Today we kick off the first testing phase of the Alpha 12 Experimental! :)



Main feature additions:

1. The Galaxy
   
2. Active detection system
   
3. Registry journeybook
   
4. Interactive dialogues
   
5. Dynamic key-token generation
   
6. Space Base Defense
   
7. Player-build teleporter system
   
8. Full config files exposition

Besides those major topics, we added several new NPC Factions, a slew of technical and feature additions, new crafting materials like Titanium, updated POIs, Model and a lot more.

Have a look at the full changelog over here



Remember: For the first days of the Experimental version, multiplayer games can only be played on our Alpha 12 Experimental server, because we first need to thoroughly test the new database, before we can release the EXP server version. The Singleplayer/Coop client version of the Experimental version are of course available with todays release! Please read the full reasoning over here

As with every major releases, the Experimental version phase will see several stages and last at least a few weeks, until we will release to the 'public' branch eventually. ;)

Please also note:

• Report bugs and issues right over here
  
• Any bug fixed for A12 can be found here
  
• Known Issues List is here

For discussing the new and updated features, please head over to the pinned threads in our Experimental Feedback forum

There, we will also gladly answer your questions and set up help topics as we go.

Now, please have fun playing Alpha 12 Experimental Phase 1! :)
- Empyrion Dev Team

Most of you might wonder, when the Alpha 12 Experimental will hit your PC. Good news!

If everything works out as planned, the Experimental phase will start anytime next week!
As always..no liabilities assumed.

There is one thing to know about the upcoming Experimental:

For Alpha 12 we made a real BIG change in how the game handles data and info by adding a persistent database. This offers a myriad of new possibilities - in fact, it made some of the Alpha 12 features possible in the first place - but this needs to be tested in-depth, especially for Multiplayer.

That’s why this time, in the first week of the Experimental release, we will only have our own EXP Server as a testing field.

This way, we will be able to grab all the logs directly and track the performance of the database in a live environment with the highest possible load. Again, and to be precise: this is for the initial phase (only!)
We hope everyone planning to set up an own EXP Server will understand this move, as testing the database is crucial for the progress of the game as a whole.

Rest assured the EXP will have a server version released, as soon as the tests are passed and we are confident about the stability of the database.

The Singleplayer version will of course be available from day one, just the dedicated server version will be delayed.

If things go accordingly, this initial phase might only last a few days. A minor period, given the Alpha 12 is a milestone release with an Experimental phase of several weeks, where we will be happy to see a lot of Experimental-version servers out there.

A note for the server owners, as this might not be known a lot: feel free to get in touch with us about any global topics via server@empyriongame.com (Feedback, Ideas etc.. no specific topic ;) )

Hope to see you soon playing the Experimental version! :)
- Empyrion Dev Team

PS: For all of you interested in an evening talk about Alpha 12 and maybe some gameplay right from the final Experimental pre-release candidate, tune in to our Dev Q&A, hosted by Spanj

For today's blog, we would like to give you more insight on a device feature, a lot of you have asked for.

Until now, you could make use of the device in question in NPC stations and some dungeons.
Now, it will be available to you players: Teleporters!


(New CV teleporter model)

The Teleporters will come in two versions:

• Teleporter for bases. Their range will be 30 LY
  
• Teleporter for capital vessels. They will allow you to teleport within a sector, what means between Planet <-> Orbit, Planet <-> Moon, Orbit <-> Moons etc. No need to EVA over to a space station anymore!

There are a few constraints of course.

• You can NOT teleport to another PLAYER or PLAYER FACTIONS teleporters! You can only use your own teleporters, those of your faction and from NPC factions you are at least in a friendly state.
  
• It is not possible to teleport FROM or teleport TO a CV that is currently MOVING
  
• It is not possible to use a CV or BA teleporter (as outgoing-transport) when
  a) shields are active
  b) the structure is under fire (cooldown of 20 seconds after last “hit”)

Incoming teleports currently can end on devices that are off or behind a shield - of course only if you ‘allowed’ to use the teleporter as a target.

If there is any condition that denies you to use a teleport target, its destination simply will not show in the teleporter target overview.



