The Autumn sales are here and you can grab yourself a bargain and help support the project, win win!

If you're new around here or have been cautiously skirting the perimeter welcome, it's a great time to join as we are busy cramming the alpha full of ships and weapon modules, with alternative weapons systems, modular ships and stations, and a whole bunch of new maps to test them on to look forward to in the short to medium term.

To celebrate our very first Autumn sale we have a crammed week consisting of:

• UPDATE 6, which is huge bringing tons of cool stuff like two new ships, 15 additional modules (including the ability to customise the shields on your ships) and a 'Combat Simulator' allowing you to test your ship designs in a toe-to-toe battle.
  
  
  
  
• We'll also be seeing a low-down on the 'Nottingham' which is a new mid-battleship joining the party, the Nottingham is sister ship to the Cambridge but is 1.5x the size and can take many more support modules and has quite a few more guns, so a veritable command platform for your fleet.
  
  
  
  
• The 'Homan' which is the final ship from the PLC Pegasus lineup, is the game's first Battlecruiser and with an XL spinal mounted weapon is designed for just one thing, that's right, destroying Nottingham shaped battleships! Cause and effect folks, it's almost poetic.
  
  
• What's more? Fresh new media and blog articles including an exciting new trailer!

UPDATE 6 will hit your screens very soon folks and if you want to know more, you can get the latest from the build notes over on the games forums

The Autumn sales are here and you can grab yourself a bargain and help support the project, win win!

If you're new around here or have been cautiously skirting the perimeter welcome, it's a great time to join as we are busy cramming the alpha full of ships and weapon modules, with alternative weapons systems, modular ships and stations, and a whole bunch of new maps to test them on to look forward to in the short to medium term.

To celebrate our very first Autumn sale we have a crammed week consisting of:

• UPDATE 6, which is huge bringing tons of cool stuff like two new ships, 15 additional modules (including the ability to customise the shields on your ships) and a 'Combat Simulator' allowing you to test your ship designs in a toe-to-toe battle.
  
  
  
  
• We'll also be seeing a low-down on the 'Nottingham' which is a new mid-battleship joining the party, the Nottingham is sister ship to the Cambridge but is 1.5x the size and can take many more support modules and has quite a few more guns, so a veritable command platform for your fleet.
  
  
  
  
• The 'Homan' which is the final ship from the PLC Pegasus lineup, is the game's first Battlecruiser and with an XL spinal mounted weapon is designed for just one thing, that's right, destroying Nottingham shaped battleships! Cause and effect folks, it's almost poetic.
  
  
• What's more? Fresh new media and blog articles including an exciting new trailer!

UPDATE 6 will hit your screens very soon folks and if you want to know more, you can get the latest from the build notes over on the games forums

As the first modular ship pieces come in we've decided to show them off over on the blog keeping with the tradition of listing them with a blurb and a fully 3D turntable!



We won't see these boys in-game for a while yet, with indirect fire weapons (missiles and torpedoes) and precise weaponry slightly higher up on the priority list. But the INC faction will get a ton of pieces to assemble Corvettes, Cruisers, Battlecruisers and Capital ships and what is perhaps even more exciting is that the player constructable stations in Shallow Space will also be modular.

Take a look at the turntable and accompanying description over on the blog!



"Their modular design discipline is somewhat different to the other human factions who generally engineer complete schematics to a predetermined specification, ICN instead split their ships into self-contained sections which can be assembled bespoke to suit a mission or role. This methodology has placed them leaps ahead of the competition in terms of blueprint..."

As the first modular ship pieces come in we've decided to show them off over on the blog keeping with the tradition of listing them with a blurb and a fully 3D turntable!



We won't see these boys in-game for a while yet, with indirect fire weapons (missiles and torpedoes) and precise weaponry slightly higher up on the priority list. But the INC faction will get a ton of pieces to assemble Corvettes, Cruisers, Battlecruisers and Capital ships and what is perhaps even more exciting is that the player constructable stations in Shallow Space will also be modular.

