1.4 is finally here!

First, if you haven't watched it yet, I made a devlog video with a preview of this update, here ->
Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to support my work.

Second, I want to thank all my supporters for making Star Valor possible, especially my patreons! ːsteamthumbsupː

Check out my patreon page at /laious You can have your own special crew member in the game!

Here is the Patreon list for April 2022:


Captains:
- Jean-Philippe Martel (crewman: Jean)
- BalaCanabis
- Gary Scott
- Punkoala
- Zarinthal the Sleepy Dragon (crewman of the same name)
- kolby varner
- Kevin Chote
- Gio
- ZipTieFun
- Aaron Cook
- Corrupted Variant
- llamasmurf
- Kothar Harroc
- Scott Tjhia

Pilots:
- AJ Parker (crewman: Miles Prower)
- Latheos
- Casey Kelleher
- Graeme Kent
- Tigger (crewman: The Dread Pirate Tigger)
- HansP3ter
- Libo
- Scott Frisius
- stratometal
- Hawk
- Nessus
- Elkan
- SW9876
- Boosted

Rookies:
- Brian
- Herbert Monni
- Andrew
- James Ketola
- Martin Nielsen
- Kero7
- Dave Barretti
- Jeremy Sandahl



Crafting

• Added blueprint crafting, for equipment and items (later on for ships as well). You'll find/loot blueprints or learn it by scrapping items. For now it takes 2 scraps per item IF you have the Tech Level to use it.
  
  
  
  
• Added 'Tinhead Workshops', which are rare stations where you can buy crafting blueprints and some materials, as well as a restricted choice of epic (purple) equipment. Workshops appear more frequently in bigger sectors, specially dark ones.
  Note: Workshops will only appear in new games or freshly generated sectors.
  
  
  
  
• Added items: Base Component, Fine Component, Superior Component, Ardonian Component. Along with 'Scrap Metal' they will be obtained through many actions and will be base requirement for crafting.
  
• Added item: Upgrade Kit, which upgrades equipment up to green tier and an improved version, which goes up to blue tier.
  
• When upgrading an equipment, the lowest possible upgrade item is used and a tooltip will show it when mouse over the 'Upgrade' button.
  
• Added item 'Refined Metal' (name might chance), which is used in "elite" and "boss" grade item crafting.
  
• Refineries now have a chance to produce 'Scrap Metal' and at much lower chance 'Refined Metal'. The drop chance is higher with better refinery geology range and the type of ore consumed. This drop chance is in addition to the normal refining process.
  
• Now you learn Tech Level through Crafting.
  
• Weapon Crafting: For each Core component added you can add one Booster Component for no space cost (Nano Boosters skill will change).
  
• Added Booster Component: Damage Booster.
  
• Added Booster Component: Nodolo's Mod.
  
  
  
  
• Added 'Slow Fire' crafting modifier.
  
• 'Burst' crafting modifier is now limited to 2 instances (max 3 shot burst).
  
• Now you can use 'Rapid Fire' crafting modifier with 'cannon core' components.
  
• Scavenging now has a chance of dropping 'Refined Metal' instead of 'Scrap Metal'.
  
• Enemies now sometimes drop crafting related items instead of equipment.
  
• Pirate Hideouts no longer drop equipment, instead they now drop all sorts of items, crafting materials, upgrade kits, scrap and refined metal.
  
• Changed Tier 1 Scavenging skill to: "20% faster scavenging and +20% Scrap Metal loot / point"
  
• Changed Tier 2 Scavenging skill to: "+2% chance to find Refined Metal when scavenging and +16% chance to obtain special items. Special items can be equipment, trade goods or crafting materials / point"

Items

• Added new weapon type: Quantum Pulse.
  [ Quantum Pulse Teaser Video ]
  
  
• Added new weapon type: Railgun
  [ Railgun Teaser Video ]
  
  
• Added 'Energy Barrier', a temporary shield which requires Flux, in 4 variations.
  [ Energy Barrier on previous devlog ]
  
  
• Added weapon: 'Charging Laser', a 2 space variation for charging mechanics.
  
