Greetings Pilots! A shiny new month is ahead of us with an extra helping of snow and celebrations. I would've added some decorative lamps to the ships, but they already have collision lights, so that's most of the job done already! Only have so many days each month, after all...

So, what have I been working on?

For starters, the foundation for missions are being reworked. Much like the previously refactored modules, the purpose of this change is to make development and gameplay more flexible than previous versions. This means the following things:

You can accept more than one mission at once. This lets you handle multiple assignments and reap even more rewards in a smaller timeframe.

A new "Journal" menu has been added in the tactical map, allowing you to manage your missions by assigning those that you want to focus on or abandon those you can't finish.

A WIP framework allows for not just single freelance missions, but structured ones, armed with their own objectives and obstacles. This means a procedurally generated mission in the future can have multiple steps which need to be taken in whichever way the player feels necessary.

Sometimes ships not piloted by you can get stranded by stray disruptor projectiles. You can now repair them with the new "Rearm my target" command. When calling, you will also see a distance indicator which will tell you how far the ship is from its destination. In these cases you can shorten the wait via the time compression module found in the tactical map.

And to tie these nicely together, I am testing out a hidden mission, activated by discovery. These are supposed to be a one-off deal, giving players stories, challenges and new characters to meet. My goal is to make these unique, memorable, and to bring the world of the Network to life.

Spoilers: If you are unsure where to look, you can find an unknown signal out in the Nebula Sector.

Overall these are nice additions, however they're pretty buggy. Much like most things, it will need a few more months in the oven, but what's there can be broken and reported about. I do have a few issues that I am fully aware of but had no time to fix yet:
- The side quest mission doesn't save properly - it's not long, so finish it before saving or said file might break your run
- Capital ships refuse to load in missions, when they say to expect anything large, just ignore that detail for now
- Some ships have misaligned docking ports, making them undockable
That said, I might leave a hotfix here in a few days as some of these can get annoying, depending on how quick I will be able to resolve them. Something like the capital ship bug is due to slight changes I have made with how background ships get cleaned up each time the player jumps. That should take me mere minutes to find. Other issues like the incomplete saving for special missions require more attention, however.
And finally, I shall leave you with a(n admittedly short) changelog:

09.12.2018 - Prototype ver. 0.2.0:
Additions:

• Added mission manager
• [TEST] Added hidden, one-off side-story mission
• Multiple missions can now be accepted/finished
• Support ship can rearm wingmen via new context command

Fixes/Corrections:

• Redone freelance missions, can now support multiple objectives
• Other, smaller improvements

Next stop is capships and fireworks! Perchance combining the two for additional effects, though that might annoy the neighbours. In either case, I am planning on ending this year with a bang.

Thank you for reading, and I'll see you next year!