Cosmoteer release candidate 0.26.0 is now available for testing! (To play this release candidate, you must opt in to test it. Please see this post for info on how to test release candidates.)

This release candidate adds the Modular Rocket Thruster (M.R.T.), a new modular thruster that is constructed out of multiple individual parts, similar to the Railgun. The M.R.T. consists of three different modular parts:

• Rocket Nozzle: Like the Railgun Launcher, this goes on the outside of your ship pointing in the direction of thrust. By itself it has the same thrust as a Huge Thruster, but it can also be extended with...
  
• Rocket Extender: These go directly behind the Nozzle or another Extender and are analogous to Railgun Accelerators. Each one increases the thrust by +100%, as well as increasing power usage and ramp-up time. (Note that there is no "end module" equivalent of the Railgun Loader.) Unlike Railgun Accelerators, if an Extender (or even the Nozzle itself) runs out of power, the thruster as a whole will continue to function but without the individual extender's contribution.
  
• Rocket Fuel Pod: Unlike normal thrusters, both the Nozzle and Extender have very limited battery capacity (2 batteries each), so they'll run out of power very quickly. But you can add up to two Fuel Pods attached to the sides of each Nozzle or Extender to provide +4 batteries per Fuel Pod.

Please let us know what you think of the M.R.S. and about any bugs or issues that you find. Have fun, and thanks for testing!


RC1:

• Modular Rocket System (M.R.S.): A new modular thruster that is constructed out of multiple individual parts, similar to the Railgun. The M.R.S. consists of three different modular parts:
  
  • Rocket Nozzle: Like the Railgun Launcher, this goes on the outside of your ship pointing in the direction of thrust. By itself it has the same thrust as a Huge Thruster, but it can also be extended with...
    
  • Rocket Extender: These go directly behind the Nozzle or another Extender and are analogous to Railgun Accelerators. Each one increases the thrust by +100%, as well as increasing power usage and ramp-up time. (Note that there is no "end module" equivalent of the Railgun Loader.) Unlike Railgun Accelerators, if an Extender (or even the Nozzle itself) runs out of power, the thruster as a whole will continue to function but without the individual extender's contribution.
    
  • Rocket Fuel Pod: Unlike normal thrusters, both the Nozzle and Extender have very limited battery capacity (2 batteries each), so they'll run out of power very quickly. But you can add up to two Fuel Pods attached to the sides of each Nozzle or Extender to provide +4 batteries per Fuel Pod.
    
  • About Engine Rooms: You can still use Engine Rooms to buff Rocket Thrusters. They provide the usual +50% buff, but only to the individual Nozzle or Extender modules that they are touching. They cannot provide the buff by touching a Fuel Pod (they have to touch the Nozzle or Extender directly), but they can distribute power to fuel pods through a Nozzle or Extender (i.e. they only have to touch the Nozzle/Extender, not the fuel pod itself; the fuel pod is treated as local storage for the Nozzle/Extender).
• User Interface:
  
  • Engine Room power distribution can now be toggled off. When off, they will still provide the +50% buff to thrusters but will no longer distribute power to them; crew will have to bring power directly to the thruster.
    
  • The Creative Mode "Clear Everything", "Clear Debris", and "Clear Weapon Projectiles" options have been replaced with a new "Clear Objects" option that allows a much larger and more customizable set of object types to be removed from the game.
    
  • The planet "Distance" slider is now called "Depth" to clarify its behavior.
• Built-In Ships:
  
  • Added 1 new Monolith ship: Eradicator
    
  • Added 1 new Cabal ship: Sol Regius
    
  • Added 1 new Imperium ship: Semiramis
    
  • Added 1 new Fringe ship: Kingslayer
    
  • Renamed Almogavar to Suppressor and Almocaden to Successor.
    
  • Miscellaneous other minor ship updates.
• Bug Fixes:
  
  • Possible crashes on Linux/Steam Deck when ending the current game instance or switching title screen backgrounds.
    
  • When "I Hate Crew Construction" and "I Hate Salvaging" were both enabled, non-player parts were unintentionally giving a full refund when deconstructed.
• Modding:
  
  • Engine Rooms now distribute power using a new buff type called 'EnginePowerDistribution'. Any modded parts that should receive power from Engine Rooms should now add this buff to their ReceivableBuffs.
    
  • Parts now support optional 'MinBuffValues' and 'MaxBuffValues' parameters which allow them to limit the values of incoming received buffs.
    
  • MultiResourceStorage now supports 'DistributeProportionallyByAvailable' and 'DistributeProportionallyByCapacity' modes for both AddMode and RemoveMode.
    
