0.5 series update 4 - space station

This update focuses on quality of life changes while also adding some new content. The changes improve the experience of creating new missions and playing on mobile devices significantly. There is much more complete tutorial available for the game editor, and the editor itself has been improved with both fixes and usability enhancements. The new spacecraft classes also come in different faction variations to use for mission creators. There are also Blender scripts for importing and exporting models in the game's custom model format, allowing for a much better workflow for creating new models.

• Content update:
  • new spacecraft: Athens class space station
  • new spacecraft: Sentinel class sentry gun
  • new weapon: pirate turret
  • new mission: The siege
  • improved fire sound effect for ion cannon
• New features:
  • turrets don't fire if they would hit their own ship
  • weapons now rotate in the target view
  • statistics tracking for Mission Hub missions
  • showing a touch controls overview sheet when starting missions on a touchscreen device
  • added AI types for stations and sentries
• Quality of life:
  • showing game version and FPS counter can be toggled persistently from the menu
  • new hostiles alert no longer uses message background
  • mission start message can be disabled
  • "Launch demo" button hidden by default, can be re-enabled in the settings
• Optimization:
  • model files are much smaller
  • various performance optimizations (for turreted weapons, point light sources and shadows)
• Fixes:
  • fixed a bug with emissive surfaces blinking on high graphics settings
  • many graphics related bugs fixed for certain mobile devices: "wobbly" models, broken shadows, point lights with wrong intensity
• Other:
  • added blender scripts for importing and exporting game models
• Editor:
  • general enhancements and bug fixes: integer number editors now use a numeric input type instead of text, fixed incorrect property editor widths, fixed a bug that would remove certain spacecraft classes from the list when selected
  • shader preview: shows the processed code, shows line numbers, better highlighting, shows variable counts
  • weapon preview: can set rotators, added barrel markers
  • spacecrafts: defaultLoadout can be set for classes with basedOn set
  • mission editor:
    • better message options handling
    • better jump command parameters handling
    • better descriptors for unnamed mission events and target commands
    • basedOn property now works for custom equipment loadouts
    • no longer allows unconditional win/lose events
    • added description for various properties when hovering over them with the cursor
  • 3 new editor tutorial chapters, updated styling

0.5 series update 3 - coop games

This update adds a basic cooperative game mode to multiplayer, in which the players fight together against waves of pirate enemies. The mission editor of the game also received notable improvements to make it more user friendly.

• Added a cooperative game mode to multiplayer games
• Small balancing tweaks to make some missions (particularly "The rebel corvette" and "Hide and seek") a bit easier
• Major usability improvements for the mission editor:
  • spacecrafts can be selected for editing by clicking them in the preview
  • spacecrafts that jump in based on anchors now also show in the preview
  • new button icons and better tooltips
  • popups can be moved by dragging them with the mouse

0.5 series update 2 - Pirate bomber

This is mostly a content update, bringing a new mission and a new enemy fighter class. There are also some updates to the mission event engine included, and a new "Getting started guide" for the Interstellar Armada Editor.

• New mission added: Holding out
• New spacecraft class added: Stingray
• Added a basic tutorial (getting started guide) for the Interstellar Armada Editor
• Fixed optional mission event conditions not working
• Distance based mission objectives can now refer to multiple spacecrafts
• The Editor now suggests the translatable squad names

0.5 series update 1 - Collision detection

This update finally brings an initial version of collision detection to the game. It is not perfect, but ships can no longer fly through each other, and thanks to a host of various performance optimizations, the game should perform just as well and in some cases even better than before the collision detection was added. Other notable changes are some fixes related to gamepad detection and fixes for some serious bugs in the mission editor.

The full overview of changes:

• Added collision detection between spacecrafts
• Many optimizations to ensure the performance is at least the same as before the collision detection was added
• Can handle a larger number of sound effects
• Fixed wrong profile being applied when a gamepad is detected
• Fixed crashes connected to some specific scenarios involving gamepads/joysticks
• Fixed hits not being detected at close range
• New unique sound effect for the Communications Relay
• Several important fixes and small improvements to the Interstellar Armada Editor
  • fixed crashes that would happen when adding the first or removing the last spacecrafts of missions
  • fixed ships that are set as away not appearing transparent
  • fixed ship highlighting bugs (potential crash or incorrect highlighting when switching to a new mission while spacecrafts are highlighted)
  • the height indicator of ships now has a different color for ships above and below the XY plane
  • ships that are set as away now appear gray in the ship selection dropdown

Multiplayer & community missions

This version centers around bringing the first "community features" into the game: a very basic multiplayer mode and a mission sharing feature. In connection with the latter, the mission editor of the game received a lot of usability and capability improvements. There is also some new content, several minor issues have been fixed and controls have been improved. Starting with this release, the game packaged together with the Electron framework is now also available from the Snap store.

