Beta 30.3 is now out! This is a hotfix focused on a few reported issues we wanted to get fixed quickly. The most critical is a fix for an ironman mode issue that can result in improperly losing saves.
Fixes - Fixed ironman mode issue that caused false save deletions when the ship wasn’t actually destroyed - Bounty Hunters should always be flagged and no longer cause reputation loss when attacked or destroyed
Additions (Lost Colony) - Added an additional log page at the Lost Colony with a hint on how to complete the Free For All ending
Fixes (Lost Colony) - Fixed an issue that allowed players to skip to the containment room through a hole in the level
Beta 30.2 is now out! This update mostly contains more changes to help with clarity as well as addresses some of the bigger issues that have been reported regarding the new Lost Colony content.
Changes - We’ve reverted an earlier change to how Neutral stores react to AOG rep. They no longer take any faction rep into consideration. The only exception being shopkeepers and the new general store in the Estate sector.
Fixes - Fixed a few broken pickup items on the Bulb Tree Planet - Fixed an issue involving exiting warp where the Ship’s Exterior would collide with it’s interior causing it to explode. - Fixed an issue that could potentially create Bounty Hunters for factions you’re friendly with. - We believe we have fixed an issue involving the Fluffy Biscuit Leaderboard not properly updating - Fixed a few broken pickup items on the Bulb Tree Planet - Fixed a missing collider on the Caustic Corsair Ship - Fixed an issue with the ironman save system that prevented it from deleting the active save upon ship destruction. It could be loaded in-game before the game deleted it. - Made tweaks to the ironman save system to help prevent any false deletions of save files on a game over, if anyone else has an issue like this in Beta 30.2, we’d love to see your player log! It should include more information about what might be happening. Instructions here: https://www.pulsarthegame.com/sending-an-output-log-file - Fixed a minor issue with Viruses regarding destroyed ships
Additions (Lost Colony) - Added an Alert UI to help guide non-captain players during the Neural Calibration sequence, it lists the number of errors and what to do to help the captain.
Changes (Lost Colony) - Tweaked the error generation rate on the Containment Screen, it’s speed should not scale as high when playing with more human players - Changed the size of the numbers in the Neural Calibration sequence, as well as how they scale based on resolution to increase readability at certain screen resolutions - Incorrect options are eliminated faster when fixing / clearing errors during the Neural Calibration sequence - Removed the final “Layer” to the neural calibration sequence making it slightly easier to complete - Made a special case for the scenario when a single captain (no crew at all) tries to perform the Neural Calibration sequence, they’ll have around 50% more time before the “layer” reverts. - Tweaked the lighting for the screens connected to the containment system, the previous lights were blowing out the name of certain screens making the process of finding a specific screen much harder - Tweaked when the Grand Warp Gate appears in the game. It now appears immediately rather than waiting for the player crew to acquire at least 1 Data Fragment
Fixes (Lost Colony) - Fixed a minor visual issue on the Lost Colony - Fixed an issue that could prevent the Grand Warp Gate from properly appearing - Fixed a save issue that wouldn’t properly store the contents of the “Hatch” in the final room of the Lost Colony -Fixed an internal issue relating AI bots and the Neural Calibration sequence
Beta 30.1 is now out! It is focused on fixing bugs reported by the community. This hotfix should also help with the reported issues involving the HOTAS bindings. We still plan to do more, but we figured it was worth getting a fix out for this sooner rather than later.
Changes -Updated a locked door in the Lost Colony to make it clearer how to open it -Tweaked the security containment screen to allow for the Ultramagnetized Enclosure property to be toggled from either the screen or the lever next to it. It wasn’t very clear that the lever was related to this property which led to some confusion
Fixes -Starting a new game in offline mode should no longer cause an endless loading loop -Fixed a mission bug that could cause duplicate missions when reloading in certain situations -Fixed an issue with HOTAS-style controllers that caused their axis-based input to be ignored -Fixed an issue preventing the new Military-Grade Shield Boosting program from appearing in general shops and the program shop -Fixed an internal error causing minor performance issues during the Lost Colony sequence -Fixed an issue with missiles that could cause them to incorrectly deal damage to distant targets
Beta 30 is now out! This update adds the Lost Colony, which is the ending sequence of the game! Once your crew collects four data fragments, you will be able to use the Grand Warp Gate to reach the Lost Colony itself. Make sure you’re prepared; once you warp, there’s no going back.
