The building UI structure has remained mostly unchanged over the years, getting more complicated over time. Feedback from you and our experience at GamesCom, Dreamhack etc. confirms that it has a steep learning curve. To tackle this problem we went back to the drawing board. Almost every element of the UI has been reviewed with usability, discoverability and meaningful placement in mind. A lot of work has been put into improving the building UI and we hope you like it!

We brought together what belongs together. All the tools are now listed on the left: Blocks, Turrets, Colors and so on. We implemented advanced features and convenience functions, e.g. transforming all selected blocks with one click.

The stats on the right were tidied up as well. By default only the most importat stats are shown. Each category can be shown or hidden. The influence of crew and energy problems and installed Systems can now be configured. This means you can see the final stats of your massive ship before you have its complete crew on board.

Furthermore, the performance of building operations was greatly improved on both server and client.

• Entity: Renamed getPlan() to getFullPlanCopy() to improve understanding of the function's performance impact
  
• Plan: Added getNumBlocks() function

• [UBR] Fixed an issue where players couldn't enter values to negotiate with factions when playing creative
  
• Fixed a crash when a player is inside a craft that's not his nor his alliance's
  
• [UBR] Fixed an issue where "Transform Block" wasn't applied when selecting a block
  
• Fixed a potential crash when selecting crafts in strategy mode
  
• Fixed various issues in tutorial missions

For the a detailed discussion of the new interface and the full list of all changes, check out the patch notes of the beta branch update:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/announcements/detail/1598143152348481191

"The building UI structure has remained mostly unchanged over the years, getting more complicated over time. Feedback from you and our experience at GamesCom, Dreamhack etc. confirms that it has a steep learning curve. To tackle this problem we went back to the drawing board. Almost every element of the UI has been reviewed with usability, discoverability and meaningful placement in mind. A lot of work has been put into improving the building UI and we hope you like it. There might still be some rough edges. Please let us know what you think!"

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

The old Building Inventory has been broken up into separate specialized windows:

"Being able to quickly find and select the desired block and material is extremely important. Also, for new players, discovering the button that opens this window should be easy."

• Added big "Blocks" button that shows the current block to the top left
• The window now always shows all the blocks
• Unavailable blocks in the current material are shaded
• Scrolling changes the material
• All available shape variations for the current block are shown below
• The blocks selection can be filtered
• Transform and Match functions can be toggled in the blocks window
• Implemented new advanced block functions:
• Select all blocks of the current type
• Transform all selected blocks

• Added big "Turrets" button below the "Blocks" button that shows the current turret
• Added "Mark Installed Turrets As Favorite" button to make them easier to find e.g. when they temporarily need to be removed from the ship

• Added big "Colors" button below the "Turrets" button that shows the current color
• Implemented new advanced color functions:
• Select by color
• Apply color to selection. With these functions color schemes can be changed quickly

• Block-by-block repairing can now be enabled by pressing the button in the top left of the repair window

• Templates have now moved to the "Saved Designs" window
• Designs can now be saved and loaded from the clipboard
• Added combobox to change the material of a design
• Added filter bar
• Workshop designs can be filtered by tag
• Designs can now be renamed

"Most of the time, always seeing the FULL stats of your ships was both overwhelming and unnecessary. To improve this we added several options for you to configure. Influence of Crew and Energy problems can be toggled, as well as the influence of System Upgrades. This means you can see the stats of your craft in full glory, even if you don't have the full crew yet."

• Stats are now configurable
• Categories can be shown or hidden
• Only the most important stats are shown by default
• Improved colors to better differentiate between minor changes and potential problems

"This is the thing at the bottom of the screen."

• The Quick Selection supports Blocks, Turrets and Designs
• It can be filled via Drag & Drop or by pressing a number when hovering a Block, Turret or Design
• The most common context-sensitive shortcuts are shown above the quick selection

• Grid Size and Scale Step can now be set via text boxes
• All View options are now combined in a small View Settings window
• Same goes for Mirroring options

"Your prayers have been heard. Building performance has been greatly improved on both server and client."

