Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Gratuitous Patch Number 32!

At last I’ve released patch 32 (version 1.32) for GSB today. If all goes well, then I’ll roll that out to partners like steam over the next two days. There are many changes big and small. Here are the big ones:

1) Performance: UI performance improvement for scrolling on the challenge browser screen.
2) Performance: Differential challenge data downloading means that refreshing the challenge list is much faster now.
3) New Feature: Fleet overlay UI for the battle screen showing every ship on your fleet and it’s current status.
4) Usability: Mouse cursor now changes to the hand icon when over something clickable.
5) New Feature: Added module stat comparison window when you click any item of module data.
6) Bug Fix: Weapons will now fire at anything within range correctly, even if ordered not to attack a certain class, providing that no other suitable targets are in range.

Depending how you play the game, some of these may be irrelevant, or awesome. I really like the module stat comparison stuff. I should have done it ages ago, and the fleet overlay is handy too. People who micromanage their weapons orders to the nth degree will appreciate number 6. I always thought it was working that way, but it turns out my code is buggier than a bug breeding colony on bug island. It works in a much more sensible way now, and its more viable to build ships that mix and match anti-fighter and anti-cruiser weapons :D

The patch will auto-download over the next 24 hours for existing buyers. New buyers get a  ready-patched copy anyway.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. I forgot to mention in the readme that I beefed up some of the explosions and particle effects too. The very next thing I do will be the next expansion pack, which I’m pretty excited about. After that, it’s likely the mini-campaign.


11 thoughts on Gratuitous Patch Number 32!

  1. well they would only fire if there were no cruisers. There is a ton of calculations behind picking a target, one of which is the hit chance. The reasomn you see cruisers sometimes shooting at fighters with plasma torpedoes is because there is nothing else in range.
    That will still be true, and will be even more true to some extent, because even with no ‘attack fighters’ order, it will happen now, if there is no other target.

    The key to all this, and its something I need to make clearer in so many ways, is that “Attack Fighters” really means “Move to engage fighetrs”. Its an order for the SHIP not the WEAPON.
    I’ll tweak the tutorial and order naming at some point.

  2. Yes, Campaign time, Ohhhhh YYYYAaaaaaa
    Anywho the fleet overlay is also an excellent idea, sounds
    helpful.

    S

  3. Well, the point is that is easy to exploit fighters against missiles (and other weapons with low rof), put a bunch of fighters in front of cruisers, enemy cruisers will waste missiles on fighters, while missiles are still chasing the fighters (for all the freaking missile fuel), the enemy missile cruisers will enter in range with no missiles to shoot.

  4. Please for the love of all that is holy, set the installer to install the game updates to the existing game directory. I install all of my games to the D:\My Games folder, and it drives me bonkers when you installers try to install to my C:\Program Files directory. Bonkers!

    Otherwise, Cliff, I love your game, I love your style, I love your blog. I really, really do. Great stuff, man!

  5. Differential challenge data downloading is not working right for me
    I posted in the support forum with details

  6. Reason being the dialog hides some of the existing description and its anoying to have to close the dialog to see everything underneath.

  7. I just thought of another thing. How about making each of the module stats ‘click-throughable’. :)

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