In addition to the Lost Colony, we’ve also added a boost ability for piloting. This allows for a short burst of thrust for both maneuvering and directional thrusters, helping pilots dodge incoming projectiles or obstacles. You can access this by double-tapping the desired input for thrust.
We really appreciate your patience with us on this update. We ended up doing a few iterations on the ending sequences in order to improve them, and we also ran into some considerable snags with a new game mode that this update adds. It’s been a challenging update, but we hope you all enjoy it and we look forward to getting your feedback! Just to let you know, there has been some speculation that this is the last beta update, but that is not the case. We still have a bit more planned before version 1.0. We discuss this in a bit more detail in Devlog #88. As always, a big thanks to everyone’s reports and suggestions!
Below you’ll see two lists of release notes. The lower list contains possible spoilers, so read at your own risk!
***Non Spoiler Notes***
Additions -The Lost Colony - Ending Sequence - This piece of content will allow players to finish a run of the game. -New Sector - Grand Warp Gate -Ship boosting system that allows pilots to trigger a burst of speed to help in combat -New Program: Military-Grade Shield Boosting -New Cutscene: Intro - This cutscene plays when the game starts and sets up the story of the game. -New Mission: Find the Lost Colony - Added General Store to The Estate sector - Added the Lost Colony transmission - This message will appear on the hailing screen when you start a new game and acts as an inciting incident for the galaxy -New Game System: Ship Unlocks - Certain ship classes are now locked behind progress milestones (such as gaining a certain number of levels in a specific faction or completing the Lost Colony mission line) -New basic turret slot for the Fluffy One starship - The control station is by the main turret, near the bridge. The new control station on the bottom floor near biscuit storage now controls the turret on the underside of the ship (which now starts as an empty slot). -Added a way to view start ship components from the start game menu
Changes -Some ships now require certain achievements or conditions to unlock and start a game with -Updated AI priorities for EngBot and PiBot to better handle cloaked ships -Emer. Shield Boosting Program - Reduced charge rate boost (from 45 to 15) -Resetting the galaxy after a ship death now allows you to select a different ship or change the galaxy settings in-game -Edited mission objective text of nearly all missions to make it more consistent. Some missions also had objectives and rewards tweaked. -Nukes should now be able to damage DSOs (damageable space objects) -AI Pilots should have the ability to use the new ship boosting system, to dodge projectiles and use during the ship races -We’ve drastically changed the size of the Roland's exterior. We’re interested to get feedback on how this feels, as we pushed it pretty far. -Tweaked screen placement: Lowered the ship comms screens on the Interceptor to account for the name of the dialogue actor -Tweaked screen placement: Added a cloned comms screen near the captain’s chair on the Stargazer -Tweaked the default AI priorities for Engbot and Pibot allowing them to better manage power while cloaked. -Tweaked the Sylvassi Cypher Lab planet texture -Improved the lighting in the ant colony caves -Tweaked the exit hole on the crashed Roland to help players find it -Tweaked the look of the start game menu
Fixes -Fixed an issue with the join game menu that could prevent a player from joining a crew with an available slot. It would also sometimes allow players to join a full crew. -Fixed EngBot power allocation issue in which they could get stuck in a cooling loop, constantly cooling off the reactor when it didn’t need to be cooled -Removed some languages from the profanity filter that were causing too many false positives -Fixed some issues with the starmap that could cause the ship to invisibly collide and act strange while the starmap was open -Fixed some warp timing issues that could cause desync in ship location between players -Fixed a missing material issue in the AOG Hideout sector -Fixed a broken teleporter location on one of the cave planets -Fixed an issue with shop inventories not properly displaying during a galaxy reset or reload -Removed Super Inertia thrusters from the traders in the racing sectors - These ship components aren’t really meant to be used by player ships -Fixed save loading issue where bot and player talents would inadvertently reset -Fixed a minor lighting issue with one of the random space obstacles -Fixed a minor visual bug found on Mueva 7 -Fixed a mission bug that would inadvertently lower chaos level -Added credit rewards to the W.D. Forsaken Flagship missions -Fixed an issue that may slightly improve performance across the game