• Improved performance of the ship editor
• Greatly improved performance of multi-block operations (remove, add, colorize, change block type)
• Greatly improved performance of undo, redo and repair
• Greatly reduced the performance impact of all of those operations on the server
• Decreased network traffic for fighters and general position updates

"Modders rejoice: We finally got around to adding a search function in the Scripting API docs!"

• Added a search function for the scripting docs
• Several building-related callbacks now support batch processing. The functions in question were renamed and now have variable arguments for the affected block indices
• Renamed onBlockAdded to onBlocksAdded
• Renamed onBlockRemove to onBlocksRemove
• Renamed onBlockRemoved to onBlocksRemoved
• onBlocksRemoved now transmits all the removed blocks, including their removed orphaned children, as opposed to onBlocksRemove, which only transmits the blocks chosen to be removed by the player
• invokeFunction can now be called with script path or index
• Fixed an issue where client sector's invokeServerFunction() was directed to the player, not the sector
• Renamed runRemote[Entity,Faction,Sector]Code and invokeRemote[Entity,Faction,Sector]Function to run[...]Code and invoke[...]Function
• Improved documentation of these functions
• invokeEntityFunction now optionally accepts a table instead of two arguments name and factionIndex
• Added search function to documentation

"Bugs marked with [UBR] are user bug reports. Thanks to everyone for reporting and keep it up!"

• [UBR] Fixed an issue where turrets could be selected even if they were obscured
• [UBR] Fixed some events starting even though game is paused
• Fixed an issue with remote sector calls crashing the server
• [UBR] Crew payment timer is only reset to 0 on payment or destruction, no longer on crew leave
• [UBR] Fixed upgrades sometimes being invisible in system upgrade overview
• [UBR] Fixed some issues with ship AI and docking to stations
• Fixed possible server hangs on login
• Fixed player events starting even though game is paused
• Fixed an issue where the ship builder's safe-mode permitted deletions even if they would remove additional blocks
• Fixed potential crash when boarding

Note: We rolled out a hotfix, fixing crashes in combat and, most importantly, a crash when deleting blocks or pressing Ctrl-Z after coloring a block

• [UBR] Fixed some events starting even though game is paused
• Fixed an issue with remote sector calls crashing the server
• [UBR] Crew payment timer is only reset to 0 on payment or destruction, no longer on crew leave
• [UBR] Fixed upgrades sometimes being invisible in system upgrade overview
• [UBR] Fixed some issues with ship AI and docking to stations
• Fixed possible server hangs on login

We always strive to make Avorion more accessible for new and returning players. To achieve this goal we have designed new tutorial missions. These missions will be unlocked during the game and explain more complicated mechanics such as how to use R-Mining Lasers, Torpedoes, Fighters and how to coordinate your fleet.

In addition to the tutorial missions, long-term quests are introduced. They are given to the player by the adventurer after completing the first dialog and guide the player through the galaxy.

As usual this update also contains a bunch of bug fixes. See the full patchnotes here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/partnerevents/view/1566616051169010324

With this update we want to help ease the learning curve of basic game mechanics. With several new tutorial missions the Adventurer helps the player to understand new block types and weapons.
In addition to the tutorial missions, long-term quests are introduced. These are given to the player after first meeting the Adventurer.

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

"The Adventurer is the players' introduction to the story. Additionally the Adventurer now gives the player long-term quests that guide through the game."