Take a look at the turntable and accompanying description over on the blog!



"Their modular design discipline is somewhat different to the other human factions who generally engineer complete schematics to a predetermined specification, ICN instead split their ships into self-contained sections which can be assembled bespoke to suit a mission or role. This methodology has placed them leaps ahead of the competition in terms of blueprint..."

UPDATE 5 is here, again more evolutionary progress rather than revolutionary with the bulk of the work having gone on in the background to allow for the saving and loading of fleets. We've further diversified the scope of active abilities allowing them to affect areas of the map in the same way as statuses given by asteroid clusters and gaseous clouds, but application is contextual (affecting allies or enemies) depending on whether the ability is offensive or defensive.



We heard the pleas from the new players eager to dive in and play without having to configure the fleets so we added a couple of default fleets and really nailed down the holes in the background that can lead to inconsistent gamestates. The game is in alpha state so some of the reverse actions (removing ships or officers from the slots) might previously have given way to a crash or some peculiar behaviour in tactical, many of those issues have now been worked out.

The Objectives system sees some natural evolution with some additional mission types, status of mission (completed, failed, open) and the ability for objectives to become hidden until the perpetrator is revealed. We look forward to extending that system even more with chained objectives and objectives linked to additional activities such as building, resource collecting and movement. The objectives system begins to take root elsewhere in the game with active quests being notable in applicable tooltips.



Still in tactical, we start to see a small sample of the multitude of planned abilities surface with the addition of 5 new active abilities. We’ve added visual feedback to the activation of those abilities and have a series of new ability activation callouts for our voice actors to make up in the near future. Mouseover the abilities to get the blue range delimiting sphere which will show you the area of influence. Some tweaks to the way the icons work should make it a little clearer as to the status of that ability, be it active (with the green radial countdown) or in cooldown (with the red radial countdown) the tooltip has also been amended to make things a little clearer.



Also arriving in UPDATE 5 is the Algenib Heavy Cruiser and 3 additional weapons for you to play with! Also, we've responded too much of the player feedback that has come in and rolled in the appropriate fixes and tweaks.

UPDATE 5 is live now and will be made available to the Humble portal in the next few days. Here is a link to the complete patch notes.

Look forward to UPDATE 6 which we envisage will include new ships, modules and abilities. The weapon damage system will be overhauled dropping the separate ‘Shield Damage’ and ‘Hull Damage’ values for each weapon and giving rise instead to elemental proficiencies and with that the ability to install passive damage resistance modules and different types of shields. Also we begin work on the ‘Active Scenery’ system which will plonk you even further in the seat of the Battlegroup Commander.

UPDATE 5 is here, again more evolutionary progress rather than revolutionary with the bulk of the work having gone on in the background to allow for the saving and loading of fleets. We've further diversified the scope of active abilities allowing them to affect areas of the map in the same way as statuses given by asteroid clusters and gaseous clouds, but application is contextual (affecting allies or enemies) depending on whether the ability is offensive or defensive.



We heard the pleas from the new players eager to dive in and play without having to configure the fleets so we added a couple of default fleets and really nailed down the holes in the background that can lead to inconsistent gamestates. The game is in alpha state so some of the reverse actions (removing ships or officers from the slots) might previously have given way to a crash or some peculiar behaviour in tactical, many of those issues have now been worked out.

The Objectives system sees some natural evolution with some additional mission types, status of mission (completed, failed, open) and the ability for objectives to become hidden until the perpetrator is revealed. We look forward to extending that system even more with chained objectives and objectives linked to additional activities such as building, resource collecting and movement. The objectives system begins to take root elsewhere in the game with active quests being notable in applicable tooltips.



