A-Spec First Assault news & patch notes

Hey pilots,

A-SPEC First Assault 1.0 is now available. A tactical space dogfighting combat simulation, flying a wing of corvettes and going up against increasingly more difficult opposition through a single player campaign of 6 chapters, 3 main missions per chapter, and a variety of side missions to keep the feeling fresh in-between.

Buy it now on Steam.

Explosion shockwave from a dying opponent

A-SPEC First Assault includes:

• Single player campaign containing the prologue and the main story across an additional 6 chapters.

• Fly fast corvette ships and engage opponents from nimble fighters to large lumbering battle cruisers.

• Assign your wingmen ships and define their loadouts of guns, missiles, turrets, and enhancement modules.

• Choose your loadouts carefully to handle the various types of opponents you may encounter in the space.

• Give individual orders to your wingmen to divide and conquer your opponents.

• Take advantage of segment armor to engage your opponent at their weakest side, whilst protecting your own.

• Choose your controller: Keyboard & Mouse, Gamepad (Xbox, PlayStation, etc.), HOTAS and HOSAS devices with multiple (with any combination).

• Internally tested and confirmed to run on the Steam Deck and with a Steam Controller (Valve's Steam Deck testing will come after launch)

Buy A-SPEC First Assault now.

Hostile cruiser with escort group under fire

• Players have the choice of skipping the first three missions which introduce basic flight, targeting mechanics.
• Redesigned aspects of the first three prologue missions to keep the pacing up and reduced the distances as players move to each additional objective area.

• This update provides significant performance improvements, along with general bug fixes and improvements and fixed the accuracy of the players primary guns when enabling the "Homing Projectiles" option

• AI manager to handle management of AI Actor logic updates for improved performance
• Combat AI Actors now perform a threat assessment against nearby hostiles to determine the best target to engage (closest comparable to itself)
• Combat AI Actors are capable of making attempts at reducing the likeliness of getting stuck against other ships/structures in the world

• Gimball Gun tracking and movement logic updates are now processed with ECS Jobs for improved performance
• Turret tracking and movement logic updates are now processed with ECS Jobs for improved performance
• Ship exhaust lens flare logic updates are now processed with ECS Jobs for improved performance
• Ship exhaust lens flare quad texture visuals are now rendered more efficiently for improved performance
• Projectile logic updates are now processed with ECS Jobs for improved performance
• Projectile quad texture visuals are now rendered more efficiently for improved performance
• Stellar dust logic updates are now processed with ECS Jobs for improved performance
• Gun Muzzle Flare quad texture visuals are now rendered more efficiently for improved performance
• Radar contacts logic updates are now processed with ECS Jobs for improved performance
• Improved the logic used for stretching projectile tails for better visual appearance
• Removed the in-game FPS monitor and associated key binding

• The players main gun projectiles are now 100% accurate against targets when "Homing Projectiles" have been enabled in the game options
• Campaign soft lock in Chapter 5 Mission 3 as no random side missions are generated preventing progression towards unlocking this main mission
• Refactored hazard field processes (asteroid and nebula fields) for performance improvements
• Projectile Stats from installed modules are not applied to the guns when in a mission (Muzzle Speed, Max Range, Rate of Fire, Explosive Radius)
• Ship Fitting: Launcher Subsystem Damage display values are being calculated incorrectly
• AI Actors now correctly calculate stopping times, preventing the fast overshoot/fly-bys when using the afterburner

• A fix to the controller bindings, with some performance improvements and lighting quality adjustments thrown in

• Tender loving care

• Improved performance for damage checks resulting from explosions
• Improved performance for AI pilots checking to fire their primary weapons
• Origin based shifting is now done at a threshold instead of whenever the player moves from the world zero position
• Slight performance improvement when the origin based shifting is applied
• Adjusted lighting quality settings across all video quality options

• Controller bindings no longer listed, the screen has become unresponsive to button presses
• Resolved camera issues preventing using a threshold greater than 0 for origin based shifting

• Bug fixes
• Performance improvements

• Warp In and Warp Out Visual Effects use an appropriate size for the warping ship
• Error popup on application start-up if Steam is not running

• Improved performance for projectile collision checks
• Improved performance for Shockwave Explosions
• Kherson Heavy Corvette: Increased subsystem auto repair rate to bring inline with the other corvettes
• Reduced subsystem repair rate for the Sumer Dynasty Battlecruiser and increased its sensor subsystem HP
• Projectile Highlights will fade out in close proximity to the camera
• Adjust lighting intensity and maximum range for explosions

• Updated Rewired API: Axis name will now be displayed when bound to a button action (for Unknown Controllers)
• Projectile Tails for Artillery now extend from the firing point instead of immediately being set to maximum tail length
• Player view can become obscured for a short time during Chapter 5 Mission 2 & 3
• Corrected Medium and Small Artillery Head VFX offset
• Playing a skirmish match then going into campaign mission will use the last used skirmish match background instead of the campaigns
• Donetsk Medium Corvette colliders not aligned with model silhouette
• Corrected Sun flare position in Chapter 2 Mission 2

• Added Chapter 5 bringing in an additional 3 main missions with a brand new side mission variation for the Distress Call mission type (adding 6 variations within itself)

