Naev Development Blarg (Page 8)

• Naev 0.9.0-beta.2

  BY UNCOMBEDCOCONUT, ON DECEMBER 1ST, 2021

  There’s nothing like a release announcement to lure the bugs into the open. Our second 0.9.0 beta release fixes the ones listed below. As always, please report any issues on this tracker, and feel free to join our Discord chat (invite).

  To get the new version you can:

  • Opt-in to the beta channel via steam
  • Download the new version from here.

  
  

  

  Changes since 0.9.0-beta.1

  • Prevented Naev from losing the player’s (pre-0.9.0-beta) licenses on first load
  • Fixed missing credits and translation coverage data
  • Prevented players from getting stranded without access to fuel
  • Mission script fixes for “Helping Nelly” and “The one with the Visit”
  • Outfit script fix for “Weapons Ionizer”
  • Fixed issues impacting at least some Windows / Intel graphics combinations
  • Hulls are more widely available
  • Improved some of the map outfits
  • Do not render systems with unknown assets as restricted
  • Added gamma correction to Options
  • Fixed reproducible crash when boarded pilots get removed
  • Added counterfeit licenses to pirate worlds
  • Remove minor energy malus from sensor array and jump detector
  • Electron burst cannon is no longer widely available
  • Improved phrasing

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• Naev 0.9.0-beta.1

  BY BOBBENS, ON DECEMBER 1ST, 2021

  It’s been a very productive year. With almost 8,500 commits from 0.8.2. For reference, this is roughly one third of all the commits in the entire Naev source code have been done this last year. As you can guess, with so many changes altering fundamental things including most of the core gameplay mechanics, there is a high chance that many things have been broken and things lack polish. For this reason, like with the 0.8.x releases, we are going to do several betas as we near the final 0.9.0 release, which we hope to be able to get out this year. Of course, this will depend on how many bugs and issues are found.

  If you try it and find any issues, please report them at the issue tracker. Discussion about the game can be had on Discord (discord invite).

  To get the new version you can:

  • Opt-in to the beta channel via steam
  • Download the new version from here.

  
  

  

  Full Changelog

  • New mechanics
    • Added new utility outfits with complex effects
    • Changed ship classification, removing rare classes while adding Interceptor and Battleship classes
    • Illegal cargo and ship-to-ship detection
    • Pilots can now go into stealth mode
    • Systems have “safe lanes” patrolled by the governing faction
    • Electronic warfare parameters are simplified and visible
    • Added escorts for hire
    • Some simple minigames have been added
    • Scramblers and jammers have fixed chance to mess up missiles depending on their resistance
    • Restricted systems where dominant faction will attack on sight
    • Some bulk freighter-class ships added
    • Systems can have different effects on all ships in them
    • Fake transponder replaces fake id
  • Visual improvements
    • New fancy system rendering effects
    • Ships and rockets now have engine trails
    • Beam visuals have been made more flexible and pretty
    • Jumping visuals improved
    • Redid the shake visuals and added a small damage visual
    • Most special effects implemented as shaders
    • Most small visuals redone to be more visible and clean
    • Similar presences are now merged in map
    • Overhauled all the backgrounds
  • Gameplay changes
    • Pirates split into multiple clans and marauders
    • Added discovery messages as you explore the universe
    • Overhauled NPC AI
    • Overhaul and rebalance of most outfits
    • Wanted ships no longer aggro defense forces (bounties)
    • Bribed pilots don’t become hostile again unless attacked
    • Stress now decreases based on ship mass
    • Merged the Independent and Civilian factions
    • Game now tracks meta-data like ships destroyed and time played
    • Trade lane routes made explicit
    • More common and useful derelict ships
    • Missiles have lock-on reduced and in-flight calibration added
    • Tutorial redone with Ship AI that is also accessible from the info menu
    • New ships including the Starbridge
  • Quality of Life
    • Autonav supports landing and boarding
    • Comm window reworked and you can bribe multiple pilots at once
    • Possible to change or unequip ships with deployed fighters
    • More fine-grained autonav reset control by setting enemy distance
    • Added autoequip functionality
    • Able to filter equipable outfits
    • Minimal view mode for the map
    • More visible map markers
    • More in-game tutorial-ish explanations for new mechanics as you encounter them
    • You can now favourite your ships to help with sorting
    • Redid boarding window to be more intuitive and easier to loot what you want
    • Paste support for input stuff
    • Translation completion status is shown in the options
  • New locations
    • Added gambling resort “Minerva Station”
    • Revamped and improved some existing locations
    • Several new planets and systems
  • 40 New missions
    • Challenge adversaries in the Crimson Gauntlet
    • Follow happenings on “Minerva Station”
    • Invade the frontier with the Dvaered
    • Ship enthusiast quiz
    • Deliver fancy contraband all over the universe
    • Raid trader convoys
    • Rescue derelict crew
    • Small early game tutorial-ish campaign
    • Neutral campaign to transform the universe
    • Help the Za’lek do particle physics
    • Meow
  • New translation(s) in progress: Czech, French, Korean, Portuguese, and Japanese
  • Engine Changes
    • Added an optimizer to improve automatic outfitting choices
    • A ton of new ship stat attributes have been added
    • Support for Lua-based hooks in Outfits for complex behaviours
    • Support for post-processing shaders
    • Added rendering and update hooks in the Lua API
    • Added image format support beyond PNG (notably WebP)
    • Support for arbitrary ship display classes
    • Game data now handled by PhysicsFS, allowing for multiple sources and easier modding
    • Meson is now the only build system, and development builds can integrate all assets/translations without being installed
    • Fonts now use distance fields and much better in many cases
    • Improved how Lua was being loaded
    • Added library that supports lots of Love2D API in Naev
    • Added Visual Novel library
    • Added card games
    • Added dynamic factions
    • Added dynamic commodities
    • Lua support for advanced sound effects
    • Most markers and indicators use signed distance functions now
    • Internally using linear colourspace
    • Faction presence computed with base and bonus values
    • Virtual assets have been redone and are more flexible than before
    • Point value system for ships to help with presence and other things
    • Support for shipstats at a system level
    • Initial support for 3D models
    • Proper support for line breaks in most languages
    • Most objects (ships, planets, etc.) have tags that can be used from Lua
    • Lots of optimization