***Potential Spoiler Notes***
Additions -New Sector: The Lost Colony -New “Sector”: Warp -New Mission: Investigate the Lost Colony -New Space Enemy: Warp Guardian -New Enemy: Domesticated Crawler -New Enemy: “Ghosts” -New Enemy Ship Ability: Phase Transporter - Teleporter can bypass quantum shields. -New Game System: Quantum Reflection -Relic Hunters: New challenging space encounters with deadly ships hunting you for your data fragments. The more data fragments your crew holds, the more likely relic hunters will spawn -New readable logs and screens at the Lost Colony -New Screen: Biology Research - Found at the Lost Colony -New Screen: Life Support - Found at the Lost Colony -New Screen: Power - Found at the Lost Colony -New Screen: Computer - Found at the Lost Colony -New Screen: Security - Found at the Lost Colony -New Screen: Water - Found at the Lost Colony -New Screen: Material Research - Found at the Lost Colony -New Screen: Coolant - Found at the Lost Colony -New Screen: Containment Screen - Found at the Lost Colony -New Screen Effect: Broken -New Game System: Neural Calibration -New Inventory Item: Poison Capsule -New Inventory Item: Facility Keycard -New Inventory Item: Lower Facilities keycard -New Inventory Item: Storage Room Keycard -Game Endings: There are seven different game endings available. Certain ones depend on which faction you start as. -New Cutscenes: Each ending has a unique cutscene -5 New music tracks related to the Lost Colony -New Achievement: Unexpected Guest - discover the Warp Guardian -New Achievement: Colony Found - Find the Lost Colony -New Achievement: Together We Survive - Colonial Union ending completed -New Achievement: Progress Above All - W.D. Corporation ending completed -New Achievement: Never Trust A Gentleman - Alliance of Gentlemen ending completed -New Achievement: Eat Biscuits Feel Butter - Fluffy Biscuit Co. ending completed -New Achievement: Intergalactic Overlords - alternate ending completed -New Achievement: Take No Chances - alternate ending completed -New Achievement: Free For All - alternate ending completed -New Achievement: Completionist - all Lost Colony endings completed -New Achievement: True Mettle - complete the game in ironman mode -New Game Mode: Reflected Galaxy - Quantum reflection is inverted, and you begin the game in the reflection
Changes -Infected health regeneration can now be hampered by blocking long range comms -Pibot can fly through the Grand Warp Gate when four data fragments have been collected
This update is mostly focused on addressing some of the feedback we’ve gotten regarding the recent scrap changes. Hopefully these help balance out the issue.
Changes
Reduced the amount of scrap available at scrap yards (removed Level 7 scrap options)
Increased the price of scrap purchased at scrap yards by 50%.
Slightly increased the scalar determining the amount of processed scrap required to upgrade ship components and items
Updated input system to add better support for non-US keyboard layouts
Fixes
Fixed an missing material issue found in the AOG hideout sector
Fixed some intermittent errors caught by analytics in various systems
UPDATE: We've released a small hotfix for Mac users. This may help with some issues reported with the voice chat system / microphone not working
Beta 29.95 is now available! While the majority of our time is still going to Beta 30, we’ve been setting time aside for some additional polish passes and bug fixes which have formed this update. Some of the bigger additions, changes and fixes include:
-A new way to fight viruses: Manually decrypting a virus can allow a crewmember to remove a hostile virus without restarting the ship or enabling a program. You can do this at the virus screen by clicking on the red box to the right of the virus. You’ll see a series of numbers in a pattern, and you’ll need to figure out the pattern and find the number that doesn’t belong in the group. -New gamepad support: We’ve redone the gamepad and HOTAS support. Gamepads now use a virtual cursor system and can enable/disable themselves when plugged in and used. (PS4 and Xbox One controllers). The game will prompt you to reset your default bindings and we recommend doing so, especially if you like using gamepads. -Warp input bug: For long-time players, you’ve no doubt experienced this input hitch during warp. It’s been a tricky thing to tackle and probably the oldest bug in the game, but it should be fixed now! -Bounty Hunters: We’ve drastically changed the timing of these (it was a little too much before this update). We’ve also added crewed ships as potential bounty hunters. These ships can actually warp away and return, and continue to chase your ship to additional sectors if you manage to slip away.