• Chapter 5: 3 Main Missions
• Side Missions now pull from a pool of random backgrounds designed for each chapter
• New Distress Call mission variation (with 6 new types of events)
• 8 new Passive Modules designed around Damage Control/Repair
• Added Flight Key Binding: Toggle Primary Weapon Gimbal - disables primary weapon tracking for those who want to sharpen their expert marksman skills
• Added Flight Key Binding: Ripple Salvo Launcher Target (Toggle) - When enabled MLMS salvos will ripple through targets of the same target type you had targeted on pulling the trigger
• Added a drop down option to select between 'Standard Controls' and 'Advanced Controls' in Controller Bindings Overview screen for better readability and clarity

• Asteroid field debris and dust fading in/out improved
• Magnetic Calibrations passive modules are awarded earlier in the campaign
• Frictionless Coils passive modules awarded earlier in the campaign
• Changed the default Key bindings for Cycle Turret Orders (Defaults to Semicolon ';') and Cycle PDC Modes (Defaults to Quote ''')
• Adjusted loadouts across civilian combat ships to make them more useful in combat

• Damage Control: Displayed repair time for damaged subsystems is using the single subsystem repair time instead of the total repair time for the subsystem group
• If turret is destroyed (knocked offline) the death explosions occur, but after it is re-spawned (restored to online) there will be no further death explosions when destroyed again

Early Access development update

• Added an overview screen as a place to easily reference control bindings
• Artillery and Autocannon weaponry adjusted to provide more distinct differences and use
• Improvements to Torpedo Launchers (installation costs, flight specs, damage)
• Kherson turrets significantly less likely to spontaneously combust when firing a launcher salvo

• Default bindings for generic HOTAS controllers
• Default bindings for generic flight pedal controllers
• Controller Bindings Overview screen (For a quick glance reminder of controller bindings accessible from the pause menu during mission flights)

• Adjustments to all Artillery and Autocannon variants towards defining distinct useage of these weapons and to Artillery:
  • Artillery are long range weapons (range increases, while muzzle velocities decrease, as slot sizes go up)
  • Burst and Standard Autocannons are medium range weapons (range increases, while muzzle velocities decrease, as slot sizes go up)
  • All Autocannons have a slightly faster muzzle velocity than the equivalent it's Burst Autocannons
  • Adjusted maximum projectile range and muzzle velocities to move autocannon use from long range to medium ranged
• Torpedo Launcher (Medium):
  • Fitting Points cost changed to 61 (from 169)
  • Prestige Points cost changed to 1464 (from 1624)
  • Adjusted lock range and flight time and flight velocities
• Torpedo Launcher (Large):
  • Fitting Points cost changed to 243 (from 675)
  • Prestige Points cost changed to 5832 (from 5400)
  • Adjusted lock range and flight time and flight velocities
  • Adjusted Explosive damage values
• Torpedo Launcher (Extra Large):
  • Fitting Points cost changed to 648 (from 2250)
  • Prestige Points cost changed to 15552 (from 18000)
  • Adjusted lock range and flight time and flight velocities
  • Adjusted Explosive damage values
• The launcher status bar in the flight HUD weapons panel will no longer play out the reloading UI animation when the launcher ammo is 0, instead it will remain as an empty bar
• The Save/Load window in the Equipment Loadout Screen:
  • Window real-a-state has been increased and equipped items are listed with consolidated totals to ensure specification text is fully displayed
  • Players can now select Save/Load Slots 6-8 when using controller navigation
• Controller axis binding for roll is now inverted by default

• Hard at work Akkadian Technicians have corrected a minor fault with the Kherson's new forward positioned keel turret mounts. In completely unrelated news, the Kherson's launchers have been repositioned further forward allowing missiles to reach their intended target that little bit quicker, oh, and-any-keel-mounted-turrets-will-no-longer-spontaneously-combust-when-firing-said-launchers
• Several side missions were not using overrides to spawn vessels and instead used the data in the mission file (therefore no random spawns!)
• Firing a secondary launcher with multiple salvo's and then immediately switching to another secondary launcher will pause the firing of the previous launcher
• Projectiles were applying the shooters velocity to position offsetting the spawn location from the muzzle (which is no longer needed due to a script execution order change in a 0.19.x change)
• Explosive Damage Enhancer Passive Module is not being applied to equipped launcher missile explosion damage
• Equipment Loadout Screen now highlights locations (Primary, Secondary, Turrets) and equipped weaponry (primary guns and Turret models) on the vessel when hovering or selecting the relevant equipment slot
• Vessel Selection Screen: Vessel loadout specification text for assigned wignmen is not updated when navigating the UI with the directional keys/buttons
• Adjusted Turret Hierarchy Order so that turrets listed in the fitting screen in a standard convention
• Muzzle Velocity and Max Range stats for projectiles do not display correct adjusted values with the Frictionless Coils Passive Module equipped
• Rate of Fire stat for projectiles do not display correct adjusted values with the Magnetic Callibration Passive Module equipped
• Using a Controller with a Throttle Axis binding assigned will set the throttle value to 0 while a Flight Group (1,2,3) button binding is held
• Help Glyphs are not using a fallback for generic controllers without glyphs, which would instead use the element descriptive name of the controller for the bound action

