It’s that time of the year where developers and Players both set aside their sanity and participate in the festive sales! We’re not sure about you, but our wallets have magically flopped onto the table and opened themselves up whispering ‘steam sales are here’ in a somewhat creepy voice.

We’re on the other side of the fence this year as we welcome new players from the four corners with a 40% discount! Naturally the period dictates that the team wind down to spend time with their families but it has to be said, me personally, I can’t help but feel this uncontrollable itch to get back to coding and so UPDATE 8 is well underway.

I’m not the only one bitten by that bug it seems (no pun intended!) As the artists are still busy churning out ships. The latest one to arrive; the MFC ‘Vindicator’ is an absolute beast and is the first Capital ship to be featured with missile launchers.



The MFC faction are getting Carriers and assortment of Corvettes and the first Corvette that will be unveiled in a future update is the ‘Z-23’ shown below. This puppy also comes in a missile equipped variant (the Z-23M) and wait… What’s that you say? You don’t like the name? Well if you have any suggestions we’ll be listening, it wouldn’t be the first ship in the game to be named by a Player and we’re sure it won’t be the last!



Of course the game isn’t all about the pretty ships; we’re also busy preparing additional maps for you to play with. These maps will feature allied forces, NPC traffic flying between stations and chained Objectives that evolve as you complete varying stages of the mission. We also want to make a bigger deal of Corvette vs. Corvette action, with improvements to the way the ships move and dogfight and finally, randomized ship and fleet configs are in for both Player and AI.

So if you’re new to the project welcome aboard, check the roadmap and get involved in the forums and to all our followers; have a great festive break!

It’s that time of the year where developers and Players both set aside their sanity and participate in the festive sales! We’re not sure about you, but our wallets have magically flopped onto the table and opened themselves up whispering ‘steam sales are here’ in a somewhat creepy voice.

We’re on the other side of the fence this year as we welcome new players from the four corners with a 40% discount! Naturally the period dictates that the team wind down to spend time with their families but it has to be said, me personally, I can’t help but feel this uncontrollable itch to get back to coding and so UPDATE 8 is well underway.

I’m not the only one bitten by that bug it seems (no pun intended!) As the artists are still busy churning out ships. The latest one to arrive; the MFC ‘Vindicator’ is an absolute beast and is the first Capital ship to be featured with missile launchers.



The MFC faction are getting Carriers and assortment of Corvettes and the first Corvette that will be unveiled in a future update is the ‘Z-23’ shown below. This puppy also comes in a missile equipped variant (the Z-23M) and wait… What’s that you say? You don’t like the name? Well if you have any suggestions we’ll be listening, it wouldn’t be the first ship in the game to be named by a Player and we’re sure it won’t be the last!



Of course the game isn’t all about the pretty ships; we’re also busy preparing additional maps for you to play with. These maps will feature allied forces, NPC traffic flying between stations and chained Objectives that evolve as you complete varying stages of the mission. We also want to make a bigger deal of Corvette vs. Corvette action, with improvements to the way the ships move and dogfight and finally, randomized ship and fleet configs are in for both Player and AI.

So if you’re new to the project welcome aboard, check the roadmap and get involved in the forums and to all our followers; have a great festive break!

It seems a few of you guys are determined to break it and so here's some more bug fixes to stop you! Did a little work on the Fleet Config screen also, neatening up the UI elements and adding ship config previews to make life a little easier picking ships for your fleet.

We also continued rounding off the edges as per your feedback, special thanks to Staalby for really getting into it.

Work will start on UPDATE 8 soon which is a pass at tactical and will include more ships and maps. Hope you're all enjoying the festive period!


The fleet config screen doesn't look quite so raw anymore as it gets some usability tweaks, for example; you can mouseover the module icons to get a tooltip with the important stats.

