Jun 3, 2016
The Sentient - Uncaged Studios
Alpha 5 has now been released!
Alpha 4 had many changes and continuous tuning done to the overall game thanks to community feedback. We were able to crush many bugs and get the game into a much more workable, fun, and playable experience. We couldn't have done it without the fans so thank you all!
Alpha 5 contains over 20% additional content for you to explore and witness as you play through the game. Alpha 5's focus will be on implementing the remaining features to interstellar travel like meeting stations that can repair your ship and more trade and options that can affect you and your current crew.
There are additional events that start out from the beginning of the game all the way to many sectors out so be on the lookout for the new content. While we work on Alpha 6 in the background more content will be continuously be added as that is the priority.
Alpha 5's cutoff just missed part of the combat rebalance so the next immediate patch will contain some of these balance numbers and changes along with more content.
For those who haven't been following the game here are all changes from Alpha 4 to 5 as well and we hope to continue this trend with the months to come!
EVENTS
STEAM
Alpha 4 had many changes and continuous tuning done to the overall game thanks to community feedback. We were able to crush many bugs and get the game into a much more workable, fun, and playable experience. We couldn't have done it without the fans so thank you all!
Alpha 5 contains over 20% additional content for you to explore and witness as you play through the game. Alpha 5's focus will be on implementing the remaining features to interstellar travel like meeting stations that can repair your ship and more trade and options that can affect you and your current crew.
There are additional events that start out from the beginning of the game all the way to many sectors out so be on the lookout for the new content. While we work on Alpha 6 in the background more content will be continuously be added as that is the priority.
Alpha 5's cutoff just missed part of the combat rebalance so the next immediate patch will contain some of these balance numbers and changes along with more content.
For those who haven't been following the game here are all changes from Alpha 4 to 5 as well and we hope to continue this trend with the months to come!
ALPHA 5.0
BATTLESHIPS- The previous ship loadout is now saved upon leaving Earth. Multiple layouts will come at a later time.
- The default ship initial default layout now has a weapon and storage unit in the engine room.
- Right click camera movement has been changed to a pull method instead of push. This can be reverted to push via the settings panel.
- Targeting monitors and crew members will now always add bonus % to hit appropriately.
- Added scrolling combat text when missing enemy ships.
- Additional balancing on initial enemy scout ships.
- Fixed an issue where weaponry was not always firing specifically when changing ships.
- Increased weapon energy requirements for the Ion, Laser, and Plasma turrets.
- The weapon system should now consistently fire on the advanced weapon systems.
- Additional balancing updates for enemy ship's firing speeds.
- Loading a game while in combat will no longer allow the combat to persist.
- Enemy Battle Cruisers damage has been increased by 10%.
- Slightly increased enemy shield recharge amount, not the speed at which they increase.
- Fixed an issue where enemy ships were not always adhering to current game speed.
- Over 20% more content added
- The crew overall movement speed when walking has been increased by 20%.
- Crew members that are moving toward work positions during combat will now move at 300% speed. Animations will be updated to reflect the speed and movement increase but should aid in getting crew members to their needed places on time.
- Additional AI has been given to the crew members to avoid being "late" in reporting for duty when the ship is in danger. They should response more reliably however additional work will be made to ensure they respond appropriately at all times.
- Additional pathfinding checks has been added to the crew members to help aid crew members getting stuck in rooms.
- Mechanics assigned to "Fix Ship Objects" will now properly maintain ship objects as well. Previously they focused on tagged broken equipment. Mechanics will now randomly move between rooms assessing if objects are damaged. If so they will begin to repair them back to full before moving to the next piece of equipment.
- Fixed an issue pertaining to mechanics fixing random ship objects.
- Crew members relaxing should no longer look "stuck" and stop moving all together at times.
- Mechanics can no longer be set to fix fighters on ships with the hangar bay. This system is being implemented to work properly with the overall game.
Mechanics in the engine room should now properly fix equipment. - Greatly reduced the amount of time crew members will waste away their life by just relaxing at the bar for long periods of time when their "fun" is full.