Greetings, Commander. There is a lot to digest in the patch notes below, so I'll cover some of the more noteworthy inclusions for update 0.20.0: Chapter 4 3 new main story missions brings the player to the front lines of the war. Encounter tougher and bigger enemies than before. Chapter 4 side missions up the ante as well, if you want a real challenge then test your mettle with the 'Ambushed' side missions. Corvette Ship Improvements The Akkadian corvettes (Player faction) have been given additional equipment slots, varying by ship across primary, secondary, turrets and passive modules. The Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson have significant increases in Max Fitting Points to make the most of these. Optional Player Assists Near-Miss Do you love flying into the enemy head on guns blazing, but hate how the enemy chews you up as much as you do them? Then hate no more, and increase the chances of enemies missing your entirely with the Near-Miss assist. Find it from the main menu under Options > Game > Near-Miss Spread Angle Increase the slider to make the enemies aim worse or reduce to 0 to turn it off entirely. Velocity changes, and relative speeds are factored into calculation, so you'll still need to make a few flight adjustments. Homing Projectiles You position the target in centre, your gimbal guns swivel to line up the perfect shot, squeeze the trigger and... Damn, the target fired its thrusters and adjusted its velocity enough for the projectile barrage to harmlessly pass by! Feel more like a crack shot pilot at the extremes of your guns max ranges with the Homing Projectiles assist. When enabled any targeted vessel with the guns lined up for the kill will have their projectiles home in on the target. A bit like a heat seeking missile, but for projectiles! This doesn't guarantee a 100% chance hit rate, if the projectile travel time is long enough the target has a chance to evade if they put enough thrust into it. Find it from the main menu under Options ? Game > Homing Projectiles A simple toggle on or off.

ːlunar2019coolpigː

Patch Notes 0.20.0 (Merged with 0.19.x Release Candidate Builds) Overview

• Chapter 4 added to the story campaign

• Increased Prestige rewards for completing main missions

• FPS performance improvements

• Various additions, gameplay improvements and bug fixes

Added

• Chapter 4:

  • 3 Main Missions

  • New (tougher) Side Mission spawn pools for: Ambush, Ambushed, Seek and Destroy, Convoy Escort/Destroy, Distress Call

• Added weighting system to reduce the possibility of the same mission name types being overly repeated in side mission offers.

• Allowed Akkadian Combat Pilot Actors to use afterburners (does not apply to other factions as adding this feature dramatically changed the difficulty and timings of a variety of missions)

• Collision Avoidance conditions to stop AI Actor Pilots of larger ships evading much smaller ships

• Targeted Substructures now have subsystem health and substructure health bars and values displayed in relevant flight HUD sections

• Radar detection range can be adjusted on a per structure type basis (used to reduce detection range for specific structures in a Chapter 4 mission)

• Improved FPS during explosions (Object Pooling relevant)

• A couple of Particle Explosions missing from Object Pooling have now been included

• Burst Autogun XXSmall (as a replacement for Sumer fighter craft using the Prologue Autogun XXSmall within the main campaign)

• Projectiles being fired against the player (when the player is) will now calculate the chance that the projectile should be a near-miss based on local velocity and distance (All Blaster gun variations are excluded from this check)

• Gameplay Assists (Options > Game > Gameplay Assists) for reducing enemy accuracy against the player and improving player accuracy with homing projectile weapons (excluding Blasters)

Changed

• Luhansk Corvette:

  • Max fitting points increased to 404 (from 273)

  • Additional (+1) Primary Port group (x2 guns)

  • Additional (+1) forward launcher slot (Small fitting)

  • Additional (+1) Small Turret slot (rear keel)

  • Additional (+1) Small Passive Module slot

• Donetsk Corvette:

  • Max fitting points increased to 1200 (from 566)

  • Additional (+3) turret slots on the keel

  • Additional (+2) forward launcher slots (Small/Medium fitting)

  • All small only turret slots on the deck can now fit Medium fittings (in addition to small fittings)

  • Additional (+1) Small Passive Module slot

• Kherson Corvette:

  • Max fitting points increased to 1542 (from 960)

  • Secondary weapon slot has been re-positioned to a forward launcher towards making it more useful and in keeping with every other secondary weapon slot on other ships

  • Additional (+1) forward launcher slot (Small/Medium fitting)

  • Additional (+5) turret ports on the keel

  • Additional (+2) Small Passive Module slots

• Adjusted Prestige rewards for completing main missions. Players will now have more Prestige to spend on ships and loadouts. This has been retroactively applied to existing campaigns

• Thruster Optimizer Module description has been improved for better clarity

• Thruster Tuning Modules description was using the original Thruster Optimizer Module description and has now been corrected to better summarise the modules' effect

• Collision Avoidance checks for AI Actors now exclude distinct debris in the world

• Improved FPS performance (linked to Radar system updates)

• Sumer Fighters and Gunships have reduced armour and hull points to make them feel much less spongy

• Reworked Subsystem damage through projectile penetration of armour layer:

  • Previously subsystem damage scaled down linearly based on the max armour hitpoints (HP) and current armour HP. If we have two armour quadrants, one with max 500 HP and the other max 1000 HP, they would offer the same level of subsystem protection based on their HP percentage. To make subsystem penetration more consistent a weapon has a defined threshold for how much HP it can 'pass' through to achive penetration. The subsystem damage is scaled based on the threshold (passing through more armour HP will reduce the projectile subsystem damage down to 0 when it reaches the penetration threshold). This make positioning and angle of attack more important when wielding penetrating weapons (with the railgun, and lesser the autocannons) for damaging deeply housed subsystems on armoured targets.

