Naikari 0.10.0 Release Candidate Testing

[onpon4]

We're changing things up a bit for this release in terms of how we announce them. Previously, we baked the announcement for each version in the actual release page. This time, we're going to use the Discussions section. We plan on continuing to do this in the future.

We're not yet ready to actually push out the Naikari 0.10.0 release yet, but we're ready to begin the final testing phase before its release. We've done this with every release, but never bothered to announce release candidates for previous release cycles. We're going to do so this time and for future releases.

Download the current release candidate for Naikari 0.10.0 here:

https://github.com/naikari/naikari/releases/tag/v0.10.0-rc.4

If you have the inclination to do so, please consider giving the release candidate a run and seeing if you run into any problems. If you do encounter a bug or something else that requires attention, let us know either as a reply to this thread or by opening an issue on the issue tracker.

In the event that more release candidates are needed, we will note this in replies to this thread and then update this post as needed.

Changelog

Major Changes

• Planets you need to land on and jump points which lead you to systems
  you need to go to are now hilighted (similar to the way Naev does it,
  but a little better).
• Added the "Turret Conversion Module", which enables turning all of a
  ship's weapons into turrets.
• Completely overhauled the race missions: instead of boarding randomly
  placed stationary pilots, you now pass thru a random set of planets
  and/or jump points for a certain number of laps.
• Traders will now sometimes broadcast requests for fuel, which the
  player can answer by hailing them.

Other Gameplay Changes

• Reduced the number of hidden jumps given to the FLF.
• Removed "hypergates" (which were really just glorified jump points to
  a hub system), since they don't really seem to be all that useful in
  gameplay and don't make much sense lore-wise.
• Warlords battle no longer sets the faction of the winning side to the
  standard Dvaered faction (which means you don't risk e.g. reputation
  loss if you find yourself on the losing side).
• Added a garbage dump location to Empire space.
• Slightly improved the waste dump mission.
• Adjusted some hyperspace connections in the universe.
• Removed the randomness from the Drinking Aristocrat mission which
  could lead to needing to make as many as nine stops. The total number
  of stops (including the correct one) is now fixed at exactly four
  (three wrong ones plus the correct one).
• Forward-facing beams now rotate in the same manner as turret beams,
  rather than instantly facing their target.
• Changed the balancing to give large turrets an inherent advantage over
  large forward-facing weapons, now that forward-facing weapons can be
  easily converted into turrets.
• Civilian NPCs are now smaller in number, but much more likely to give
  rewards.
• Reduced the number of services on introductory worlds, to more
  gradually introduce planetary services to new players.
• Generic planets can now always be bribed, even with minimum standing.
• Bribe price for "low-class" planets is now lower.
• "High-class" planets can now be bribed as long as you are not enemies
  with their faction, but at a very high bribe cost.
• Different factions now have different landing bribe costs.
• The Derelict event is now less common, but hilights the derelict so
  it's more visible.
• The Derelict event no longer spawns in systems with volatile nebulae
  (since the nebula would destroy them, which would be a bit weird).
• Mercenaries no longer protect civilians and other peaceful AI pilots.
• Larger and factional derelicts are now rarer than smaller and
  non-factional derelicts.
• Quicksilver, Koäla, and Mule now all have three weapon slots.

Other Changes

• Replaced the cross display of system position markers (as used by e.g.
  patrol missions) with a shader based on the one Naev uses for the
  autonav go-to position indicator. This makes these markers much easier
  to see especially when they happen to be on top of planets (as is the
  case for patrol missions).
• Removed the superfluous "TARGET" text next to the autonav go-to
  position indicator.
• Aiming helper crosshair now has an outline.
• The target clear control will now clear an asteroid target as well.
• Relaxed some of our eccentric usage of diaereses. It's no longer used
  on "ao", "ei", "eu", or "ea". This also means that the subtitle is now
  "Eye of Chaos" instead of "Eye of Chaös".
• New saves now include information about what system they're landed on
  in the load screen.
• Removed use of system claims for some missions.
• Autonav resets speed less aggressively, and by default (togglable with
  an option in the Options menu) does so even less aggressively by
  ignoring passive (not actively hostile) enemies entirely.
• Land and Jump keys will now cycle thru targets if already in the
  process of auto-landing / auto-hyperspacing.
• Hilighted pilots no longer come with a text label.
• Clicking on empty space now clears the current target.
• The Mission Computer now centers the newly selected mission again when
  you click on a mission in the list.
• The map in the current missions list in the Ship Computer can now be
  interacted with just like on the Mission Computer.
• The letter on outfits in the outfitter now indicates outfit type
  (weapon, utility, stucture) again, instead of size.
• Adjusted text colors to make colored text easier to read.
• Changed the autobrake key to make it engage active cooldown without a
  second press (as in Naev).
• Added some more pilot names.
• The first Ian Structure mission now tells you the reward up-front and
  explains credits conversion instead of the second Ian Structure
  mission doing so.
• AI ships now have an amount of fuel which is matched to where they
  spawned from (i.e. they always have full fuel when taking off, and
  they always have no more than their max fuel minus their fuel
  consumption when jumping in).
• All ships in the Warlords Battle event are now hilighted, rather than
  just hilighting the leaders.
• Simplified and fixed the way near zoom is chosen (it was previously
  based on velocity and didn't really follow the Zoom Near setting in
  practice; now, the near zoom level is static).
• Setting zoom levels no longer "requires" a restart. (It wasn't
  entirely necessary before, but the options menu told you that it was
  and changing the settings messed up the stars in the background
  temporarily).
• CPU usage for outfits is now displayed as a positive "CPU Usage" value
  instead of a negative "CPU" value.
• Salvador now has no Empire presence (to match the Hakoi Pirates
  storyline).
• Adjusted some wording in the third Hakoi Pirates mission.
• Removed mention of Arnold Smith's "boss" in the Shark mission.
• Renamed the second Nexus mission to "Nexus False Flag".
• Changed the word "steal" to "loot" in the boarding window (since it
  fits better with boarding derelicts).

