Hi all! I decided to set this week aside for a major update to the loading code, QoL improvements suggested by the community and a number of urgent fixes. No screenshots this week, just a bunch of things you've asked for that I needed to "get done". Here are the updates and fixes. Hope you all have a great weekend and thanks as always for supporting Stellar Tactics!

UPDATED: Improved loading speed when moving between areas.
UPDATED: Autosaves now take place before transitioning between areas.
UPDATED: Autosaves are now displayed at the top of the load/save menu under the quick-save slot. You can no longer overwrite or delete autosaves.
UPDATED: When saving over an existing save game, that save games current name is displayed by default with a new time stamp in the save confirm dialog.
UPDATED: Increased the animation speed when swapping weapons.
UPDATED: Ship equipment merchants will always carry at least one mining laser.
UPDATED: NPC ships can now be intercepted when micro-warping.

UPDATED: Added new logic for approaching NPC ships so you follow at a distance once in range. This should make intercepting ships in star systems much easier.
--Reduced the speed of NPC ships that are micro-warping to destinations so you can intercept.
--When you are micro-warping and you target a ship and press the "Approach" icon, you will now approach that ship and match that ships speed once you are in attack range.
--If you target another ship or stellar object, you will accelerate back to full micro-warp speed.
--If the targeted ship arrives at it's destination while you are following the ship, you will drop out of micro-warp in range of that ship.

UPDATED: Increased the frequence of drops for several rare mods (Frequency Modulators and Projectile Weapon Barrels).

UPDATED: End turn options now have dedicated key binds:
[1] - Delay Turn - If you have a full bar of AP, this option will let you delay your turn in the turn order.
[2] - Defend - A chance to reduce or completely mitigate the next attack on this character.
[3] - End combat turn

UPDATED - When you are ready to end your turn, you can now press [SPACE] a second time to end your turn so you do not need to manually select a end turn option. This is the same as selecting the new keybind [3].

UPDATED: Another tweak to the number of ships traveling to/from systems.

FIXED: Fixed a rare random lockup when transitioning between areas. This includes a major overhaul of the loading code when transitioning between areas. If you have any issues moving between areas, please post on the bug forums. I've tested this heavily and everything seems to be working as intended. I'll keep an eye on the bug forums over the next few days to make sure the new system is working as expected for everyone.
FIXED: A rare bug related to high faction levels not populating the system object list (upper left menu when in space) correctly.
FIXED: A rare bug related to high faction levels not displaying correct faction information in faction UI on the star map.
FIXED: The names of equipped devices are now correctly displayed when rolling over the icons on the tool bar.
FIXED: Particle systems were not triggered when launching to space when you first recieve your ship.
FIXED: If a rollover tooltip is visible and you leave a menu using the ESC key, that tooltip is hidden correctly.
FIXED: A visual glitch in the new game cinematic when exiting the crio-chambers.
FIXED: When starting a new game, after the intial cinematic, you will not be able to edge scroll until your implants are activated. You can also recenter the camera on your crew with the "Q" key and access the help menu "H".
FIXED: You can no longer select the end turn option "Delay Turn" if you do not have a full bar of AP.

Another patch today. I'm updating 10 more ships and posting a few updates and fixes. Patch notes are fairly short as I spent most of my time getting the updated ship models in the game this week.

Sol EX-2
Starfox EX-4
Pike ATK-2
Mace AK-7
Starhawk EXG-3
Shrike ATK-2
Starnova EXG-2
Hammer ATKG-1
Crate MRCH-2
Crate MRCH-4

I have one more set of 10 ships ready to implement and will get those in for the next patch, likely a week or two before that's ready. The next patch will also include the new planetary resource mining system.

Here are the notes for fixes and updates:

UPDATED: Another 10 ships have had their models replaced with final ship models
UPDATED: A higher chance for rare and legendary items from elite ships
UPDATED: Drops from elite ships are more likely to be items you can use on your current ship
UPDATED - Better handling of AI ship traffic between systems - still working on this
FIXED - Turret mount points are now hidden correctly when a ship explodes
FIXED - Ship engine lights now scale correctly with the power to engines
FIXED - A bug related to ships spawning into star systems

Hope you all have a great weekend and as always, thank you for supporting Stellar Tactics!

Hi all - another patch is ready for release. Today I'm adding a few things - specifically a first pass at improving the pace of combat, new elite ship crews, the ability to sell all the scan data you've been accumulating and a new search feature for the star map. Here are the notes and I hope you enjoy the changes!

ADDED: You will now find elite crews flying around the universe. They are marked with a skull icon. These ships are a bit more difficult than regular ships, however, they are not so overpowered as to be impossible. I recommend that your ship have balanced energy levels as displayed in the ship ship screen so your turrets and shields are charging at the highest possible levels.
--These ships have a much higher chance of dropping legendary and rare gear - double the normal drop rate for these items.
--They never drop basic gear - exceptional is the lowest quality tier.
--Loot from these ships is usually usable on the ship you are flying.
--Check the ships faction before attacking non-hostile elite ships. You will take a faction hit for destroying them.