• Added new tutorial missions for introductions to
  
  • R-Mining
    
  • Torpedoes
    
  • Commanding Fighters
    
  • Fleet & Map Commands
• The first dialog with the Adventurer is now forced (instead of hail) to reliably introduce players to the story
  
• Added new missions that accompany the player through the game, specifically for
  
  • Crossing the barrier
    
  • Finding Avorion
    
  • Reaching the center of the galaxy

• Particles and effects are now paused in pause mode
  
• Added torpedo space to ship stats overview in ship menu
  
• Added a tooltip line for consumption of energy when upgrades are permanently installed
  
• Removed option for mailing items from alliance inventory since it wasn't possible anyway
  
• Activating items from the alliance inventory is no longer possible
  
• "Mission Updated" etc. texts no longer overwrite each other when multiple missions are started simultaneously
  
• Quick-Switching of control schemes (F2) is now disabled by default (Can be turned back on in settings)
  
• Improved error messages when connection to (local) server doesn't work
  
• Server now waits for Steam network response when initializing networking, not when downloading mods
  
• Downloading mods is skipped entirely (not just download an empty list) when download list is empty

"Since we often ran into performance issues, we had to introduce some changes to the inventory and mail system. A frequent performance issue is the unlimited inventory size. We have limited inventory space to 1000 slots (which we think is a good compromise between performance and comfort) to see how things work out. Keep in mind that these are experimental changes."

• Limited inventory of players and alliances to 1000 slots
  
  • This prevents players and alliances to pick up or get items when the inventory is full
    
  • The limit is introduced to save performance without limiting the player too much
    
  • 1000 Slots means 1000 different items, stackable items can still be stacked to infinity
• Sending mails is no longer possible when inbox is already full
  
• Mails sent to a player with a full mailbox bounce back
  
• Increased fighter dodge recharge time to 120 seconds from 60
  
• AI ships no longer get coaxial guns

• Inventory():hasSlot() now ignores item type
  
• Added a maxSlots property to Inventory
  
• Added Inventory:hasSlot(item) function to check if items can be added
  
• Implemented a "addOrDrop" function for Inventory that drops the item when inventory is full
  
• Adding mails to a player is no longer inhibited by max mails limit
  
• Implemented sendCallback() function for Faction that delegates it to alliance or player
  
• Added callback to refinery for onTakeAllPressed
  
• Added more control for bullet points in mission description
  
• Upgrades of all player ships now accessible from scripts
  
• structuredmission.lua framework: Implemented a "noBossEncountersTargetSector" property for disabling the spawn of the AI and Swoks
  
• Improved docs for new properties for disabling player events
  
• Implemented properties for structuredmission.lua framework to disable player events in target sector
  
• Implemented disabling of certain player-related events in specific sectors
  
• Merged spawnswoks.lua and spawnai.lua into their own script to have random encounters in one place
  
• PlayerID's property "id" is now a string
  
• Fixed several issues when registering new callbacks while callbacks are being executed
  
• Added a setter to Hyperspace Engine for "can pass blocked sectors" property
  
• stringutility's join() now uses tostring() internally to convert values reliably
  
• Added more tags to civil ships to distinguish freighters, miners and traders
  
• Moved script updates of player communicator to update of the sector the player is in for improved performance while multiple players are online
  
  • Players' scripts are now updated in parallel for better performance
    
  • Invoking functions on players from another sector is no longer possible
• Implemented invokeRemoteFactionFunction() and runRemoteFactionCode() to make up for removing invoking function on players in other sectors

"Bugs marked with [UBR] are user bug reports. Thanks to everyone for reporting and keep it up!"

• Fixed a bug in Cover Retreat mission where the two factions didn't attack each other
  
• Fixed a bug in Cover Retreat mission where the enemy fleet didn't attack the player
  
• Fixed an issue where sellable inventory items couldn't be sold
  
• [UBR] Fixed an issue where fighters started from ships with AI Xsotan artifact would never need pilots again
  
• [UBR] Fixed an issue where destroying items in Alliance inventory wasn't working
  
• [UBR] Empty reconstruction tokens that are applied to alliance crafts now put the token into the Alliance's inventory
  
• [UBR] Fixed an issue with Merchant Beacon where Alliances couldn't call in merchants
  
• [UBR] Fixed an issue with Merchant Beacon where any faction would respond (instead of specific faction)
  