• Adjusted the main campaign mission progression unlocks due to C01M03 being made available immediately available after C01M02.

• Prologue Mission 6 (Based on feedback about objectives around destroying enemy turrets proved too difficult to manage for a tutorial mission - thanks StoneofTriumph):

  • Swapped out the Choke Blaster for Autogun player primary weapon (due to Choke Blaster limited range)

  • Disabled the offline repair ability for enemy turrets

  • Changed Xenia comms dialogue around turret repair

  • Added Medium Autocannon 8 to the frigates

• Chapter 2 Mission 3 (C02M03):

  • Reinforcing friendly cruiser now spawns as an Akaddian Cruiser (instead of Sumer Cruiser) and given some speed mods to get it into the action quicker

  • Reduced the reinforcing Akaddian Donetsk corvettes to 3 (from 4) allowing the Akaddian Cruiser more opportunity to get in on the action

  • Sumer Gunship loadouts' have been adjusted giving 2 (from 4) gunships bombs to drop (bringing mission balancing back in line with pre 0.19.0 changes)

• Chapter 3 Mission 2 (C02M02):

  • Fixed vessel names for several rebel frigate spawns

  • Admiral ship cannot be destroyed

• Chapter 3 Mission 3 (C03M03):

  • Adjustments to rebel frigate and tug loadouts to improve their threat

  • Renamed the station

  • Civilian frigates now use correct prefab for ship data

• Chapter 4 Mission 3 (C04M03):

  • Moved the starting spawn location of Sumer transports 15000 meters further away from the warp out point to provide the player more breathing room when engaging them (for a whopping extra 60 seconds)

• Adjustments to rebel frigate and tug loadouts to improve their threat and challenge during chapter 3 side mission encounters

• Combat Pilot AI: Adjusted calculation values for pilots deciding if they should change target to a bigger threat (should stick with designated targets for longer while under fire)

• Combat Pilot AI: Logic on afterburn useage has been tuned towards reducing the overshooting targets and inappropriate usage overall

• Removed peneration ability from Autogun and it can longer apply damage to covered subsystems

• Mini Gun (used by the Sumer Gunship) renamed to Cannon and increased direct damage by 5DPS (30DPS total) and increased subsystem damage by 10DPS (60DPS total)

• Player HUD Weapon Panel now counts down number of rounds remaining to be fired from a trigger pull (i.e. Burst Autocannons) on the weapons reload status bar

• Updated the equipment text stats format and layout in the fitting screen

• Sorting order improvements for inventory items listed in the fitting screen

• Reinforced Armor Plating (Small) changes

  • Type I = Fitting points increase to 18 (from 6)

  • Type II = Armor HP increase to 3000 (from 2000), Fitting points increase to 84 (from n) and Prestige cost increase to 1120 (from n)

  • Type III = Armor HP increase to 7000 (from 3000), Fitting points increase to 270 (from n) and Prestige cost increase to 4992 (from n)

  • Percentage values are now penalized (reduced with multiple modules affecting the same stats) instead of just being a additive flat value

• Progression with Equipment Unlock time changes

  • Artillery Medium X1 TURRET unlocks after completing C02M03

  • Autocannon/4 X1 (61) unlocks after completing C02M01

  • Autocannon/4 X2 (62) unlocks after completing C02M01

  • Autocannon/4 X3 (63) unlocks after completing C02M02

  • Burst Autocannon/2 X3 (59) unlocks after completing C01M01

  • Burst Autocannon/2 X3 (60) unlocks after completing C01M01

  • Explosive Damage Enhancer I unlocks after completing C01M03

  • Explosive Damage Enhancer II unlocks after completing C02M03

  • Explosive Damage Enhancer III unlocks after completing C03M03

Fixed

• Replaced ship loadout secondary weapon references to old MLRS Launcher to new MLMS Launcher(s).

• Skirmish Menu: Players will no longer be able to see or select factions not intended for use by the player

• Sumer Light Frigate was incorrectly used as friendly unit in Ambush mission, and has now been replaced with Donetsk Corvette

• Burst Autocannon/04 X1-X3 Turret Gun DPS has been increased to expected output values (due to wrong reload time being applied)

• Gunship now uses its own unique XS turret

• Corrected typos in various mission texts

• Explosive Armor Protection III (S) module had a vastly inflated price

• Null Reference Exception when a turrets target warps out

• Sumer Gunships' secondary launcher slot size was forgotten and has been restored back to Extra Small

• AI Actor will no longer use full throttle when in a sweet spot behind a target

• Disabling AI Actor causing Invalid Operation Exception error

• Resolved an issue with mission scripting logic for checks on subsystem health when the subsystem is attached to a damageable (and destructible) substructure which would return incorrect values when the substructure is destroyed

• Null reference exception when an engine substructures(s) health reaches 0 on the Sumer Cruiser

• A wingman with their own wing will not spawn their wing in formation when playing a Skirmish match

• Vessel Loadout Screen: Equipped ship weaponry DPS overview list are significantly over inflated for primary weapons

• Explosions hitting a dying substructures will continue to feed additional damage through to the main structure

• Projectile guns which fire off multiple rounds on a single trigger pull start the reload timer as soon as it starts firing instead of after the last round being shot off (affecting Burst Autocannons and Blasters)

• Blaster/4 Primary Gun was using a Medium slot size when it should be Small slot size and has been corrected

• Ship overview panel in the fitting screen now shows individual applied stat values and correctly shows applied weapon damage stat values

• Stopped the filter being re-applied when equipping an inventory item into a slot in the fitting screen (which would reset the scroll view back to the top each time)

• Corrected known typos across several main mission briefings, debriefings, and communication dialogue

• Added launcher rewards missing from the campaign. The requisition officer has been advised of this oversight.
• Fixed the 3rd person camera from being too far out for various ships. The AI drone camera system has been retrained to no longer fit the ships engine flares into view despite it's opposition of wanting to include 'all of the the shiny flares'.
• The wrong ammo was fitted to the MLMS-POXY 2/5/10 launchers and will now use the correct proximity detonating warheads. This is the requisition officers second performance and standards warning.