- Crew members assigned to combat duties will respond faster to battle issues. Your own direct orders will still always take precedent.
- Fixed an issue where crew members would not return to work but instead a random room after their needs are met.
- Fixed several crew stability issue.
- Crew members attempting to use the shower and bathroom will not be able to queue for both blocking other crew members that are waiting.
- Fixed an issue where crew members working in the engine room would not always fill storage units.
- Reduced the overall experience gained when piloting the ship between locations.
- Crew members working on the shield and weapon consoles will stop animating to indicate the systems are full. This also causes the amount of durability loss to be reduced.
- The crew should now properly react to changes in work schedule when working a position not ordered by the player.
- Crew stats are now distributed in a manner to make specialization a lot easier. Also crew members more represent themselves as the best Earth has to offer. This change only effects new crew members obtained not preexisting ones.
- Crew member names can now be changed via the crew management panel.
- Fixed a crew recruitment issue when selecting different crew members.
- Flight crew members now have the ability to start with piloting skills which was being granted to mechanics for features not quite in the game yet.
- Crew members utilizing the shower when their bladder is low are no longer above just holding it and waiting.
- Various crew AI updates.
- Added remove AI orders at combat start to the crew policy settings. This will remove any direct order given to the crew to force them to respond immedaitely to current combat needs.
- Game window size can now be increased or decreased via settings.
- Map difficulty levels will now slightly randomize so that a location of a specific distance away will now have a possible difficulty range making long range scanners more important. This change requires starting a new game.
- Updated the completed location color to green to contrast the red on failed locations.
- Additional protections added during traveling.
EVENTS
- Various text cleanups.
- Increased the difficulty rating of two of the alien races. You should no longer meet them upon the first locations around Earth. This should greatly aid in beginning game difficulty.
- Hotkeys for the events displayed # can now be pressed on the keyboard.
- Event demands should no longer lock out future choices.
- Damage taken from an event should now no longer scale to obscene amounts of damage based on distance from earth. They now cap based on the current ship's armor strength.
- More communications with Alien lifeforms should begin to appear more frequently.
- Larger alien ships will appear much sooner in the game based on distance from Earth.
- Fixed an issue where many ship travel events were not showing.
- Taking damage from an event should now properly play the shield or hull damage SFX depending on the type of damage taken. This can still be considered deadly if the ship has taken a lot of damage without repairs.
- When traveling around a sector each event should be unique for the sector and repeats should very rarely occur.
- Updated several event images.
- Added a sound effect when the monitor comes online.
- Additional sector events have been added.
- Fixed sprite clipping issue when walking along the front walkways.
- Hangar bays are now visible. Additional functionality will be coming later.
- Spacebar will now pause the game.
- The plus (+) and minus (-) keys can be used to zoom in and out.
- Event choices can now be activated via the alpha numeric key or keypad.
- Left bracket ([) and right bracket (]) will now cycle through current crew members.
- Several changes to the rendering of sprites will monitor to make sure things continue to appear correctly.
- Skip Intro and Skip tutorial settings are now saved in between sessions.
- Overall ship object use when increasing needs have been increased by 10%.
- Decreased natural need loss for all traits by 20%.
- Decreased additional bladder loss when eating by 25%.
- Increased sleep regeneration by 40% when using a bed.
- Increased bladder regeneration by 30% when using a restroom.
- Increase cleanliness regeneration by 10% when using the Shower.
- You may now return to main menu during ship travel.
- Additional pathfinding checks when dealing with the hangar bay.
- Resolved an issue where crew members randomly would get stuck in
- Additional pathfinding fixes using default and previous layouts.
- Various performance fixes to the game.
- Several performance increases to help with FPs particularly on larger ships.
- Major performance enhancements across the game.
- Fixed an issue where opening research window would not always display the currently selected research option.
- Galactic communications now currently reflect the current stage of early access. As more functionality is added the levels will increase. This should help with point allocation decisions.