Bugfixes

• Text of system position markers is now "optimized" to avoid collision
  with planet/jump overlay text.
• Fixed player and asteroid radar icons being allowed outside the
  overlay boundaries.
• Fixed some potential for conflicts with the Hitman missions.
• Fixed a typo in the Emergency Shield Booster description.
• Fixed a potential for inconsistent text in the Love Train mission.
• Fixed a design oversight which meant player fighter bay escorts did
  not escape jump as intended.
• Fixed dust amount not being recalculated on resize events.
• Fixed Dolmen missing common outfits.
• Fixed an issue where the Credence in the Teenager mission could get
  stuck flying around in circles.
• Fixed a mistake in the code which could lead to combat music playing
  when it shouldn't.
• Fixed the Credence in the Teenager mission not being given bad cores
  as intended (which is meant to slow it down and make it easier to
  catch).
• Fixed mass limit of afterburners being listed as tonnes rather than
  kilotonnes.
• Fixed failure to update the hilighted OSD objective in the Shark
  mission if a Shark was acquired via trade-in.
• Fixed the Hakoi Pirates missions not generating portraits when loading
  the game while landed at the destination planet.
• Fixed Empire ships interfering in the Dvaered warlords battle event
  and attacking the player.
• Fixed a rare bug that could cause fighter bay fighters to enter a
  limbo state when changing systems (which would continue until the
  clear orders command was given).
• Fixed display when gathering from asteroids to show kilotonnes rather
  than tonnes.

[onpon4]

We were kept from working on anything for the last few days by a long power outage, but before the power outage, we found and fixed a couple small issues in the first release candidate:

• Fixed the Reynir mission placing duplicate markers, and placing markers too early.
• Fixed a leftover reference to pressing the autobrake key twice in the second Ian Structure mission.

I've just pushed out a second release candidate which contains these fixes.

🦇

[onpon4]

Just pushed another RC since we found a whole lot of bugs yesterday in testing. Changes to RC3 compared to RC2:

• Fixed Dolmen missing common outfits.
• Fixed a memory leak when mission markers were moved or removed.
• Fixed Credence in Teenager mission not doing its idle movement.
• Fixed Teenager mission's use of markers so it shows one for going to the target system.
• Patched some issues which could cause combat music to play when it shouldn't.
• Fixed Credence not getting equipped with bad cores as intended.
• Fixed the Hakoi Pirates comm event getting attempted from unnatural pilots (like fighter bay fighters) and removed the system claim in the event.
• Fixed mass limit of afterburners being listed as tonnes rather than kilotonnes.
• Fixed Shark mission failing to update OSD properly when Shark is acquired via trade-in.

[onpon4]

Just pushing Release Candidate 4 after spending quite a lot of time today testing and fixing some issues. Changes compared to RC3:

• Fixed Turret Conversion Module adding CPU rather than taking it away like it was supposed to.
• Changed CPU usage in outfits to an absolute value (to prevent mistakes like the previously mentioned one from happening again), and changed their display to show a positive "CPU Usage" value rather than a negative "CPU" value.
• Made Turret Conversion Module limited to 1 per ship.
• Patched several more problems with the music selection code. I think it works properly now, but then again, that's what I thought the last half dozen times I worked on the music system.
• Made Salvador have no Empire presence, to match the Hakoi Pirates storyline.
• Slightly edited text from the third Hakoi Pirates mission.
• Added an idle hook to the trader fuel request mini-event so that if the trader can't jump, it will try again when it has enough fuel. (It already would have tried again after getting refueled, but this change means it will try again if it gets enough fuel naturally, as well.)
• Fixed all of the Hakoi Pirates missions not spawning NPC portraits at load time where needed (i.e. when landed on the planet that the portraits are needed and in the situation they're needed).
• Slightly edited some text in the Shark mission.
• Changed the second Nexus mission's title from "Sharkman Is Back" to "Nexus False Flag".
• Fixed Empire ships interfering in the Dvaered Warlords event.
• Player escorts no longer jump when the player jumps for "aesthetic" reasons. (The escorts couldn't actually jump, and the attempt had the potential to occasionally cause small problems and complications.)
• Fixed messages telling that you gathered something showing tonnes rather than kilotonnes.
• Changed the word "steal" to "loot" in the boarding window, so that it better matches the situation of boarding a derelict.