Greetings Pilots! It has been a month of silence and is high time I write down the first batch of changes done to the project. As mentioned in my previous post, instead of smaller updates, each monthly development from here on out is designed for one larger patch that will hopefully get everything into a state fit for a proper alpha release. What I can so far show off are the following:

New UI panels - I was always quite dissatisfied with the design I had for the prototype, so hopefully this is a decent enough upgrade that will last my "unrealistic" standards for a good while. The new look will apply to any panels in the game and will add a nice blurred effect to background objects. Currently this is only available in the main menu and is currently being implemented in the hangar module.


Restored missile use for AI - This is something I haven't paid much attention to for a while, but after making changes to how missiles are loaded in fighters a few updates back, the AI refused to use them at all. Not only has this now been corrected, but they can also decide which secondary is best suited for a given target. For fighters, they prioritize heat-seekers and aspect-seeking* ordnance, while with larger targets, they use dumbfires, torpedoes or bombs*.

*weapon class planned, but currently not implemented
I don't know about you, but personally, I haven't seen that many AI ships in first person space games use dumbfire missiles.

New Starmap - While the tactical map brings awareness to the system you operate in, the starmap's goal is to visualise every star system connected to the Network. This will give you information on planets, active fleets and will also serve as a way to see objectives or plot waypoints that are further away from one jump.
What is also worth noting, is the fact that this method will also enable the game to maintain persistent groups of ships as opposed to the ones that were generated after a player made a system jump. This means if you see a system with no fleets of warships present, you won't meet any if you visit said location.

New UI-based animations and a bootup intro for fighters - Currently I'd rather not spoil anything substantial, but this would mostly affect elements from the main menu and what happens when starting up a ship for the first time, for the sake of bringing its displays more to life. Currently the latter has no bigger function than that, but it could change to reflect some scenarios in the future.

There are a few more minor things laying about, but those are the main changes done to the project at this time. I'm planning on finishing the starmap's interactive side, continue fixing bugs and add a few more things I feel are missing from a complete alpha release. No specific ETA set as of yet, but I'm expecting a testing build to be ready in 3-5 months. Until then, I will keep making posts like these to document progress.

Thank you for reading!