- BAR - Sitting at the bar table will now increase fun. You no longer need to converse with someone. The amount of fun gained is reduced when alone.
- CREW QUARTERS - Sitting at the game board alone will now increase fun. You no longer need to have additional players however the amount of fun gained is reduced when alone.
- ENGINE ROOM - Shield and Weapon storage units will now only boost the current ship to its maximum available energy. Remaining energy in the storage unit will no longer be reset to 0 but instead maintain whatever is left over.
- Right clicking an object in the engine room with a mechanic will now order the mechanic to work on all of the objects in the room. They will determine what needs to be fixed or stored in the room. Direct control will return at a later time.
- Engine room now only requires the FTL drive. This should open up more decisions when building out your ship's design.
- Ship objects will now be repaired when at Earth.
- Room supply monitors on load should properly display their correct room supplies.
- Additional ships will now load with proper additional weaponry and storage space.
- Additional checks added for saving and loading.
- Repairing an object mid loading a save resulted in crew members unable to perform any actions. This should now be fixed.
- Current targeted crew object should now properly load.
- You can no longer save the game until the initial steps of the tutorial are completed and a sector destination has been chosen.
- An auto save has been added after completed a sector and acquiring your reward or fulfilling the demand.
- Shield and weapon storage units should now properly save and load with their current filled amount.
- Ensured additional ship information is properly tracked and saved.
- Additional save issue fix for larger ships using the hangar bay.
- Fixed a save load issue where crew members would not perform their current tasks without ordering the crew to perform a separate option.
- Fixed several mouse interactions with the load game UI.
- Fixed an issue where loading a save mid travel would result in the inability to continue moving.
- Remove AI orders when attacked setting added to save/load process.
- Increased the minimum distance between nodes by 50%.
- Overall travel times have been cut by 60%. This should greatly reduce the amount of waiting between nodes and help with the overall flow of the game while working to maintain the ship.
- Sector locations should attempt to adhere to a minimum distance.
- Clicking empty locations will now clear the currently selected object.
- The issues that were preventing full screen mode have now been resolved. This option can now be changed via settings in the main menu.
- Added text values to audio sliders.
- Maximum durability should now be properly displayed when a ship object is selected.
- Upgraded ship objects will decay at a slower pace based on current upgrade.
- Wall monitor durability will now longer drop over time.
- Fixed an issue where the food replicator in the cafeteria was not able to feed users after being fixed.
- Additional fixes for stability.
- New scanning monitor has been added to the command deck. When the battleship scanner technology has been unlocked, scanning monitors in the command deck will provide a bonus to find enemy subsystems.
- Fixed an issue where the room resizing prompts and new build locations were not always showing.
- Loading previous ship layouts will now adhere to the current available research. Turrets and rooms that are not unlocked will not be loaded.
STEAM
- Several steam API fixes.
- Added an unstable branch to steam for additional updates.
- Steam overlay should now properly be displayed.
- Completion of Emoticons and Profile Backgrounds. Trading cards will be held off until a later release.
- Fixed an issue when changing turret load outs between ships.
- A new tutorial has been added for storing weapon and shield energy.
- Clicking an opened tutorial button should also hide the window if is the currently selected tutorial.
- Fixed several tooltip locations.
- Added a basic hotkey window for quick references. Will continue to flesh out over updates.
- Updated several UI elements.
- Fixed an issue where UI Text was not being based on random screen size changes. The text should now slightly scale where needed.
- Updated crew recruitment window tooltip to avoid flickering issue when mousing over crew perks and issues.
- Fixed an issue with scrolling in crew management window.
- UI should once again probably block mouse over effects when the user interface is over top of an object and properly reset the cursor to the default setting.
- Escape key should now work to close menus and open the options menu when no other windows are open.
- Updated several UI text alignments.
- Added a disclaimer page to mimic several other early access development pages in order to promote more feedback.
- Added tooltips to Crew selection and Crew management windows.
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