• Reduced Basic Mobile Refinery ship size requirements to Yacht (2).
  
• Added Flux powered refinery, which uses 1 flux to refine 10 ores in half the time of a normal refinery.
  
• Replaced item 'Indium' with 'Silicon'.
  
• PMC Ammo Replicator now uses Scrap Metal instead of Iron and produces 4 times more per use. so you get 1 cargo space worth of ammo for each 0,5 space of a scrap metal consumed. Yes it may overflow.
  
• Picking up loot now always display as a floating text, regardless of the option.

Spaceships

• Added ship: Terror, Red Skull Battleship, size 5 (Cruiser).
  
  
  [ Terror Gameplay Video ]
  
  
• Added 'Interceptor' ship role. Interceptors get +25% to max speed and +50% critical damage bonus when they have active Flux.
  
• Added ship: 'Isilo', the first Interceptor in the game, size 2 (yacht).
  
  
  [ Isilo Gameplay Video ]
  [ Interceptor Role on previous devlog ]
  
  
• The V2F ship model now has 2 dual barrel guns instead of 3 normal fixed ones.

Player Fleet and Crew Members

• Added 'Bonus Space Pilot' as a 'Pilot' crew member bonus.
  
• Added special crew member: 'Ralo of the Sea’s Age' (From our patreon 'Seasage').
  
• Fleet Ship Captains now prioritize learning Pilot or Gunner as a new skill (in that order), if they don't have it yet. This will improve their accuracy and survivability as a wingman.
  
• Increased rate at which crew members learn a new skill. For Ship Captains the bonus is even higher and also apply to evolving (gaining +1 rarity).
  
• Blue tier crew members may now learn a third skill, not only when purple.
  
• Gunners will no longer learn 'Max Weapon Heat' (flat) as a skill bonus. They may still learn the % version, which got boosted from 5% base to 6% per Tier.
  
• Improved several Tactician bonuses for Fleet Ships.

General

• Perks will now keep your record time (time played on that save when at the time) when unlocking or acquiring it. Only works for Feat and Karma perks acquired AFTER this update.
  
• Added Space Pilot bonus for level 55: "Critical chance +15% with active Flux, Damage Resistance +10% with NO active Flux."
  
• Added Space Pilot bonus for level 60: "Extra copilot seat" (Extra engineer if it's a Frigate or bigger size ship).
  
• Damage Bonus (and some Damage Resistance) from perks and crew members were slightly reduced (this also affects NPCs).
  
• Damage Bonus from equipment (like battle computer or nodolo's mod) now have diminishing returns, especially on bigger ships.
  
• Stations now refresh quests and crew for hire from time to time.
  
• Station markets are now seed based and therefore no longer prone to "save scum". Reduced overall equipment sold by around 30% (weapons, goods and ships are unaffected). This change only has full effect on new saves.
  
• Reduced HP bonus on Elite and Gold star enemies from 2x and 4x to 1.8x and 3.5x, respectively.
  
• Buying higher rarity items from stations is now more expensive. Specially blue and purple tier.
  
• Added 'Polish' language.
  
• Increased Crosshair (Cursor) size.
  
• Sector level scaling (based on distance to starter sector) is a bit smoother now, and game difficulty no longer has influence on it.
  
• Changed melee weapon calculations (not general ramming damage), resulting in an overall damage increase, specially on damage cap. Heavier (higher mass) ships now deal more damage, but also have a higher cap on the receiving end. Lighter ships need to be faster to deal damage, but also receive less impact damage (they get pushed away instead of crushed).
  
• Added minimap icons for missiles and torpedoes.
  
• Increased Venghi ships energy weapon bonus from 20% to 25%.
  
• Reduced Hunter Fleet chance to spawn gold star enemies from 4% to 3% for each "bounty point" after 10. Also, slightly reduced Marauder Hunter Fleets spawn chance for each Active hideout.