Still in tactical, we start to see a small sample of the multitude of planned abilities surface with the addition of 5 new active abilities. We’ve added visual feedback to the activation of those abilities and have a series of new ability activation callouts for our voice actors to make up in the near future. Mouseover the abilities to get the blue range delimiting sphere which will show you the area of influence. Some tweaks to the way the icons work should make it a little clearer as to the status of that ability, be it active (with the green radial countdown) or in cooldown (with the red radial countdown) the tooltip has also been amended to make things a little clearer.



Also arriving in UPDATE 5 is the Algenib Heavy Cruiser and 3 additional weapons for you to play with! Also, we've responded too much of the player feedback that has come in and rolled in the appropriate fixes and tweaks.

UPDATE 5 is live now and will be made available to the Humble portal in the next few days. Here is a link to the complete patch notes.

Look forward to UPDATE 6 which we envisage will include new ships, modules and abilities. The weapon damage system will be overhauled dropping the separate ‘Shield Damage’ and ‘Hull Damage’ values for each weapon and giving rise instead to elemental proficiencies and with that the ability to install passive damage resistance modules and different types of shields. Also we begin work on the ‘Active Scenery’ system which will plonk you even further in the seat of the Battlegroup Commander.

0.8.10 Update 5 Change log (15.11.2015)

Over 80 modifications in this update; over 40 feature additions, 25 fixes & 10 tweaks.

Blog article will be put online shortly to talk about the changes.

• Added: Unique ID (UID) system for entries in PlayerShipDB allowing for more efficent backend fleet config management
  
• Added: Upgraded Ship Config management system to UID
  
• Added: Upgraded Fleet Config management system to UID
  
• Added: UI for saved fleet configs on fleet screen
  
• Added: Double click to install module to first free slot in Ship Config
  
• Added: Drag and drop modules onto the 3D model in Ship Config
  
• Added: Deleted ship configs are now automatically removed from the live fleet config and all save fleet configs on the Fleet Config screen (inconsistent gamestate prevention)
  
• Added: Officer automatically reassigned to next free slot (inconsistent gamestate prevention)
  
• Added: Scrollbar to ship list in Fleet Config screen
  
• Added: Scrollbar to ship list in Ship Config screen
  
• Added: Scrollbar to hull list in Ship Config screen
  
• Added: Mission completed/failed indicators to objectives UI in tactical
  
• Added: Usability tweaks to the objectives UI in tactical
  
• Added: Active, failed and completed statuses to objectives UI in tactical
  
• Added: Mission completed/failed filters to objectives UI
  
• Added: Objectives text added to furniture tooltip
  
• Added: Objectives text added to ships tooltip
  
• Added: 'Enemy communications detected' notification (pauses game)
  
• Added: Noise for game paused
  
• Added: Sexy female AI voice for objective events (updated, completed, failed)
  
• Added: Sorting for objective UI
  
• Added: 'Afterburner' ability for Corvettes (5 seconds 2x speed, 90 second recharge)
  
• Added: 'Deep Scan' placeholder icon replaced
  
• Added: 'Launch All' ability for Carrier which launches all docked ships (no cooldown)
  
• Added: Radial counter image on ability button in tactical is now coloured Green when an ability is active and counting down and Red when an ability is in cooldown.
  
• Added: 'Return to Carrier' ability for Carriers which returns all deployed ships to a holding pattern around the Carrier (no cooldown)
  
• Added: Linked Ability system with Status system to allow for buffs/debuffs
  
• Added: Ability buffs won't affect the enemy
  
• Added: Ability buffs affect allied and neutral units (buff your buddies, yaaaay)
  
• Added: Shockwave effect visual confirmation for ability activations
  
• Added: 'Communications Jamming' ability for Capital Ships (prevents enemy from calling for reinforcements for 60 seconds, 180 second recharge)
  
• Added: 'Combat Targeting Enhancer [XL]' module Support module granting active ability for Capital Ships (increased the accuracy and range of allied units projectile turrets within 70km for 30 seconds, 180 second recharge)
  
• Added: Made the module description box in Ship Config a scrollable container
  
• Added: if support module grants abilities, the abilities text is now shown in description box on the Ship Config screen
  