• New cruiser and battlecruiser ships available to fly in Skirmish, along with existing weapon variants for their slot sizes
• New and improved Multiple Launch Missiles (MLMS-CTAT, MLMS-POXY)
• Performance and visual improvements
• Lots of other additions, bug fixes and improvements

• Missing descriptions for certain guns and turrets
• Reinforced Armour Plating module L and XL sizes
• Engine Optimiser XL modules
• Engine Tuning XL size modules
• Explosive Armour Protection XL size modules
• Frictionless Coils XL modules
• Kinetic Armour Protection XL modules
• Kinetic Damage Enhancer L and XL modules
• Magnetic Callibrations XL size modules
• Nanite Repair Optimisation XL size modules
• Thruster Optimiser XL size modules
• Thruster Tuning XL size modules
• XLarge Artillery Main Gun
• Large Artillery Main Gun
• Hardpoint and Launcher mounting sizes
• Battlecruiser for enemy military faction
• Cruiser for player military faction
• Mining Outpost model
• Science Vessel model (functions like all Transports)
• Rocket S, M, L and XL
• Multiple Launch Missiles (MLMS) S, M, L, XL sizes (replacing previous MLMS secondary weapon)
• Multiple Launch Missiles with Proximity detonator (MLMS-POXY) S size
• Added scripting logic for defining Wingleader/Wingmen behaviours
• Distinct debris for enemy faction transport

• Added MLMS-POXY/02 secondary weapon to player starting ship default loadout in the main campaign
• Reduced disk size requirements by using texture packing techniques (on going)
• Changed Autogun muzzle flare VFX
• Changed Autogun projectile VFX
• Changed Autocannon muzzle flare VFX
• Changed Autocannon projectile VFX
• Changed Artillery muzzle flare VFX
• Changed Artillery projectile VFX
• Changed Railgun muzzle flare VFX
• Primary weapons will target the center of a turret rather than the turret pivot point
• Engine Optimiser S, M and L size modules modifier, prestige and fitting cost values adjusted in line with rulest
• Engine Tuning L size modules modifier, prestige and cost values adjusted in line with ruleset
• Explosive Armour Protection L size modules modifier, prestige and fitting cost values adjusted in line with ruleset
• Frictionless Coils S, M, L size modules modifier, prestige and fitting cost values adjusted in line with ruleset
• Kinetic Armour Protection L modules modifier, prestige and fitting cost values adjusted in line with ruleset
• Magnetic Callibrations L size modules modifier, prestige and fitting cost values adjusted in line with ruleset
• Nanite Repair Optimisation L size modules modifier, prestige and fitting cost values adjusted in line with ruleset
• Thruster Optimiser L size modules modifier, prestige and fitting cost values adjusted in line with ruleset
• Thruster Tuning L size modules modifier, prestige and fitting cost values adjusted in line with ruleset
• Allowed Substructures to be protected by the damageable layer of the parent on a per substructure basis
• Update the dying throes of all enemy faction ships
• Reduced number of particle explosions called for death explosions across all ships from prologue to campaign, by using fewer more appropriate sized particle explosions
• Blaster 4/8/16 direct and subsystem damage along with Fitting and Prestige costs
• Torpedo model and VFX
• Rocket model and VFX
• Multiple Launch Missiles model and VFX
• Improved raycasting times for AI actor collision avoidance checks

• Medium and Large turrets now use correct size projectiles and muzzle flares for their sizes
• Null Reference error in Subsystem Repair
• When a substructure is destroyed any attached turrets are destroyed resulting in null reference exceptions
• Using the "Target turret under reticule" targets turrets which are offline and under repair and therefore invisible
• Engine subsystems will stop being repaired when 2 or more engine subsystems exist but at least 1 engine subsystem is attached to a substructure which has been destroyed
• Reinforced Armour Plating modules missing Thruster Max Velocity modifier
• Reinforced Armour Plating modules modifier values adjusted in line with ruleset
• Calculations for DPS and RPS for guns with multiple rounds per shot (Blaster & Burst Cannons)
• Turret highlights become disconnected from F2 Cruiser when targeted
• Explosion VFX on ships are included in the target highlight
• Sub-targeting turrets will use the wrong turret mesh for the highlight (and other weird highlight behaviour)
• When a ship is fitted with the Kinetic Damage Protection module and a substructure (i.e. Turret) takes direct damage, the damage feeds down to the ships hull even though if the ship has enough armour to absorb the full amount of damage
• Group spawning without a wing leader will clump spawn at same location (spawning inside each other)
• Equipment Screen: Equipped Turret slots arcs display issue
• Invalid Operation Exception when disabling an active AI Actor by script

