaths of Favorite Crew" setting wouldn't allow settings to be applied.

  • Developer menu options weren't working if U.I. animations were disabled.

  • Possible fix for the incorrect taskbar icon being displayed.

  • Ships that were heading to a jump gate after surrendering were not properly avoiding enemy stations.

  • Police ships weren't leaving the star system when no longer hunting the player.

  • In Domination games, ships that were jumping didn't count towards the player's maximum fleet value.

  • Ion Beams unintentionally did double damage to neutral ships.

• Modding:

  • In developer mode, can now press Ctrl+Shift+Tilde/Backtick to open up a side-menu from which part/tile statuses such as heat and fire can be applied and modified.

  • Added a whole new "part network" system that allows parts to connect to each other and share resources. This system is used for heat pipes and transferring heat between parts.

  • Added a whole new moddable "status system" that allows new per-tile or per-part "status effects" to be created. This system is used for both hull heat and the new fire mechanics.

  • All values that were previously "buffable" are now "modifiable" and support a wider range of ways to dynamically modify them and combine modifiers, including by the new status system.

  • BREAKING CHANGE: Due to the above "modifiable values" change, effect scales are no longer applied applied by default. Mods that use effect scales will need to be updated to properly apply them.

  • Shader files now support 'geom' (geometry) sub-shaders.

  • In developer mode, saved game files can now be drag-and-dropped into Cosmoteer to load them.

  • Many new components, effect types, and small modding features as part of all the new gameplay features. (There are too many to be listed individually; please see game rules files for examples.)

RC2 Patch Notes:

• Updated the "Fires" tutorial and added tutorials for Hull Heat and Scorched Parts.

• Added a Great House Io hyper-jump beacon.

• Added 1 new Great House Io combat ship: Haagenti.

• Misc updates to existing Great House Io ships.

RC3 Patch Notes:

• Added 3 new Great House Io combat ships: Thanatos, Loki, and Malphas.

• Added 4 new Great House Io stations: Med Ionian Arms Depot, Med Ionian Arms Depot II, Large Ionian Arms Depot, Large Ionian Arms Depot II.

• Misc other Great House Io ship updates.

• Loading blueprints can no longer be used to bypass having to buy overclocks in Career mode.

• Engine Room no longer forces overclock of attached thrusters.

• Engine room now generates heat on battery delivery.

• Increased Engine Room power distribution efficiency from 140% to 150%.

• Added minimum status thresholds for showing heat and scorched tutorials.

• Added tutorials for heat management and overclocking.

• The mass display toggle is now properly disabled when in blueprint mode.

• Translation updates for all supported languages. (Work in progress.)

• Fixed the description for the Diamond Smelter.

• Minor tooltip adjustments and fixes.

• Bugfix: The Small Imperium Trade Station III was missing its standard resource loadout.

RC4 Patch Notes:

• More translation updates for all supported languages.

• Misc updates to existing Great House Io combat ships.

• Removed bonus heat diffusion speed from structure to empty space (was 400%). (We may revisit this mechanic after the stable 0.30.0 release.)

• Removed the following Great House Io ships/platforms because they used structure-cooling techniques that are no longer viable due to the above change: Cleeia, Ipos, Seir, and Small Laser Platform.

• Reduced flak shrapnel field damage pool (2000→1600).

• Fixed Overclocked Tractor Beam ‘Overload’ not disabling on death and getting stuck on after repair.

• Fixed loading of old statuses triggering a huge number of effect ticks, freezing the game.

• Fixed Part Network null reference crash when splitting a ship with ToggledComponents containing certain network components (eg. T.C.M. Launcher).

• Fixed Thermal Resonance Lance ‘flickering’ causing it to not drain (pump) power or generate heat.

• Fixed ResourceConverters resetting progress when losing operationality on the same tick they would have otherwise converted.

• Fixed Overclocked Disruptor bolts dealing damage to every penetrated part instead of only the first.

Ahoy Cosmoteers!

Cosmoteer update 0.29.0 is now available for all! This update greatly improves the ship painting capabilities by adding support for resizing, stretching, and inverting decals along with dozens of new decals and a handful of new base paint textures. It also has a handful of other balance tweaks, quality-of-life enhancements, and bug fixes.



We're still working hard on the next *big* update which adds new weapons and a major new ship-design mechanic. And in fact, that update is now in public preview for anyone who wants to test and give feedback on! Head over to our official Discord server for more info. (And yes, we're also still working on Career 2.0, but that will come later.)

Have fun!

- Walt


Full Patch Notes:

• Ships:
  
  • Added 3 new Monolith combat ships: Geironul, Praetor, and Praetorian.
    
  • Added 1 new Imperium combat ship: Knysna
    
  • Added 15 ships from the August 2024 ship design contest. These ships will not spawn in Career but are playable in Creative mode.
    
  • Miscellaneous updates to existing built-in ships.
• Balance:
  
  • Standard Cannon, Large Cannon, Deck Cannon, and Flak Cannon shots will no longer spawn or "phase" inside enemy ships when their cannon barrels are poking inside the enemy.
    