• Added: 'Auxiliary Sensor Computer' (passive increases the scan radius, cheaper than full sensor array)
  
• Added: XL Gatling turret
  
• Added: XL Plasma Pulse turret
  
• Added: PLC 'Algenib' Heavy Cruiser
  
• Added: M Gatling Fixed Weapon
  
• Added: Additional objectives to Maps 1 and 2, cleared up descriptions
  
• Added: Confirmation on overwrite on Fleet Config screen
  
• Added: Confirmation on delete on Fleet Config screen
  
• Added: Confirmation on clear on Fleet Config screen
  
• Added: Mouseover turrets or fixed weapons to highlight compatible slots on the 3D model in Ship Config
  
  
• Fixed: Issue with unclean destruction of wing row UI in Fleet Config screen that can lead to L and XL ships being carried (tut bit of a nasty one.)
  
• Fixed: Adding an Officer to a wing of Medium slots no longer converts the slot to Large
  
• Fixed: Rare issue with unclean destruction of Officer slot on wing row UI in Fleet Config screen that can lead to game crash.
  
• Fixed: Adding an Officer and then removing him again compromises the game state
  
• Fixed: Removing an Officer removes his entitled Capital ship if assigned
  
• Fixed: if an entitled ship is removed, wing is correctly shuffled
  
• Fixed: Ship/Officer removals on Fleet screen now correctly change totals
  
• Fixed: if player has a high number of saved ship configs, not all are shown on Ship Config screen.
  
• Fixed: Tactical/fleet icons keep flashing in strategy
  
• Fixed: Status effects are now only applied once
  
• Fixed: Ship icons continue to move when 'Short Range Jump' ability activated
  
• Fixed: Targetbox and Objective bars now updated when ship recharging SP
  
• Fixed: the white animated 'moving to' line in tactical lingers when the move order is cancelled (uber annoying)
  
• Fixed: the movement point is showing when the ship has completed it's journey or has had it's movement order cancelled
  
• Fixed: Additional fixes for stretching SS across multiple screens
  
• Fixed: Shields recharging up to base SP only ignoring the Shield Extender
  
• Fixed: Pressing ESC in movement mode correctly cancels movement mode
  
• Fixed: Setting fixed weapon capable craft to attack without fixed weapons causes crash
  
• Fixed: Issue with distress call ability incorrectly triggering
  
• Fixed: Cruisers are less likely to try and occupy the same point in space as another ship.
  
• Fixed: Units now patrol correctly on Map 2
  
• Fixed: Issue with created ships not appearing in list on Fleet Config screen despite appearing in Ship Config screen
  
• Fixed: Fixed buggy mouse over while dragging icon over slots in Ship Config
  
• Fixed: Issue with scaling icons when despawned in Fleet Config
  
• Fixed: Issue with inconsistent gamestate removing carrier from flotilla in Fleet Config screen
  
  
• Update: Tweaks to fleet screen to balance the UI
  
• Update: Tweaks to officer slot appearance in Fleet Config
  
• Update: Flotilla ID and Officer grids on Fleet screen made into scrollboxes
  
• Update: Tweaks to ship slot appearance in Ship Config
  
• Update: Now allowing special characters in fleet name
  
• Update: Changed Tooltip screen edge detection threshold
  
• Update: Ability cooldowns now start after the active time period has elapsed
  
• Update: Auxiliary generators tweaked to put out slightly more power
  
• Update: Railguns damage reduced
  
• Update: Phaser Pulse weapons damage increased (fixed and turret)
  
• Update: Fixed Plasma medium damage increased
  
• Update: 'Duplex Scanners' renamed 'Duplex Sensor Array'

0.8.10 Update 5 Change log (15.11.2015)

Over 80 modifications in this update; over 40 feature additions, 25 fixes & 10 tweaks.

Blog article will be put online shortly to talk about the changes.