• [UBR] Fixed an issue with Reinforcements Transmitter where Alliances couldn't call in reinforcements
  
• [UBR] Fixed an issue with Reinforcements Transmitter where timer would be set wrongly when player is not in a ship
  
• [UBR] Fixed several issues where turrets weren't deleted while modifying crafts
  
• [UBR] Fixed relations of factions improving when killing their own hired head hunter
  
• [UBR] Fighters are now correctly displayed as enemies, even if their mothership is gone
  
• [UBR] Fixed "Pick up stolen Cargo" combo box not having the correct setting selected for the current ship
  
• Fixed an issue where dumping cargo could lead to bad cargo problem not disappearing
  
• AI, Swoks and Guardian can no longer immediately spawn on game start / login

We've reworked the way faction relations work. In addition to the relation points, there are now 4 distinct states, that you can slip in and out of, and that majorly define how AI factions interact with you. For example, AI ships will no longer always start attacking on sight when relations are bad; you need to be at war with a faction for that to happen. We also reworked faction traits and how they impact gameplay.

This is the initial state for all newly met factions on the map. You can interact normally with this faction's stations and ships, except for a few privileges, you must be allied. If your relations with a faction become too bad, that faction may declare war. In order for War to be declared from 'Neutral' you must commit an act of war (destroying, raiding, boarding a ship). War won't be declared for minor issues like smuggling.

No questions asked. Shots are fired. But you can negotiate a Ceasefire.

A Ceasfire is similar to Neutral. Here you can show that you are really serious about improving your relations. But be careful: A single act of war is enough and you're back in a state of war.

You get access to the best equipment of your allies. You suffer only half the reputation loss for aggressive actions, but raiding and boarding an allied ship is considered an intentional act of war and ends the alliance on the spot. But who wants that? After all, you can now call on allies for support in battle.

Faction traits have been reworked and are now more effective. You can also pay tribute to factions to improve your relations. The relation status rating has been reduced from eight to five (Hostile, Bad, Neutral, Good, Excellent).

And of course there are many more improvements and fixes. To get a list of all changes, check out the patch notes of the beta branch updates:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/announcements/detail/1600387340831534750
https://steamcommunity.com/games/445220/announcements/detail/1593633841026632932

"We are back from GamesCom! It was really exhausting but 100% worth it! We had a blast showing our game to new players and meeting existing ones! Now though it is time to put the finishing touches on the Diplomacy Update."

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

• Factions now respond when negotiating via the Diplomacy UI
• Players can now stop being allied and declare war with other players via the Diplomacy UI
• Added button to Diplomacy UI to initiate player-to-player trades/relation negotiations
• Player-to-Player relations and relation status can now be negotiated via the Player Trade Window
• Players must agree on their new relations to conclude a trade
• Player-to-Player relations and status can now be worsened
• Relations no longer worsen when shooting down a civil ship while the witnessing faction is at war with the civil ship faction
• Transfer of crew, goods and fighters is now possible over distance with transporter block + upgrade
• Improved escorting AI to no longer attack allies randomly
• Faction battles are only spawned in sectors close to territory borders
• Added strafing in alternative keyboard flying mode (F2), strafe with Ctrl+WASD

• Civil ships with bad relations can no longer be asked where their home sector is
• More missions now give relation improvements

• Added an icon telling the player about achievements being disabled with mods enabled
• Added highlighting of words in loading screen tips and encyclopedia for better legibility
• Added ship warning when transporting goods without a license
• Implemented sector overview in strategy mode which lists stations, ships and gates

• Alliance callbacks are now available on client and server
• Added documentation for pitfalls of Alliance server callbacks
• Added sendCallback() function to every class that is able to have callbacks registered from scripts
• Added sendCallback() convenience function to Faction that gets automatically delegated to players or alliances
• Extended ListBox/ListBoxEx to support values assigned to rows
• Implemented "onTurretDestroyed" entity callback
• Added "tutorialActive" property to Hud
• Added documentation of properties

"We fixed quite a few bugs again. Thanks for reporting and keep it up, guys! UBR = User Bug Report."