8.0.17 Update 7.2 Change log (26.12.2015)

• Added: ; (or semicolon) key hides UI (requested by Kearon from eXplorminate)
  
• Added: Preview of installed modules in Fleet Config
  
• Added: Stats of selected player ship now compared against base derivative and diffs highlighted in Fleet Config
  
• Added: Solid backgrounds added to all scrollable areas
  
• Added: Scrollbars to emblem and officer scrollable areas in Fleet Config
  
• Added: Tooltips for preview module icons in Fleet Config
  
• Added: Feedback to 'reset playershipdb' command (suggested by Staalby)
  
• Added: Pencil icon to indicate editable fields in Ship/Fleet Config screens
  
• Added: Added sample MFC Blackbird config to default player ship DB (and added to saved fleets)
  
  
• Fixed: 'reset playershipdb' not overwriting existing DB in some cases (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Rare issue with shield previewing crashing game if exit Ship Config while active (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Rare Crash caused by shields not being rebuilt when weapons added/removed in Ship Config (repored by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Changes to theme sliders not recognised if MouseUp occurs off the colour picker window in Ship Config (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Double clicking on buttons from menu could result in overlaid UI (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Rare crash when deleting ship themes (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Show/Hide radar button does nothing (reported by Chomwitt)
  
• Fixed: Corvette tactical icon showing wrong info in tooltip (reported by Whatdoesthisbuttondo?)
  
• Fixed: Weird hangar bug duplicating ship icons and ignoring saves (reported by Decimatarius)
  
• Fixed: Inconsistent weapons platform and Blackbird icons in Ship Config
  
  
• Update: Tweaked attributes text layout
  
• Update: Tweaked UI postions and text in Fleet Config
  
• Update: No longer switches to hulls list when 'New' clicked in Ship Config

It seems a few of you guys are determined to break it and so here's some more bug fixes to stop you! Did a little work on the Fleet Config screen also, neatening up the UI elements and adding ship config previews to make life a little easier picking ships for your fleet.

We also continued rounding off the edges as per your feedback, special thanks to Staalby for really getting into it.

Work will start on UPDATE 8 soon which is a pass at tactical and will include more ships and maps. Hope you're all enjoying the festive period!


The fleet config screen doesn't look quite so raw anymore as it gets some usability tweaks, for example; you can mouseover the module icons to get a tooltip with the important stats.

8.0.17 Update 7.2 Change log (26.12.2015)

• Added: ; (or semicolon) key hides UI (requested by Kearon from eXplorminate)
  
• Added: Preview of installed modules in Fleet Config
  
• Added: Stats of selected player ship now compared against base derivative and diffs highlighted in Fleet Config
  
• Added: Solid backgrounds added to all scrollable areas
  
• Added: Scrollbars to emblem and officer scrollable areas in Fleet Config
  
• Added: Tooltips for preview module icons in Fleet Config
  
• Added: Feedback to 'reset playershipdb' command (suggested by Staalby)
  
• Added: Pencil icon to indicate editable fields in Ship/Fleet Config screens
  
• Added: Added sample MFC Blackbird config to default player ship DB (and added to saved fleets)
  
  
• Fixed: 'reset playershipdb' not overwriting existing DB in some cases (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Rare issue with shield previewing crashing game if exit Ship Config while active (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Rare Crash caused by shields not being rebuilt when weapons added/removed in Ship Config (repored by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Changes to theme sliders not recognised if MouseUp occurs off the colour picker window in Ship Config (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Double clicking on buttons from menu could result in overlaid UI (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Rare crash when deleting ship themes (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Show/Hide radar button does nothing (reported by Chomwitt)
  
• Fixed: Corvette tactical icon showing wrong info in tooltip (reported by Whatdoesthisbuttondo?)
  
• Fixed: Weird hangar bug duplicating ship icons and ignoring saves (reported by Decimatarius)
  
• Fixed: Inconsistent weapons platform and Blackbird icons in Ship Config
  
  
• Update: Tweaked attributes text layout
  
• Update: Tweaked UI postions and text in Fleet Config
  
• Update: No longer switches to hulls list when 'New' clicked in Ship Config

Well we were meant to take the week off, it being xmas and all, but you guys are reporting some juicy looking bugs and we just had to squash them!