  • Thruster components now support an optional 'ValueOutputFactor' parameter, which itself is buffable.
    
  • The 'AnimationSpeedFactorRenormalize' parameter of Graphics and ResourceSprites is now ignored if its AnimationToggle is off.
    
  • ViaBuffs now supports multiple components using 'ComponentIDs' instead of 'ComponentID'.
    
  • Added a 'BuffableValue' part component which provides a value to other components that can be modified by a buff.
    
  • When multiple buffs are applied to a part, only one of the buff icons is displayed. You can control which buff's icon is displayed by setting the 'IconPriority' parameter for the buffs. (Defaults to 0. The buff with the highest IconPriority will be displayed.)
    
  • Buff icons and text will no longer be displayed for parts that buff themselves.
    
  • Added a 'ValueAccumulator' part component. (Currently unused in vanilla.)
    
  • Fix: The IncomingBuffTypes parameter of ViaBuffs wasn't properly restricting the proxied components to only those of the specified buff types.

RC2:

• Renamed the Modular Rocket System to Module Rocket Thruster to clarify that this is a new kind of thruster and not a new weapon.
  
• The Creative Mode "Clear Objects" dialog will now remember the previously-selected object types. (Until the app is restarted.)
  
• Bugfix: Canceling or undoing a part's construction right as it finishes construction could prevent it from getting properly queued for deconstruction, which could then cause ship construction to get "stuck", or sometimes even crash when later reverting blueprints.
  
• Bugfix: Chaingun Magazines weren't showing the ammunition connection icon when the magazine was flipped relative to the attached Chaingun or Magazine even though it would still feed ammunition.
  
• Bugfix: The Ion Beam emitter operating audio had a small audible "pop" in it every few seconds.
  
• RC Bugfix: The lighting effects on long Modular Rocket Thruster was extending too far up the thruster and was flickering unnaturally.
  
• Modding: All buff providers now support a list of valid 'Criterias' they can match with.

RC3:

• Bugfix: In many cases, the window in which thrusters (especially M.R.T.s) could ramp back up to full power after ramping down was much longer than intended.
  
• M.R.T. ramp-down is now 2 seconds but increases proportionally as ramp-up increases with each extender.
  
• Adjusted the rocket nozzle's hitbox to better match the size of its sprite.
  
• Translation updates for the M.R.T.s and recent Build & Battle improvements. (Not quite fully translated yet but should be ready for the stable patch.)
  
• Modding: The new 'FractionalNonPlayerRefund' parameter is now optional and won't cause errors if omitted by mods.

RC4:

• RC Bugfix: Ships that use M.R.T.s as retro-thrusters could have issues coming to a stop.

• Bugfix: Crash when starting a Build & Battle game if you had any default crew roles saved.
  
• Bugfix: Ships with predominantly small thrusters could often fail to "settle" into their desired position.
  
• Bugfix: Ship velocity matching when following or attacking another ship was broken.

Cosmoteer patch 0.25.2 is now available! This update adds support for 3-4 teams and free-for-all to the new Build & Battle PvP mode, as well as new built-in ship designs and a handful of bug fixes.

Enjoy!

Full patch notes:

• Build & Battle:
  
  • Free-for-all is now supported with up to 8 players.
    
  • Team games now supports up to 4 teams.
    
  • Team starting positions in the battle phase are now randomized each round.
    
  • Once all players have marked themselves as ready, there will now be a 5 second countdown before the battle phase begins.
    
  • If the player has any default crew roles saved, those will now be loaded automatically at the beginning of the match.
    
  • Chainguns will now start the battle phase fully stocked of ammo even if they were firing at the end of the build phase.
• User Interface:
  
  • In the ship editor, a "bullets" icon will now be displayed on Chainguns and Chaingun Magazines to indicate when they are properly connected.
• Built-In Ships:
  
  • Added 4 new Monolith combat ships: Almocaden, Almogavar, Project Mistilteinn, and Thyreos.
    
  • Added 4 new Cabal combat ships: Cassiopeia, Eclipse, Gienah, and Nashira.
    
  • Added 2 new Imperium combat ships: Augustus and Thunderbird.
    
  • Added 4 new Fringe combat ships: Desecrator, Desolator, Hentzau, and Sicario.
    
  • Renamed the 'Elanine' to 'Robin' and the 'Can Opener' to 'Desperado'.
    
  • Miscellaneous updates to various other built-in ships.
• Bug Fixes:
  
  • The recent fixes to the thruster logic screwed up Direct Control Mode, which should now also be fixed.
    
