In this patch we've revamped the overcharge modes. In past versions we found that players used overcharge modes in a very passive way (typically: weapons overcharge during entire dogfights, and shield or propulsion overcharge to flee). We want to encourage a more skilled-based, active use of overcharge modes, benefiting switching at the right timing during an engagement.

This is why overcharge modes have been redesigned to be high reward / high risk. Abusing an overcharge mode will now result in negative effects (weapons or turbo breaking when overheating, shields shutting down when depleted). Shield overcharge modifies the behavior of the shield to become absolute instead of probabilistic, which guarantees that the hull won't be damaged until the shield breaks down.

Propulsion overcharge, in addition to providing an acceleration boost, now allows to overboost even when energy is depleted, at the cost of some extra heat generation but the booster will get damaged when overcheating.

Weapons overcharge will cause excess heat which damages all weapons by 25% of their max HP when overheating.

All these changes may need some further balance tweaks, feel free to provide some feedback in the comments.

The other big change in this patch is the introduction of A.I. Support ships. They can now spawn along other capital ships in battles and will actively repair/rearm nearby targets, including players. They also know how to hunt/scavenge resource crates when they run out of resource points. With this, the game's AI is now feature complete, but there will be more tweaks and improvements to the A.I. in future patches.

The carrier also got its final polish pass (including new geometry tweaks and explosion debris) and we've introduced a way to toggle a 'Stagger' fire mode for fixed/gimbaled weapons on small ships (this option is available per weapon group in the ship loadout panel). When this mode is enabled, weapons in the same group will stagger firing, increasing the chance to hit a target at the cost of some dps if you miss. It can be useful on slow-firing weapons (test it on the railguns for example). Most energy weapons now default into this new stagger mode.

We should resume visual polish (trailing effects and damage decals, mostly) in the next patch(es) while we still work in our database infrastructure for cosmetics and server cross-play integration in the future.

-Flavien Brebion

• Weapons overcharge still provides a +30% firing rate. It now causes +15% excess heat. Turrets now rotate +25% faster. Weapons take 15% max HP damage on overheating. Additional negatives: -25% energy regen and -15% shield regen

• Shield overcharge now provides +50% shield regen rate, and the shield absorbs all hits until it breaks. It takes 30s to auto-repair. The shield no longer has a delay after a hit to trigger the regen. Additional negatives: -25% energy regen, -15% firing rate and -15% thrust

• Engine overcharge still provides a +30%(main)/+50%(laterial) thrust bonus. Turbo boost no longer stops after depleting energy, but instead produces excess heat which damages the turbo when overheating. Warp gets interrupted for 30s after switching to another overcharge mode. Additional negatives: -25% energy regen, -15% firing rate and -15% thrust

• Note that as before, the bonus or negative effects only apply while the overcharge gets actively applied (ex.: you won't get any negative effect in shield overcharge mode if your shield is at 100% and doesn't need to regenerate, nor if you don't fire your weapons in weapons overcharge..)

• Resupply fields or beams no longer resupply Resource Points or Drones on Support ships (this could be abused with Support ships resupplying each others)

• Added stagger firing modes in ship loadout panel (can be toggled on/off per weapon group)

• Turbo boost can now be critically hit and temporarily shut down

• Decreased Support ship's Shield points from 14K to 12K SP

• Decreased Support ship's Shield regen rate from 75 to 50 SP/s

• Increased Repair and Rearm beam's range from 3 Km to 4 Km

• HUD now displays extra information about the warp status (cooldown, broken) on the center left

• HUD now displays the energy bar in orange as energy runs out

• Fixed charged weapons/beams not stopping when running out of ammo (the beam would still be displayed without doing anything which was confusing)

• Fixed 3 rare server crashes

• Fixed a double hardpoint on cruiser hangar loadout

• Implemented Support ships AI (they can now repair/rearm allied capital ships, and scavenge resource crates to replenish their resources)

• Added a probability for AI capital ships to escort each others based on the current commander's strategy (this allows some capital ships to act more independently, especially during All-in attacks)

• Note that AI Support ships may cause battles to last a bit longer due to capital ships staying alive for a longer time. If you notice battles dragging on due to weird AI ships behaviors, please let us know

• Added new command line arguments to quickly launch a game or avoid preloading, to speed up script development

• Tentative fix for Proton/Linux players trying to launch a local game (tutorials, sandbox..). If you're playing the game on Proton and were not able to launch the tutorials or a sandbox game before, please let us know if this patch addresses the problem

• Carrier mesh quality updates (launching tubes, geometry..)

• Added carrier explosion debris

We'll be streaming live on YouTube, Twitch, and Steam.
(If Steam and Twitch are down, Check YouTube, we are testing multi-platform-streaming for this event) YouTube Channel Link https://www.youtube.com/@Inovaestudios

Event Stream Links

• Youtube - https://youtube.com/live/LeqHKTyC9VQ?feature=share

• Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/inovaestudios

Flavien and Hutch will review the latest patch notes. Key topics will include:

• AI Improvements - Support ships now have proper AI behaviors. Allied support ships will now actively repair and resupply ships in the fleet. They will pick up crates to replenish their own Resource Points (RP) when the supply runs low.

• New Firing Mode - Some weapons will now have an additional firing mode option in the "Loadout Presets" customization menu. Enabling staggered firing for weapon groups with 2 or more active hardpoints.

* Full Patch notes will be posted here on steam prior to the planned event.

Join us this Saturday for the in-game portion of the event!
We'll be playing on the USEast Server.

Dev's will focus on gameplay relating to the latest features, in a multiplayer setting.

• Testing New Features – AI, observe the new behaviors, and see how they impact battle outcomes, and player experiences. AI behavior for the support ships will be observed during active gameplay, to assess impact to both player experience and battle progression.
  

• Test the new firing modes, check for bugs, and gather feedback from players in real time.

• Test various systems that have received updates in the latest patch, and continue to gather general feedback from players, both in real time, and through comments / engagement on the discord.

Your feedback matters! We actively read Steam community forums and engage on Discord. Please let us know what you think of the latest build!

See you in game! ---

Join the Discord for Fleet Comms, or use the in-game Squad comms to co-ordinate.

Discord Server Invite Link - https://discord.gg/wTeDTaK
Discord Event Link - https://discord.gg/QsvX9bnG?event=1476002447066660895