ADDED: The starmap search feature is in the game now. When you open the search menu in the log->starmap UI, you can enter the name of any system and press search to center the map on that star system and set it as your target in the upper left target HUD (if you are in FTL space). You will also get a list of any systems that have stored ships, cargo storage and beacons. Selecting a system from that list and pressing search will center the star map on that system. I'll be doing more work on the log->starmap and on the star map itself so you can better identify systems that have active missions, stored ships cargo, and active beacons.
--IMPORTANT - The search database is populated once you leave Achmedius and start traveling across the map. Search data when first entering Achmedius at the start of the game is limited.



ADDED: You can now sell all that scan data you have been collecting. All faction agents now have an additional option available when you speak with them - "Sell scan data". Faction agents are only interested in scan data in a 6x6 sector grid around them. If any scan data is available they will pay you a one time fee for that information. The price paid for scan data is based on the quality of the scan. When you scan planets, the quality of the scan is based on the level of your electronics skill. That quality value has been recorded since the launch of the game in Early Access, so, if you have scanned hundreds of planets you should see a nice reward. As your electronics skill improves, planetary scan quality is increased. You also gain a small faction bonus with the agents faction when you sell scan data based on the amount of data sold.

SPACE:
UPDATED: Balanced ship shield regeneration and charge levels so they are a bit more in line with what I would expect. Still working on this especially with some of the larger cargo ships.

UPDATED: Increased afterburner speed while in combat. As always, this is a tradeoff. Capacitors are depleted at an accelerated rate if you are flying a ship that is not an interceptor or light fighter.

UPDATED: When you loot cargo from destroyed enemy ships, you now get a small power boost to your shields in addition to any loot you tractor to your cargo hold.

UPDATED: If you are mining, you have a decreased chance of being detected in all systems by scavvers and raiders. Eventually this will be moved to a device you can purchase and equip on your ship (Signature Suppressor). These devices will be of varying qualities and suppress your electronics signature. Your turrets must be actively mining for the effect to be active. For now, the effect is set at a moderate level. There is always some degree of risk when mining. I'm still working on this system and will make changes over time based on player feedback.
--HOSTILE SYSTEM WITH STATION - Moderate chance of attack if turrets engaged. Ships mining in these systems will likely attack you after a period of time.
--HOSTILE SYSTEM NO STATIONS - Low chance of attack if turrets engaged
--WARY, NEUTRAL OR FRIENDLY SYSTEM WITH OR WITHOUT STATIONS - Low chance of attack if turrets engaged

UPDATED: The universe should feel a bit more alive. Adjustments made to AI ship destination and task processing. Still more work to do on this and I'll be adding a few interesting things over time.

GROUND:
UPDATED: Movement and combat animation speed. These are not the new animations - just a quick first pass at improving the pace of combat before the new animations go in the game.
--General movement speed increased while out of combat.
--Movement speed significantly increased while in combat
--Combat animation speed increased
--Weapon reload speed increased
--NOTE: A few attack types are still a bit slow - this is related to the SFX assigned to that weapon. I'll be cleaning this up with the new animations. There are also a few SFX like full auto and burst on some weapons that have a small sound bug that needs to be fixed

FIXED: Changing weapon fire modes while using the combat queue works again.
FIXED: Improved performance when scrolling star map
FIXED: When the fine aiming key is pressed ( [E] by default ) you will no longer move when clicking an enemy.
FIXED: Heavy weapon mercs will now be assigned the correct weapon type when spawning in the game environment and when initially assigned to your crew.
FIXED: A rare combat lockup related to opening inventory at the exact moment a team members turn was being switched.
FIXED: A combat lockup related to movement while items are in your combat queue. Movement is no longer allowed if you have queued combat attacks. You will need to clear your queue [BACKSPACE] before moving. A message is sent to the log if you are trying to move when a queue is active. I'll be adding a queue indicator to the screen in a future patch.
FIXED: Display of navigation path information is now disabled if you have attacks in your combat queue.
FIXED: Status effects in top rollover info bar while in ground combat are now updated immediately.

Whats coming next?
Passive ground based mining - You will be able to purchase and launch drones to resource nodes on planets where they will mine until full and then notify you so you can retrieve them and sell the ore.


10 more of the ship replacement models will be going in the game:
Pharris Sol EX-2
Pharris Starfox EX-4
Pharris Pike ATK-2
Pharris Mace AK-7
Pharris Starhawk EXG-3
Pharris Shrike ATK-2
Pharris Starnova EXG-2
Pharris Hammer ATKG-1
Pharris Crate MRCH-2
Pharris Crate MRCH-4

And one last screenshot of more ships being worked on.

Hi all - hope you enjoy the patch. New ship models, cargo storage and a number of bug fixes.