  • Occasional crash caused by recent thruster A.I. fixes.
    
  • Crash when deleting a planet in creative mode while its options window is open and U.I. animations are turned off.
    
  • The battle phase in Build & Battle could end prematurely if a ship makes an FTL jump, which could lead to various other issues.
    
  • In some circumstances, a ship's A.I. was unable to back away from a very close asteroid or other object.
    
  • Using the "grab" tool to move parts wasn't properly copying the existing part settings to the new part.
    
  • Deconstructing damaged parts was sometimes not giving quite as much resources back as you would have received had you repaired the part first.
    
  • Various text rendering issues when a ship contains an ampersand (&) in its name.
• Modding:
  
  • OpenCloseSprite should now properly move/rotate when the component it is chained to moves or rotates.
    
  • Blueprints now support sprite animations.
    
  • Buff provider components can now be set to 'BlueprintsOnly = true'. This will remove most performance costs for buffs that are only used for display purposes and have no affect on gameplay.

Cosmoteer release candidate 0.25.2 is now available for testing! (To play this release candidate, you must opt in to test it. Please see this post for info on how to test release candidates.)

This release candidate contains improvements to the new Build & Battle PvP mode, new built-in ship designs, and a handful of bug fixes.

Have fun, and thanks for testing!

RC1:

• Build & Battle:
  
  • Free-for-all is now supported with up to 8 players.
    
  • Team games now supports up to 4 teams.
    
  • Team starting positions in the battle phase are now randomized each round.
    
  • Once all players have marked themselves as ready, there will now be a 5 second countdown before the battle phase begins.
    
  • If the player has any default crew roles saved, those will now be loaded automatically at the beginning of the match.
    
  • Chainguns will now start the battle phase fully stocked of ammo even if they were firing at the end of the build phase.
• User Interface:
  
  • In the ship editor, a "bullets" icon will now be displayed on Chainguns and Chaingun Magazines to indicate when they are properly connected.
• Built-In Ships:
  
  • Added 4 new Monolith combat ships: Almocaden, Almogavar, Project Mistilteinn, and Thyreos.
    
  • Added 4 new Cabal combat ships: Cassiopeia, Eclipse, Gienah, and Nashira.
    
  • Added 2 new Imperium combat ships: Augustus and Thunderbird.
    
  • Added 4 new Fringe combat ships: Desecrator, Desolator, Hentzau, and Sicario.
    
  • Renamed the 'Elanine' to 'Robin' and the 'Can Opener' to 'Desperado'.
    
  • Miscellaneous updates to various other built-in ships.
• Bug Fixes:
  
  • The recent fixes to the thruster logic screwed up Direct Control Mode, which should now also be fixed.
    
  • Occasional crash caused by recent thruster A.I. fixes.
    
  • Crash when deleting a planet in creative mode while its options window is open and U.I. animations are turned off.
    
  • The battle phase in Build & Battle could end prematurely if a ship makes an FTL jump, which could lead to various other issues.
    
  • In some circumstances, a ship's A.I. was unable to back away from a very close asteroid or other object.
    
  • Using the "grab" tool to move parts wasn't properly copying the existing part settings to the new part.
    
  • Deconstructing damaged parts was sometimes not giving quite as much resources back as you would have received had you repaired the part first.
    
  • Various text rendering issues when a ship contains an ampersand (&) in its name.
• Modding:
  
  • OpenCloseSprite should now properly move/rotate when the component it is chained to moves or rotates.
    
  • Blueprints now support sprite animations.
    
  • Buff provider components can now be set to 'BlueprintsOnly = true'. This will remove most performance costs for buffs that are only used for display purposes and have no affect on gameplay.

Bugfix: Occasional crash caused by recent thruster A.I. fixes.

Reverted the upgrade to Microsoft .NET 8 because it was incompatible with Steam Deck and Linux. (The upgrade may be reinstated in the future if/when Proton adds .NET 8 support.)

Cosmoteer patch 0.25.1 is now available! This patch primarily has a handful of bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements for the new Build & Battle multiplayer PvP mode.

Meanwhile, we're continuing to work on Career 2.0. That update won't be ready for a while yet, but nearer in the future you can look forward to a new ship part and some more improvements to Build & Battle (such as the oft-requested support for 3+ teams and free-for-all).

Enjoy!

Full patch notes:

• If Build & Battle is played with an unequal number of players on each team, the team with fewer players will now be given more money each round to compensate.
  
• For Build & Battle games, the lobby will now show the current round (and maximum rounds) instead of the time remaining.
  
