Hi all, this update adds some minor texture updates to existing blocks as well as some fancy new purple forcefields.

The Decorative Energy Cell and Pylon blocks have had a new cap texture added, as well as had their side texture orientations updated. Additionally, some of their textures have had their colors adjusted to be better in-line with other blocks.

A new purple variant of forcefields have been added, with a unique animated texture designed by MeRobo.

Several of the Carved Brick and Tile blocks have had their textures adjusted to better match the original Carved Block textures.

All of the above blocks have also had Normal Maps regenerated so they appear with correct lighting in-game now.

Implemented some security patches for PlayerData and related classes to prevent exploits.
Screenshots and gifs are now saved in a screenshots sub folder in the StarMade directory.
Thrust Plumes will now work from any direction.

Some users may notice some new (unused for now) build icons in the game files. Please note that these icons are from the upcoming Universe Update, and we merely backported the icon sheets rather than render all new ones.

And as always, thank you for playing StarMade.

There is a new launcher available, which is required to run StarMade versions ≥ 0.3. You can obtain this new launcher one of two ways:

• Via the new launch option on Steam
  
• Via the GitHub releases page

Please note that while this launcher is still a work in progress, it does still support current release versions of StarMade as well.

Armor HP
Armor HP has been re-added to the game. Armor HP reduces incoming damage significantly, with the percentage of damage blocked decreasing as Armor HP is reduced. By default, damage will start to bleed through armor starting at <80% AHP. In future, this value will be modifiable via chambers.

These values need testing, so we encourage players to try out the new system and report feedback in the StarLoader Discord.

A new tutorial system is being worked on. This new system replaces the old outdated video tutorials, and will eventually include guides on all aspects of the game, and will even allow mods to add their own tutorials.

While the backend for this system is mostly done, we are asking the community to help contribute their knowledge to this in order to provide a more robust, accurate, and helpful guide for new players. If you are interested in contributing to these tutorials, head over to the StarLoader Discord.

New Shop entities have been added. These new shops are much fancier than the old ones and come in two variants:

• Trade Station (Advanced Shop): Comes with docks and a shopkeep spawn block.
  
• Trade Outpost (Standard Shop): Does not have docks or a shopkeep, and is shorter than a Trade Station.

Additionally the default player spawn positions have been updated to reflect these new shops.

• Screenshots and Gifs are now saved in the StarMade/screenshots folder.
  
• Saved build hotbars can now be cycled through by holding Left-Alt and using the scroll wheel in creative mode.

• Fixed map waypoint icon selection.

• Some waypoint icon sprites are missing and need to be finished.
  
• The waypoint icon color picker “recent colors” palette doesn’t function properly.
  
• The Local Universe Advanced Settings panel doesn’t display correctly, and causes OpenGL errors.
  
• Templates can’t be loaded because the selection drop-down isn’t interactable.
  
• The weapon menu detail panes don’t display correctly.
  
• The new shops sometimes don’t spawn after a world is reloaded.
  
• Build Hotbars don’t load correctly in survival mode.

• Warp Gates are active by default on placement, but can be deactivated with logic. Persistence appears to work but may need more testing.
  
• HUD selected ship stats in top left-hand corner now shows reactor level, power output, and power consumption rather than just the consumption percentage.
  
• Added brief wait before requesting synchronization, as this seems to make the login issue less frequent.
  
• Added better messages to login loading screen, so the game doesn't appear to be waiting for a config when it's actually already done receiving and processing the configs.
  
• Systems update rate limiter is now absolute regardless of what update threads are doing. The old method seems to have been causing lag at larger scales due to long queue clearing times.

• Fixed a Fleet order persistence bug.
  - Note: Let us know if it still occurs, as it’s difficult to reproduce sometimes. At the very least, this fix should narrow down the cause of the issue.
  
• Fixed orientation mapping of Decorative Coil blocks.
  
• Added retry for synch-all packet if not received correctly; this was seemingly preventing people from logging in
  - BUG: Due to synchronization/threading shenanigans, activity logging inside of network commands appears to never get written to stderr. May have to move it to an internal command log that prints when the command is finished or times out.

The launcher login has been fixed. There are still a few other bugs, which will be fixed as well.

Thanks to everyone involved!

• Reduced HP of Basic Hull from 400 HP to 200 HP.
  
• Replaced duplicate mod error with a less intrusive warning.
  
• AI now has internal support for unfocused fire.
  
• AI will now fire salvage beams unfocused during fleet mining, making it more efficient.

• Gave Basic Hull 0.1 Armor value in order to fix an infinite penetration bug.
  
• Fixed severe bug that would cause asteroids to break a sector on modded servers sometimes when they were modified by players.
  
• Fix coil texture orientations.
  
• Partially fixed AI navigation issue when core is too far from center of mass (infinite spinning bug).

This update makes some minor adjustments to system balance and fixes a whole range of bugs and issues.

• AI can now use Selected Target turrets by firing at the target of the main ship. AI can use Cannon-Missile weapons.
  