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• Sporadic Naev Newsletter Vol. 2

  BY BOBBENS, ON AUGUST 22ND, 2021

  So it’s been over 10 years from the first edition of our sporadic naev newsletter, so it seems like it might be a good time to have the second edition. In the previous edition, we talked about the state of 0.5.0 and the introduction of big systems and electronic warfare. In this edition, we’ll talk about the state of 0.9.0 and new features like stealth and safe lanes.

  State of 0.9.0

  We’ve passed 5,500 commits from 0.8.2. This is going to be the largest amount of content and changes from any release ever with tons of graphical improvements, new mechanics, and new content added all over. It is already all live in the nightly images which are available from both github and steam via the opt-in beta. That said, it is recommended for you to back up your save or use a new one if you attempt to do this. At the current moment, you will lose many outfits and experience hiccups trying to use an old save game. Unlike the official releases, the nightly is still rather unpolished.

  Currently there is no hard ETA for the release, but we hope to release it within the year and follow a more timely release cycle. We hope that we’ll be able to do a feature freeze in a couple of months and focus exclusively on polish until the release. As always, we will release one or more betas before the official release to try to debug potential issues.

  Electronic Warfare Overhaul

  Electronic warfare was originally introduced in 0.5.0. With the move to big systems, it no longer made sense for all ships to be visible at all times. Furthermore, we wanted to differentiate the roles between smaller and larger ships, while aiding survivability of small ships by making it harder for the largest of turrets to track them and hit them. While this worked well to some extent, it was never transparent to the player. We’ve revamped it this time around to be fully visible to the player. Each ship, depending on its mass and bonuses, will have three separate values: detection, evasion, and stealth, that control when the ship is first detected, when the ship details are shown and scanning is possible, and finally how well the ship can stealth.

  

  Hiding is the most important attribute that controls when ships are detected at and affects both evasion and stealth. Evasion is usually 75% of detected at value, and controls how well turrets and missiles track a ship. Furthermore, it controls the distance at which a ship is scanned at. Scanning a ship allows you to see the details of cargo and outfits. Furthermore, patrol ships will scan your ship and make sure you don’t have illegal cargo.

  

  That leads us to the final mechanic: stealth! Stealth allows ships to become completely invisible if no ships are within their stealth distance. When stealthed, ships get a -50% penalty to all movement: max speed, thrust, and turning. However, they cease to appear on all system sensors. This allows ships to sneak past systems or ships, opening lots of opportunities for contraband, piracy, and survival.

