Stellar Nomad v0.2.1 Release Notes

    I just wanted to take a second to thank everyone who has checked out, downloaded, or played Stellar Nomad so far. The response has been great, and I’m very encouraged to see this project to completion. Since the demo release, I've focused heavily on the usability and quality of life feedback I've gotten, and I’m hopeful the changes I’ve made will make the Stellar Nomad experience a bit smoother. Anyway, on to the updates!

New Ship: Manta Class Fighter

    The Manta is a Federation Naval Shipyards fighter, built with the philosophy that if you’re fast and carry enough missiles, you don’t need to engage in a dogfight. As such, it carries two Concussion Missile launchers by default, but can be equipped with up to four. It’s also the second fastest ship available, so it can fire its payload and escape very rapidly. If forced to engage in a standard dogfight, the Manta can be at a serious disadvantage when the missiles run dry.

New Weapons: Electron Laser and Dual Laser Turret mk1

    The electron laser is one of the first directed energy weapons ever developed, and for its time it was an astonishing leap forward in weapons technology. The fact that it still finds use today speaks to that; it’s not as powerful as other energy cannons, but it is inexpensive and widely available, and requires no special clearances to own.

Other Content Changes

• The flak cannon has had its audio adjusted to sound less like rapid-fire flatulence
• The light freighter and the falcon have had their durability increased dramatically
• Added several new tracks to the ambient audio list
• Ships can now have empty slots in both their turrets and fixed hardpoints
• Added two fixed hardpoints to shuttle (empty by default)
• Added one turret hardpoint to falcon (empty by default)
• Increased the rate of fire and reduced the damage of the flak cannon (overall dps is similar only slightly reduced)
• The flak cannon is now much more effective at taking out incoming projectiles and can be used defensively for that purpose

Quality of Life Improvements

• The landing sequence has been streamlined significantly, which should hopefully lead to less confusion for new players and less frustration for veterans
• Now, instead of first establishing orbit, you press ‘L’ to request landing clearance, then ‘L’ again to land. The hint system helps with this process tremendously
• Pushing ‘L’ will automatically request landing at the nearest habitable planet
• You can also click on a planet directly to select it, and then press ‘L’ to request landing at the selected planet
• Several performance-related options have been added to the Options menu
• Added option to enable/disable Bloom
• Added option to enable/disable Anti-Aliasing
• Added option to enable/disable Vignetting
• Added option to enable/disable Ambient Occlusion
• Added option to enable/disable Nebulae
• Added the hint system. Hints for keypresses appear on-screen when contextually appropriate
• Mission objectives, when activated, can also put hints on-screen
• The mission BBS now has a 'view on map' button that will open the map and mark the destination system for the currently selected mission, so you can see where you're going before you accept a mission
• The controls screen has been updated to reflect the changes in controls that have occurred
• The map panel (and all the other tabs) can now be accessed at any time, including while on a planet/moon/station
• Tutorial missions edited and trimmed down so that there are zero controls references in the text
• On-screen quest markers now clamp to the edge of the screen, so you can always know where you're trying to land on a mission
• You can now cycle through all ships in the current system by pressing TAB
• Added text and audio feedback to help the player figure out if they're doing the right thing
• Added tooltips to certain UI elements
• Pressing the Escape key will now back you out of any menu

Bugfixes

• Homing weapons are now much more maneuverable, and as a result, far more accurate
• Quest Markers can now appropriately show more than one objective
• Added a cancel button to the ‘Create Pilot’ interface
• Added a cancel button to the ‘Load Pilot’ interface
• Fixed an issue that could cause the options screen in-game to be unclosable
• Fixed an issue where the UI could get into a bad state if you clicked the close button on the map while viewing a mission destination
• Fixed mission description text in the Escort Ship mission
• The planets on the main title screen now actually pause when the game pauses
• Fixed an issue that caused all starsystems to be marked as 'discovered' when starting a new game
• Fixed an issue in the outfitter that was causing weapons to cost their purchase price * the number of times you'd visited the outfitter, whoops
• Fixed an issue that came up when you jumped to a new system with a planet selected
• Fixed an issue that could let you jump from your current system to the same system
• Fix for torpedo acceleration
• Fixed an issue where captured ships could be lost if you jumped before landing
• Fixed an issue with weapon spread
• Pressing escape in the mission BBS will now appropriately close the mission description panel
• The controls screen had an error corrected, where two buttons were reversed
• Nebulae, when disabled, can be re-enabled immediately instead of waiting for the next jump
• Navlog now queues up messages and won’t print a new one until the previous one has finished
• Navlog messages now fade nicely instead of just disappearing
• Made game window resizable when not fullscreen