UPDATED SHIPS: 10 of the 40 ships have been updated with final ship models. I'll continue adding the final models as they are completed. If you have any of the following ships, the next time you enter space you will be flying the new-shiny-updated version of the ship. There have been no changes to your equipment - just load and go. Hope you like them...
Victory FT-2 - Light Fighter
Arrow FT-1 - Light Fighter
Triumph ITC-4 - Interceptor
Rovah MK-1 - Explorer
Talon ATKR-2 - Medium Fighter
Khaal ATKR-4 - Heavy Fighter
Tarsus MRCH-2 - Light Merchant
Severin MRCH-2 - Light Merchant
Heron MRCH-3 - Light Merchant
Exetor ATKR-7 - Heavy Fighter

CARGO STORAGE: The cargo storage system is included in this patch. It is a pre-requisite for some of the work I need to do next and had to go in now. On most stations in the universe and at the Achmedius trade station, you can now purchase cargo storage space. Once you purchase storage space, it is yours forever - there are no upkeep costs and you will have 200 "slots" to store cargo items on that station.

Cargo storage is accessed via a "terminal" near the entrance of any non-hostile station that offers trade services, merchants and faction agents. You can press "TAB" to highlight the new terminals. Selecting the terminal will give you an option to purchase storage on that station. Once purchased, you can move cargo from your cargo hold to storage and back.



You can place ore, ship equipment (turrets, shields etc.) and in the future commodities and refined ore. You cannot store regular gear in cargo storage (ground weapons, armor etc.). You have a stash for all of that.

Cargo storage differs from ship cargo space. That is, a "slot" can hold unlimited stacked items. For example, lets say you have 200,000 units of raw iron ore. Placing that ore in your cargo storage will only take one of the 200 slots - a slot is just that, an item of any single type takes up a single slot. Every ship component you place in storage takes a slot because each ship component is unique. On a ship, storage is calculated in cubic meters. So, if your ship has 1000 cargo, you will only be able to move 1000 units of iron ore from your stations cargo storage container to your ship assuming your cargo hold on your ship is empty. Cargo storage is only available on any station where you purchase it.

I'll be adding a way for you to track where your storage (and ships) are located in the universe in a future patch. For now, just make a note of where you purchased storage or set it up in Achmedius. You can always jump there from other systems.

So, why cargo storage?
--You may want to store ore or commodities until you can find the best sell price in the Universe.
--You may find a shiny Legendary warp drive for a ship you don't have yet and do not want to clutter up your cargo hold.
--Refining storage (a future feature) - You will be able to refine raw ore and store it in station storage until you can bring your massive cargo ship and haul it to your favorite sell point.

And a few bug fixes:
FIXED: Tab targeting when in space combat would occasionally cause a crash to desktop.
FIXED: A very rare bug that could leave characters in a state where they could not move.
FIXED: Mercs with heavy weapons now apply the correct default heavy weapon settings when recruited so their default weapons function correctly. Any default merc heavy weapons can be removed and then equipped again to reset the weapon so it functions.
FIXED: A bug that could occasionally initiate a combat attack when using the rotate key.
FIXED: When in combat and moving, you can no longer select the rotate function which could have locked up the game in rare cases.
FIXED: You can no longer switch fire modes on your weapon once a combat attack has been started.
FIXED: It was possible after initially hacking a chest or locker to click that chest or locker after a successful hack, displaying the hacking interface. This is no longer possible. There is a now a small delay before you can attempt to hack a chest or locker gain (2 seconds).
FIXED: After hacking a locker, there was a delay before loot was displayed. Loot is now displayed immediately.
FIXED: When the entire stack of items was sold to a vendor (ore), a "phantom" cargo item could be left in the inventory. This could happen multiple times resulting in an incorrect display of the number of cargo items in your cargo hold.

And a glimpse of several of the second set of ship model replacements that will come in a future patch. Next up, some enhancements to the star map in the log to allow for system searches, display of cargo storage locations and ships stored on stations. I'll also be working on the passive drone mining system, a pass at space combat balance and more. I'll keep you all posted as I make progress. Hope you all have a great weekend and thanks for supporting Stellar Tactics!

Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday! I thought I would share a quick progress update. The last few weeks I've spent most of my time getting the first set of 10 new ship models in the game. I'll release these with the next patch.

https://youtu.be/jyjRrjWqXuI

Meanwhile, the second set of ships model replacements are in development and I'll get those in the game when they are ready. A few screenshots below - work in progress.


And finally, I've been working on the cargo transfer feature. When this is finished, you will be able to purchase cargo storage space on trade stations. Once you own cargo storage, you will be able to move items from your ship cargo hold to storage, swap ships and move those items to your currently equipped starship from storage. I know a lot of you have wanted a way to store all that shiny legendary gear and move it to another ship. This is also a requirement for future work on trading and crafting so needs to be done now. As you can see, you will be able to sort both your current ships cargo and the contents of the station cargo storage.

Cargo storage is only for ship equipment, ore and commodities.

When buying new ships, the current cargo transfer feature will still work - so, you will need to make sure the contents of your current ship cargo bay will fit in the new ship you are purchasing.


That's all I have for now. I'll keep you all posted as I make progress. I'm hoping to get the updated ships, cargo transfer and a number of bug fixes out in a patch next Friday. As always, thank you for supporting Stellar Tactics!

First, I'd like to wish all of you a very Happy Holiday Season and thank you for a great year! This is the second patch as promised that provides additional bonuses to end mission loot, a new device that lets you scan for lifeforms in mission areas, a cleanup pass on the movement/interaction system and more. This is the last patch this year, and it has been a very busy year indeed. I have big plans for 2019 and I hope you enjoy the content and updates to come.