BUG fixes

• Fixed fleet ship turning speed not returning to normal after firing more than one charging weapons.
  
• Fixed charging weapon cooldown not applying on turrets.
  
• Fixed Buff icon position in ultrawide screen.
  
• Fixed fleet ships causing damage on the carrier when docking.
  
• Fixed BUG when gunners try to fire Torpedoes.
  
• Fixed BUG that would cause double loot of ship derelict.
  
• Fixed BUG on quest target ship that would freeze the game.
  
• Fixed BUG on 'The Exiled' quest, after picking up Ziggy.
  
• Fixed unlocking ships in permadeath mode.
  
• Fixed ESC not closing Quest Log.

In this devlog, Laious shows main features coming with Early Access version 1.4 of Star Valor (out in a couple of days), inside Unity Engine environment, as well as some of what's coming next.

Another teaser video for the 1.4 version, showing the Terror and its weapon loadout, including a super weapon on its Spinal Mount. Close and side view of the 3D ship model.

Star Valor developer shows a sneak Peek into 1.4 version. Laious demonstrates a bit of his work environment in Unity Engine, as well as new features coming soon in Early Access, on Steam, focusing a bit on the new ship 'Isilo' and a few other new items.

• 'Front firing' turrets (not fixed) without a gunner will be manned by whoever has the higher effective aiming, between 70% of the co-pilot gunnery or 40% of the captain gunnery.
  
• Fixed BUG that would prevent fleet ships from docking in the carrier, after swapping ships.
  
• Increased stock for all ammo types and they are now traded in any station.
  
• The 3 main guns on the 'Dominance' received +10% damage boost and +80% projectile size/beam width.
  
• Hired crew member is now assigned as a ship passenger instead of in the station.
  
• The chance of finding special crew members is now initially higher, then decreases for each one already found.
  
• Improved AI mining with bigger ships.
  
• Increased Spinal Mounts flat damage boost.
  
• Fixed 'Remove special crew' button on new game setup.
  
• Fixed 'unable to dock' BUG.

• Fixed wingman not docking on Arena mode.

This update brings many features requested by players and collaborators, which I'm proud to announce, as well as the first "batch" of unique/special crew members created by our patrons and collaborators! They are a bit rare to find, but once you do, they are unlocked to start new games with, cool huh? Many different and interesting play styles await you!

If you want to have your own crew member in the game, or just want to support the game development, join me on Patreon (/laious)!


Commanders:
- Ryan Schubert
- Warlock Raccoon

Captains:
- Jean-Philippe Martel
- XxVeratyrxX
- BalaCanabis
- Gary Scott
- Punkoala
- Zarinthal the Sleepy Dragon
- kolby varner
- Kevin Chote
- Gio
- ZipTieFun
- Aaron Cook
- CorruptedVariant
- llamasmurf

Pilots:
- AJ Parker
- Latheos
- Casey Kelleher
- Graeme Kent
- Tigger
- HansP3ter
- Brandon Curlee
- Libo
- Scott Frisius
- Kothar Harroc

Rookies:
- Brian
- Herbert Monni
- Andrew
- James Ketola
- Martin Nielsen
- Matthew Ritter
- Kero7
- Dave Barretti
- Jeremy Sandahl
- Chus Seoane

• Added special crew members created by collaborators and Patrons (Commander Tier on patreon /laious). They spawn in graveyards or as derelict, only once per game each, and can be used to start new games.
  
  
  
• Replaced one perk slot with a crew member (co-pilot) slot, on the new game setup panel.
  
• Added 'Mining' role for fleet ships: They will look for nearby asteroids (up to a flat distance plus 2 times the distance value you set on Fleet Panel), go there and mine until you recall or they need repairs. They return to follow you as soon as no nearby rocks are found.
  
  
  
  
• Added 'Collector Beam', which automatically pulls nearby loot if you have space in cargo. You can stack collectors for multiple towing and their range increase with rarity.
  