  • HE, EMP, and Nuke missiles now have the same lifetime when dumbfired as when fired with a target.
    
  • Reduced the Power Capacitor's cost from 4000 to 3000 and increased its power capacity from 18 to 24 batteries.
    
  • Reduced the cost of the Heavy Laser Blaster from 6000 to 5000.
    
  • Disruptors now only have penetration resistance when getting hit on the turret.
    
  • Coil, Hypercoil, and Processor factories now allow doors next to all of their storage tiles.
    
  • Small Thrusters will no longer generate power when their ship is classified as junk.
• Ship Painting:
  
  • Most built-in ship paint decals can now be resized and/or stretched up to 4x4 tiles in length and/or width. (Modded decals will likely need to be updated with larger sprites to support resizing.)
    
  • All decals (regardless of built-in or modded) can now be "inverted", meaning that their transparent areas become opaque and their opaque areas become transparent.
    
  • The new resizing, stretching, and inverting features have made many existing decals redundant. Those redundant decals have been removed. Any ships that use those removed decals will be automatically converted to use the new decals. Likewise, "favorite" decals lists will also be converted, though you may notice fewer decals in your favorites if multiple have been combined into a single decal.
    
  • Adding a decal as a "favorite" now remembers the specific size and transparent/opaque inversion selected. Every combination of size/inversion selections can be favorited as desired.
    
  • Likewise, right-clicking on a decal with the "grab" tool selected will now copy the decal's size and inversion.
    
  • The visuals on decal buttons will now update as their size and inversion are changed to reflect the exact combination of size and inversion that will be favorited.
    
  • The naming scheme for decals has been revamped, producing a more intuitive ordering of decals and making it easier for additional decals to be added in the future.
    
  • Many new decals have been added, including basic straights/curves/fades, complex shapes, icons, and text symbols.
    
  • A handful of new base paint textures have also been added.
• User Interface:
  
  • Favorite parts and decals can now be reordered by dragging and dropping them into the desired order.
    
  • Favorites groups for both parts and decals are now lettered A/B/C instead of 1/2/3.
    
  • Railgun and Ion Beam range/direction lines should now be more visible when zoomed out.
• Career:
  
  • Tweaked the dialogue text demanding that the player surrender in the case that the player isn't actually outmatched by the A.I.
• Multiplayer:
  
  • Updated the built-in rulesets for Domination mode to more closely match the rules commonly-used by the community.
    
  • Roof Headlights are now allowed in Build & Battle.
• Performance:
  
  • On computers (typically laptops) with both low-performance (integrated) and high-performance (dedicated) GPUs, Cosmoteer will now automatically configure itself to run on the high-performance GPU. If this is not desired, you can change it in your Windows graphics settings.
• Bug Fixes:
  
  • Crash in some circumstances if a modded resource type no longer exists.
    
  • Ships would sometimes unintionally try to avoid collisions with other ships that they were flying away from. This was especially problematic with ships flying in formation.
    
  • Ships would sometimes stop pathfinding around ion storms and electron clouds.
    
  • Hailing a ship that was already hailing you wouldn't act as accepting their hail.
    
  • Crew would sometimes walk over tiles in certain factories that were supposed to be impassable.
    
  • RAM and VRAM used by ships that no longer exist wasn't being freed as soon as intended.
    
  • In multiplayer Career mode, it was impossible to switch the sector view back to a sector that didn't have any ships belonging to the first player. (This fix is not retroactive for existing saved games. For existing saves, you must first physically jump back to that sector before the fix will take effect.)
    
  • Synchronizing mods with a host or saved game would enable any locally-installed mod with a matching ID instead of downloading it from the Steam Workshop even if the locally-installed mod had the wrong version number.
    
  • The selection boxes for the object selection tool in Creative mode could have odd scaling when zoomed out.
    
  • In blueprint mode, if the only ship modification was to add crew, it was impossible to click the "make it so" button.
• Modding:
  
  • The new decal resizing/stretching feature can only *shrink* the size of the decal. Thus, mods that want to support resizing/stretching their decals will likely need to increase the resolution of those decals.
    
  • The naming scheme of built-in decals has been changed to be much more intuitive. This should make it easier to add new decals that sort logically with the built-in decals.
    
  • The roof_decals.rules file now contains 'Upgrades' and 'DefaultSizes' that mods can add to if they want to upgrade their own decals to the new sizes and/or naming scheme.
    
  • Added a new 'JunkToggle' component that is "on" whenever the ship is junk.
    
  • BulletEmitter now supports an optional 'AntiPhasingRaycastDistance' parameter that, if set, can be used to prevent projectiles from spawning or "phasing" inside enemy ships when fired.
    
  • In developer mode, holding the tilde/backtick key will now display info for any paint decals pointed at by the mouse cursor.

Cosmoteer release candidate 0.29.0 is now available for testing! (To play this release candidate, you must opt in to test it. Please see this post for info on how to test release candidates.)

