v1.17 Experimental

Dear Galactic Survivalists!

In Germany, there’s a saying: “May brings all things new” (Alles Neue macht der Mai).  With that in mind, Update 1.17—which is going live to EXPERIMENTAL phase today—includes a major new feature for anyone who’s ever lost their way while jumping through the galaxy: the Warp Route Planner!

With this new feature, you can calculate a route to your destination on the galaxy map. You’ll receive a list of (cyan colored) jump points that you can reach one after another using the warp drive currently installed in your ship. All you have to do is: align with the next jump point displayed, throttle up and activate the warp drive! You can find more information in the overview below.

Of course, this isn’t the only new content in version 1.17. In addition to a relevant update to the galaxy (playfields, POI, vessels and more), there are numerous smaller and larger adjustments and new features. Among other things, with the “effect hardening” feature, you’re now better protected against certain status effects during specific attacks—depending on your suit and installed boosters.

We’ve also made some content adjustments in the Testing Grounds scenario. For example, a new jumpgate model has been implemented, and the jumpgate network has been adapted to the action and mission tree planned for the future (even though you can currently still use the network without restrictions!).  

As always, we look forward to your feedback on both the new features and the general and scenario-specific changes!

Please add your feedback over here: https://empyriononline.com/forums/bugs.34/

Please report bugs over here: https://empyriononline.com/forums/experimental-features-discussion.35/

We hope you enjoy testing!

The following features apply to ALL scenarios.

The Warp Route Planer allows to plot a full multi-jump warp route straight from the Galaxy Map up to 500 LY instead of hopping star-by-star.

• PLOT ROUTE (new button on the Galaxy Map): select any star in range or far beyond, click PLOT ROUTE — the game calculates a chain of waypoints that respects your warp drive's range. If the destination is out of calculation range (500LY) the closest star in the direction of your selected target will be calculated.

• One-click for close targets: if the target is within a single jump, the route is created instantly — no dialog.

• Confirmation for multi-jump routes: a dialog shows destination, number of waypoints, total distance in LY, and pentaxid fuel cost before you commit.

• Waypoints as bookmarks: the route appears as numbered nav bookmarks ("Nav 1/N", "Nav 2/N", …) on the Galaxy Map and in the bookmark list. The list always shows Nav 1/N → Nav N/N in route order. The waypoints are colored CYAN both on the bookmark list and also in the HUD (markers / edge-of-FOV arrows)

• HUD auto-advances: your HUD marker always points to the next waypoint — when you arrive, it automatically will show you the next in row. You only need to align, speed up and jump.

• Very long routes get clamped: targets beyond a safe distance limit (500LY) are routed to the nearest reachable star on the way, with a clear in-map message so you know what happened.

• Cancel mid-calculation: long routes can be cancelled. The PLOT ROUTE button will turn into a CANCEL button. So if things take too long, you can cancel the process  — a small dialog lets you keep the partial route, discard it, or restart.

• CLEAR ROUTE button: remove the whole active route at once via a confirmation popup.

• Renaming or deleting Nav bookmark: does not break the route.

Important: There can be three occasions where you will not get a route to your selected star.  

1. The selected star is farther away than 500LY from your current position. You will get a route up to that limit, though. 

2. The selected star is not reachable at all OR with your current warp drive range..

3. The routing times out. If the route calculation takes more than 30 seconds, the plotting will stop. This can happen when the travel route is very complicated.

For all points there will be a dialogue or popup, indicating the reason why the plotting failed or where it was clamped. This is intentional and NOT a bug, because the dialogue or the popup info will give you the option to use the warp navigation waypoints that have already been calculated up to the point of when the calculation stopped or was clamped.

Improvements to General Galaxy Map / Bookmark Handling

Quality-of-life fixes made along the way — they apply to regular bookmarks and map use, not only nav routes.

• The selected system name is now shown above the map management buttons (lower center) as soon as you click a star (orange if that star is also your locked target). Before: only Distance was shown.