• Fixed players being able to switch sector while being grounded
• [UBR] Fixed issues with mine founding and station duplication
• Fixed an issue where immediate deletion of scripts from entities on server could lead to invokeScript() messages landing on the wrong script
• [UBR] Derelict mines can now be rebuilt after boarding
• [UBR] Backslashes are corrected to forward slashes in script paths for improved consistency
• Script cache is now always cleared when starting a new game to avoid modders having to deal with cached scripts
• Fixed a crash when creating smuggler hideouts in the center because there are no smuggler representatives present
• Fixed non-player controlled AI ships no longer being able to buy/sell goods
• [UBR] Fixed an issue with translation strings
• [UBR] Fixed several script crashes
• Client's Galaxy():getControllingFaction() now correctly returns nil if no faction is found
• Fixed an issue where relations of bottans smugglers could be bad with smuggler outpost factions
• Fixed an issue where missions didn't give reputation for alliances
• Fixed an issue with rectangle selection in strategy mode
• Fixed relations notifications being displayed for 0 relation change
• Replaced old code with new, better code
• Fixed player cargo shuttles not being able to pick up cargo if "sell to others" was off
• Fixed last tooltip line not showing for energy suppressor satellite
• [UBR] For local sessions, force enabling mods works again

"We've reworked the way faction relations work. In addition to the relation points, there are now 4 distinct states, that you can slip in and out of, and that majorly define how AI factions interact with you. For example, AI ships will no longer always start attacking on sight when relations are bad; you need to be at war with a faction for that to happen. We also reworked faction traits and how they impact gameplay."

Beta Branch Note: These changes are currently available on the beta branch. The beta branch is for testing experimental changes and for finding and fixing errors.

This is how you get access to the beta branch (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK):
Right-Click on Avorion in your Steam list, Properties -> Betas -> Select branch 'beta'.

• Initial state for all newly met factions on the map
• Very similar to the previous relations range -40000 to 60000
• Normal interaction with stations and ships of the other faction
• ... except for a few privileges where you must be allied with the faction
• When relations are good enough (~95000, depending on faction traits), you can start negotiating an alliance
• When relations turn too bad, the faction may declare War, but ...
• In order for War to be declared from 'Neutral' you must commit an act of war (destroying, raiding, boarding a ship)
• War won't be declared for minor issues like smuggling

"This is when they just shoot you, no discussion."

• The only state where AI ships always attack on sight
• Normal interaction with ships and stations is not possible
• Can be negotiated to Ceasefire
• No radio chatter

"A ceasefire is a fragile pact where players can show their good intentions, and that they actually want to stop the war and improve relations."

• Similar to Neutral
• Some station and ship interaction is possible
• When relations turn good enough (-30000 or above) 'Ceasefire' automatically changes to 'Neutral'
• Committing an act of war by the player (no matter the relations) will terminate the Ceasefire and War will break out again
• During a Ceasefire, when relations reach -100000 (worst possible), War will break out again

"Gain access to the best equipment of your ally. Players have less reputation loss, there are reputation loss caps and players call in merchants or reinforcements from your ally."

• 50% less reputation loss with allied factions
• "Soft caps" of losing reputation: No dropping below 90000 or 80000 with a single loss
• Example: When at 96k (96000) relation points, and you "accidentally" destroy your allies' ship, you'd lose about 40k reputation. Instead it's halved to 20k and you won't drop to 76k, but to the 90k cap. After that, you can drop lower again.
• Boarding or raiding an allied ship is always considered an intentional act of war and will terminate the alliance immediately
• No smuggling controls by allied AI ships
• Access to 'Exotic' and better equipment of your ally
• Access to 2 new items:
• Item that lets you call in equipment merchants of your ally, who sell equipment and valuable artifacts
• Item that lets you call in combat reinforcements from your ally

"Tons and tons of small changes and adjustments: Reworked traits and their impacts, new targeter shapes and colors depending on War, Ceasefire, or standings, and so on."