• Added: Unique ID (UID) system for entries in PlayerShipDB allowing for more efficent backend fleet config management
  
• Added: Upgraded Ship Config management system to UID
  
• Added: Upgraded Fleet Config management system to UID
  
• Added: UI for saved fleet configs on fleet screen
  
• Added: Double click to install module to first free slot in Ship Config
  
• Added: Drag and drop modules onto the 3D model in Ship Config
  
• Added: Deleted ship configs are now automatically removed from the live fleet config and all save fleet configs on the Fleet Config screen (inconsistent gamestate prevention)
  
• Added: Officer automatically reassigned to next free slot (inconsistent gamestate prevention)
  
• Added: Scrollbar to ship list in Fleet Config screen
  
• Added: Scrollbar to ship list in Ship Config screen
  
• Added: Scrollbar to hull list in Ship Config screen
  
• Added: Mission completed/failed indicators to objectives UI in tactical
  
• Added: Usability tweaks to the objectives UI in tactical
  
• Added: Active, failed and completed statuses to objectives UI in tactical
  
• Added: Mission completed/failed filters to objectives UI
  
• Added: Objectives text added to furniture tooltip
  
• Added: Objectives text added to ships tooltip
  
• Added: 'Enemy communications detected' notification (pauses game)
  
• Added: Noise for game paused
  
• Added: Sexy female AI voice for objective events (updated, completed, failed)
  
• Added: Sorting for objective UI
  
• Added: 'Afterburner' ability for Corvettes (5 seconds 2x speed, 90 second recharge)
  
• Added: 'Deep Scan' placeholder icon replaced
  
• Added: 'Launch All' ability for Carrier which launches all docked ships (no cooldown)
  
• Added: Radial counter image on ability button in tactical is now coloured Green when an ability is active and counting down and Red when an ability is in cooldown.
  
• Added: 'Return to Carrier' ability for Carriers which returns all deployed ships to a holding pattern around the Carrier (no cooldown)
  
• Added: Linked Ability system with Status system to allow for buffs/debuffs
  
• Added: Ability buffs won't affect the enemy
  
• Added: Ability buffs affect allied and neutral units (buff your buddies, yaaaay)
  
• Added: Shockwave effect visual confirmation for ability activations
  
• Added: 'Communications Jamming' ability for Capital Ships (prevents enemy from calling for reinforcements for 60 seconds, 180 second recharge)
  
• Added: 'Combat Targeting Enhancer [XL]' module Support module granting active ability for Capital Ships (increased the accuracy and range of allied units projectile turrets within 70km for 30 seconds, 180 second recharge)
  
• Added: Made the module description box in Ship Config a scrollable container
  
• Added: if support module grants abilities, the abilities text is now shown in description box on the Ship Config screen
  
• Added: 'Auxiliary Sensor Computer' (passive increases the scan radius, cheaper than full sensor array)
  
• Added: XL Gatling turret
  
• Added: XL Plasma Pulse turret
  
• Added: PLC 'Algenib' Heavy Cruiser
  
• Added: M Gatling Fixed Weapon
  
• Added: Additional objectives to Maps 1 and 2, cleared up descriptions
  
• Added: Confirmation on overwrite on Fleet Config screen
  
• Added: Confirmation on delete on Fleet Config screen
  
• Added: Confirmation on clear on Fleet Config screen
  
• Added: Mouseover turrets or fixed weapons to highlight compatible slots on the 3D model in Ship Config
  
  
• Fixed: Issue with unclean destruction of wing row UI in Fleet Config screen that can lead to L and XL ships being carried (tut bit of a nasty one.)
  
• Fixed: Adding an Officer to a wing of Medium slots no longer converts the slot to Large
  
• Fixed: Rare issue with unclean destruction of Officer slot on wing row UI in Fleet Config screen that can lead to game crash.
  