This release candidate adds new features and decals for painting ships, plus a bunch of other balance tweaks, quality-of-life enhancements, and bug fixes.

We're still working hard at a bunch of upcoming improvements as part of Career 2.0, plus a big new weapon and related ship-design mechanic that will arrive sooner, but we wanted to get these improvements out to everyone sooner rather than later.

Thanks for testing!

RC1:

• Ships:
  
  • Added 3 new Monolith combat ships: Geironul, Praetor, and Praetorian.
    
  • Added 1 new Imperium combat ship: Knysna
    
  • Miscellaneous updates to existing built-in ships.
• Balance:
  
  • Standard Cannon, Large Cannon, Deck Cannon, and Flak Cannon shots will no longer spawn or "phase" inside enemy ships when their cannon barrels are poking inside the enemy.
    
  • HE, EMP, and Nuke missiles now have the same lifetime when dumbfired as when fired with a target.
    
  • Reduced the Power Capacitor's cost from 4000 to 3000 and increased its power capacity from 18 to 24 batteries.
    
  • Reduced the cost of the Heavy Laser Blaster from 6000 to 5000.
    
  • Disruptors now only have penetration resistance when getting hit on the turret.
    
  • Coil and Hypercoil factories now allow doors next to all of their storage tiles.
    
  • Small Thrusters will no longer generate power when their ship is classified as junk.
• Ship Painting:
  
  • Most built-in ship paint decals can now be resized and/or stretched up to 4x4 tiles in height and/or width. (Modded decals will likely need to be updated with larger sprites to support resizing.)
    
  • All decals (regardless of built-in or modded) can now be "inverted", meaning that their transparent areas become opaque and their opaque areas become transparent.
    
  • The new resizing, stretching, and inverting features have made many existing decals redundant. Those redundant decals have been removed. Any ships that use those removed decals will be automatically converted to use the new decals. Likewise, "favorite" decals lists will also be converted, though you may notice fewer decals in your favorites if multiple have been combined into a single decal.
    
  • The naming scheme for decals has been revamped, producing a more intuitive ordering of decals and making it easier for additional decals to be added in the future.
    
  • Many new decals have been added, including basic straights/curves/fades, complex shapes, icons, and text symbols.
• User Interface:
  
  • Favorite parts and decals can now be reordered by dragging and dropping them into the desired order.
    
  • Railgun and Ion Beam range/direction lines should now be more visible when zoomed out.
• Career:
  
  • Tweaked the dialogue text demanding that the player surrender in the case that the player isn't actually outmatched by the A.I.
• Multiplayer:
  
  • Updated the built-in rulesets for Domination mode to more closely match the rules commonly-used by the community.
    
  • Roof Headlights are now allowed in Build & Battle.
• Performance:
  
  • On computers (typically laptops) with both low-performance (integrated) and high-performance (dedicated) GPUs, Cosmoteer will now automatically configure itself to run on the high-performance GPU. If this is not desired, you can change it in your Windows graphics settings.
• Bug Fixes:
  
  • Crash in some circumstances if a modded resource type no longer exists.
    
  • Ships would sometimes unintentionally try to avoid collisions with other ships that they were flying away from. This was especially problematic with ships flying in formation.
    
  • Ships would sometimes stop pathfinding around ion storms and electron clouds.
    
  • Hailing a ship that was already hailing you wouldn't act as accepting their hail.
    
  • Crew would sometimes walk over tiles in certain factories that were supposed to be impassable.
    
  • RAM and VRAM used by ships that no longer exist wasn't being freed as soon as intended.
    
  • In multiplayer Career mode, it was impossible to switch the sector view back to a sector that didn't have any ships belonging to the first player. (This fix is not retroactive for existing saved games. For existing saves, you must first physically jump back to that sector before the fix will take effect.)
    
  • Synchronizing mods with a host or saved game would enable any locally-installed mod with a matching ID instead of downloading it from the Steam Workshop even if the locally-installed mod had the wrong version number.
    
  • The selection boxes for the object selection tool in Creative mode could have odd scaling when zoomed out.
    
  • In blueprint mode, if the only ship modification was to add crew, it was impossible to click the "make it so" button.
• Modding:
  
  • The new decal resizing/stretching feature can only *shrink* the size of the decal. Thus, mods that want to support resizing/stretching their decals will likely need to increase the resolution of those decals.
    
  • The naming scheme of built-in decals has been changed to be much more intuitive. This should make it easier to add new decals that sort logically with the built-in decals.
    
  • The roof_decals.rules file now contains 'Upgrades' and 'DefaultSizes' that mods can add to if they want to upgrade their own decals to the new sizes and/or naming scheme.
    
  • Added a new 'JunkToggle' component that is "on" whenever the ship is junk.
    
  • BulletEmitter now supports an optional 'AntiPhasingRaycastDistance' parameter that, if set, can be used to prevent projectiles from spawning or "phasing" inside enemy ships when fired.

RC2:

• Decals now default to the smallest possible size while maintaining their original aspect ratio.
  
• Processor factories now also allow doors next to all of their storage tiles.
  