• Players can pay tribute to a faction to improve relations
• Reworked traits of factions
• Fewer traits with more impact on gameplay
• Traits now influence the amount of repuation gained or lost, depending on what happened
• Reduced relation point descriptions from 8 to 5 (Hostile, Bad, Neutral, Good, Excellent)
• Reworked color scheme of relation statuses
• Added new target indicators for 'War', 'Ceasefire' and 'Allies'
• Implemented means to negotiate with AI factions
• Players can now make money/resource offers in a specific range
• Counterpart has a patience level that drops the more often a player makes an offer they don't like
• Tribute, Ceasefire or Alliance is accepted when the offer is good enough
• Once patience runs out, the player has to wait for some time until he can negotiate again
• Relations can't be improved/worsended beyond a certain point with some kinds of interaction
• A few examples:
• Equipment trade won't improve relations beyond 75000
• Using services of a faction (refinery, shipyard) won't improve relations beyond 45000
• Smuggling won't worsen relations below -75000
• Doing missions or helping via events (pirate attacks) will always improve relations
• Destroying ships, raiding etc. will always worsen relations
• Once relations drop below -80000, reconstruction sites are terminated
• When a player is set to his home sector and his starting allies are at war with him, relations with them are set to "Ceasefire" and some money is taken from the player
• Added mean radio chatter when in the territory of a faction that doesn't like you

"Adjusted railgun damage, which was a little excessive sometimes, especially considering that railguns aren't projectiles but hitscan. Still does more damage the more blocks you hit, but in a more balanced manner."

• Railgun base damage is now spread evenly over the first 4 hit blocks, then has a falloff of 20% per additionally hit block
• More allies per faction will be spawned for wormhole guardian fight
• Increased spawn region of AI and Swoks

"In order for the diplomacy changes to matter, we reduced the number of different factions. The galaxy map no longer looks like patchwork. This will not break existing saves! No new factions are introduced, and the changes will only affect newly generated sectors."

• Reduced the amount of factions on the map
• Factions now have much bigger territories
• Increased reach of gates to better connect to far away sectors and avoid cut-off "islands" of factions
• A player's relation to newly met AI factions can't be worse than -20k if he's no more than 150 sectors away from his home sector
• Depends on difficulty, -20k for 'Normal' and easier, disabled at 'Difficult' and harder
• Dev Comment: "We saw that, with bigger faction territories, there comes a high probability to start next to a faction that immediately hates the player and that has an extremely large territory they may have to traverse. Since that can prove very frustrating (esp. for new players), we've eliminated this possibility."

"The diplomacy tabs for player and alliance got a complete overhaul! Aside from now being implemented in lua (modders rejoice!), they received a visual rework and will give you a lot more important information about your fellow space-dwelling factions. You can now see details about their traits and what they do, in addition to negotiation possibilities."

• Complete rework of the diplomacy UI
• Added sorting of factions by distance to the player's current location (ie. nearby factions are at the top of the list)
• Added buttons for negotiating Ceasefire or Alliance, or for paying tribute to improve relations
• Added detailed description of a faction's traits and how they affect gameplay

"So this one is both hilarious and embarrassing: Since the Kickstarter Demo there was a bug in the background generation of the game, which, for some reason, was never discovered. We've fixed it and backgrounds finally look the way there were supposed to, with way more tiny stars! Apart from that we added some long-awaited smaller improvements to the building mode."