• Fixed: Adding an Officer and then removing him again compromises the game state
  
• Fixed: Removing an Officer removes his entitled Capital ship if assigned
  
• Fixed: if an entitled ship is removed, wing is correctly shuffled
  
• Fixed: Ship/Officer removals on Fleet screen now correctly change totals
  
• Fixed: if player has a high number of saved ship configs, not all are shown on Ship Config screen.
  
• Fixed: Tactical/fleet icons keep flashing in strategy
  
• Fixed: Status effects are now only applied once
  
• Fixed: Ship icons continue to move when 'Short Range Jump' ability activated
  
• Fixed: Targetbox and Objective bars now updated when ship recharging SP
  
• Fixed: the white animated 'moving to' line in tactical lingers when the move order is cancelled (uber annoying)
  
• Fixed: the movement point is showing when the ship has completed it's journey or has had it's movement order cancelled
  
• Fixed: Additional fixes for stretching SS across multiple screens
  
• Fixed: Shields recharging up to base SP only ignoring the Shield Extender
  
• Fixed: Pressing ESC in movement mode correctly cancels movement mode
  
• Fixed: Setting fixed weapon capable craft to attack without fixed weapons causes crash
  
• Fixed: Issue with distress call ability incorrectly triggering
  
• Fixed: Cruisers are less likely to try and occupy the same point in space as another ship.
  
• Fixed: Units now patrol correctly on Map 2
  
• Fixed: Issue with created ships not appearing in list on Fleet Config screen despite appearing in Ship Config screen
  
• Fixed: Fixed buggy mouse over while dragging icon over slots in Ship Config
  
• Fixed: Issue with scaling icons when despawned in Fleet Config
  
• Fixed: Issue with inconsistent gamestate removing carrier from flotilla in Fleet Config screen
  
  
• Update: Tweaks to fleet screen to balance the UI
  
• Update: Tweaks to officer slot appearance in Fleet Config
  
• Update: Flotilla ID and Officer grids on Fleet screen made into scrollboxes
  
• Update: Tweaks to ship slot appearance in Ship Config
  
• Update: Now allowing special characters in fleet name
  
• Update: Changed Tooltip screen edge detection threshold
  
• Update: Ability cooldowns now start after the active time period has elapsed
  
• Update: Auxiliary generators tweaked to put out slightly more power
  
• Update: Railguns damage reduced
  
• Update: Phaser Pulse weapons damage increased (fixed and turret)
  
• Update: Fixed Plasma medium damage increased
  
• Update: 'Duplex Scanners' renamed 'Duplex Sensor Array'

http://shallow.space/faction-allied-pirate-forces/

There are 8 human factions in the Shallow Space universe:

• The 3 core empire factions with overall control of the majority of humanity.
  
• The 3 mighty corporations, nipping at the emperors heels for dominance
  
• The 2 subversive authorities living outside of the core worlds of Shallow Space in the fringe colonies nibbling at the edges of the Imperium.

Some of the factions are further split into subordinate authorities or companies, some with Elite units and/or special abilities. Find out more about the second subversive faction 'Allied Pirate Forces' over on the blog.

"[Abbreviated: APF] More often than not, history teaches that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and this is the common ground that forms the tenuous power titled the ‘Aligned Pirate Forces’...."

Missed out on the previous 7 faction announcements? Fear not, you can catch up here!

http://shallow.space/faction-allied-pirate-forces/

There are 8 human factions in the Shallow Space universe:

• The 3 core empire factions with overall control of the majority of humanity.
  
• The 3 mighty corporations, nipping at the emperors heels for dominance
  
• The 2 subversive authorities living outside of the core worlds of Shallow Space in the fringe colonies nibbling at the edges of the Imperium.

Some of the factions are further split into subordinate authorities or companies, some with Elite units and/or special abilities. Find out more about the second subversive faction 'Allied Pirate Forces' over on the blog.

"[Abbreviated: APF] More often than not, history teaches that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and this is the common ground that forms the tenuous power titled the ‘Aligned Pirate Forces’...."

Missed out on the previous 7 faction announcements? Fear not, you can catch up here!