• Bug: Radar blips no longer appearing skewed on the radar panel (introduced from last patch)

• Improved lighting/shadows and made better use of engine graphics options for game graphics quality settings from Medium to Ultra
• More targeting actions for Monitored, Wingmen, and who's talking
• The Command Panel has visual improvements and additional actions

• Autospeed match 'close' setting does not work as expected (but won't soft lock progress when required, and may require a little patience when used in scripting for Chapter 03 Mission 03 if you feel otherwise)
• Mesh fitting detailed (ship vs weapon collisions) and simple colliders (ship vs ship collisions) required for opponent faction ships (Fighter, Gunship, Carrier)
• Jump-out animations are not scaled correctly for ships bigger than a gunship

• Keybindings for targeting monitored structures in Flight controls
• Keybindings for targeting wingmen in Flight controls
• Keybinding for targeting the current talker in Flight controls
• Added new actions to the Command Panel "Targeting > General" category: Next/Prev Monitored, Next/prev Wingmen and Current Talker
• Added new category to Command Panel: Flight Controls
• Added new actions to the Command Panel Flight Controls category: Reverse Speed toggle, Match Speed toggle, Match Speed Range Modes Slide cycle, Flight Control toggle, Activate Autopilot
• Command Panel control fallback when a flight control action referenced by help glyphs not assigned to gamepad button (tutorial stuff)
• Command Panel control fallback will breadcrumb to the desired control not mapped to a gamepad button (if it exists as a Command Panel action)
• Command Panel context sensitive text panel based on category and/or action button highlighted
• Help glyphs are shown next to the Command Panel for its navigation controls

• Adjusted the font sizes on the flight HUD text assets to meet Steam Deck font size recommendations/preferences
• New rendering quality settings applied to video quality settings from Medium upwards, improving visual fidelity on higher settings
• Adjusted the shadow rendering settings for improved shadow effects when projected shadows are further away from the camera
• Changed default gamepad binding for Full Primary in Flight Group 1 category
• Changed default gamepad binding for Auto Targeting in Flight Group 1
• Gamepad Start button can be now mapped in Flight Group 1-3 categories

• Closing the Options popup screen will no longer lose button focus on the Option button on the campaign menu, forcing gamepad users to use the mouse
• Menu "Options > Video > Graphics Quality > Shadow Type" setting is no longer ignored
• The mouse cursor refused to hide until mouse first moved after a scene load (affected gamepad users)

• Added Chapter 3 to the main campaign
• New Point Defence mode (PDC Mode) for turrets to shoot down incoming missiles (not all turrets are PDC capable)
• A new Command Menu panel pauses the gameplay while you leisurely send orders, change targets, instead of mapping every control to a gamepad

• Autospeed match 'close' setting does not work as expected (but won't soft lock progress when required, and may require a little patience when used in scripting for Chapter 03 Mission 03 if you feel otherwise)
• Mesh fitting detailed (ship vs weapon collisions) and simple colliders (ship vs ship collisions) required for opponent faction ships (Fighter, Gunship, Carrier)
• Jump-out animations are not scaled correctly for ships bigger than a gunship

• Chapter 3 main missions
• When the players ship turret is taken out, the weapon display for the turret will change to shows it's repair status until its back online
• Quick Actions Panel popup to allow control selection from a menu interface (not yet bound to a default key, recommend manual assign to 'F8' for QWERTY layout. See Flight - Other - Quick Actions Menu)
• Wingmen status panel also shows each wingman's current order being actioned
• Small Turret Guns can be put into Point Defence (PDC) mode (not yet bound to a default key, recommend manual assign to '#' for QWERTY layout. See Flight - Weaponry - Cycle PDC Modes)
• Turrets now prioritize targets based on a target order list based on target size (i.e. fighter > gunship > corvette > ...) and weapon suitability
• Primary gun slots now have and are restricted by mounting size restrictions
• Side mission weights are adjusted during play (less likely to repeat mission variant if you played it --- doesn't mean you won't get another variant with the same type)
• Player ship regenerative systems are fully restored during autopilot transitions
• Turret specification text now includes "" marker to highlight Point Defence Capable turrets
• Missing default bindings (Custom bindings will be reset to avoid conflicts)
• Tug, Frigate and Large Transport ships for Civilian faction
• Event Log added to the Pause menu during flight gameplay (default: Esc) to re-view previously received transmissions during a mission

• The loading screen is now animated, to show the game is loading
• Starting the game will show the first loading screen longer than usual. This is the new normal. It's important work towards keeping memory footprint down and keep loading in to missions quick
• The training button will be hidden until the prologue has been completed at least once (as the prologue acts as a story based tutorial, as the dedicated tutorials are more for a refresher and/or deeper mechanics for veteran players)
• Campaign: Changed starting ship loadout (after the prologue) to be equipped with Autogun(S) for primary and turret slots to be more effective against fighter craft
• Primary weapon Autogun (S) max range and muzzle velocity increased
• Turreted Autogun (S) X1-3 muzzle velocity increased
• FPS is now defaulted to 30 for first time players, to ensure a smooth and consistent gameplay experience during large skirmishes due to physics being linked to frame rate. Experiment/adjust with the FPS video setting to your preference/machine
• Several code refactorings for improved frame rate stability
• Adjusted the size of the Controller and Keybindings Screen to use more of the width of the screen for binding the three controller types
• Large Transport and Mining Barges (found in the Prologue) are now have optimized and better fitting colliders
• Adjustments to fighter AI behaviours for better avoiding other structures
• Increased Unity Engine Max Virual Voices and Max Real Voices to eliminate audio cutting out when too many sources are playing at default values