• Massively improved space background quality
• More background stars
• While at it we also improved the quality for lower-res backgrounds (no more super ugly backgrounds at lower quality)
• Improved tooltips
• Added new radio chatter lines
• Added more obvious radio chatter hints for players on how to meet Swoks and the AI
• Reworked cargo transport license tooltip
• Ship size is now shown in Building Mode
• Block size of current block is now shown in Build Mode
• Main menu: Renamed "Quit" to "Exit Game"

• Improved behavior of ships flying too far away for players to hit them and staying at that distance
• Several performance improvements for calculation of gate connections
• Improved start sector creation, players are now guaranteed to be inside territory of another faction
• Shots & torpedoes fired by player-owned, AI-controlled ships are now marked as such, plus intended target faction
• Those shots now vanish when they hit an AI faction that the shot wasn't meant for, to avoid unwanted relation changes
• In short: In order for your AI-controlled turrets, fighters or ships to damage ships / worsen standings with another faction, they must attack them on purpose, not hit them by accident
• Player notification about gate usage now shows name of ship
• "No money to pay crew" message now contains ship name
• Turrets can now be placed over multiple blocks as long as they touch them

"Most important changes are: You can now add windows to the Hud and Alliance Tab, and you get full access to the player's known galaxy map."

• Added a SectorView class
• Exposed functionality to access known sectors of Player and Alliance on the map
• Added a Relation class
• Added more relations-related functionality to Player, Alliance and Faction
• Relation loss for destroying other ships moved to lua from core engine
• Added a getPresentFactions() function to Sector
• Added AllianceTab as a scriptable UI
• Added Hud as a scriptable UI
• Extended Tooltip class
• Implemented separate tooltip creation for Vanilla- and UsableInventoryItem
• Implemented a replace function for faction names in tooltips
• A construct like ${faction:54} will be replaced by the (localized) name of faction with index 54
• Added a 'homeSectorUnknown' property for factions that don't really have a home sector (Xsotan, pirates, etc)
• Added a SectorChangeType enum, which is passed as a parameter on the server when a player changes sectors
• Mails are now localized
• Added more functionality to various UI elements
• Added a 'alwaysAtWar' property for AI factions
• Renamed "isAI" property of Owner to "isAIFaction" for better consistency with the faction property
• Fixed main.lua scripts not having access to everything they need in their initialize() function
• Moved data/scripts/player/encyclopedia to data/scripts/player/ui/encyclopedia

"What's an update without bugfixes? We've fixed quite a few bugs again. Thanks for reporting and keep it up, guys! UBR = User Bug Report."

• [UBR] Fixed several instances of story-encounters where relations would be permanently worsened even though they shouldn't be
• Fixed an issue where abandoning a mission sometimes didn't really terminate it
• Fixed several issues where interactions could happen with stations even though they shouldn't, relation-wise
• [UBR] Fixed a crash when downgrading torpedo shafts
• Fixed an issue where server time counter didn't work due to floating point inaccuracy
• [UBR] Fixed some broken translations in shop UI
• [UBR] Fixed some factories giving the player money for upgrading
• [UBR] Fixed cloning and academy not working while no players are in the sector
• [UBR] Fixed an issue with ai ships adding jobs at a refinery
• Forgetful AI: Fixed an issue where special friends or enemies of AI ships wouldn't be remembered over game shutdowns
• [UBR] Fixed an issue where the orderchain didn't terminate mining/salvaging correctly and got stuck on that order
• [UBR] Fixed several crashes caused by community translations

Hey guys,

We're doing a quick security patch today that also affects the Scripting API.

"We're adjusting the Server API privileges to the Client API privileges."

• Server Scripting API: Removed os.execute() and similar functionality
• Server Scripting API: Removed all functionality for loading/executing binary files
• Server Scripting API: Removed functionality to write-access any file on the system
• Write access only allowed for %AppData%\Avorion\moddata\ and galaxy folder
• Read access only allowed for %AppData%\Avorion\, installation folder, galaxy folder and folders of enabled mods
• On unix-based systems, replace %AppData% with ~/.avorion

We still want mods to be able to communicate with external tools, of course. In order to make up for the lost functionality, we'll be adding a socket library in the near future.