• Tweaked the shape_corner_square_1 and shape_corner_square_arrow decals to seamlessly blend with solids at their corners.
  
• RC Bugfix: The new 'symbol_caret' text decal was unintionally rendered as '*' instead of '^'.
  
• RC Bugfix: The old 'fade01' decal was converting to the new 'fade_corner' decal (inverted) with the incorrect rotation.
  
• RC Bugfix: Using the "grab" tool to pick up a decal didn't grab the decal's inverted state.

RC3:

• Changed the version number to 0.29.0 to more appropriately convey the scope of this update.
  
• RC Bugfix: Deck Cannon bullets would sometimes get blocked by their own ship.
  
• RC Bugfix: Mirror mode wasn't working properly with stretched decals in some circumstances.
  
• RC Bugfix: Stretched decals could look abnormally pixelated.
  
• It is now possible to favorite specific combinations of decal, size, and inversion.
  
• Changed the invert hotkey to just 'I' (without Ctrl).
  
• Right-clicking a decal with the grab tool now copies the decal's size and invert state.
  
• Selected decals can now be inverted without having to cut and paste.
  
• The Z key can now be used to open and close the decal resizer.
  
• Added a handful of additional new decals.
  
• Added another skull decal that is very similar to the original small skull decal.
  
• Added a handful of new base paint textures.
  
• Removed a couple more redundant decals.

RC4:

• RC Bugfix: Dragging favorite decals to reorder them broke in RC3.
  
• Shortcuts to rotate, flip, and invert decals now work while the decal resizer popout is open. (Including right-click to rotate.)
  
• Pressing the Z key to open the decal resizer will now popup the resizer underneath the mouse cursor, wherever that is.
  
• Right-clicking or middle-clicking to favorite a decal will now favorite the specific size and inversion combination as well. (The star button added in RC3 was thus made redundant and has been removed.)
  
• The visuals on decal buttons will now update as their size and inversion are changed to reflect the exact combination of size and inversion that will be favorited.
  
• Favorites groups are now lettered A/B/C instead of 1/2/3.
  
• Added a couple more fade decals, removed a few low-usefulness fade decals, and tweaked another couple of fade decals to be more useful.
  
• Added 15 ships from the August 2024 ship design contest. These ships will not spawn in Career but are playable in Creative mode.
  
• Modding: Changed the format for automatic decal upgrades so that decals with special characters in their names can be upgraded.

Cosmoteer update 0.28.2 is now available! This update has new ships, balance tweaks, user interface improvements, and bug fixes.

We're still working hard on more improvements as part of Career 2.0, as well as a very cool new weapon and major ship mechanic that is nearing completion, but we wanted to get these fixes and improvements out to everyone sooner rather than later.

Enjoy!

Full patch notes:

• Ships:
  
  • Added 3 new Monolith combat ships: Attractor, Bluescreen, and Reginleif.
    
  • Added 3 Monolith crew transports: Minor Connector, Bulk Connector, and Mass Connector.
    
  • Added 1 new Monolith trade station: Large Monolith Trade Station II.
    
  • Added 6 Cabal crew transports: Trailblazer, Pioneer, Wayfarer, Cicerone, Originator, and Pathfinder.
    
  • Added 6 Imperium crew transports: Ardeola, Bacchus, Agami, Botaurus, Ardea, and Butorides.
    
  • Added 1 new Imperium defense platform: Medium Nuke Platform.
    
  • Added 2 new Fringe combat ships: Bulkhead and Tenderizer.
    
  • Added 3 Fringe crew transports: Target Practice, Packed Like Sardines, and Khrushchevka.
    
  • Added 1 new Fringe trade station: Small Fringe Trade Station II
    
  • Miscellaneous updates to existing ships and stations.
• Balance:
  
  • The calculation that determines how many resources are needed to repair a damaged part now rounds up (again) to the nearest whole number of resources instead of down, because rounding down was causing repair costs to be far lower than intended.
    
  • Huge thrusters no longer have a ramp-down time.
    
  • Asteroids are now always visible inside gas clouds even to ships outside the cloud.
    
  • Increased the Electron Cloud's energy weapon buff from 75% to 90%.
    
  • Decreased the Electron Cloud's reactor debuff from 80% to 40%.
    
  • 2-way and 3-way Small Thrusters no longer have 5% lateral thrust. (This was supposed to have been removed back when lateral thrust was removed from other thrusters, but we forgot.)
• User Interface:
  
  • You can now save up to three different custom sets of "favorite" parts or decals. To do this, open the ship or paint editor, right click on the button for the part or decal, and then select which favorites set you want to add it to or remove it from. You can also middle-click on the part or decal to quickly favorite or unfavorite it. When a favorites set has any parts or decals in it, it will appear as a tab to the left of all the standard part/decal tabs.
    
  • Split the "shapes" decals group into "straights", "curves", and "fades".
    
  • When using the 'select' tool in paint mode, holding Shift will now suppress the 'grab hand' just like it does when using the 'select' tool in build mode.
    