  
  
  
• Added ship: Valkyrie, CoT Frigate Battleship.
  
  
  
  
• Added ship: Empress, Independent Cruiser Battleship.
  
  
  
  
• Corrected Spinal Mount raw damage bonus, specially on low rate of fire weapons.
  
• Normal charging weapons now consume a limited number of Flux charges when firing (for now, only 1), but each charge adds higher damage bonus than before. Spinal mounts still consome all Flux charges, but for lower bonus damage on each. Also, Flux damage bonus now scales with the weapon space, where bigger weapons receive less % bonus for each Flux, with a minimum of +10% per charge.
  
• Activated Equipment state is now persistent after warping, save/loading or even changing gear. Only self-targeting (auto repairs, refineries, flux capacitors, etc) equipment state is saved.
  
• Added 'cooldown' to cloaking devices and changed most of their stats.
  
• CoT ships now have double effective energy generation while cloaked, instead of a reduction in cost of activation.
  
• The note color selection on Galaxy Map is now always visible.
  
• Item Tech Level is no longer increased by rarity.
  
• Most Warp Drives had their space reduced by 1.
  
• V2F and V3G both received a co-pilot seat.
  
• Gunners no longer learn specific weapon damage bonus effects (energy, plasma, etc). Normal weapon damage bonus remains in the pool. Note: Existing crew members will keep their specialized bonuses as they are now.
  
• Player Fleet: Front facing turrets on small ships (up to Corvette) with no gunner assigned, are now manned by the copilot with 70% of his gunnery skill. If there is no co-pilot assigned, the pilot/captain gunnery is used instead, with 40% effectiveness.
  Note: Before this change, all turrets with no gunners had zero base aiming, so in any case it is now an improvement.
  
• Shield Absorber's stats changed a bit in order to be more useful. Later on they will be remade.
  
• Added PMC Carrier bonuses to the Dominance and Scourge: +20 mining laser damage to fleet ships.
  
• Item tooltip is now updated when you sell/equip/load an item and a different one gets under the cursor.
  
• The 'Carrier Launch / Attack' key for fleet ships now also order them to warp-in from another sector.
  
• Fixed BUG when a fleet ship with melee weapons would collide with the carrier, when trying to dock.
  
• Loot will move back when ending up "inside" objects like stations or jump gates.
  
• Fixed laser beam staying visible after cloaking.
  
• Fixed objects and locations spawning too close to each other in the sector.

We couldn't start the year in a better way than with an update, right? Also, we keep getting reinforcements every month in my Patreon account! Thank you very, very much, everyone!

Happy New Year and have fun!


Commanders:
- Ryan Schubert
- Jean-Philippe Martel
- Warlock Raccoon

Captains:
- XxVeratyrxX
- BalaCanabis
- Gary Scott
- Punkoala
- Zarinthal the Sleepy Dragon
- kolby varner
- Kevin Chote
- Gio
- ZipTieFun

Pilots:
- AJ Parker
- Latheos
- Casey Kelleher
- Graeme Kent
- suicidelmadness
- Tigger
- HansP3ter
- Brandon Curlee
- Lukas Zito
- Kalvadar
- Libo
- Scott Frisius

Rookies:
- Brian
- Herbert Monni
- Andrew
- James Ketola
- Martin Liwski
- Martin Nielsen
- Matthew Ritter
- Kero7
- Dave Barretti
- Jeremy Sandahl

• Added charging weapons: You have to hold the button for a moment before it fires, for increased damage.
  
• Added 'Spinal Mounts': Special charging weapon mounts, which massively increases the weapon damage, for a very long cooldown time.
  
• Added new ship role: Battleship, with +10% Damage Resistance as bonus and Spinal Mounts as a special ability.
  
• Added Achilles and V5B-A, the CoT and Venghi Battleships, size 5 (Cruiser):
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Added 'Flux', an energy charge generated by new capacitor equipment, which is used to power certain items or weapons (for instance: spinal mounts)
  
• Added 2 items capable of generating and storing 'Flux': Flux Capacitor (😅) and Warp Diverter.
  