• Slow loading with Skybox and HUD assets which only became apparent after adding modular backgrounds as Addressable Assets
• Full speed button is not enabled with other speed settings in Prologue Mission 1 & 2
• Yaw was incorrectly disabled during first mining task in Prologue Mission 2
• Corrected grammar in Xenia dialogue re afterburning during Prologue Mission 3
• Player Received Transmission override source name was not being applied under certain conditions
• Turrets performance were not being affected by the of the Gun Control subsystem health
• Subsystem pips for health of the player ship and targeted ships
• "Full throttle" the t in throttle should be uppercase for consistency in Control Mappings
• Enemy Cruiser encountered in chapter 2 was missing Engine and Thruster Particle Effects
• Thruster and Engine FX will no longer continue to play when the ship is in Slide mode
• Afterburner audio for the player ship only plays through the right audio channel in 1st/3rd person view
• Main Gun weapons now have use slot size requirements
• Turrets firing prematurely
• When in a mission, pausing the game then pressing the escape key will resume the mission while with pause screen is open
• Vessel Fitting: Launcher list is not indented correctly in the Specification Panel
• Vessel Fitting: Turret list is not indented correctly in the Specification Panel
• Vessel Fitting: Turret slots are missing mounting size labels
• Vessel Fitting: Modules are not being filtered by selected mounting sizes
• Nanite Repair Optimization I (S) module has wrong price (extra digit added)
• When using External Camera Tracking the HUD will eventually vibrate while player travels away from the position the camera view was engaged at
• Prologue Mission 7: Transports jumping out where not being counted correctly causing incorrect dialogue to be triggered
• Afterburn visual effect will continue and consume fuel during the autopilot cutscene, if afterburning when engaging the autopilot
• Adjusting ships armour current health values via mission scripting can prevent repairs of regenerative armour
• Added missing thruster effects to Large Transport and Mining Barges (found in the Prologue)
• Improved performance during flight gameplay (identified through performance analytics)

Chapter 3 Story Missions

Side Missions

Background Scenery

Game Bundles

New features

• Primary weapon mounting slots will have size restrictions.
• Gun Turrets now have a target priority list for each. Depending on the size and weapon type turrets favour smaller or larger craft based on the priority list. The 'fire at will' turret command will ignore the priority list.
• When a player ship turret is critically damaged and offline the weapons panel will show reflect this and provide the repair time before going online again.
• The wingmen status panel displays each wingman's order being actioned.
• A quick actions popup panel for gamepad users to interact with ship actions there are more actions than button combinations with Xbox and PlayStation controllers. It also pauses the action when open.
• Subsystem damage indicators added to the HUD for the player and the player's target. These indicators change colour to reflect the amount of damage to a subsystem group to provide a quick glance at overall ship performance.

Bug fixes

Conclusion

• Primary weapons missing the abbreviation for weapon size
• Burst Autocannon/16 X2 and Burst Autocannon/8 X2 will now show up correctly on the inventory screen
• DirectoryNotFoundException

• New Interceptor Corvette (Avdiivka)
• New passive modules to enhance your ship
• Bugs fixes, improvements and balance changes

• Autospeed match 'close' setting does not work as expected
• Colliders for Fighter, Gunship, Carrier, and Large Transport are not optimized for best-fitting
• Jump-out animations are not scaled correctly for ships bigger than a gunship

• Avdiivka Interceptor Corvette (Unlocked from completing Chapter 1 Mission 3)
• Armour plating module small and medium modules
• Explosive Armour Protection small and medium modules
• Kinetic Armour Protection small and medium modules
• Additional icons for module items
• New module inventory items are unlocked progressing through chapter 2 missions
• Player fleet size increased to 3 after completing Chapter 2 Mission 3
• Progress rewards will be retroactively unlocked based on players current progress

• Balancing Ships to allow the player to approach at target strategically affecting ship Mass, Armour/Hull HP, max speed and acceleration/deceleration for velocity and rotation
• Percentages are now used for all module stats displays
• Amended text layout for Loading a saved preset in ship fitting to limit text wrapping from long equipment item names
• Adjusted prestige price, fitting, applied stats and their values for module items
• Module slots now have slot sizes which will only fit the same size module item
• Starting a tutorial now goes straight into the mission, bypassing the ship selection screen

• The mouse cursor was never visible on the 1st time welcome screen
• Ship stats displays for Yaw/Pitch/Roll and Horizontal/Vertical for acceleration are not updated in the ship fitting screen when modules applied
• Null reference errors on ship loadouts with multiple launcher groups
• Weapon models not being updated in fitting screen preview when added and/or removed
• Null Reference error caused exiting the Vessel Fitting screen and then going straight back into it, preventing loadouts from being displayed correctly

• Altered the death explosion effects for Sumar Cruiser
• Fixed issue where Skirmish team assignments failed to set player wingmen and they would spawn at the enemy team's starting position

• Fixed issue where Skirmish team assignments failed to set player wingmen and they would spawn at the enemy team's starting position