We hope you will like this little feature improvement.
As usual, feel free to post an questions to the comments. :)

Read you soon,
Empyrion Dev Team

It’s wednesday again! First and foremost: We hope you are all well - and if not, we hope you will get well very soon! And because we got a lot of concerned emails and messages: Everyone in the team is Ok or is already getting better. Thanks a lot for all the wishes. :)

We have been kind of silent the last 2 weeks, simply because a lot of code work had to happen, to flesh out the features.

Today we have a mix of different things that made good progress and got added until recently.

1. The Empyrion ingame card game?
   Our Modelling team has been busy with some new stuff. We added two new devices (we will not disclose just yet. Sorry ;) ) and a few others, like the Zirax CV turrets that are currently in a finishing phase.
   
   A new entry to the blocks and devices are two gambling tables.
   
   
   
   What started as an internal use case, just for testing the NPC Dialogue system with a Black Jack script, found some interest in the tester group and the team itself. So we thought: Where Star Trek TNG has had Poker, Star Wars has Sabacc, BSG has Triad Cars .. how would the favored Card-game based amusement of Polaris, Talon, Zirax and other species in Andromeda be named and how would it work?
   Any ideas? Let us know your suggestions for a name and a system! We might use it! :)
   
   
2. New playfield types!
   While the galaxy has grown the amount of stars to fill with something to explore, we are constantly looking for new playfield types to integrate. While we are happy to review any suggestion you send us via email, we have opened the CUSTOM PLAYFIELDS forum for that purpose.
   
   That being said, reworks of old playfield types and new iterations, are in the works already. A new Ice Moon and a Forest Moon will be part of the mix, soon.
   
   
   
   
   Hint: Alpha 12 will also see the addition of a menacing “Legacy Faction” playfield type, which will reveal a lot of what this faction is up to. Playfield will be revealed in the next weeks. ;)
   
   
3. New models and resources!
   In Alpha 12 we will not only have Ice available on Asteroids in space eventually, but we will also add a new resource to the game the first time ever: Titanium
   
   And while we added a forest moon with endless quantities of Plant Fiber, and because the item has become a very popular meme in the current pandemic times, we added Toilet paper (including a slightly updated toilet model) as an item for your very discreete player avatar needs as well. Of course you cannot buy it at a trader. ;)
   
   Feel free to make suggestions which status effect we should allow to be cured with it! (except the obvious ;)
   
   
   
   
4. Respawn changes
   Alpha 12 will also see some changes in the Respawn mechanic which everyone, who has run into a literal dead end, might like.
   
   First, the survival tent is now a possible respawn option. When you die, you can select the closest survival tent from the respawn menu. So make sure to be prepared.
   
   Second: you will now get a respawn option, even if you have NO home-button checked CV or BA or even a survival tent. You can respawn in a Clone Chamber or Medbay of the CLOSEST BA or CV that belongs to you or your faction, even if these structures have not been set in the HOME checkbox in the Control Panel!
   
   In addition, you get a third way of respawning: When you are at least NEUTRAL with a NPC Faction AND you discovered one of their stations, equipped with either Medbay or Clone Chamber, before, you will get offered the closest of these stations as a respawn option as well!
   
   
5. Registry and Markers
   We are currently reworking how the REGISTRY works. Not only because the Registry needed an update to handle the new star systems, but with Alpha 12 it will offer a lot more options and work more like a real Journey-book, where all your discoveries are noted. Not only your own or your faction's stuff, but also terrain placeables like Autominers, ore deposits and a lot more. Filters will help to manage all these entries.
   
   In addition, when setting a Waypoint on one of those entries, those markers are now visible on planets while you are in space - and vice versa!
   
   And: the markers will also work in space as a pre-set warp target. So aim for them, accelerate and warp right away! No need to hammer the Lock-Target Button on the Map anymore.
   
   

As a closing comment - and because we got asked this quite a lot: we are currently preparing for the Experimental to start mid of April (if nothing goes wrong). As always: No liability assumed. :D

Watch out for a scheduled live Q&A ahead of the EXP.