-New programs: Active Reset is a pretty interesting program that we think could be powerful under the right circumstances. -Program timers: You can now see how long a specific effect will last instead of counting in your head. -Bots dying during warp: Another long-time issue we finally managed to track down, this one has been pretty elusive on our end, but it should be fixed now. -Flashlight self-shadows: This was a lower priority issue, but feels a lot nicer now that it’s been handled!
Additions
Bounty Hunter Upgrades: Can now spawn powerful crewed ships that will pursue your crew through the galaxy
Virus Manual Decrypt: Can now use the Virus Screen to manually remove active viruses on your ship
Added CyberAttack ship stat that increases virus broadcast rate
New Processor: ARX-CWR (Increases CyberAttack)
New Program: Active Reset (Reset all active program timers)
New Program: SyberWar (+50% CyberAttack for 30 seconds)
Cinematic health bar for Sector Commander has been added
Ship Name Labels: This appears above the ship name labels include Sector Commanders and Bounty Hunters
Changes
Upgrades to our internal input systems to add polish and better controller / joystick support
Switching items with mouse scrollwheel is smoother and can handle non-sequential items without resetting to hands
Tweaks to bot’s combat movement / pathfinding
Timing / spawn rate of bounty hunters has been tweaked, bounty hunter travel speed increased while overall spawn rate over time has been decreased
Tweaked some of the environment fog conditions on the Forsaken Flagship and tweaked a mistakenly offset teleporter screen
Scrap found in the galaxy or purchased at Scrapyards can now provide multiple processed scrap when processed. The level of the scrap determines the amount of scrap it can produce.
Warp drives no longer ‘lock in’ at 100% charge. Hull damage will now always reduce the warp drive charge amount
Added camera shake to piloting / turret / sensor dish camera modes
Tweaked background loading thread priority: warp travel (level loading) should be a little smoother overall
Enemy AI crewed ships: warp travel now has to be initiated by their engineer at the warp drive screen, instead of automatically activating
New default AI priorities that adds more default overrides for viruses / new programs
Player flashlights no longer cast shadows for your own items
SteamVR bindings are no longer automatically opened in the controls menu. Click the “SteamVR” controller to trigger it now
Tweaks to game UI, added more info to the controls text on the right of the screen
Paladin mini-boss in the Wasted Wing no longer respawns
Game name / ping time label in the tab menu could get cut off
Moved Windows builds to 64-bit for increased support and performance with modern software / hardware
Fixes
Fixed a few missing material issues on the Forsaken Flagship
Fixed a missing material found in the Command Center at Outpost 448
Fixed an issue with bots that could cause them to be killed during warp
Fixed an AI issue that caused bots to not use certain ship screens
Fixed a ship screen input issue that caused some virus screens to not react to input
New Bindings: Fixed issue with the firing of main turrets on controllers that made it impossible to control the timing circles
Fixed issue with bots / bandits that caused them to lose accuracy over time
Fixed issue with enemy ships never using their warp drive
Warp travel (level loading) should no longer ‘reset’ active inputs
Pawn damage - effect of armor reduced
Enemy crews don’t always capture screen properly when boarding your ship
Cloned screens no longer show up as locked for clients
Fixed issue that caused some missions / dialogue to not load properly on certain systems
Fixed issue with crew bots that could cause them to get stuck on the wrong ship on some clients, especially after a new ship has been claimed
Fixed issue with sell biscuits priority that could cause bots to die during warp
Fixed internal issue with internal bot pathfinding that could cause Captains to be unable to issue a move order to bots
Beta 29.96 Release Notes
Fixes
Fixed an issue with the upper right ship UI when non-ship targets were displayed
Made some changes related to SteamVR input to prevent an error reported by the analytics system
Beta 29.85 is out now! We don’t normally do this many releases between major updates, but we wanted to make a bit more room for updates before releasing Beta 30. This update primarily focuses on fixes, but there are some other tweaks and a new feature for the Captain’s Chair!