• Added item: Flux Accumulator.
  
• Added icons to represent cooldown, either for charging weapons or low rate of fire ones.
  
• Background and overall visuals received a considerable improvement. Planets have more details, you can occasionally see the sector star in the background, dark sectors are now darker (dark background always), among other things. Old saves will only partially benefit on this change.
  
  
  
  
• Added side view of your ship in the Hangar/Ship Setup.
  
• Replaced 'Transport' ship model with a new one called 'Goliath', increased it's size to Cruiser (5) and rarity to green:
  
  
  
  
• Added a warp drive and a proper gunner for the turret of Sam Holo's ship.
  
• Added a dual barrel gun for the Geraki (Sam Holo's ship) turret.
  
• Fixed energy modifier from Space Pilot bonus not applying correctly.
  
• Gunners will no longer fire Non-Point Defense weapons against drones or missiles.
  
• Added another warning on top of the screen when your fleet ship explodes.
  
• Fleet Ships can now use multiple/different stacks of drones.
  
• Added a grid to the sector map and scanner.
  
• Reputation gain through trading is now capped at 1000.
  
• Further improved AI path-finding.
  
• Key Input messages now show the correct button assigned to it (example: Press G to dock).
  
• Fixed friendly targets not shooting back after you order fire at them.
  
• Fleet Ships no longer buy ammo over their ship's cargo capacity, and you get a warning if they need more space for it.
  
• Fixed BUG that allowed equipping a weapon bigger than the hardpoint space.
  
• Fixed slot spaces not updating after equipping or unequipping a weapon.

• Fixed tractor beam not working.
  
• Changed 'Warp Diverter' to spend a % of the warp charge instead of a full charge, in order to generate 'Flux'.

Greetings Commanders!

First of all, I'm happy to announce we have 8 new Patreon Supporters this month, and no one left, so we have a total of 21! Yey! Here is the list for December-2021:



Pilots:
- AJ Parker
- Latheos
- Casey Kelleher
- Graeme Kent
- suicidelmadness
- Tigger

Rookies:
- Brian
- Herbert Monni
- Andrew
- James Ketola
- Martin Liwski
- Martin Nielsen
- Matthew Ritter

Thank you very very much for the support!
Also, this month we are getting special crew members customized by our Commanders! If you want yours too, join us at Patreon! ;)

• Added Ship: Rising Sun - Independent Carrier, size 6 (dreadnought)
  
• Added ship: Bonde - Independent Freighter/Miner (TBD), size 4 (Frigate).
  
• Added +10% max speed as basic carrier bonus.
  
• Added a special bonus for each 5 points in 'Space Pilot', which you can see on the Knowledge screen. It only works when you don't own a fleet.
  
• Ship size class now shows base HP repaired in hangar, when carrier.
  
• Added supervisor skill bonuses: Hangar Repair +X HP/s, Geology Bonus +X.
  
• Added crew skill/profession: Tactician, which affects player fleet, with the following possible bonuses: Acceleration, Damage Resistance, Weapon Damage, Shield, Armor, Energy Generation, HP regeneration per 5 seconds, Bonus Fleet Commander.
  
• Slightly increased crew efficiency bonus percentage, which should fix the BUG where a crewman would get a lower efficiency after leveling up their skill.
  
• Added Experience Perk: Excavation (bonus Geology +2).
  
• Added warning when scavenging graveyards too difficult for your Tech Level.
  
• Asteroid Fields are now considered cleared when destroying all but 2 of its asteroids.
  
• Increased overall range and projectile speed in most weapons.
  
• Increased zoom distance, especially in lower levels.
  
• Increased poly count on planet models.
  
• 'Improved Plating' skill now gives 10% Damage Resistance, instead of 12%.
  
• Elimination quests now require dealing at least 50% damage to the target, instead of 80%, for it be completed.
  