Here are the patch notes:

UPDATED: At the end of missions and when you clear hostile facilities and explore locations, you are now awarded better bonus equipment. Originally this was going to be a crate. I'm going to reserve that for major bosses that will reward epic items, and now grant these reward items as described below.
All granted items are now useful - no more health kits or junk items.
All granted items are of exceptional quality or higher.
You now get three guaranteed items at the end of missions.
Other rewards remain the same - Faction, cash rewards, and ammo are still granted depending on whether the location is a faction mission or a explore location.
--Short missions and explore locations - A chance for a legendary - a total of three granted equipment items (weapon, armor, shield or mod)
--Medium missions and explore locations - A high chance for a legendary - a total of three granted equipment items (weapon, armor, shield or mod)
--Long missions and explore locations - A guaranteed legendary - a total of three granted equipment items (weapon, armor, shield or mod)

UPDATED: A cleanup pass to the movement and interaction system. Overall this brings a few things in line with where they should be as far as object interaction and movement is concerned. Still more work to do on this.
--When moving to a location, if you click a chest, object or NPC, the closest team member will branch off and interact with that item instead of ignoring the object and continuing to move to the destination.
--If a PC is moving towards an object to interact, other team members will stop and wait.
--If a PC is moving towards an object to interact, another click to move will interrupt the interaction and clear the interaction queue.

UPDATED: The help screen while in space has been updated.
UPDATED: When rolling over grenades and health kits popups, descriptions are now displayed on the screen so you can see what kind of grenade or health kit you are selecting.
UPDATED: The high-resolution space option now also displays higher resolution materials for planets.
UPDATED: In higher level encounters, enemy groups are less likely to be generated with multiple missile launchers. Sure, that was fun, but it can also be overwhelming.
UPDATED: New color coding icons for equipment tiers in all menus.
UPDATED: You can now translocate directly to your ship from anywhere on a trade station if you have the Halamis Translocator equipped.

ADDED: A new device exclusive to the Shikaru faction. Shikaru faction vendors now sell the Lifesign Tracker. This device exposes all lifeforms in the current mission area on the radar for 10 seconds. Enemies out of range of the scanner are displayed at the edge of the radar display. You can use this in any mission area to help you track down those elusive enemies hiding in small rooms or in the larger mission areas like caverns and stations. The device has a 2-minute cooldown. The device cannot be used to reveal ethereal creatures. The device uses a global cooldown so other team members that also have the device equipped will need to wait until the cooldown expires. The cooldown persists between saves. There will be many more useful devices coming to the game - cloaking devices, resource node scanners for salvaging, drones for scouting areas and destroying upcoming turret placements in missions etc.

ADDED: Bloom filter setting in the video options screen.

FIXED: A bug that would display the wrong number of available faction tokens when purchasing an item from a faction vendor.
FIXED: When purchasing an item from a faction vendor, the text sent to the log now correctly indicates that you used tokens to purchase the item.
FIXED: The beacon icon now disappears if active when you FTL out of a star system.
FIXED: Blending issues with nebula effects. Overall, nebula effects now better match the star system sky and are more subtle.
FIXED: Removed duplicate log entry when turning in faction missions.
FIXED: A floating container in one of the mission areas and a number of other visual glitches in various mission areas.
FIXED: A mission enemy that was linked to a group on the other side of the mission map in one of the mission areas.


A little of what you can expect for the NEXT content patch:



The first set of final models for some of the ships (10 total)
Victory FT-2 - Light Fighter
Arrow FT-1 - Light Fighter
Triumph ITC-4 - Interceptor
Rovah MK-1 - Explorer
Talon ATKR-2 - Medium Fighter
Khaal ATKR-4 - Heavy Fighter
Tarsus MRCH-2 - Light Merchant
Severin MRCH-2 - Light Merchant
Heron MRCH-3 - Light Merchant
Exetor ATKR-7 - Heavy Fighter

Cargo transfer on stations
Ground mining drone system
Commodities and trading tied to the beacon system currently in the game
Updated animations
Improvements to the pace of combat (tied to the new animations)
Faction Agents will buy scan data

That's not all of course and I'll be working my way through the "What's Next" and "Roadmap" posts on the forums as I move towards Alpha.

As promised, here are a few of the items I mentioned I would get in before X-Mas. This patch adds new options for sorting and marking inventory items. Stellar Tactics has tons of loot and inventory management was a hassle. You can now mark items for sale, sort items in the vendor UI's and bulk sell marked items and vendor trash. You should also see a large increase in the cash rewards from incursions and a large increase in the credits earned from selling loot to friendly factions. Hope you enjoy the update:

UPDATED: You can now mark items for sale in your shared inventory, stash and cargo hold. Just Alt-Click items to mark them for sale.
--A check mark will appear over the item in your shared inventory.
--A check mark will appear next to the item in the cargo and stash lists.
--Alt-Click again to remove the marked state.
--You cannot mark stacked items for sale (health packs, grenades etc.)
--You can also mark ore - however, see below - I've added a special "SELL ALL ORE" button to the vendor inventory.


