Game Update July 23, 2019

[Highway]

Tau Ceti Preperations Update for the Game on July 23, 2019

Between 8:30 AM and 10:30 AM UTC+2, the game servers will shut down for a new game update to be deployed.

New Features

The Mission Board

• The Mission board now supports filtering by several categories to better find the desired mission. Filter toggles are given for completed, story, special and white missions).
• Added option to switch between mission sets based on tech level when there are alternative planet versions unlocked and available.
• Performance and stability is improved, especially when there are a lot of missions in the mission list.

Tau Ceti Part 2 Preparation

• Added Vénar leveled Tau Ceti part 2 tech to be gathered on Vénar.
• Added Tau Ceti Conquest ship & items that drop in Vénar and, once Part 2 is live, the new Earth zone.
• New Tau Ceti Parsec and ne0n ship armor accessible on the Sol and Tau Ceti system (locked by new Earth access chip).
• Several new achievements added for Tau Ceti Part 2.

Improvements & Changes

Conquest

• Limited Conquest planets to the system tech with a minimum tech level, same as done on Battle planets to avoid PvP balancing issues. In Sol, Mercury is restricted to the the light tech, others to Sol advanced tech.
• Removed Cryonite loss on Conquest planets.

Content

• Vénar Mission: "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" enemy amount reduced.
• Vénar Mission: "Starbase Building Blocks" added scan to stop/continue mechanic.
• Vénar Mission: "Tauruda Mining" added scan to stop/continue mechanic.
• Added Vega Substandard Afterburner to be dropped from the rare scout on Kalabesh.
• Rearranged the hunt harvester missions so they are included in the squad mission achievements for all stars systems.
• Increased maximum player rank to 91.

Gameplay

• Improved spawn area logic to be more responsive so that they respawn earlier when a player is moving into range.
• Improved ship movement on the planet surface to be more smooth and natural, especially when moving uphill.
• Increased view distance of ships in the game world (experimental).
• Improved flying over water now picks the correct location on the water surface level instead of the terrain (i.e. the ground of the body of water).
• Improved reaction speed for turret moving when scanning.
• Improved that on the mission panel the latest mission logs are automatically switched to when no other is manually selected.
• Removed that non-targetable units are shown on the minimap (e.g. Orbital Strikes,..)
• Antares Level restrictions lifted for the planets so that there is a single restriction to all of Antares tech.

Visuals

• Adjusted look of the ne0n tech meshes for ships and weapons.
• Improved ne0n tech materials for ships & weapons.
• Improved visual effect/sound falloff when units are destroyed to avoid sudden stops.

Boosters

• Increased damage deflector boosters effectivity to compensate for the calculation change.
  • Standard raised from 10% to 12%
  • Enhanced raised from 15% to 17%
  • Elite raised from 20% to 23%
  • Ultimate raised from 25% to 30%
  • Supernova raised from 30% to 35%
• Improved the booster info texts to always show the defined booster values and times in the cash shop.
• Wording change for boosters (anything that says it only affects combat "against Mantis").

Usability

• Improved Cortex Module communication in the hangar.
• Also added detailed messages related to the acquiring of Cortex parts that are written to the pilot history.
• Blueprint items in the decryption window are sorted by item type within each system.

Other

• Improved ship naming scheme to now fully allow ships to carry their faction in name.
• The creation of white missions to fetch blueprints or kill units was improved and is less prone to errors. It now calculates the areas and time to finish them based on the actual data of the planet.
• User profile kill counter now also counts "weak" units.

Bug fixes

• Fixed AI follow behavior that could cause units to get stuck. This will also improve drone and turret repositioning & following.
• Fixed that the sell or purchase dialog window in the hangar was sometimes showing too short/unreadable items.
• Fixed damage booster calculation to fix several issues caused by combining different damage reduction items like drones, Gravitons and Alloys. It was the root cause for creating undesired behavior for certain items.
• Fixed a landing feedback message which states user limit reached when it actually was an error caused by the server.
• Fixed special zones such as the Draconis Wormhole are not properly named in the history.
• Fixed vegetation scaling issue causing to incorrectly use small sized meshes in Sirius.
• Fixed shield bar was not correctly displayed after ship was destroyed.
• Fixed Battle planet tech level off by one issue for Sirius tech levels.
• Fixed that visual effects like Mender repair aura etc. will be visible again after a unit gets back into view.
• Fixed issues that certain NPCs & elements like Orbital Strikes & Mines could stop reacting.
• Fixed that area buffs will not target landing or starting units anymore.
• Fixed faction issue causing NPC units not to properly supporting each other with support items.
• Fixed performance issues for the mission messages log. Was especially noticeable on missions with many reports.
• Fixed that the first item in the promotions tab of the item shop was not preselected (it is now).
• Fixed Aimscambler PvP balancing
• Fixed several minor stability usability issues.
• Server stability improvements.