The majority of the stuff that was reported in the last couple of days has been fixed. Couple of guys reporting issues that could be linked to Player ship database corruption, so we've added a few console commands to reset persistent game data.

• Fixed: Issue despawning ship icons on fleet screen (reported by Jacobllob)
  
• Fixed: ShipCarrier crash caused by trying to launch wings that have been destroyed (reported by Hariwulf)
  
• Fixed: Issue with fixed weapons muzzle flash sticking (reported by Sazuroi)
  
• Fixed: Issue removing shield modules from weapons platform (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Rare issue with disappearing support modules (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Locked buttons still clickable (reported by Infinity)
  
• Fixed: Rare index of out range exception on tactical launch (reported by Leyline)
  
• Fixed: Weirdness with WSAD or pan camera to break focus camera mode (reported by Jacobllob)
  
• Fixed: Crash handler now correctly displays error and instructions
  
• Fixed: Crash handler now copies system spec to clipboard along with error (should save you a bit of time if you report the issue)
  
  
• Update: Console appearance tweaked
  
• Update: When console is showing, key presses to shortcuts disregarded
  
• Update: Bloom intesity reduced by 20% in hanger/ship config (suggested by Sazuroi)
  
  
• Added: 'reset' command to console
  
• Added: 'reset options' subcommand, reverts all settings in options menu to defaults
  
• Added: 'reset playershipdb' subcommand, reverts all saved ships, themes and fleets to default (useful incase of DB corrupted which happens rarely)

The console is accessed by pressing the ' (or tilde) key, type 'help' for a list of available commands.

Well we were meant to take the week off, it being xmas and all, but you guys are reporting some juicy looking bugs and we just had to squash them!

The majority of the stuff that was reported in the last couple of days has been fixed. Couple of guys reporting issues that could be linked to Player ship database corruption, so we've added a few console commands to reset persistent game data.

• Fixed: Issue despawning ship icons on fleet screen (reported by Jacobllob)
  
• Fixed: ShipCarrier crash caused by trying to launch wings that have been destroyed (reported by Hariwulf)
  
• Fixed: Issue with fixed weapons muzzle flash sticking (reported by Sazuroi)
  
• Fixed: Issue removing shield modules from weapons platform (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Rare issue with disappearing support modules (reported by Staalby)
  
• Fixed: Locked buttons still clickable (reported by Infinity)
  
• Fixed: Rare index of out range exception on tactical launch (reported by Leyline)
  
• Fixed: Weirdness with WSAD or pan camera to break focus camera mode (reported by Jacobllob)
  
• Fixed: Crash handler now correctly displays error and instructions
  
• Fixed: Crash handler now copies system spec to clipboard along with error (should save you a bit of time if you report the issue)
  
  
• Update: Console appearance tweaked
  
• Update: When console is showing, key presses to shortcuts disregarded
  
• Update: Bloom intesity reduced by 20% in hanger/ship config (suggested by Sazuroi)
  
  
• Added: 'reset' command to console
  
• Added: 'reset options' subcommand, reverts all settings in options menu to defaults
  
• Added: 'reset playershipdb' subcommand, reverts all saved ships, themes and fleets to default (useful incase of DB corrupted which happens rarely)

The console is accessed by pressing the ' (or tilde) key, type 'help' for a list of available commands.

In UPDATE 7 we planned to sink our teeth into the maps, add the beginnings of the missile system and progress the hangar screen a little more and we managed two of the three. It’s just someone pointed out to us that Shallow Space was using 5.5 GB of RAM and it prompted us to have a bit of an optimisation pass.

Some might say it’s a little premature, but if we intend to stuff this thing with the amount of ships and stations we have planned, it’ll quickly reach bursting point and no doubt the older machines were lagging. In any case, everyone will certainly ‘feel’ this update, lots of texture optimisations and caching improvements now mean the alpha uses around 2 GB RAM and things are now running pretty slick – the lag while changing colour themes in the hangar is reduced to a minimal.


That hangar screen sees the inclusion of a list view and filtering options for the compatible modules and the colour picker is revamped to make full use of Hue, Saturation and Brightness.