UPDATED: Vendors now have new options that let you sell all marked items from your inventories and all junk items in your inventories. Make sure you really want all of these items sold before you select these options. Of course, you can always buy them back if you made a mistake.
--When selling to a vendor, you can sell all marked items from your shared inventory, stash and cargo bay with one click. Each item sold will be displayed in the game log and a total for the transaction will be displayed in your log.
--When selling to a vendor, you can sell all junk items with one click. Each item sold will be displayed in the game log and a total for the transaction will be displayed in your log. Selling all junk sells all vendor trash items in both your shared inventory and stash.
--If you have your cargo bay selected, a special option to sell all ore with one click replaces the "SELL ALL JUNK" option. Again, items sold and total credits earned will be displayed in the log.

UPDATED: You can now easily see the quality of items in your shared inventory, stash and cargo hold:
--In your shared inventory, items now have a color-coded border that displays if the items are exceptional, rare, legendary or epic.
--In your stash and cargo hold, there are new icons in the lists that are displayed if the items are exceptional, rare, legendary or epic.

UPDATED: The vendor UI now displays the quality of items with new color-coded icons in both the player's list area on the right of the screen and the vendor's area on the left. This should help you quickly identify items that are of value when trading. This also applies to ship equipment vendors. Marked items are also displayed when trading with vendors. You cannot mark items for sale in the vendor UI.



UPDATED: You now have sorting options in the vendor menu for all item types on both the vendor and the player sides of the vendor UI.
--Ground-based sorting options are white icons.
--Ship equipment and ore sorting options are blue icons.
--One icon is for consumables - the white health kit icon displays both health kits and ammo. This also applies to ammo and data beacons in the ship equipment vendor UI.

UPDATED: Other than ore, all prices at vendors are now modified by your faction. Ore prices will be worked on when I get the trading system in the game. These bonuses and penalties also apply to the price of ships and ship equipment and the trade in value of your current ship. These bonuses and penalties are applied after your CHA bonus is applied to the cost of items.
--FRIENDLY: +15% bonus to the value of all items sold/ -15% to the price of items purchased
--NEUTRAL: Prices for items bought and sold are the same as they have always been
--WARY: -15% applied to the value of all items sold / +15% to the price of items purchased
--HOSTILE: You are KOS and cannot buy and sell to hostile merchants

UPDATED - Mods equipped on weapons now display mod adjustment values instead of the mod name in the rollover info.

UPDATED - The number of beacons you have in inventory is now displayed in the ammunition area of the ship UI.

UPDATED - Cash rewards for space combat incursions increased significantly.

FIXED: Ore is now listed in alphabetical order on ore traders
FIXED: Removed duplicate ore vendor entry for "Silica"

Patch day! - All perks for combat skills are now in the game to level 100. FIRST AID and HACKING perks have also been added to level 100. Space-specific skill perk lines for PILOTING, WEAPONRY, ELECTRONICS and TARGETING perks are all in the game for an additional 60 perks. I'll be adjusting all perks over time as other game systems are implemented.

The middle perk line in ELECTRONICS is related to security and will be used at a later time. For now, selecting perks in this line will have no effect.

Mining perks can be selected, however, they are not fully implemented for now. I'll be adding these when I get the ground mining drone system in the game. You do get bonuses from the WEAPONRY skill perks from reload speed and energy efficiency when mining so you should see a boost from those perks.

Perks are useful in a number of ways. For ground combat, they can give you bonuses towards applying various status effects and mitigating different damages types. They are most useful for customizing your team for offensive, balanced or defensive roles. They apply secondary bonuses for applying additional damage, bleeding, hobbled, stunned, crippled, poison and shield strike-through effects. The defensive line provides additional AC and bonus mitigation against status effects.

Healing perks provide additional healing effects and the ability to remove status effects when applying med-kits. At higher levels they can remove stun, poison, bleeding, hobbled and crippled states.

Hacking perks provide bonuses to the length of time you have to select a key when hacking a chest or locker, bonus loot quality, and even auto-completing hacking.

Space perks affect all crew station bonuses displayed on the ship screen [K] - Ship speed, turn rate and evasion - Damage bonuses, reload speed and energy efficiency - scan range, security (not active yet) and shield bonuses - turret lock speed, chance to hit and shield bypass.

Perks can be changed at any time - an unusual design decision. I did not want to lock players into any specific perk decisions. In Stellar Tactics perks are situational and as development continues that will be much more important at higher levels.

As I roll out crafting, repair, salvaging and adjustments to mining, I'll also add perks for those skills. They are all interrelated and each of those skills will need to be worked on at the same time.