  
• Expanded AI firestate system under the hood, which should accommodate
  
  
• more complex conditional weapon operations if fancier things are added in the future.
  
  
• When using lock-on missiles (Missile/Beam combination), the locking function now prioritizes your selected target (default key: F).

• Thruster blocks have had their individual mass reduced from 0.25 to 0.15 to match other system blocks.
  
  
• Beams have twice the tick rate and half the damage per tick, which should mitigate some of the Beam-Beam damage disparity against armor.
  
  
• Reduced Reactor Capacity cost for Top Speed Chamber levels to 8%/10%/12% respectively.
  
  
• Reduced Reactor Capacity cost for Thrust Blast Base chamber from 4% to 2%.
  
  
• Reduced Reactor Capacity cost for Thrust Blast Strength 1 chamber from 4% to 2%.
  
  
• Reduced Reactor Capacity cost for Thrust Blast Charge Speed 1 chamber from 4% to 2%.
  
  
• Reduced Reactor Capacity cost for Thrust Blast Multi-Charge 1 chamber from 4% to 2%.

Added API event for pirate spawn attempts.

• Fixed lighting colors for crystal sub-shapes being only white. Weapon stats menu now displays correct power usage.
  
  
• Adjusted AI targeting priority of Reactor blocks from 15 to 30 to match the targeting
  
  
• priority of Chambers.
  
  
• Fixed bug causing vertically-placed missiles fired by AI turrets to be fired straight at the turret rather than from the correct direction.
  
  
• Missiles now check armor at the place they hit and reduce damage accordingly (except Bombs).
  
  
• Bombs and Warheads correctly deal self-damage again.
  
  
• Inventory transfer rails now only need the actual pulling storage to pull, not both, in order to work.
  
  
• Semi fix for downloading block behavior softlock (turns out it's just an indefinite wait for server response).
  
  
• Entities made entirely of Cargo Space, intangible rails, and/or their pickup areas will now auto overheat.
  
  
• Fleets assigned to Fleet Mining will no longer target “ghost asteroids”, which should allow them to function more reliably than before.

• Deprecated old API hooks for block damage and destruction.

• Fixed a salvage beam exploit.
  
• Fixed new block damage API hook not applying to missiles.
  
• Fixed mod error window potentially being larger than the monitor screen.

This update aims to address many of the bugs and concerns introduced by previous updates. We want to assure you that we are working to fix these issues, and we have adopted a new development pipeline and standards to cut down on bugs introduced in the future. We want to apologize for the recent troubles and these new standards and procedures should address these issues.

Added a sound effect for transporter modules being activated.

• Added an event for when an entity changes it’s faction.
  
• Added a new directory for locally installed mods that will take priority over downloaded ones. This should fix many of the duplicate mod issues that were present before.
  
• Added mod-specific logging so that each mod gets it’s own log (moddata/modname/logs/modname_log.0.log) writable through the StarMod class. We want to encourage developers to use this new logging system instead of outputting to the main console. This way, it will be easier to debug mod specific issues without having to comb through large global log files.
  
• Moved persistent object logging to it’s own file (moddata/modname/logs/persistent_objects.0.log) for each mod separate from the mod’s main log. This should cut down on the I/O spam issue that many servers had and reduce lag.

• Fixed bug that caused AI turrets not to fire on targets even if set on “aim at selected” and they would only fire at entities from an enemy faction.
  
• Fixed transporters not being activatable by logic.
  
• Fixed transporters not being activatable by decorative consoles.
  
• Fixed normal and emissive textures for new blocks.
  
• Fixed icon outlines for new blocks.
  
• Fixed bug causing some icons for modded blocks to be mismatched.
  
• Fixed output width being ignored on cannon combinations without a conical damage pattern.
  
• Fixed coil blocks having incorrect orientations.
  
• Fixed gravity exit module being hidden in the creative menu.
  
• Fixed thruster blocks not being controllable through decorative consoles.

• Temporarily disabled adjust cockpit feature due to a game breaking bug that would lock all other players out of their controls.
  
• Some normals still need adjustments, but we felt it was important to get these fixes out.

Thanks to the community for this patch.
If you like to get involved with access to the source code. Join the modding discord at https://discord.gg/Mde9ChnG4c

Thanks for playing StarMade,
- schema

• Fixed icon mismatch issue
  
• Fixed mod block icon issue

Meet Major Update 0.203.147! This update is focused on decor and adding more block variants.

Gravity Units can now use logic to activate.

Similar to a gravity unit, but deactivates all gravity for an astronaut.

Some new decorative blocks have been added: Energy Pylons, Energy Cells, and Power Cores.

Each of these types come in Red, Blue, Green, and Orange.

Two new coil blocks have been added.

A new hull type has been added, Beige. It comes in Basic, Standard, and Advanced.

The following block types have had additional shape variants added:

• Carved Stones
  
• Ingots
  
• Crystals
  
• Ice

Thanks to the community for this update!