So the placeholder colour picker was replaced for the real deal allowing access to a greater array of customisation options. It’s worth mentioning that even with the successful optimisations, if you don’t have a lot of RAM be sensible with the ship themes as the nature of the procedurally generated textures can really test lesser computers.

A new ship, the MFC Blackbird and accompanying weapon system has been added. Missiles and some new abilities will give you access to options to control them: Ammo type, salvo size, single shot and auto fire. Missiles are great fun and start to open up the options available to you in tactical, for example some missiles will have a longer range than the ship is capable of seeing, so to be used properly you’ll have to have units spotting for the Blackbird.


The two dashed rings represent the ranges in which the missile is able to fire, the minimum range is represented by the inner ring and the maximum range represented by the outer ring.

Some more work was done on tactical to make the presentation of the abilities more consistent (wingmen abilities now shown,) we added a cooldown to the Homans overpowered ability and some work was completed on the 2D range finders. Little bit of work on ship movement also which we’ll be wrapping up in UPDATE 8 but movement of the Corvettes is now a lot smoother (and the ship trails are back.)

Look forward to a content injection of more missiles and modules in UPDATE 8 including the MFC Capital missile boat the ‘Vindicator’ (keep your eye’s on the blog for exciting news about that evil looking ship,) we’ll also be having a pass at the fleet config screen and continuing work on tactical with maps and objectives getting some love.

For more information on UPDATE 7, check out the patch notes over on Steam. We hope you enjoy UPDATE 7!

In UPDATE 7 we planned to sink our teeth into the maps, add the beginnings of the missile system and progress the hangar screen a little more and we managed two of the three. It’s just someone pointed out to us that Shallow Space was using 5.5 GB of RAM and it prompted us to have a bit of an optimisation pass.

Some might say it’s a little premature, but if we intend to stuff this thing with the amount of ships and stations we have planned, it’ll quickly reach bursting point and no doubt the older machines were lagging. In any case, everyone will certainly ‘feel’ this update, lots of texture optimisations and caching improvements now mean the alpha uses around 2 GB RAM and things are now running pretty slick – the lag while changing colour themes in the hangar is reduced to a minimal.


That hangar screen sees the inclusion of a list view and filtering options for the compatible modules and the colour picker is revamped to make full use of Hue, Saturation and Brightness.

So the placeholder colour picker was replaced for the real deal allowing access to a greater array of customisation options. It’s worth mentioning that even with the successful optimisations, if you don’t have a lot of RAM be sensible with the ship themes as the nature of the procedurally generated textures can really test lesser computers.

A new ship, the MFC Blackbird and accompanying weapon system has been added. Missiles and some new abilities will give you access to options to control them: Ammo type, salvo size, single shot and auto fire. Missiles are great fun and start to open up the options available to you in tactical, for example some missiles will have a longer range than the ship is capable of seeing, so to be used properly you’ll have to have units spotting for the Blackbird.


The two dashed rings represent the ranges in which the missile is able to fire, the minimum range is represented by the inner ring and the maximum range represented by the outer ring.

Some more work was done on tactical to make the presentation of the abilities more consistent (wingmen abilities now shown,) we added a cooldown to the Homans overpowered ability and some work was completed on the 2D range finders. Little bit of work on ship movement also which we’ll be wrapping up in UPDATE 8 but movement of the Corvettes is now a lot smoother (and the ship trails are back.)

Look forward to a content injection of more missiles and modules in UPDATE 8 including the MFC Capital missile boat the ‘Vindicator’ (keep your eye’s on the blog for exciting news about that evil looking ship,) we’ll also be having a pass at the fleet config screen and continuing work on tactical with maps and objectives getting some love.

For more information on UPDATE 7, check out the patch notes over on Steam. We hope you enjoy UPDATE 7!

8.0.14 Update 7 Change log (18.12.2015)

Over 60 inclusion in this latest update: 32 additions, 27 fixes, 3 updates.

Blog article will be put online shortly to talk about the changes.