  • Added a note to the Tractor Beam Emitter's tooltip to clarify that force and power usage varies based on the target's distance.
• Career:
  
  • Added a new "High Electron Cloud Density" type of star system that is covered predominantly by Electron Clouds. (These star systems will not appear in existing saved games.)
    
  • All four factions now have "crew transport" ships that are similar to trade ships but focus on crew capacity over resource capacity. Players can still trade and hire crew from these ships, and they will refill station crews faster than regular trade ships.
    
  • A.I. trade ships will no longer stop in ion storms or sun heat zones to repair themselves.
• Bug Fixes:
  
  • Crash if an under-construction part is selected in the supply-chain assignment mode as it finishes construction.
    
  • Crash in some rare circumstances when transferring crew while the game is paused.
    
  • Diagonal ships could sometimes have difficulty getting into and staying in formation.
    
  • Electron Clouds or Ion Storms that overlapped with sun damage zones could cause ship pathfinding issues.
    
  • Selecting a starter ship with a missile launcher would require all four missile/mine blueprints to be unlocked/purchased instead of only the one(s) required for the selected missile/mine type(s).
    
  • A.I. ships would sometimes demand that the player surrender if the player had any unarmed ships, even if those ships were being protected by other armed ships nearby.
    
  • In supply chain assignment mode, it was unintentionally possible to assign a reactor to a storage room (or vice-versa) by selecting both the reactor and a storage room and then right-clicking on a different storage (or reactor).
    
  • Randomly-generated crew names could sometimes have non-alphabetical characters.
    
  • The Flak Array's "Dmg vs Shots" stat was showing the incorrect value.
    
  • The description for the Launcher's 'Mines' mode was showing the text "Proximity Mines" instead of the full description.
• Modding:
  
  • Saved games containing ships that no longer exist due to disabled or updated mods should now be loadable. The missing ships will in most cases simply not exist after loading.
    
  • Mods can add (or remove) part and decal favorites sets.

Cosmoteer release candidate 0.28.2 is now available for testing! (To play this release candidate, you must opt in to test it. Please see this post for info on how to test release candidates.)

This release candidate has a lot of quality-of-life improvements, balance tweaks, new ships, and a handful of bug fixes.

We're still working hard at a bunch of upcoming improvements as part of Career 2.0, plus a big new weapon and related ship-design mechanic, but we wanted to get these improvements out to everyone sooner rather than later.

Thanks for testing!

RC1:

• Ships:
  
  • Added 3 new Monolith combat ships: Attractor, Bluescreen, and Reginleif.
    
  • Added 3 Monolith crew transports: Minor Connector, Bulk Connector, and Mass Connector.
    
  • Added 1 new Monolith trade station: Large Monolith Trade Station II.
    
  • Added 6 Cabal crew transports: Tourist, Pioneer, Wayfarer, Cicerone, Originator, and Pathfinder.
    
  • Added 6 Imperium crew transports: Ardeola, Bacchus, Agami, Botaurus, Ardea, and Butorides.
    
  • Added 1 new Imperium defense platform: Medium Nuke Platform.
    
  • Added 2 new Fringe combat ships: Bulkhead and Tenderizer.
    
  • Added 3 Fringe crew transports: Target Practice, Packed Like Sardines, and Khrushchevka.
    
  • Added 1 new Fringe trade station: Small Fringe Trade Station II
    
  • Miscellaneous updates to existing ships and stations.
• Balance:
  
  • The calculation that determines how many resources are needed to repair a damaged part now rounds up (again) to the nearest whole number of resources instead of down, because rounding down was causing repair costs to be far lower than intended.
    
  • Huge thrusters no longer have a ramp-down time.
    
  • Increased the Electron Cloud's energy weapon buff from 75% to 90%.
    
  • Decreased the Electron Cloud's reactor debuff from 80% to 40%.
    
  • 2-way and 3-way Small Thrusters no longer have 5% lateral thrust. (This was supposed to have been removed back when lateral thrust was removed from other thrusters, but we forgot.)
• User Interface:
  
  • You can now save up to three different custom sets of "favorite" parts or decals. To do this, open the ship or paint editor, right click on the button for the part or decal, and then select which favorites set you want to add it to or remove it from. You can also middle-click on the part or decal to quickly favorite or unfavorite it. When a favorites set has any parts or decals in it, it will appear as a tab to the left of all the standard part/decal tabs.
    
  • Split the "shapes" decals group into "straights", "curves", and "fades".
    
  • When using the 'select' tool in paint mode, holding Shift will now suppress the 'grab hand' just like it does when using the 'select' tool in build mode.
    
  • Added a note to the Tractor Beam Emitter's tooltip to clarify that force and power usage varies based on the target's distance.
    
  • Removed the "Dmg vs Shots" stat from the Flak Array because it was identical to the "Max Damage" stat and misleading.
• Career:
  
  • Added a new "High Electron Cloud Density" type of star system that is covered predominantly by Electron Clouds. (These star systems will not appear in existing saved games.)
    