• Search System now allows to directly use the LOCK TARGET button when the camera moved to the selected system. Before: 2x click required after selection was performed.

• Bookmark: a click on a list entry now directly allows to use the LOCK TARGET button right when camera moved to the bookmarked system. Before: 2x click required after selection was performed.

• New GO TO LOCK shortcut: When nothing is selected (deselect, move camera or click middle-mouse), the LOCK TARGET button changes into GO TO LOCK — press it will fly the Galaxy Map camera to your locked star.Ther it will turn into the UNLOCK TARGET button.

Feature addition: Effect Hardening

• Added new parameter  "IsPiercing" to StatusEffects.ecf 

• Added new parameter “PiercingFac” to ItemsConfig.ecf to add for armor suits and boosters 

• Added ‘effect hardening’ functionality to reduce buff chance for “IsPiercing” tagged status effects by multiplication with “PiercingFac” value (suits, boosters)

The following status effects are currently tagged as “Piercing”: Open Wound, Fracture Closed, Fracture Open, Poison Bite, Stunned, DermalParasite, AlienParasite

The following changes either apply to any or only particular scenarios.

Playfield Updates:

Note: Changes will only appear in newly created savegames OR on playfields of current savegames that were not visited before the update.

• Improved Patrol Vessel and Drone spawns, added some faction creature interactions.
  Note: Factions might have (more) patrol vessels at worlds they consider as high-value. Usually these are "life-bearing" and/or "rich in exotic resources". Strength of Warlord Patrol Vessels reduced for some common playfields.

• Moons now have a chance to spawn lower-tier Warlord Dronebases, and are usually free from standard-hostile Patrol Vessels. (Note: Getting close to a hostile Dronebase might call in all resource-guarding Drones nearby.)

• Prenn worlds now usually have Drone coverage and Dronebases. 

• Higher spawn density and diversity of Talon and Prenn POIs on many playfields (Especially Arid, Ocean, Temperate, TemperateSwamp)

• RadiatedIce planet: Added basic resources; this world is now quite rich in Pentaxid. Very basic biome preparation work for POI & deco. 

• POI "BA_PolarisScienceStation": Wrong terrain cutout/offset, a room was not airtight,

• Set 12 larger, common POI to use circle flattening when placed on terrain 

• Added POI variants for Dronebases of Prenn and Warlord

• Added attacker HV for Warlord terrain raid spawns

• Added Lava-themed trading station POI

Other changes:

• WebView package to v4.15

• Switched Patrol Vessel / Orbital Patrol Vessel map display icon  from “red dot” to Capital Vessel symbol

• Talon Ballista and Crossbow bolts fly a little bit faster. Adjusted BallistaBolt hit effect 

• EGroupsConfig: Added smaller creature group variants of several factions, for better terrain spawn control. 

Fixes:

• Fixed some exceptions from sent in logs

• Fixed an exploit

• Fixed exception with duplicate playfield names in Sectors.yaml 

• Fixed large black patches sometimes appearing at Temperate planet poles 

• Fixed double entry for AlienBugs01

• Small terrain fixes (Lava, Moon, RadiatedIce, Temperate)

Note: Please always start a  new savegame when using the Default Random EXP (Testing Grounds) scenario!

Content

• Added new Progenitor Jumpgate models (thx to Stellar_Titan)

Added new layout of Progenitor Jumpgate Network.
Note: Currently all Jumpgates are activated by default. They do not need to be discovered anymore. In the future some of the gates might require some tasks to activate them.

Other changes & fixes

• Preliminary addition of new Merchants (MCT- in dropdown list) for trader rework

• Preliminary addition of new traders planned for trading lines 

• Reduced HP of crystal drones (7k>1k) and floaters (2k/1.6k > 750/500/250)

• Added more Pirate treasures to several playfields

• Fix: Combat Floater was not available for spawners

• Fix: Fixed drop chance for Large Enerdyn container.

• Fix: Charged Combat Steel template included block instead of component preventing incremental upgrade from Combat Steel