• Added: MFC Blackbird
  
• Added: XL weapon platform
  
• Added: L weapon platform
  
• Added: Jumpgate (Type I)
  
• Added: Trade station
  
• Added: 'Avenger MK I' missile
  
• Added: 'Starburst MK I' missile
  
• Added: Missile ammo construct
  
• Added: Missile bundles listed in Ship Config
  
• Added: Missile ship config UI icons
  
• Added: Missile range finders in tactical
  
• Added: Special ability 'Fire Mission'
  
• Added: Special ability 'Sustained Fire Mission'
  
• Added: Special ability 'Salvo Size'
  
• Added: Special ability 'Ammo Type'
  
• Added: Additional callback capability to ability system
  
• Added: Yellow border around ability icon if 'On'
  
• Added: Alternative list view for modules in Ship Config
  
• Added: Proceedural textures now baked and cached to hard drive inbetween play sessions
  
• Added: Added double click and drag to install to module rows in Ship Config
  
• Added: List toggle and filter buttons in Ship Config
  
• Added: Filter functionality for module icons/rows in Ship Config
  
• Added: Sorting in Ship Config screen for modules
  
• Added: Scrollbar to hull marking scrollable in Ship Config
  
• Added: Solid background for the module slot container backgrounds in Ship Config
  
• Added: Tooltips for module filter buttons
  
• Added: New colour swatch, now accounts for Hue, Saturation and Brightness
  
• Added: Colour swatch takes into account the current colour
  
• Added: Flag to represent ship themes in Ship Config
  
• Added: Flag to represent ship themes in Fleet Config
  
• Added: 2D weapons range indicator in tactical
  
• Added: Altered 'Activate Special Weapon' ability to include cooldown
  
  
• Update: Consistency improved with module stats in Ship Config
  
• Update: Added MFC Blackbird to main menu warp animation
  
• Update: Optimisations to SpaceCam class
  
  
• Fixed: Textures compressed (addressing memory hog fom RAW textures & slowness in Ship Config)
  
• Fixed: Scrolling with mouse wheel for ship/hull icon list in Ship Config
  
• Fixed: All fixed modules incorrectly shown for any craft with a fixed weapon
  
• Fixed: Corrections to module stats text headers
  
• Fixed: Tooltip mis-shapen when mouseover filter icons in Ship/Fleet Config
  
• Fixed: Optimized texture memory usage
  
• Fixed: Clicking on colour swatch gives wrong colour at some resolutions
  
• Fixed: Jittery halt with some of the smaller ships
  
• Fixed: Improvements to formation flying so the ships catch up to wingleader
  
• Fixed: Missiles exploding mid
• flight for no reason (0.7.10 demo bug)
  
• Fixed: Drunken transitional animations in Ship Config
  
• Fixed: Missiles miss and orbit target (0.7.10 demo bug)
  
• Fixed: 'Error in Battle Simulation' bug reported by Kearon
  
• Fixed: Texturing issues with Enif, textures replaced
  
• Fixed: Issue with 2D radar sweep disappearing when lead ship not scanning for Flotilla
  
• Fixed: Issues with scan not eminating from proper unit
  
• Fixed: Radar and missile range 2D indicators now plotted at battlegrid intersection
  
• Fixed: Warp tunnel texture now seamless
  
• Fixed: Objectives totals wrong on multiple playthroughs
  
• Fixed: Duplicate ship icons when leaving and re-entering ship config
  
• Fixed: Rare crash in CoreAI
  
• Fixed: When use MMB to look is on and in movement mode, using ALT & LMB to pan camera no longer triggers movepoint
  
• Fixed: Players customized ship configs now overwritten only when nessecary
  
• Fixed: Corvette trails (broken in UPDATE 6)
  
• Fixed: Theme scrollable area fixed for 8 or more themes
  
• Fixed: Markup issue in ability tooltips
  
• Fixed: 'Continous Plasma Discharge' MP cost corrected

8.0.14 Update 7 Change log (18.12.2015)

Over 60 inclusion in this latest update: 32 additions, 27 fixes, 3 updates.

