Star Control: Origins is still in development, but some lucky players who pre-ordered the game have access the Fleet Battles beta for the game. If you are one of them, then you should now grab build v0.71, which has made some improvements and additions to the game.
A new race, the Phamysht (yes, it is pronounced famished), has been added, with a ship capable of single-shot "charbroiled" kills, and can invite nearby ship crews over for "dinner," although the menu will likely be limited. The hunger theme is strong with this one.
The update also has balanced some of the combat, and fixed a few bugs reported by players. It has also been noted that player-created ships are now "peppier," so rejoice in that knowledge.
Here is the full changelog:
Gameplay
- Arena:
- Reduced asteroid damage
- Increased arena size from 45 to 60
- Decreased max separation from 45 to 40
- Planet made slightly smaller, gravity radius increased.
- Custom ships: reduced physics drag so they behave more like the core ships.
- Drenkend
- Drag increased from none to 0.1
- Max Speed reduced from 6 to 4.5
- Turn rate reduced from 120 to 60
- Boarding party speed increased from 3 to 5.5
- Earthling Ship: The Nuclear Missile is now destroyed by AOE weapons.
- Jeff is more aggressive
- Menkmack:
- Mine radius reduced
- Boarding Ships are easier to pick up
- Mowlings: Beam Carver damage significantly increased.
- The Measured
- Renamed weapon from "Paperwork" to "Red tape"
- Updated the weapon effect
- Red tape duration increased from 10 to 120 seconds
- Increased cooldown time between allowed Demotivator bursts.
- Trandals: Increased collision area to better match the ship.
- Phamysht (new ship) It would be very rude not to let them eat you. They have the following attacks:
- Charbroiled - Single-fire shot that roasts enemy ships.
- Invitation -- The Phamysht make a series of very polite requests. Nearby ships" crew immediately disembark and floats towards Phamyst ship for "dinner."
- Scryve Scout
- Speed reduced from 9.5 to 4.5
- Turn radius reduced from 360 to 240
- Point cost reduced from 8 to 7
- Health reduced from 27 to 15
- Tywom: Turn rate reduced from 240 to 180
MP
- Ships are no longer occasionally invisible. Wasn"t fair to the other life-form
- Asteroids are better synced between peer and server.
- Enemy"s ship trails now always show the correct color
- Fixed a bug where the peer in Local Matches would sometimes get fully healed and charged for no good reason.
UI
- Right-clicking a ship in the Fleet configuration screen removes it from that player"s fleet.
- Scale sliders in the Ship Design Editor now display as ratios of 100%
- Changed "Earth Ship" to "Earthlings Ship"
- Added word wrap to the Upload Design dialog in Crafting menu
- Increased the contrast on the crew meters" artwork so they"d show up better on certain displays (e.g. televisions)
- The "+" button no longer appears if your fleet was full.
Bugs
- Addressed several cases where the audio wasn"t playing correctly on the peer.
- Fixed a crash in the Ship Design List. This crash occurred when a ship design button was clicked after the exit button had been activated.
- Fixed a bug where you could start a single player super melee game with no ships in the AI"s fleet.
- Added sounds for the Drenkend and Jeff.
- Fixed pink edges on the arena planet on NVIDIA cards.
- Weird characters won"t prevent you from saving your ship designs.
- Pressing "start game" while dragging a ship no longer crashes.
- Fixed a problem where some ship designs weren"t appearing on the ship design list if they weren"t outfitted.
- Fixed a problem where the Melee Config screen sometimes showed a "+" button even if there were no ships available to select.
- The Measured will no longer fire only in one direction if the ship isn"t moving.
If you want to try the beta, you can still pre-order Star Control: Origins for instant access.
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