The total number of perks currently in the game:
Combat - 135
General - 30
Space - 60
Total - 225 perks

A few additional fixes and updates for this patch:

ADDED - Combat, first aid and hacking perks to level 100.
ADDED - Space combat perks for all space skills to level 100.
UPDATED - You can now rotate the camera with the mouse (right mouse button) while panning with the keyboard (WASD) during ground exploration.
FIXED - If an incursion spawned at your exact location, some ships would enter combat but not fire at you.
FIXED - If an incursion spawned at your exact location, tab targeting could crash the game in some cases.
FIXED - A message - "Press

to pause space combat at any time!" would continuously display even after docking or landing at a ground location.
FIXED - Ship shield strike through bonuses are now working correctly.
FIXED - A damage display error in the character info screen.
FIXED - A rare lockup when accepting missions from faction agents.
FIXED - Missile launchers now respect the friendly fire player settings.
FIXED - A bug that caused the action bar background to disappear when characters died, were KO'd or when the last enemy died of bleeding or poison damage.
FIXED: A bug that could place you at an incorrect initial entry point for missions.

Hi all - new patch today that fixes a number of issues.

I'm nearly finished with the perks for ground combat, space and several of the general skills. There will be an additional 66 perks to complete the combat, first-aid and hacking perk lines. I'm also adding all the space combat perks for an additional 60. That's a total of 126 new perks added to the game and a grand total of 225 perks! I hope to have these tested and ready to release soon. I'll be adding the additional perks for salvaging, repair and crafting as those systems get released. Mining perks are dependent on the drone mining system, so those will go in when I release that feature.

There is quite a bit of other work going on. This includes the drone mining system, updated animations including the new special weapon attacks, and more. Here are the notes:

FIXED: Duplicate display of team position in some missions. There was a display error in the mission completion map next to the radar that would display your location in mission areas more than once in some cases.
FIXED - Removed duplicate eliminate mission targets from mission areas.
FIXED - A bug related to applying armor strike through at high levels of melee skill. This changes things for melee at higher levels both for enemies and team members. Overall higher damage output from melee.
FIXED - Delayed damage and visual effects when using flamethrowers.
FIXED - A display error related to mods applied to weapons with critical chance modifiers.
FIXED - A game lockup when using the toggle combat toolbar icon or other toolbar icons while transitioning in and out of combat.
FIXED - Enemies and the player no longer scan the environment for each other while transitioning in and out of combat. In some cases, this could result in a game lockup.
FIXED - A number of data issues with some of the mission sets.
FIXED - Line of sight lines now disappear immediately when an enemy dies. Previously, the could remain visible until the enemy disappeared.
FIXED - When completing a mission, the entire message is now displayed on the screen. Previously, the text was being cut off.
FIXED - A number of general stability fixes.
UPDATED - If you have a healthkit enabled, you can now click character portraits to heal in and out of combat.
UPDATED - All ships drop at least one loot crate, even in systems that are -10 levels of your average space combat skills.
UPDATED - Your ship will tractor dropped enemy ship crates from a much larger distance now. Should help in cases where an enemy ship is too close to a planet when destroyed.
UPDATED - Improved load speeds by a few seconds
UPDATED - Reduced the amount of information sent to the log. In some cases, when playing very long sessions, this may lead to problems.
UPDATED - Voice comments adjusted:
--Team members now comment on critical hits less often.
--Team members will only comment on loot if the item looted is armor or a weapon and of rare quality and above.

Hi everyone. First, I'd like to thank all of you who reported bugs big and small over the last few weeks. I'm posting a new build and cumulative patch notes since the release of the last major content update September 21st when I opened the universe.

It's been a very busy time since the release of the patch and we've had a lot of new additions to the Stellar Tactics community providing a ship load of great feedback and suggestions. I read everything I can posted on the forums and many of you know that I'm actively engaged in the conversations there. Please do continue to post and comment. Your feedback is much appreciated!

Here is what I'll be working on next, in no particular order. I'll start rolling out these features one at a time for the most part.

In no particular order:

• Perks to level 100
  
• A few additional devices that can be used in combat.
  
• Repair system for both space and ground. The space repair system will allow you to assign crew members to ship repairs. You will of course still be able to pay for repairs on stations.
  
• Addition of weapons for pugilism along with some adjustments. Currently there are no weapon types for this combat skill. I've compensated by making this skill more powerful, however, it's time to get these weapons in with mod slots etc.
  
• Implement new animations - these are done and have been waiting until I had time to get them in the game
  
• Space trading and the Trade-Net
  
• Cargo transfer on stations
  
• Special weapon attacks
  
• Ground mining drone system
  
• Sneaking, traps and environment security systems (including turrets)
  