Blog article will be put online shortly to talk about the changes.

• Added: MFC Blackbird
  
• Added: XL weapon platform
  
• Added: L weapon platform
  
• Added: Jumpgate (Type I)
  
• Added: Trade station
  
• Added: 'Avenger MK I' missile
  
• Added: 'Starburst MK I' missile
  
• Added: Missile ammo construct
  
• Added: Missile bundles listed in Ship Config
  
• Added: Missile ship config UI icons
  
• Added: Missile range finders in tactical
  
• Added: Special ability 'Fire Mission'
  
• Added: Special ability 'Sustained Fire Mission'
  
• Added: Special ability 'Salvo Size'
  
• Added: Special ability 'Ammo Type'
  
• Added: Additional callback capability to ability system
  
• Added: Yellow border around ability icon if 'On'
  
• Added: Alternative list view for modules in Ship Config
  
• Added: Proceedural textures now baked and cached to hard drive inbetween play sessions
  
• Added: Added double click and drag to install to module rows in Ship Config
  
• Added: List toggle and filter buttons in Ship Config
  
• Added: Filter functionality for module icons/rows in Ship Config
  
• Added: Sorting in Ship Config screen for modules
  
• Added: Scrollbar to hull marking scrollable in Ship Config
  
• Added: Solid background for the module slot container backgrounds in Ship Config
  
• Added: Tooltips for module filter buttons
  
• Added: New colour swatch, now accounts for Hue, Saturation and Brightness
  
• Added: Colour swatch takes into account the current colour
  
• Added: Flag to represent ship themes in Ship Config
  
• Added: Flag to represent ship themes in Fleet Config
  
• Added: 2D weapons range indicator in tactical
  
• Added: Altered 'Activate Special Weapon' ability to include cooldown
  
  
• Update: Consistency improved with module stats in Ship Config
  
• Update: Added MFC Blackbird to main menu warp animation
  
• Update: Optimisations to SpaceCam class
  
  
• Fixed: Textures compressed (addressing memory hog fom RAW textures & slowness in Ship Config)
  
• Fixed: Scrolling with mouse wheel for ship/hull icon list in Ship Config
  
• Fixed: All fixed modules incorrectly shown for any craft with a fixed weapon
  
• Fixed: Corrections to module stats text headers
  
• Fixed: Tooltip mis-shapen when mouseover filter icons in Ship/Fleet Config
  
• Fixed: Optimized texture memory usage
  
• Fixed: Clicking on colour swatch gives wrong colour at some resolutions
  
• Fixed: Jittery halt with some of the smaller ships
  
• Fixed: Improvements to formation flying so the ships catch up to wingleader
  
• Fixed: Missiles exploding mid
• flight for no reason (0.7.10 demo bug)
  
• Fixed: Drunken transitional animations in Ship Config
  
• Fixed: Missiles miss and orbit target (0.7.10 demo bug)
  
• Fixed: 'Error in Battle Simulation' bug reported by Kearon
  
• Fixed: Texturing issues with Enif, textures replaced
  
• Fixed: Issue with 2D radar sweep disappearing when lead ship not scanning for Flotilla
  
• Fixed: Issues with scan not eminating from proper unit
  
• Fixed: Radar and missile range 2D indicators now plotted at battlegrid intersection
  
• Fixed: Warp tunnel texture now seamless
  
• Fixed: Objectives totals wrong on multiple playthroughs
  
• Fixed: Duplicate ship icons when leaving and re-entering ship config
  
• Fixed: Rare crash in CoreAI
  
• Fixed: When use MMB to look is on and in movement mode, using ALT & LMB to pan camera no longer triggers movepoint
  
• Fixed: Players customized ship configs now overwritten only when nessecary
  
• Fixed: Corvette trails (broken in UPDATE 6)
  
• Fixed: Theme scrollable area fixed for 8 or more themes
  
• Fixed: Markup issue in ability tooltips
  
• Fixed: 'Continous Plasma Discharge' MP cost corrected