• 'Bounty' stat (You'll often attract more powerful enemies) is now accounted when enemies decide if they should attack you or not (example: when marauders warp in).
  
• Enemy tracking and targeting has been improved, specially regarding your fleet. Your gunners will now even fire at missiles or drones targeting your fleet.
  
• Repair ships will now try to prioritize damaged fleet members instead of random friendly AI.
  
• Fixed critical issues with AI path-finding and improved it (still on testing).
  
• 'Leadership' skill changed to: "+10 Fleet Commander. Fleet ships gain +10% Damage Resistance and +1 agility"
  
• Damage Resistance cap decreased from 90% to 80%.
  
• Changed crew positions in several ship models (carriers specially) to have more tactician/staff seats.
  
• Added a First Officer seat in most Frigate size ships.
  
• Added button for "Roll" (default: Ctrl)
  
• Change Steering mode default key changed to ' (Back Quote).
  
• Fleet Ships will unequip weapons and equipment in case it's using more than normal model space. You will see the occupied space number in yellow when it's over normal limit, in case you intend to add it to your fleet later.
  
• Improved fleet warp-in location.
  
• Reduced Hunter Fleet extra level from Bounty (You will often attract more powerful enemies).
  
• Fleet Ships now ignore asteroid collision if Collision Damage is OFF.
  
• Fixed BUG that caused a single projectile to trigger damage to a single target more than once.
  
• AOE Explosions no longer hit small ships (corvette or smaller) more than once. This includes self damage.
  
• Fixed docking issues with big ships.
  
• Fixed projectiles colliding with jump gate "field".

Follow up fixes:

• Fixed gunners trying to "lead shots" when using beam weapons.

Greetings Commanders!

The first month of our Patreon was a success! 13 new supporters joined us!
Here is the list for November-2021:



Pilot:
- Latheos

Rookies:
- Brian
- Herbert Monni
- Andrew
- James Ketola
- Martin Liwski

Thank you all very much for the support!

Oh and... For our Beta Testers (and Pilot tier or higher on Patreon):
New Beta for 1.3.3 will start in a few days. Get ready! :)

• Replaced Hades single back turrets with one triple barrel.
  
• Added Gunner bonus effect: +X% Torpedo damage.
  
• Weapon range bonuses now affect certain weapons differently. Short range weapons like mining lasers or torpedoes, only receive half range bonus, while long range ones, like missiles, receive double the bonus.
  
• You can no longer store ships in your cargo, if they are the same size class or larger than yours (Yes, it happened!).
  
• Removed Halloween themed ships and loot.
  
• Repair ships from Battle Fleets now warp away when they have no more friendlies to repair.
  
• Added 2 gunner slots to the Hawk.
  
• Fixed weapon slot overheat causing weapon cooldown being shorter than it should be.
  
• Fixed 'Load Game' button being disabled on hardcore mode instead of permadeath.

• Added ship: Hades - CoT Cruiser (size 5) Carrier.
  
• Added ship: Fortuna - Independent Cruiser (size 5)
  
• Permanent Death is no longer tied to Hardcore Mode and further improve loot chances. So now you can play on Hardcore difficulty (much stronger enemies) without permanent death. Old save games had to be set to "no permadeath".
  
• Increased Tech Level advancement bonus from Ship Graveyards.
  
• Now you get extra XP and a sound warning after clearing an Asteroid Field.
  
• Added Karma Perks: Space Janitor, The Real Space Janitor and Hoarder.
  
• Now you get a warning before quitting to menu without saving the game in the past 30 seconds.
  
• Fixed Invulnerable Fleet Ships.
  
• Fixed crew nicknames not being used in ship's panel.
  
• Fixed BUG that allowed you to move your ship freely while docked.
  
• Fixed Player fleet members receiving Hardcore difficulty enemy bonuses.
  
• Fixed Player fleet members not docking properly when you order them to do it, while docked at a station.
  
• Fixed Zeep and Fido portraits being switched.