  

  Safe lanes

  One of the last major gameplay changing features is safe lanes, which have been recently incorporated into the main branch. Safe lanes consist of routes in space that are more regularly patrolled. Most traders and factional systems will use these routes, while areas away from space lanes will naturally lead to more pirate activities. Core systems with many planets and stations will naturally lead to more safe lanes, while systems far away from core systems will end up having sparser lanes, or none at all.

  

  Ship Classification Redux

  This is a more minor change, but rare ship classes, such as cruiser ships, or motherships have been removed. Other similar classes have been merged, such as heavy drones and fighters, which retain the name of fighters. Furthermore, fighters have been split into fighters and interceptors (light fighters), and cruisers have been split into cruisers and battleships (heavy cruisers). This changes are mainly there for the equipment algorithm and AI to exploit.

  Rebalance

  Nearly all the outfits in the game have been modified or completely revamped. Core outfits and weapons have been designed to be based around 6 tiers: interceptor, fighter, corvette, destroyer, cruiser, and battleship. Utility outfits have been made to be based on conditional behaviour such as being below a certain armour threshold, or temporary behaviours. Finally, structural outfits have been made be stronger and play a more significant role in outfitting and not being left as an afterthought. Many new outfits have been added to fill in missing slots and roles, with many left to come.

  Visual Novel Framework

  Another fairly large change is a Lua based visual novel framework that has been written from scratch. It allows to show images and special effects while having text progressively appear. This greatly enhances some of the storytelling ability of the game and allows creating more complex conditional branching behaviours.

  

  Furthermore, the entire system is based on the LÖVE framework which we recently started to partially support by mimicking the API in Naev, and allows for nearly infinite customizations.

  

  Future Steps

  There are lots of other improvements we have not mentioned in this newsletter: linear programming-based equipment optimization, discoveries, new missions, new ship attributes, more shader support, etc. We might go deeper into new features in future blarg posts as we refine and polish the mechanics.

  With regard to what is coming up, there are no too major things left to do. Besides overall polish, which will take most of the time, some new missions have to be written, in-system objects implemented, jamming rework, pricing rebalance, and a few odd ends here and there. We’re hoping for a release within this year, but given the ambition and scope of 0.9.0, we’d rather delay and have a better release, than rush it and have it be unplayable.

  If you wish to contribute to Naev, we have lots of things that can be done, even without programming experience! From making cooler beauty shops for comm and shipyard window, adding an uninhabited frontier, more loading screens, new character artwork, new outfit artwork, more missions, gameplay testing, etc. Tasks to be done can be found on the issue tracker, and discussion can be had on Discord.

  This concludes the Sporadic Naev Newsletter Vol. 2, and hopefully the next will be sooner than 10 years from now.

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• Future Goes Boom

  BY BOBBENS, ON JULY 18TH, 2021

  This post is about development on Naev 0.9.0.

  Even though explosions in space games generally defy the laws of physics, they are some of the better and necessary eye-candy. However, explosions in Naev remained unchanged since about 13 years ago. While not necessarily awful, they have always left a bit more to be desired. One idea that has been around for ages has been to try to redo them in procedural shaders to look better and more variable. With the recent shader improvements, it has never been a better time to revamp the other special effects.

  The explosions have been redone with ray marching and are completely procedural: each explosion should be completely unique. Furthermore, the explosion parameters can be tweaked to create plasma clouds or other special effects, replacing a large amount of image-based animations we were using. Images speak louder than words, so see for yourself the new explosions in action!

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• Beam Me Up

  BY BOBBENS, ON JULY 2ND, 2021

  This post is about development on Naev 0.9.0.

  So fact is, beams are cool. They can hit multiple targets and do a lot of damage while being accurate. Sure they have short range and bad tracking, but they more than make up for that in coolness factor. We thought about it and decided the only way to make beams cooler is to sprinkle some shader goodness on top. Not only will this make beams look great at any resolution, but it will also allow creating new beams easily, as there is no longer a need to muck around with graphic images.

  In the blarg post about Lua outfits, some of the new beams were already shown:

  There are also a lot of new beam graphics, some of which are not used yet, but open up a lot of exciting new possibilities. Look forward to more and fancier beams in the future.

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