• Sorting for vendors, inventory, stash and cargo
  
• Space station turret defense systems
  
• Crafting
  
• Patrolling enemies and NPC's
  
• Faction Agents will buy scan data
  
• Implement the updated ship models you saw in the last announcement

FIXED: Rollover compare info when using F1-F4 keys was not displaying the correct team member when reviewing inventory in space.
FIXED: Mining skill was capped at level 60. You can now level this skill to level 100.
FIXED: You can no longer move team members while translocating out of a mission area.
FIXED: Stacked items like grenades and med-kits placed in your stash now stack. If you have unstacked items, drag them to your backpack and then back to the stash to free up slots.
FIXED: Mining ships and other ships launched from hostile systems are now hostile. You will still see other factions that may be friendly, neutral or wary entering these systems. That is intended.
FIXED: At times the docking icon was displayed and would not work until you were closer to the trade station. If docking icon is displayed, you will always dock.
FIXED: A rare crash when tab-targeting in space combat when in combat. Please let me know if you see this by posting on the bug forums. I've added additional debug info to help me locate the issue if it turns up again.
FIXED: Explore planetary locations now correctly display the "CLEARED" flag when selected if that location was actually completed. I'll be adding this to cleared hostile sector stations soon.
FIXED: Fixed a bug that would leave sold item icons (healthkits etc.) in the inventory even though they were not valid.
FIXED: A few typos
UPDATED: You can now shift-click to move items from your stash to your inventory.
UPDATED: Increased the amount of experience received at lower levels when mining. There is a leveling curve applied to EXP gain that more closely follows skill and equipment progression.
UPDATED: Reduced EXP required to gain skill in hacking by 20%. This will change when more hacking devices of various quality go in the game.
UPDATED: Increased the value of all dropped items found in ground combat including vendor junk items, armor, weapons and mods. Ground missions now generate more income overall from loot.
UPDATED: Added debuff timers to the rollover status icons for bleeding, hobbled, crippled, poisoned, stunned and EMP status effects. These show the duration in turns of any active status effect that is on a timer.
ADDED: In addition to the LOS line indicators, I've added a cover icon to the movement destination cursor. It should help you identify areas where cover is available.
ADDED: Added a beacon guide entry to the in-game guide.


FIXED: Station names in loading screen were incorrect.
FIXED: An exploit related to equipped armor. Thanks for pointing this out.
FIXED: Selecting a planet with a mission location and then selecting a planet with no data will clear the mission data information from the planet UI.
UPDATED: Crouch/Stand animations are more responsive.
UPDATED: Crouched swap weapon and leave combat animations more responsive.
UPDATED: Help menu can only be opened if other UI's are closed like inventory, crew manager etc. The help menu cannot be opened over the main menu.
UPDATED: Hacking success or failure is displayed on the screen when a hacking attempt is completed.
UPDATED: Enemy loot packs now have a larger hit box. Should help on stairs and near doorways.
UPDATED: Better handling of tooltip info so it doesn't refresh with minor mouse moves in stash, vendor lists and inventory.
UPDATED: When in vendor UI, you can now press F1-F4 to compare the rolled over item to any active team member.
UPDATED: When in your inventory and stash, pressing F1-F4 updates the compared item in the tool-tip to the active team member.

FIXED: When selecting stellar objects in the upper left space hud, you can no longer click though that UI and accidentally select planets and other objects.
FIXED: When on surface after leaving ruins, clicking an enemy target could move the character instead of firing a weapon or walk-to and melee.
FIXED: One of the cave systems had a number of linked enemies - added LOS blocking
FIXED: A few floating enemies in one of the cave scenario sets.
FIXED: Healthkit and grenade bars are hidden when transitioning between areas
FIXED: When looting ammo the weapon display ammo count is updated immediately
FIXED: A display error in the inventory ammo area that could concatenate the number of ammo you actually had in some cases.
FIXED: Pharris Mace AK-7 number of turrets corrected in merchant and ship displays.
FIXED: The approach button on the selected ship popup UI now works as intended.
FIXED: A bug with the planet scanner that could add incorrect nodes to planets that were already scanned.
FIXED: A bug with the planet scanner that was resetting the new "SCANNED: NO SURFACE LOCATIONS FOUND" message.
FIXED: Lockup if you opened the crew manager during combat. Crew manager is now disabled when in combat.
FIXED: A rare lockup when boarding stations.

UPDATED: Adjusted the information displayed for the return location when a mission is completed. It now gives you the system name, the planet (e.g. Angos IV) and whether the return location is an orbiting station around that planet or a planet based station. You can always select a finished (not yet turned in) mission to center the star map on that system and select that star system in the upper left system UI panel. From there, you can approach that system while in FTL space. I'll be adding better information handling for missions in the future.

UPDATED: Expanded the range for station docking. Some stations are large and in some cases you had to fly above or below the station to get the docking icon.

UPDATED: Better targeting handling in combat. If your cursor is over an enemy, and the cursor is a targeting reticle and you click, you will not move. Should resolve unintended movement. You can also always use the combat queue or hold down the TAB key to avoid unwanted movement when targeting enemies.

UPDATED: Increased the maximum number of loot drop crates from ships from two to three per ship.
--Maximum drops from ships will only take place in systems that are 9 levels below your current average ship crew level. Fighting ships in lower level systems results in less loot dropped.
NOTE: Rare and Legendary loot will only show up as loot from destroyed ships and on vendors if you are over a certain average level (average ship skills - piloting, weaponry, targeting and electronics) - likely the reason some of you aren't seeing these items drop from ships and on vendors. This is not a change, it's been this way for a long time.
Legendary - average level 15+
Rare and exceptional - average level 5+
UPDATED: Updated the faction agent guide entry to add information about the Halamis Translocator (for teleporting out of mission locations) and a description of how to return to the mission faction agent when missions are completed.

FIXED: In some cases when recruiting a mercenary, the game could lock up.