• In Build & Battle, the beginning of each build or battle phase will now be "introduced" with large text displaying the round number and phase type.
  
• Build & Battle is now translated into all officially-supported langauges.
  
• Miscellaneous other translation updates.
  
• Cosmoteer now runs on the Microsoft .NET 8 Runtime. This may provide a very small boost to performance.
  
• Bugfix: Crash in Build & Battle if the Unstash button was spammed.
  
• Bugfix: Crash in Build & Battle if all the players were on Team 2.
  
• Bugfix: Rare crash when hiring crew.
  
• Bugfix: In Build & Battle, the players' ships could sometimes be spawned overlapping their teammates when returning to the build phase.
  
• Bugfix: In the information box for a Build & Battle game, the victory point limit was being incorrectly displayed with a credits (money) icon.
  
• Bugfix: In the information box for a build & Battle game, the credits per round was not being correctly displayed with a credits (money) icon.
  
• Bugfix: The thruster algorithm wasn't properly taking thruster ramp-up times into consideration, which was causing ships with large thrusters to be more unstable or "wobbly" when flying than necessary.
  
• Bugfix: The small amount of lateral force exerted by thrusters wasn't ramping up and down properly.
  
• Bugfix: At high game speeds and/or low framerates, ship thruster VFX could appear very glitchy.
  
• Bugfix: Any errors initializing UDP sockets for multiplayer should no longer prevent you from playing "Online" via Steam.
  
• Bugfix: Hosting a multiplayer game with a very large number of mods activated could prevent the game from appearing in the lobby's list of games.
  
• Bugfix: Visual and audio effects would sometimes not play or were glitchy while in Direct Control Mode while the controlled ship was moving quickly and either the game speed was set very high or the framerate was low.
  
• Bugfix: Minor background color issues on some sprites including structure tiles, resources, projectiles, and crew.
  
• Modding: In Build & Battle, multiple techs can now unlock the same resources and toggle choices.
  
• Modding: Fixed crash when crew construction is enabled if a part lists the same resource type multiple times.
  
• Modding: Particle effects now support optional 'FpsCompensation' and 'FpsCompensation' parameters that will "fast-forward" emitted particles by varying amounts to compensate for low FPS. This can be used in addition to or as an alternative for FpsCompensator. It uses more CPU than FpsCompensator and can't spread out the initial starting location of particles like FpsCompensator can, so it is recommend that you still use FpsCompensator unless you have a specific need for the new FpsCompensation parameter.
  
• Modding: The particle 'Lerp' updater was usually reading LerpIn values from the wrong particles when used as an initializer.
  
• Modding: Fixed crash when trying to open the planet generator editor.

Cosmoteer release candidate 0.25.1 is now available for testing! (To play this release candidate, you must opt in to test it. Please see this post for info on how to test release candidates.)

This release candidate contains a small collection of mostly bug fixes, particularly for the new Build & Battle mode.

Have fun, and thanks for testing!

RC1:

• If Build & Battle is played with an unequal number of players on each team, the team with fewer players will now be given more money each round to compensate.
  
• For Build & Battle games, the lobby will now show the current round (and maximum rounds) instead of the time remaining.
  
• In Build & Battle, the beginning of each build or battle phase will now be "introduced" with large text displaying the round number and phase type.
  
• Build & Battle is now translated into all officially-supported langauges.
  
• Miscellaneous other translation updates.
  
• Cosmoteer now runs on the Microsoft .NET 8 Runtime. This may provide a very small boost to performance.
  
• Bugfix: Crash in Build & Battle if the Unstash button was spammed.
  
• Bugfix: Crash in Build & Battle if all the players were on Team 2.
  
• Bugfix: In Build & Battle, the players' ships could sometimes be spawned overlapping their teammates when returning to the build phase.
  
• Bugfix: In the information box for a Build & Battle game, the victory point limit was being incorrectly displayed with a credits (money) icon.
  
• Bugfix: In the information box for a build & Battle game, the credits per round was not being correctly displayed with a credits (money) icon.
  
• Bugfix: The thruster algorithm wasn't properly taking thruster ramp-up times into consideration, which was causing ships with large thrusters to be more unstable or "wobbly" when flying than necessary.
  
• Bugfix: The small amount of lateral force exerted by thrusters wasn't ramping up and down properly.
  
• Bugfix: At high game speeds and/or low framerates, ship thruster VFX could appear very glitchy.
  
• Bugfix: Any errors initializing UDP sockets for multiplayer should no longer prevent you from playing "Online" via Steam.
  
• Bugfix: Minor background color issues on some sprites including structure tiles, resources, projectiles, and crew.
  