Read you soon,
Empyrion Dev Team

We recently completed the technical integration of the gas giants. Similar to the new suns, you cannot land or fly to the gas giant itself, but they will offer more than enough moons for your exploration demands.

Time for a few impressions of this milestone progress. :)

Cheers,
Empyrion Dev Team

PS: Find all the dev blogs over here

What happens when you attack a POI in space?

The question may sound trivial. You fight, you win or you get defeated. But beyond that point, there is not a lot of interactivity. Small and large space bases alike do not seem to be that important for the NPC factions, otherwise they would defend them better and very likely have a garrison of combat ships or reinforcements, right?

We recently spoke to our Zirax Empire and Polaris consultants, and as especially our always slightly nervous, weapon wielding friends brought up very convincing arguments, we cannot let this be the case any longer.

Reinforcements incoming!

With Alpha 12, when you are on a hostile or unfriendly standing with the owner of the POI in front of your guns, the station commander will call for help when you are coming too close. Depending on the level of the playfield, the NPC faction's vessels will warp in after a while - or sometimes the call will remain unanswered. There are a few variations possible at that point.

You, as a player, will get a note as soon as enemy warp signatures are detected. But remember: the incoming vessels might only be a part of the full fleet coming for you. ;)

As always, the range of reactions, the ships used and other parameters can be defined by creative minds in the FactionWarfare.ecf.



Each of the current and upcoming factions will of course send their very own vessels. The Polaris, Zirax and also the Legacy have gotten a total overhaul of their combat vessels lineup only recently. If you do not yet follow our posts on hat topic, have a look in our ‘Lore, Story and Factions’ sub forum

You will not only find previews of the new ship types of the different factions, but also background info to the story of the game!

NPC Factions: Call For Papers!

That being said, we also want to add a few new NPC Factions to the upcoming galaxy. As promised, we will eventually open the submission phase for NPC Faction applications!

Submissions & Info: threads/npc-factions-call-for-papers

Spread the word!
We are looking forward to your creative ideas!

While you start to think about your NPC factions stories and lore, have a look at the all new Zirax CV turrets (WiP HighRes) you might soon run into. These will replace the generic “Alien turrets” on all Zirax AI Capital Vessels - step by step. :)

Cheers,
Empyrion Dev Team


Zirax CV Laser Turret (HighRes WiP)


Zirax CV Plasma Turret (HighRes WiP)


Zirax CV Rocket Turret (HighRes WiP)

Hi Galactic Survivalists!

While the Content and the Global updates from the previous dev blogs are pretty much set - given nothing unexpected will keep us away from adding them to the game - the following topics are a bit more a ‘What we plan to add to the game, when time permits’ thing.


(WiP NPC Dialogue with 3 answer options)

The following Prototypes have been added only recently to the Alpha 12 feature list, but have a good chance to be in the initial Alpha 12 release. If not, then in Alpha 12.1 and onwards ;-)

Prototypes

• NPC Dialogue with Multi-Answer options
  Ever wondered why the bartender in one of the Pax Purgatory bars only wants to sell his beverages but has nothing to say? Want to play a round of Black Jack with those NPCs that seem to dish out cards anyhows? These are only two straight forward possibilities for the upcoming Multi-Answer NPC Dialogue system, Alpha 12 will add. The new way to set up dialogues will be configurable in its own (public) config file and you, as a creative or POI designer, will be able to ‘assign’ a dialogue to certain NPCs. We are looking forward to all the ideas our community will come up with!
  
  
• Dynamic Key Tokens
  This is more of a technical advancement, as the game can now modify an item dynamically in the game to provide a specific function.The first implementation will for example allow the game to create an individual “Keycard”-item, giving it an integrated lock code for use with a specific device in a POI, like a door or any devivce that is using lock codes. This specific Keycard (Token) can then either be placed in a container or be added as a loot item, given via PDA or by an NPC. Of course YOU can decide what the 4-digit lock code looks like, for example using the super safe 1234 combination is always a good way!
  
