Hello Galactic Survivalists! Today we start phase 2 of the current Empyrion Galactic Survival v1.10 Experimental version. Since this version focuses on building and creating, an important note: DO NOT create blueprints or build POIs while you are in the EXP version. There can always be changes that may cause your blueprints and POIs to not work in the upcoming public version! That being said, this new phase of the Experimental Version is a milestone for several reasons. For one, we've replaced the motorcycle with a hoverbike. Furthermore, we have added player-usable defense drones for the first time! You can use this feature by building the Drone Bay, filling it with up to 10 Defense Drones and placing at least one Drone Bay Spawner. The feature is available for both Bases and Capital Vessels! A maximum of 2 drones will be launched when a threat appears and attacks you. The latter event got its own "battle soundtrack" with this update which is different from the planet battle soundtrack! For all the builders among you there is also an additional treat: Not only have we added a Snap-Point function to the Blueprint Collection Tool, you can now also jump on 17 new block shapes. But important: Remember the disclaimer to avoid problems after the experimental version! Please post your feedback in the feedback threads provided and pinned in the Experimental Forum. Links, as well as more details of the update, can be found in the full changelog below. We wish you a lot of fun in phase II PS: Want to share your feedback about the game and the Experimental live? Join our discord server right away! >> https://discord.gg/empyrion Report bugs over here: https://empyriononline.com/forums/bugs.34/ Changelog v1.10 B4214 2023-06-08 Gameplay Added the ‘Drone Bay’: You can now craft and place the Drone Bay and equip it with Defense Drones. A Drone Bay Spawner is required for starting the drones. Pay attention to the direction you set the drone spawner block & also place it on the outside of the vessel so the drones have easy access to it to spawn & despawn from. To “retrieve” spawned drones toggle the power off for the drone bay & wait for them to return & despawn. When they are close to your vessel keep it still so they can find the spawner & despawn. First iteration for testing. More details coming soon https://empyriononline.com/threads/v1-10-exp-drone-bay-feedback.101630/ Replaced player bike with a player hover bike: first addition of model and basic movement controller. Note that the Hoverbike cannot go over water and it has not yet an updated icon in the containers and toolbars. https://empyriononline.com/threads/v1-10-exp-hoverbike-feedback.101631/ Building Blueprint Parts Collection Tool: Added possibility to create snap points to combine blueprint parts together. With that POIs can be created very fast and easy, especially out of construction sets. Teaser video: https://streamable.com/iz9oyn A detailed documentation + video how to setup Snap Points up will be coming shortly Improved preview speed of blueprint parts Added buttons to reload the blueprint part preview https://empyriononline.com/threads/v1-10-exp-blueprint-parts-collection-tool-feedback.101632/ Added 17 new blockshapes (17); First addition/icons missing. You can find the new blockshapes by checking for missing slots and white blanks on the Cubes-, Round- and Connector- tabs OR hover over the seemingly empty slots on the 2nd page of the "basic shapes" tab https://empyriononline.com/threads/v1-10-exp-new-block-shapes-feedback.101629/ Factions Updated the UCH faction NPCs: the faction now uses a dedicated set of NPC types for military and civilians. For builders, use the male and female military and non-military variants for NPC spawns that start with ‘UCH’ (eg. UCHSoldierFemale2AssaultRifle, UCHPilotMaleRed, UCHCivilianMale1 and so on. https://empyriononline.com/threads/v1-10-exp-faction-changes-feedback.101633/ Sound & SFX Added a space-battle track for space combat (to separate it from ground combat) Added new sounds for power generators, shield generator & the warp drive https://empyriononline.com/threads/v1-10-exp-sound-sfx-feedback.101628/ Other changes Updated main loca (EN) for new additions of devices and entities Added Difficulty setting to disable new BP Factory behavior to check if all blocks are unlocked in TechTree (default: check active) Fixes: - 00890: Collision for large thrusters in not correct and doesn’t apply blastdamage - 00910: Large thrusters is flickering in 1PV after resume the game - fix: solved non-stop BattleSondtrack when tweak music volume. - Fixed Blueprint spawn crash - Fixed: New UCH entities (soldiers + civ) had no SfX (Alert, Death, Hurt) - Fixed: BA_PolarisDroneBase offset missing - Fixed: BA_UCHSettlement was missing FillerBlocks at the corners - fix: 00926: ScifiTableV2 glitches player in table when standing up from it. - 00944: Forcefield sun reflections - 00940: Flickering at the edges of blocks devices with SSAO enabled EAH: - https://eah.empyrion-homeworld.net/download/patch-notes-emp-admin-helper-full