• new mission: Hide and seek
• new spacecrafts: Piranha interceptor and Communications Relay
• basic multiplayer
  • support for very basic open 2-4 player FFA multiplayer games
  • games are played through a direct connection using WebRTC if possible
• support for uploading and playing player created custom missions
• better gamepad support
  • the active controller can be selected in the menu
  • multiple controller mappings, including 2 designed specifically for standard gamepads
  • support for gamepad vibration on hit (Chrome only)
• many improvements for the Editor and for mission creation
  • various fixes and usability improvements
  • new condition types
  • new action types
  • new formation types
• ships now have sensors with limited range
• support for locking the mouse pointer during the game
• smaller model files
• other small fixes

Missions - update 6

This release includes further advances towards mobile support, the major feature of missiles, huge improvements to the Editor, including the ability to create and play your own custom missions, and several important fixes to the graphics engine as well as a host of tweaks, quality of life changes and improvements to the menus, HUD and gameplay.

Mobile friendly features

• experimental touch controls
• responsive menu layouts using the whole screen
• full screen toggle button
• fixed some graphics bugs that affected many mobile devices

Gameplay and content

• added missiles and a missile tutorial mission
• added two new music tracks
• updated backgrounds
• enemy hitboxes are larger at lower difficulties
• self damage and friendly fire damage is disabled on lower difficulties
• HUD updates

Game editor

• custom missions built with the Editor can now be loaded and played
• major improvements to the Editor, including preview for more types of items, mission creation and import and much more user friendly property editing

Fixes and optimizations

• fixed graphics engine bugs that caused projectiles and explosions to be not visible on some systems
• optimized game files for smaller size and faster loading
• performance optimizations
• fixed missing thrusters for the Viper model on high level of detail
• fixed lights showing up for spacecrafts that have not yet arrived
• additional tweaks and fixes

Missions - update 5

As preparation for making the game playable on mobile phones, this new minor release brings a lot of performance optimizations, next to a little content update.

• a new fighter, the Rhino heavy fighter has been added
• a new mission featuring this new fighter has been added
• preparation for the upcoming (once already introduced for a short time) Chrome change of not allowing automatic sound playback (clicking any of the first buttons starts sound)
• much smaller model files for faster loading and downloading
• a new shadowing technique (light space perspective shadow mapping), allowing for much better performance as fewer cascades are needed (at somewhat reduced quality, but the details have not been tweaked to be fully optimal yet)
• changing shadow resolution now properly works without needing a page refresh
• lots of smaller performance optimization, together resulting in much better frame rate and memory usage
• small changes to dust particle rendering, making them more visible

Missions - update 4

Planned as the final release in the 0.4 series, this update brings mostly UX improvements and polish along analytics integration.

• a very basic, custom analytics client is added to collect some anonymous gameplay statistics such as mission win rates and scores for balancing
• added new settings to the HUD setting menu, which is now expanded as Gameplay settings as it includes non-HUD related settings, such as preferred fighter and ship views
• added markers to ships on the HUD, indicating if they are objectives to be destroyed or protected, or are transmitting the displayed HUD message
• added "typewriter" style appear animation to HUD messages
• fighter AI now starts evasive maneuvers with a short delay (length depending on difficulty)
• small tweaks and HUD improvements such as new textures and showing the speed target indicator when using the throttle on a joystick
• fixed loud menu sounds
• fixed the infinite targeting issue
• fixed new hostiles alert message showing up when it shouldn't
• the Editor now displays properties for missions (creating new mission and exporting are not supported)
• release notes are displayed on game startup based on the last played version

Missions - update 3

The 3rd update upon the 0.4 Missions release, which ended up being more significant than a regular minor update:

• shields
  • all spacecrafts can have a shield equipped, which recharges after not suffering hits for a short time
  • related graphics, sound, game logic and HUD changes are all included
• control updates
  • speed holding can be toggled
  • tweaks to control details for better feel and more responsive control
  • added a small horizontal tracking and increased projectile velocity for the main player weapon, the plasma gun for easier aiming
• HUD updates
  • new HUD settings menu, with options to turn the new features on/off
  • target hull/shield bar appears above target
  • offset impact indicators instead of separate aim assist and impact indicators (off by default)
• mission and balance updates
  • player ship has more varied equipment across missions, and so detailed equipment info is added to the missions screen
  • difficulty levels now have more differences between them
  • rebalanced all existing missions, changed equipment and added messages
  • removed 5 static "missions" from the mission list
  • added 3 new (dynamic) missions
  • under the hood changes fixing, extending and simplifying features in the mission engine
• fixes
  • fixed white flickering on some phone browsers
  • fixed explosion graphics color issue
• editor updates
  • duplicate and move element buttons for array properties
  • unset button for optional properties
  • jump to reference button for reference properties
  • selection history support with back and forward buttons
  • shader preview (showing the final, assembled shader code with syntax highlighting)
  • showing information for spacecrafts and weapons
  • button and property tooltips
  • small tweaks and fixes
• other minor tweaks and fixes

Missions - update 2

The 2nd minor update upon the 0.4 Missions release:

• improved target indicator visuals
• performance improvements
• fixed several notable bugs, including occasional crash at startup and incorrect "mission failed" messages
• completed Hungarian translation
• minor tweaks