⚖️ Balance Change
🏗️ More Outposts?
Outposts have become the heart of some of the busiest corners of the galaxy, and a few of you already run two.
Keeping several stations fed, defended and earning is a big job. So from now on, each new outpost asks a little more of your Command skill.
The ladder
Your first outpost needs Command 10, just as it always has.
Your second needs Command 25, your third needs Command 30 and your fourth needs Command 40.
Four outposts is the most any one captain can run.
Nothing you already have changes
Every outpost already flying stays exactly as it is, whatever your Command level. The rule only applies when you open your next one.
The Licensing Office
The Outpost Licensing Office now shows the Command level for your next outpost, so you can see straight away how far you have to go.
It will not sell you a licence for an outpost you cannot open yet, so nobody spends five million credits on a licence they cannot use. Until you are ready, the button shows the Command level you need. Time to start giving those orders, Captains.
🏢 Corporation Offices
Corporations have spread their offices right across the galaxy. From now on, how far a corporation can reach depends on how much it has grown.
Each new office asks for a higher Corp Level. Corp Level comes from the research your offices produce together, so the corporations that build and research will be the ones that expand.
The ladder
Your first office comes with founding your corporation.
The second needs Corp Level 3, the third Level 6, the fourth Level 10 and the fifth Level 15.
After that, every further office needs five more levels than the one before it. The sixth needs Level 20, the seventh Level 25, and so on. There is no limit, as long as your corporation keeps growing.
Nothing you already have changes
Every office already open stays exactly as it is, whatever your Corp Level. The rule only applies when your corporation opens its next one.
Opening an office
Dock at a station, planet or outpost where your corporation has no office yet. The Open an Office box now shows which office this would be, and the Corp Level it needs next to your own.
If your corporation is not there yet, the button tells you the level required instead of the price.
Time to get those research labs humming, Directors. 🔬
🔧 Bug Fix
🚨 Hull Breach at Zero
Captains flying with healing drones could finish a fight showing Hull 0 and still be sitting in the arena, shields quietly regenerating, while the pirates treated them as destroyed and drifted back to their patrols. Healing tops shields up in tiny fractions, so the damage that carried through to the hull could leave a sliver of a point behind. The display rounded that sliver to zero and the station’s sensors agreed the ship was finished, but the arena itself still counted it as flying.
All three now follow the same rule. A hull that reads zero is a hull breach, so the emergency systems kick in, the tow arrives, and you wake up at the repair station exactly as you would from any other defeat.
✨ Improvement
🎯 Every Shot Leaves the Ship That Fired It
Fights in the arena should look a good deal tighter. Pirate fire, drone fire and turret fire could leave from a point ten or twenty metres beside the ship that fired it, and in a busy brawl that made it hard to tell who was shooting at whom. A pirate’s volley now leaves its own hull, every barrel of it, and lasers, lances and beams stay fixed to both the shooter and the target for as long as they are on screen, exactly the way your own weapons always have.
Your drones get the same treatment. Their fire stays on the drones as they orbit, pirate fire aimed at them lands on them or visibly whips past them when they dodge, and a hit spark now travels with the drone it struck instead of hanging in space where the drone used to be.
Nothing about the fighting itself has changed. Every hit, miss and point of damage is decided exactly as before; you can simply see it properly now.
🔧 Salvage Lasers Hold Their Beam
Salvage lasers now cut the way mining lasers do. Instead of a short stab once per cycle, a working salvage laser holds a steady green cutting beam on the derelict for as long as it is cutting, and every completed cycle still throws a spark off the hull so you can see each haul land. Your teammates see the same held beam when they watch you work.
Nothing about salvaging itself has changed. Each laser keeps its own cycle time and its own yield per cycle, and salvage still goes to your cargo hold. Salvage drones are untouched and keep their quick cutting pulses. Thanks to Rioriel for the suggestion.
🛰️ Click the Station, Not the Space Around It
Field stations and pirate bases used to answer to the empty space around them as well as the structure itself, so pointing near one would pop up its details and a click beside it would hail the station instead of flying you there. Now only the station itself responds. Hover or click on open space next to a station or a pirate HQ and your ship simply flies there, the same as anywhere else in the field.