• Chapter 2 campaign added with 3 new story missions, new side missions, and a new 'Autogun' weapon type
• Unlock, customize and fly with a wingman
• Ship fitting screen sorting and filtering
• Many bug fixes and improvements

• Autospeed match 'close' setting does not work as expected
• Colliders for Fighter, Gunship, Carrier, and Large Transport are not optimized for best-fitting
• Jump-out animations are not scaled correctly for ships bigger than a gunship

• Player campaign progress will be updated in line with changes that have occurred to Chapter 1 missions involving Prestige reward increases for the main missions and new weapon unlocks
• Added Chapter 2 with three new story missions
• Side Mission: Added new 'Ambush' mission type
• Side Mission: Added new 'Ambushed' mission type
• Side Missions Added a new variant of 'Distress Call' mission type
• Railgun (S) is unlocked after completing Ch. 01 Mission 03
• Player fleet size is increased to allow for 1 wingman after completing Ch. 01 Mission 03
• Autogun (S) and X1-X3 versions unlocked after completing the Prologue
• AI Actor can now follow assigned priority targets including subsystem targets
• F3 key (Comms Action C) will order player wingmen to attack the subsystem component targeted by the player
• When the player enables autopilot the player's wingmen will move to enter formation during the autopilot transition cinematic
• Allowed variable replacements in dialogue for transmission panel on the HUD
• Player wingmen can be configured in empty fleet slots (slots are unlocked by progressing through the campaign)
• Added options to reset the campaign to the start of the prologue or to the start of chapter 1, accessible via the campaign menu options button
• Added Sort functionality to Ship Equipment Screen
• Added Filter functionality to Ship Equipment Screen
• Players can now use the cancel button press to exit out of the Options menus (i.e. by pressing the Escape key)
• Added Prograde and Retrograde indicators to the flight HUD
• Added Guided Bomb Minimum Range Release Condition (>= 2000m) for AI Actor consideration
• Added the Sumar Cruiser as a selectable ship in Skirmish mode

• Audio volume adjustments to avoid certain sounds drowning out others
• Prestige Balance no longer abbreviated below values of 1 Million in the ship fitting screen
• Briefing/Debriefing font has been replaced
• Made improvements to text on the main menu screen to make them more easily readable against bright background elements
• Adjusted text sizes to min-max range, and prevented text wrapping with text in the HUD Target Info Panel
• Reduced MLRS missile damage
• Went through briefings and debriefings for main and side missions to ensure they all used the same layout along with some typo and grammar fixes
• Wingmen formations can now account for an indefinite number of wingmen without worrying they will spawn inside each other and become a Tuvix
• The Options button in the Campaign Menu now opens a sub-menu, with the ability to open the game options added to a new button inside
• Skirmish: Kherson default loadout changed due to cost adjustment of Railgun: Primary Railgun (M) replaced with Railgun (S); Rear Turret Blaster/2 X1's replaced with Autogun/2 X2's
• Equipment not meant for the player's eyes no longer shows up on the Equipment Fitting screen with exceptionally high values. Instead, they are no longer visible at all.
• Adjusted font size for scaleability based on length of descriptors for inventory items
• Adjusted turret long and short naming schemes

• Reinforced Amour Plating module text description now correctly refers to 'armor' instead of 'shield'
• The Briefing/Debriefing Scrollbar was not working as expected
• AI Actor will no longer fire off a guided missile without a valid target locked
• The directives panel will remain open if its list is cleared or the last objective is removed from the list
• Improved Missile Pool calculation to avoid excessive pool counts being used
• Emergency thrusters now engage to ensure ship control is maintained when engines are severely damaged
• Railgun causes damage to armor and hull (but does not penetrate outer damageable layer)
• Railgun subsystem damage scales based on the armor section it penetrated
• Damage Control subsystem repair priorities were not being honored
• Missile Null ref on collision with distinct debris
• Missile Null Ref on collision with an asteroid
• Removed code meant to prevent audio cascading but made it worse
• Actor AI collision avoidance now works as correctly
• Added missing audio priorities for Hydra Cannon and X1 Mini Gun sfx
• When an AI actor wingman is first enabled it will engage nearby enemies, instead of waiting for wing leader orders
• Default ship configuration is not applied properly in the level editor
• Turrets and modules attached to a destroyed substructure are no longer referenced by the parent structure
• Item rewards are unintentionally given via a legacy game mechanic. Rewards are still correctly granted for completing specific main story missions
• 'Convoy Escort' side mission had suffix numbering on the convoy random generator names
• 'Convoy Escort' side mission enemy wing was not given a display name
• MLRS Missile MissingReferenceException: The object of type 'Transform' has been destroyed but you are still trying to access it
• Text will be cut off in subsequent mission briefings and/or debriefings if previously the text was scrollable and the player scrolled down
• HUD gun pips will no longer display when viewing the rear of the ship
• HUD reticule now adjusts to the forward view of the ship (instead of being centered on the camera)
• Prestige and Experience for kills incorrectly calculated or not calculated at the end of each completed campaign mission

Storyline

Chapter 2 Story Missions

Side Missions

Chapter 1 Briefings/Debriefings

Wingmen

Audio Improvements

Explosion Damage Bug

Weapon Adjustments

A new, larger, enemy ship makes its appearance

Bug fixes

Game Bundles

Conclusion