  • All four factions now have "crew transport" ships that are similar to trade ships but focus on crew capacity over resource capacity. Players can still trade and hire crew from these ships, and they will refill station crews faster than regular trade ships.
    
  • A.I. trade ships will no longer stop in ion storms or sun heat zones to repair themselves.
• Bug Fixes:
  
  • Crash if an under-construction part is selected in the supply-chain assignment mode as it finishes construction.
    
  • Crash in some rare circumstances when transferring crew while the game is paused.
    
  • Diagonal ships could sometimes have difficulty getting into and staying in formation.
    
  • Electron Clouds or Ion Storms that overlapped with sun damage zones could cause ship pathfinding issues.
    
  • Selecting a starter ship with a missile launcher would require all four missile/mine blueprints to be unlocked/purchased instead of only the one(s) required for the selected missile/mine type(s).
    
  • A.I. ships would sometimes demand that the player surrender if the player had any unarmed ships, even if those ships were being protected by other armed ships nearby.
    
  • In supply chain assignment mode, it was unintentionally possible to assign a reactor to a storage room (or vice-versa) by selecting both the reactor and a storage room and then right-clicking on a different storage (or reactor).
    
  • Randomly-generated crew names could sometimes have non-alphabetical characters.
• Modding:
  
  • Saved games containing ships that no longer exist due to disabled or updated mods should now be loadable. The missing ships will in most cases simply not exist after loading.
    
  • Mods can add (or remove) part and decal favorites sets.

RC2:

• Asteroids are now always visible inside gas clouds even to ships outside the cloud.
  
• Restored Flak's "Dmg vs Shots" stat and fixed it to show the correct value of 1750.
  
• (Bugfix): The description for the Launcher's 'Mines' mode was showing the text "Proximity Mines" instead of the full description.
  
• (RC Bugfix): Crash when creating a new ship in multiplayer.
  
• (RC Bugfix): The order of part/decal favorites could sometimes change when switching between favorites tabs.
  
• Renamed a couple of ships.

• (Tech/Performance): Upgraded to .NET 9 (again) because we believe we have resolved the issue that was causing Cosmoteer to not boot for some players. Please let us know if you're still having issues. (And if you are, try updating your Windows.)
  
• (Balance): 1x3 armor/structure hybrid wedges had lower penetration resistance than was intended. They now match the regular 1x3 armor wedge.
  
• (Balance): All three reactors were generating power at very slightly different speeds than was intended. (This should have no noticeable effect on game balance.)
  
• (Bugfix): Multiplayer desyncs caused by ship formations avoiding collisions.
  
• (Bugfix): When attacking an enemy from a specific direction, sometimes the ship A.I. would appear to intentionally ram the enemy ship.
  
• (Bugfix): Ships could sometimes have difficulty getting in formation due to the recent collision avoidance changes.

• Downgraded from .NET 9 to .NET 8 because we suspect .NET 9 was preventing the game from booting for some players. If you were one of those players, please let us know if this solves the problem.

Cosmoteer update 0.28.1 is now available! This update has a lot of quality-of-life improvements, some balance changes, improvements to ship collision avoidance, and a handful of bug fixes.

We're still working hard on more improvements as part of Career 2.0, but we wanted to get these fixes and improvements out to everyone sooner rather than later.

Enjoy!

Full patch notes:

• Built-In Ships:
  
  • Added 4 new Monolith combat ships: Ambassador, Averter, Middleman, and Praefectus.
    
  • Added 7 new Cabal combat ships: Alcor, Atria, Chasing Wind, Decrux, Lazurite Tear, Menkalinan, and Zaurak.
    
  • Added 3 new Cabal trade stations: Small Cabal Trade Station III, Med Cabal Trade Station III, and Large Cabal Trade Station III.
    
  • Added 5 new Imperium combat ships: Ani, Dromiceius, Sulla, Swallowtail, and Tinamou.
    
  • Added 1 new Imperium trade ship: Penguin.
    
  • Added 3 new Imperium arms depots: Tiny Imperium Arms Depot II, Small Imperium Arms Depot II, and Med Imperium Arms Depot II.
    
  • Added 3 new Fringe combat ships: Clytemnestra, Kenesary, and Quicksilver Scout.
    
  • Miscellaneous updates to many other existing ships and stations.
• Balance:
  
  • Small Thrusters (all variants) now have a small dynamo that generates power very slowly. This allows Small Thrusters to operate while disconnected from crew/power sources, but the rate of power generation isn't enough to perpetually sustain the thruster.
    
  • Increased the 1x3 Armor Wedge's penetration resistance from 2 to 4.
    
  • Increased EMP Missile's launch cooldown from 2 to 4 seconds.
    
  • Mines are now much more visible and clearly show their detonation trigger range.
• Ship A.I.:
  
  • Improved collision avoidance when avoiding moving ships/objects.
    
  • Improved collision avoidance when avoiding multiple ships/objects simultaneously.
    
  • Improved collision avoidance when trying to move away from very close ships/objects.
    
  • Improved collision avoidance of ships in a formation.
    
  • Ship formations should now do a better job of navigating around suns and storms.
    