Additions
The Captain’s chair now has the ability to enter a more strategic view of the ship’s surroundings (essentially the piloting camera, without the piloting UI).
Added a new keybinding that governs the toggle for the strategic view in the Captain's chair.
Changes
Moderately increased chance for some special encounters at higher chaos levels (phase drones, shock drones and deathseekers)
Default controller input bindings (for Xbox / Playstation) have lowered look sensitivity
Joystick view sensitivity now adjusted for frame timing for smoother / more consistent input across all frame rates
Fixes
Fixed an issue involving the elevator on Mueva 7
Fixed a flight AI issue with Deathseeker Drones and Death Wardens
Fixed an issue that would register your character model (during class selection) as combat target
Fixed an issue with the Second Wind Processor incorrectly granting a +1 bonus to max upgrade level of Ship Components
Fixed an issue with the new Teleport To: processors that would allow players to enter arenas after the fight was flagged as a loss
Made some changes to the Scanner Screen to try and help prevent a UI issue that’s been reported. We haven’t been able to replicate this issue since, so please let us know if you see anything strange with it!
Beta 29.8 is now available. While we are working on the Lost Colony, we wanted to take some time and make a smaller content update for the game. This update adds what we think is a fun secret as well as a nice handful of new processors, some of which allow you to teleport to other crew members! We think these new processors will add a nice level of convenience for some crews if they are willing to use up a processor slot.
Additions
New Data Fragment: ███████████████
Added ███████████████
New Processor: Second Wind - This processor activates when the ship would have taken a killing blow from an enemy. Instead the processor is destroyed and it restores hull to 15% integrity.
New Processor: Scrapper Processor - This processor generates a new processed scrap for each warp to an unvisited sector
New Processor: Combo Processor - Adds a bonus to both Cyberdefense and to Jump Computation Speed
New Processor: PWR-48 - Increases Reactor Output by 5% and adds 1 to the max level limit of Ship Component Upgrades
New Processor: SHD-28 - Increases max shield integrity by 5% and adds 1 to the max level limit of Item Upgrades
New Processor: QCK-90 - Increases ship startup speed and adds 1 to the max level limit of Ship Component Upgrades
New Processor: Teleport to: Captain - Enables teleportation to the Captain
New Processor: Teleport to: Engineer - Enables teleportation to the Engineer
New Processor: Teleport to: Pilot - Enables teleportation to the Pilot
New Processor: Teleport to: Scientist - Enables teleportation to the Scientist
New Processor: Teleport to: Weapon’s Specialist - Enables teleportation to the Weapons Specialist
New topics have been added to the Academy, discussing some newer changes to the game (enemy distress signals, enemy warping, pulse laser for the main turret)
The teleporter screen will now illuminate new options if some of the new processors are installed
Added a Force Respawn option to the Z-menu, this should help players get back to the ship quickly or if they find themselves stuck somewhere.
Changes
Tweaked the difficulty of the scrap processing mini-game, it’s a little more forgiving
Shields now charge 10x faster while in warp
AI can understand the new Processors as new teleportation targets and consider them when making decisions about where to teleport to.
Battle arenas in the game (like the Sandscar Arena) now support players and bots teleporting back into the fight (using the new crew teleportation options).
VR
Changed how some game UI elements appear. Rotating the motion controllers 90 degrees will show the UI.
Using the virtual keyboard now shouldn’t activate an equipped weapon
VR motion vignette is now off by default
Tweaked the size and alignment of the TAB menu and Dialogue / Shop menus in VR
Polished some of the controller visuals in VR
Polished some of the UI in VR
Fixes
Fixed a collision bug that could result in a player getting stuck on the Outrider-class Starship
Fixed a store networking issue that could occur when loading saves
Fixed a store issue wouldn’t properly update items in shops when they were sold to the seller