  
• Per-Container Loot Table ID
  This is where the new loot setup system comes into play. Currently the loot IDs are set in a config file, so all Zirax Soldiers drop a fixed range of items. With Alpha 12 we plan to add new settings, which will add the possibility to set certain Loot Table IDs for each container or NPC (spawners) individually and directly in your POI - overwriting the “default” Loot Table ID. This will give all creators more granular control over the loot drops for anything that has an ‘inventory’.
  
  
• Station Services
  By those we think of services like, re-arm, refill (Fuel, O2, Pentaxid), repair and other services. To make use of these services, we plan to allow the pilot to hail the station and use a dialogue system or a specific UI to make a choice. Although this has just been added to the schedule, there is a chance for this feature to make an appearance in the main release.

Part IV of the dev blogs is concluding the initial series of 'feature reveal’ info posts.

We plan to release more detailed explanations, single-topic blogs and also in-game teasers on a regular basis, as we are nearing the Experimental stage - which will possibly start more towards early April at the earliest (No liability assumed).

Until then. Read you soon,
- Empyrion Dev Team

PS: Do not forget to participate in our GAME SURVEY 2020!

Today, while the developers are heavily at work with the galaxy generation, NPC dialogues and such, we will talk about some of the more global content and convenience updates.

Global Updates

• Lots of POI updates, that should have made it to A11 already, like dust and snow versions, fixes on signals and triggers etc pp.
  
• Multitool: now works with UNDO in Creative mode
  
• Projectors can have a background layer
  
• Removed Alien01 and Spiders from starter areas (Crashsite and starter area)

Feature Updates

• Inventory Sorting (alphabetically, item type, food points, mass and volume)
  
• Increased Stacksize (up to 4000 per stack; Stacksizes are derived from item mass)
  
• Player Turrets can now be used on any NPC Faction POI (without having to cheat in ammo
  and ammo boxes!)

(Sorting Options)

There are of course more interesting changes coming with Alpha 12, for example the new SPACE POI DEFENSE mode: Meet the renewed Polaris and Zirax Patrol Vessels, called in as reinforcements when you attack their orbital POI. We plan to do an own dev blog on this topic anytime soon.


(Zirax Destroyer)

On the ground Base Attacks, the Talon got a new building, the Talon Ziggurat, which will serve as a headquarter or ‘end boss' which, when beaten, will stop any planetary Base Attack from that NPC faction. The end of the Base Attacks is also now tied to a so-called ‘headquarter setting’ which any playfield designer can individually set to any POI. For example you do not need to use the Dronebase as a BA Attack-Stop for Zirax anymore, if you do not want to.


(Talon Ziggurat)

More content updates include:

• Reworks are planned for other devices as well (Armor Stations, Warp Tanks etc; feel free to make other suggestions in the comments!)
  
• We plan to rework the Alien Turrets and give them a consistent design appeal, f.ex for the Zirax
  
• All-new Energy Turret for the (planned) Legacy Faction ships and POI
  
• Adding Heavy Blast Doors (two sizes for now)

We’ll of course release more screenshots on the model and blueprints as soon as they near their completion.


(Blast Doors, Size 1 and 2)


(SV and HV O2 Station and Armor Locker)

What‘s on your wish-list in terms of this blog posts context, model updates and alike? ;)

Cheers,
Empyrion Dev Team

PS: Do not forget to participate in our GAME SURVEY 2020!

Welcome back to Part II of our Alpha 12 feature update dev blog!

While you have read through the first part of this blog, you might have wondered what's added to the game besides the galaxy feature.

Of course there is a lot of code work going on on other elements as well, ranging from adding new features to the ModAPI, the Terrain Editor Settings, down to refactoring code elements and fixing and streamlining settings.

One of those topics has been CPU in conjunction with the new Flight model. The following might be interesting for a lot of players and all the forum discussions on that topic.



To start with, we will aim for a few balancing changes.

Examples:

• Cut CPU cost on SV and HV RCS by 40% to make it more workable for small builds and on game start
  
• Tier 4 for HV will be increased (planned from 70k to 100k)
  
• Thruster CPU Cost rebalancing: Larger thrusters are planned to be more CPU-efficient than their smaller versions.
  