  • A.I. ships will no longer deliberately target roof lights or headlights.
• Career:
  
  • Repairing damaged parts was much more expensive than was intended. Repair cost (steel/coils only) has been reduced from 57.5% of base cost to the intended 7.5%.
    
  • It was unintentionally often cheaper to fully deconstruct and rebuild a part than it was to repair it. This has been fixed.
    
  • Defense platforms will no longer surrender to players.
    
  • Stations will no longer hail the player from outside the player's sensor range, because that was confusing.
    
  • Fires will no longer be regarded by the A.I. as breaking a surrender truce.
• User Interface:
  
  • Translation updates for all supported languages.
    
  • Enemies will no longer automatically slow or pause the game speed when spotted if they had previously been spotted within the past minute.
    
  • When a weapon's target goes out of sight range, it will now be automatically re-targeted when coming back into sight range. (Unless in the meantime the target is changed by the player.)
    
  • Small thrusters now display a yellow warning instead of red error when they don't have door, crew, or power access. (Because they no longer strictly require power.)
    
  • The U.I. Scaling setting will now be remembered per resolution or window size.
    
  • Except for Creative Mode, "lost ships" will now only be saved for ships that the player actually controls.
    
  • Added tooltips to the Resource Desired & Limits dialog that explain the functionality of the "Desired" and "Limit" numbers.
    
  • Updated the Large Shield Generator's description to make it clearer what it can and can't be projected through.
    
  • Crew distance warning icons can now be "clicked through".
    
  • Velocity arrows will no longer display for off-screen ships.
    
  • "Delivery" missions are now called "Procument" missions to clarify that the player is expected to gather the desired resources from wherever they can.
• Multiplayer:
  
  • Reduced the amount of clouds and storms that will appear when using "Varied (Sparse)", "Varied (Dense)", "Ion Storms (Sparse)", and "Ion Storms (Dense)".
    
  • If a player joins, leaves, or changes teams, the players in the game will no longer be automatically changed to "not ready".
• Performance:
  
  • Updated to Microsoft .NET 9.0. This may slightly improve overall performance. Please let us know if you have any compatibility issues running Cosmoteer.
    
  • Texture and shader caching can now be disabled with the --no-cache launch argument.
• Bug fixes:
  
  • Crash when loading a multiplayer save in single-player and then trying to transfer money to another player.
    
  • Very rare crash caused by crew being automatically unassigned from certain jobs.
    
  • Multiplayer desyncs caused by transferring resources to a ship with no crew.
    
  • Nuke explosions could occasionally "phase" into the ships that they hit.
    
  • In multiplayer, engaging an inter-system hyper-jump while another player is on the galaxy map would prevent the jump from happening and could ultimately lead to a crash.
    
  • In Creative Mode, it was unintentionally possible to tell a junk ship to salvage itself, which would then crash.
    
  • A.I. ships would sometimes spawn inside storms due to a pathfinding bug.
    
  • Ships could sometimes erroneously try to avoid collisions with objects that were farther away than their destination.
    
  • A.I. ships that had surrendered to the player were sometimes not exit the star system as intended.
    
  • When thrusters were attached to Engine Rooms, they were not correctly lighting up as possible power supply chain targets in the resource management screen.
    
  • The wrong ship name would be displayed when an ally was hailed by the A.I.
    
  • The names of ships and stations in the Comms list would sometimes appear smaller than intended.
    
  • Using the "Transfer Excess Resources" options would work but then make it impossible to reset or make any further changes to the amount of resources to transfer.
    
  • The chat/message log unintentionally had a non-function text-entry box and send button when playing in single-player.
    
  • Ship icons and crew warning icons were being unintentionally rendered on top of the mission list and chat/message log.
    
  • The ship velocity arrow for the selected ship could be extremely long when viewing the build, paint, crew, or resource screens.

Cosmoteer release candidate 0.28.1 is now available for testing! (To play this release candidate, you must opt in to test it. Please see this post for info on how to test release candidates.)

This release candidate has a lot of quality-of-life improvements, some balance changes, improvements to ship collision avoidance, and a handful of bug fixes.

We're still working hard at a bunch of upcoming improvements as part of Career 2.0, but we wanted to get these improvements out to everyone sooner rather than later.

Thanks for testing!

RC1:

• Built-In Ships:
  
  • Added 4 new Monolith combat ships: Ambassador, Averter, Middleman, and Praefectus.
    
  • Added 7 new Cabal combat ships: Alcor, Atria, Chasing Wind, Decrux, Lazurite Tear, Menkalinan, and Zaurak.
    
  • Added 3 new Cabal trade stations: Small Cabal Trade Station III, Med Cabal Trade Station III, and Large Cabal Trade Station III.
    
  • Added 5 new Imperium combat ships: Ani, Dromiceius, Sulla, Swallowtail, and Tinamou.
    
  • Added 1 new Imperium trade ship: Penguin.
    
  • Added 3 new Imperium arms depots: Tiny Imperium Arms Depot II, Small Imperium Arms Depot II, and Med Imperium Arms Depot II.
    