FIXED: A error where if you removed a crew member using the crew manager leaving an empty slot between other crew members, movement would break and a team member or team members would not move correctly.
FIXED: Selecting an object in the system object list in the upper left of the screen, then selecting a ship and then again selecting the selected object in the list would not display the targeted list item.
FIXED: If mining with a full cargo hold, mining ore containers will time out after 60 seconds and despawn. If you were mining for a long time and not scooping ore, you could end up with thousands of them which over time could crash the game.

I've adjusted EXP a little for ground combat. Not really a tuning pass just a mild tweak.
--Increased melee damage EXP a little.
--Decreased ranged weapon EXP a little.

Adjusted the drop rates for rare and exceptional items. Vendors are also affected. It's still way better than it was before, but that last patch was over the top. I'll be doing more work on this over time.

UPDATED: Updated messages for powering up turrets and a warning if you are trying to mine asteroids without a mining turret.
UPDATED: When in Achmedius in your starter ship (only the starter ship), only one enemy ship will be launched during incursions. If you leave Achmedius, the incursion system works as it always has - launching a random number of enemy ships. The enemy ships spawned in this case are always weaker than the starter ship. This is to give new players a chance to learn space combat without getting fragged - that is as long as their ship shields are up.
UPDATED: Wherever you are in the universe, if you do not have a beacon placed in the Achmedius system, I've placed one there for you automatcially. Should help those of you who may get lost in space. Just approach any FTL point (jump point in the upper left object list while in space) in any system and as long as you have 5 fusion cells in your inventory, you can translocate back to Achmedius instantly.
UPDATED: Added additional information that tracks tasks during character creation and displays remaining tasks to complete before starting the game.
UPDATED: Ship equipment vendors now have a better assortment of rare and exceptional equipment. Legendary equipment should be more common on vendors.
UPDATED: If you select single movement mode (SPACE when not in combat), that team member will walk to and interact with objects and NPC's in the environment. In group movement mode, the closest teammember will interact with the object.
UPDATED: Selected team member portrait is now highlighted in and out of combat.
UPDATED: Camera FOV indicator on radar is brighter now. You can use this indicator to set a frame of reference in the location you are exploring. For example, rotating the camera FOV so it points north will help give you an idea of where you are and where you have been.
UPDATED: When scanning a planet, the NO DATA message has been replaced with a new message letting you know that you scanned the planet. The NO DATA message appears if you have never scanned a planet. There are a few remaining bugs with scanning that I'm looking into - nothing game breaking.
FIXED: Ship warp engines on merchants now provide correct power values for various quality tiers. Ship engines for some ships, especially some of the trading vessels like the Talon, were being generated with very low power output. Warp drives for fighters and interceptors were generating too much power.
FIXED: An edge case with key input for camera panning that could cause camera movement to stick when edge scrolling.
FIXED: When exiting the Abandoned Research Facility via the exit door, you will transition to the staging area of the facility instead of space.
FIXED: You can no longer quicksave the game before speaking with Dr. Rhamus on the Dauntless the first time.
FIXED: You can no longer quicksave the second you enter combat.
FIXED: Visible line of sight indicators are now hidden when selecting end turn options.
FIXED: An edge case that reset the currently selected team members voice when editing team members by clicking their portraits in the character information and equipment screens.
FIXED: Rolling over portrait icons in the left combat order queue UI now displays the correct rollover information at the top center of the screen. When rolling over the icons, enemies are highlighted so you can distinguish their position against the order in the queue.

FIXED - An edge case where when taking missions from Zabin Morbain, garbage text was displayed in the mission window.
FIXED: An edge case that was keeping ore from spawning when mining asteroids.

IMPORTANT:
Left click on enemies can occasionally be finicky. I'm working on a right click menu popup that lets you select the body part you want to target. It will display CTH values for each of the attack positions and you can just select your choice. I'm hoping to get this in and tested by the end of next week. High perception stats will also display additional information like enemy resists. I'll need to test the resists display a good bit so, this may not make it in when I patch the new targeting UI.

Meanwhile, holding down the highlight key (TAB by default) while aiming/attacking will block movement of any kind so you can avoid unwanted movement.

If you use the combat queue, when holding the SHIFT key while attacking, movement is now blocked. Shift is the default key for the combat queue. You can read more about the combat queue by pressing the "H" key while exploring ground locations. It is important to know that when holding the shift key, you can click multiple times to queue up attacks. When ready, press the space bar and all attacks will be made at once. When queuing combat attacks, you can press the "BACKSPACE" key to clear the attacks in the queue. The combat queue can speed up combat when making multiple attacks.

FIXED: When trying to shoot Full Auto, the game required 12 ammo to be loaded - this was recently reduced to 8 shots from full auto weapons and the game now only requires 8 ammo loaded into the weapon.
FIXED: When mining asteroids that are not in the asteroid field, no loot cans were being generated. Asteroid fields were working as intended.
FIXED: Dismissing a crew member causes the remaining crew members you may select in the list to not be correctly selected, displaying incorrect stat data for that character. This did not affect the actual crew member selected and dragged and your saves and mercs are fine. It was just a display error.
FIXED: Better handling for opening and closing the crew manager which could get stuck in a state where it would not close and accept unintended click and keyboard events when open.