• Materials/Items/Devices in containers will get a storage bonus, in terms of a 50% mass reduction when computing max speed of the ship (the mass of the vessel will remain the same)

Further improvements of the flight model ( fixing issues with drag and lift calculations ) and smaller, additional up- and down balancing of CPU cost aside, we also plan to make a few more in-depth changes on these feature(s) themselves.

• Per-Axis Torque setting
  With Alpha 12 you will get three sliders in the Control Panel > Statistics tab to adjust the Torque of your vessel. One slider for each axis.
  
  
• CPU Tier Buffs
  Unlocking a CPU Tier will add benefits. The same way overshooting the CPU count is penalized, we might give you certain buffs or bonuses when reaching a new tier. For example we already internally added a 5% speed up on the booster reload time for every new CPU tier level. We are of course open to your suggestions on this topic!
  
  
• CPU Tier 5
  We currently discuss an expansion of the Tier System - starting with Capital Vessels. The approach is currently not yet decided, but will be referred to as “Tier 5” (whether it is a real CPU Tier or something different)

We are looking forward to your thoughts! :)

This has been a little bit more condensed on only one topic. Expect more dev blogs about the other topics later this week!

Until then, take care. Read you soon.
Empyrion Dev Team

PS: Do not forget to participate in our GAME SURVEY 2020!

Welcome to our dev blog on the Alpha 12 features!

We have dedicated the first release of the planned blog series to the most substantial change coming with the new major updates: The galaxy.

What does it mean, when we say ‘galaxy’ ?

Let's answer that question with a picture:


All these suns are visitable.
Some will have planets.
Some won’t.
Some might be void of anything.
Some might be crowded spaces.

This is where we will start. But there is more!

In Alpha 11.5, when you look at the galaxy map, you will only see one type of a central star: The default-yellowish sun. For Alpha 12 we have added all of the main sequence star types (archetypes, following the OBAFGKM scale; while the blue-white O stars are the largest and the orange-red M stars are the smallest). We also added a variant of a Black Hole and a Neutron Star.


A little note for our Creators: The star types will be placed by a probability factor. For example M is a lot more common than O. Black Holes are rare. Of course you can customize the probability factor for each sun type individually.
Also, the galaxy you can see in the picture above, is configurable by the amount of stars (min/max) as well as the diameter of the galaxy (which influences how far the stars are away from each other)

More variants of star types will follow in future updates.

As you can see, the new “galaxy” is not just an “improvement” over the Alpha 11.5 ‘Multi Solar System’ mechanic. It is something entirely new.

Downwards compatibility?
Now you might ask: but what is happening with all the savegames and fixed solar or multi solar games started in Alpha 11.5.

The answer has two parts

We will add a “legacy mode” for the old scenario and savegames. The galaxy will simply NOT be generated. The downside: you cannot use any of the new features that come with the new system.

We plant to have a new method of how a galaxy is created, including the combination of a fixed part and a generated part

Point 2 might need some further explanation, but it's not complicated.

Example: Let's we want to place a system with a starter world and the home planet of a npc faction. You want to place those systems with a certain distance or on a specific, galactic position. You of course also want to have a galaxy, filling up the other solar systems spots, but you actually do not want to add as few as a couple thousand more systems in that config? :D

We of course have a solution for that.

Fixed-Random Galaxy Combination

This info is again a bit more for our creators, but as this was asked several times, we would like to share our current approach right now.

The method we currently aim for, works like that: you will place your “unique systems” and their parameters in a single sectors.yaml (similar like you did with Alpha 11.5 - although different in some details), then set the “create galaxy” flag to true...and the game will create the galaxy random systems AROUND the positions of your “fixed” solar systems.

Easy as that! :)
(Although it’s not even remotely ‘easy’ for our devs to achieve that)

In the end, you get a galaxy with so many solar systems you will possibly never be able to visit all, different sun types (with different colors!), in a combination of fixed and random generation and a legacy mode for old systems.

And Gas Giants.

This blog covers only the very basic elements about the new galaxy creation - but how does this sound to you?

Cheers,
Empyrion Dev Team

PS: Do not forget to participate in and share our GAME SURVEY 2020!