  • Added 3 new Fringe combat ships: Clytemnestra, Kenesary, and Quicksilver Scout.
    
  • Miscellaneous updates to many other existing ships and stations.
• Balance:
  
  • Small Thrusters (all variants) now have a small dynamo that generates power very slowly. This allows Small Thrusters to operate while disconnected from crew/power sources, but the rate of power generation isn't enough to perpetually sustain the thruster.
    
  • Increased the 1x3 Armor Wedge's penetration resistance from 2 to 4.
    
  • Increased EMP Missile's launch cooldown from 2 to 4 seconds.
    
  • Mines are now much more visible and clearly show their detonation trigger range.
• Ship A.I.:
  
  • Improved collision avoidance when avoiding moving ships/objects.
    
  • Improved collision avoidance when avoiding multiple ships/objects simultaneously.
    
  • Improved collision avoidance when trying to move away from very close ships/objects.
    
  • Improved collision avoidance of ships in a formation.
    
  • Ship formations should now do a better job of navigating around suns and storms.
    
  • A.I. ships will no longer deliberately target roof lights or headlights.
• Career:
  
  • Repairing damaged parts was much more expensive than was intended. Repair cost (steel/coils only) has been reduced from 57.5% of base cost to the intended 7.5%.
    
  • It was unintentionally often cheaper to fully deconstruct and rebuild a part than it was to repair it. This has been fixed.
    
  • Defense platforms will no longer surrender to players.
    
  • Stations will no longer hail the player from outside the player's sensor range, because that was confusing.
    
  • Fires will no longer be regarded by the A.I. as breaking a surrender truce.
• User Interface:
  
  • Enemies will no longer automatically slow or pause the game speed when spotted if they had previously been spotted within the past minute.
    
  • When a weapon's target goes out of sight range, it will now be automatically re-targeted when coming back into sight range. (Unless in the meantime the target is changed by the player.)
    
  • Small thrusters now display a yellow warning instead of red error when they don't have door, crew, or power access. (Because they no longer strictly require power.)
    
  • The U.I. Scaling setting will now be remembered per resolution or window size.
    
  • Except for Creative Mode, "lost ships" will now only be saved for ships that the player actually controls.
    
  • Added tooltips to the Resource Desired & Limits dialog that explain the functionality of the "Desired" and "Limit" numbers.
    
  • Updated the Large Shield Generator's description to make it clearer what it can and can't be projected through.
    
  • Crew distance warning icons can now be "clicked through".
• Multiplayer:
  
  • Reduced the amount of clouds and storms that will appear when using "Varied (Sparse)", "Varied (Dense)", "Ion Storms (Sparse)", and "Ion Storms (Dense)".
    
  • If a player joins, leaves, or changes teams, the players in the game will no longer be automatically changed to "not ready".
• Performance:
  
  • Updated to Microsoft .NET 9.0. This may slightly improve overall performance. Please let us know if you have any compatibility issues running Cosmoteer.
    
  • Texture and shader caching can now be disabled with the --no-cache launch argument.
• Bug fixes:
  
  • Crash when loading a multiplayer save in single-player and then trying to transfer money to another player.
    
  • Very rare crash caused by crew being automatically unassigned from certain jobs.
    
  • Multiplayer desyncs caused by transferring resources to a ship with no crew.
    
  • Nuke explosions could occasionally "phase" into the ships that they hit.
    
  • In multiplayer, engaging an inter-system hyper-jump while another player is on the galaxy map would prevent the jump from happening and could ultimately lead to a crash.
    
  • In Creative Mode, it was unintentionally possible to tell a junk ship to salvage itself, which would then crash.
    
  • A.I. ships would sometimes spawn inside storms due to a pathfinding bug.
    
  • Ships could sometimes erroneously try to avoid collisions with objects that were farther away than their destination.
    
  • A.I. ships that had surrendered to the player were sometimes not exit the star system as intended.
    
  • When thrusters were attached to Engine Rooms, they were not correctly lighting up as possible power supply chain targets in the resource management screen.
    
  • The wrong ship name would be displayed when an ally was hailed by the A.I.
    
  • The names of ships and stations in the Comms list would sometimes appear smaller than intended.
    
  • Using the "Transfer Excess Resources" options would work but then make it impossible to reset or make any further changes to the amount of resources to transfer.

RC2:

• Translation updates for all supported languages.
  
• Velocity arrows will no longer display for off-screen ships.
  
• Bugfix: The chat/message log unintentionally had a non-function text-entry box and send button when playing in single-player.
  
• Bugfix: Ship icons and crew warning icons were being unintentionally rendered on top of the mission list and chat/message log.
  
• Bugfix: The ship velocity arrow for the selected ship could be extremely long when viewing the build, paint, crew, or resource screens.
  
• RC Bugfix: Error when trying to load saved multiplayer games from previous versions.
  
• RC Bugfix: The chat box was causing off-screen ship icons to be farther from the edge of the screen than intended, even when the chat box wasn't being displayed.