OK, so just like my last post in the Exp1 thread I'm just going to put my thoughts here in no specific order... This time I started on Skillon but I'm not going to test the missions yet. For now Im just testing in survival with god mod on. The tessellation is more noticeable here then on Akua, especially on the patches of barren dirt with small rocks. I still think it would be better to just use parralex for things like the wavy patterns in the sand and where the terrain is mostly covered with foliage but over all I think its a good addition. CPU utilization is about 10% lower across the board from my Exp1 test on Akua. More block shapes are ALWAYS welcome! Keep em coming! I'm seeing a lot of console spam of "Drone transform: [GlidingOverseer_1096] prefab doesnt of have its [Turret] component set correctly -> no weapon activated". This is kind of annoying. The new armor icons are kind of cool. The new hover bike is a HUGE improvement!!! I do think it needs a headlight and its a little on the twitchy side. It also seems to have trouble climbing some slopes that don't look like they should be a problem and there are some camera issues when being forcibly stopped by an obstacle. While typing this with the game running in the background, I was shot by a drone and combat music kicked in as expected. When I alt tabbed back in, the drone was just hovering in front of me and not attacking and after a second the combat music stopped. The drone then flew over my head, turned around and started attacking again. Combat music worked as expected but drone AI is really, Really bad. I slapped a drone bay and spawner on the first wreckage I found and it immediately spawned two defense drones, one on top of the other and they just kind of sat there. They did not respond to the base attack I forcibly spawned using console command 'ba z 3'. Is This supposed to happen? Is this ONLY meant for vessels and if so why? More info in this mechanic would be helpful. Turns out the drone AI does not work when CM is on! That answers that question. This feature seems to be mostly working as expected! The drone storage blocks should really come in multiple sizes with varying capacities for flexibility when building. The ability to snap blueprints together is a really good idea. You might want to think about finding a way to automate this so you can have procedurally generated POIs.
OH MY GOSH! This is so awesome! I have to get back in to play after this drops to public. I've been trying to keep up with things, but I have to ask, there was talk about physical factory for blueprints. Did that ever come about, or is that still something yet to come?
Thank you for the new shapes guys. More blocks are better! Blocks are a cornerstone of Empyrion (pun intended?), as they reinvigorate the builders to build, and this in turn spills over into the playerbase, as they have more new ships on the workshop to play with from excited builders. This will also translate into some interesting looking POI's from the POI builders as well. One of the series of blocks that i'd hope to see someday (hopefully soon), would be a family of blocks centered around a slope between 11.25 to 15 degrees blocks. (11.25 being effectively half of our current 22.5 could make for some interesting connections) When trying to emulate some of the sharper angles of popular sci-fi themes, or just freestyle building, we are roadblocked to a degree by our current selection. 22.5 and 45's can go far with a lot of forms, but we are lacking just that one sharp line.. somewhere between 12-15. With this addition of a 12-15 degree block family, I wager to say the aesthetic of Empyrion builds would be revolutionized over night. This could give us access to to properly convey sharper forms such as Star Destroyers, certain Star Trek designs, and a whole host of other themes, rather than having to to do masking techniques or zig-zag lines etc. We builders could start moving from likenesses of popular themed ships, over to something better representing replicas, and in turn we could captivate a wider audience, and begin to distinguish the Empyrion aesthetic from other similar builder games. A shaper lined ramp block of 12-15 degrees, if developed with a full family of connecting blocks, could also mean we could utilize them to do rounding over broader surfaces, giving us many more chances to emulate popular rounded scifi themes as well. It's wishful thinking, but I see that family of blocks being a big breakthrough for Empyrion design. Thanks for the new blocks, and excited to play with the drone spawning blocks. I'm invigorated to make some EVE Online builds now
like always love the new additions in particular the Drone spawn block and in some point i do hope that we will be able to use our own creations also as drones in more than one way , also hopefully in the future we will be able to also spawn ncps and even give the jobs or taks to make the world feel more "alive" , this could be from gunners , farmers , traders , soldiers etc ps : the improvement on the graphics are amazing as always keep it up and thanks !