• Modding: In Build & Battle, multiple techs can now unlock the same resources and toggle choices.
  
• Modding: Fixed crash when crew construction is enabled if a part lists the same resource type multiple times.
  
• Modding: Particle effects now support optional 'FpsCompensation' and 'FpsCompensation' parameters that will "fast-forward" emitted particles by varying amounts to compensate for low FPS. This can be used in addition to or as an alternative for FpsCompensator. It uses more CPU than FpsCompensator and can't spread out the initial starting location of particles like FpsCompensator can, so it is recommend that you still use FpsCompensator unless you have a specific need for the new FpsCompensation parameter.
  
• Modding: The particle 'Lerp' updater was usually reading LerpIn values from the wrong particles when used as an initializer.

RC2:

• Bugfix: Rare crash when hiring crew.
  
• Bugfix: Hosting a multiplayer game with a very large number of mods activated could prevent the game from appearing in the lobby's list of games.

This hotfix fixes a handful of issues with the new Build & Battle PvP mode.

• Bugfix: Crash when modifying a ship's missile launchers in some very specific circumstances if the player has some but not all of the launcher munition technologies.
  
• Bugfix: It was possible to crash the game in Build & Battle by opening up a "Load Ship" or "Load Paint Scheme" dialog box from the paint, crew, or resource editors and then waiting for the battle phase to begin before clicking okay.
  
• Bugfix: In Build & Battle, exiting build mode before building any parts and then deselecting your ship could make it impossible* to re-select it to continue building. (*Technically you could still press Ctrl+A to reselect it, but this was not well-known.)
  
• Bugfix: In Build & Battle, if a ship is built without a control room, it wouldn't get teleported to the battle area and then would end up as junk in the build area that could get stuck inside the players' ships in future build phases.
  
• Bugfix: In Build & Battle, when a ship spawned into the battle area, it could get stuck on any junk that was left behind from a previous battle phase. Any junk within the ship's spawn area will now be deleted.
  
• Bugfix: In Build & Battle, it was possible for the READY and CANCEL READY buttons to get desynced from the players actual ready state, making it impossible to ready or unready.
  
• Bugfix: It was unintentionally impossible to build 1x3 Armor Wedges in Build & Battle.
  
• Ships in Build & Battle are now called "Unnamed Ship" by default.

Cosmoteer update 0.25.0 is now available!

This update adds a brand new multiplayer PvP mode called "Build & Battle" which combines ship building with ship battles. Played over several rounds, competitors build or upgrade their ship using a randomly limited selection of parts and then battle against the other players. At the beginning of every new round, players receive credits with which they can build or upgrade their ship and unlock new parts. (Ships are repaired for free.) Then they fight against their opponent(s), and the winner earns a "victory point". The first player or team to (by default) 3 victory points wins the game!


This update also adds Medium and Large Hyperdrives. The larger drives store more hyperium and boost jump efficiency within a larger radius. As such, they will likely be more cost-effective and convenient for larger ships than the existing Small Hyperdrive.



Enjoy!

- Walt

P.S. Due to the end-of-the-year holidays, non-English translations for Build & Battle and the new Hyperdrives aren't available yet and will be in a later update (but hopefully soon!). Also, for those of you eagerly awaiting Career 2.0, rest assured that neither Build & Battle or the new Hyperdrives have taken any time away from Career 2.0, since those are/were being worked on by different individuals.

Full patch notes:

• New PvP multiplayer game mode: "Build & Battle". Played over several rounds, competitors build or upgrade their ship using a randomly limited selection of parts and then battle against the other players.
  
• Added Medium and Large Hyperdrives that can store more hyperium and boost jump efficiency in a larger radius.
  
• Split the Launcher blueprint technology into four, one for each type of munition (H.E., E.M.P., Nuke, Mine). Existing saves that have already unlocked the Missile Launcher will now receive all four munition blueprint techs for free.
  
• Modding: Career mode techs now support multiple techs unlocking the same part.
  
• Modding: Career mode techs now support unlocking doors and individual UIToggle choices.
  
• Modding: Rules files now support the old Mac OS style of line endings.
  
• Modding: Mods that add blueprint techs with the Missile Launcher tech as a prerequisite will now act as if all four launcher munitions are prerequisites. It is recommended that mod authors update their mods to use the new techs as prerequisites if different behavior is desired.
  
• Modding: Unlike Career mode, Build & Battle has an explicit whitelist of parts that don't require tech purchases to unlock. This will prevent modded parts from being automatically buildable; those parts must now be added to the whitelist or be given purchasable techs by the mod.