Between each major release we like to focus on adding more content across the board, version 1.41 is all about this. Additionally, during this release we reached 2,000 concurrent players for the first time; a major milestone for the game!
Some notable new content we have added follows.
Macro Botanist
A new Macro Botanist skill has been added allowing players to create macro-organisms by combining rDNA parts. This organisms can then be released on a planet with varying effects good and bad, ranging from macro-organisms that can cause blight and mutate wildlife, to others that can purify commodities or create population booms. To support this new skill, two new missions have been added as well as a new Macro Focus boost, objective tracker and skill focused consumables and books.
Augmentation
A new augmentation skill is now available, allowing players to augment their characters with offensive and defensive capabilities to use in combat. This can range from subtle augmentations like sub-dermal pulse emitters to more extensive augmentations like replacing your entire arm with an auto-cannon, or deployable buzz blades fitted to the inside of the arms. The augmentations require low slots to use, so the key will be finding the right mix to your combat style. Additionally, each race has different augmentations to choose from.
Dozens of augmentations are available to choose from and new books have been added to help train this skill.
Live Radio Station
The popular ambient music used in TextSpaced which is played when not partaking in activities has been changed to a live radio station, complete with in-game adverts and idents. The radio station can be listened to outside of the game by visiting https://radio.textspaced.com/live and we plan to use this platform to push in-game announcements and world building events in the future.
Situations
A new situations section has been added to the system entry screen that currently lists power outages or macro-organisms present. We plan shortly for other situations to be added to the game, ranging from natural disasters to civil unrest to have real effects and be listed here, as well as in the system information screen.
Fuel Scooping
Inline with changes to how fuel works, a new fuel scooping equipment category and skill to optimise their usage has been added. Fuel Scoops can be fitted to a ship allowing the captain to scoop fuel from a body type the scoop supports.
New Ships
Four new ships have been added: the Marquess for the Merchant Guild, the Cargo Liner for the Movers Guild as well as the Builder for the Civilian Guild and a new exotic ship only available by completing a character job.
Falling inline with trading ships now generally being able to trade fuel as part of their role, the Marquess is a new trading ship that has massive amounts of fuel storage, allowing it to trade fuel with other players even in the depths of space; a real money spinner in the current game climate.
Designed to deal with the ever-expanding needs of modern factions, the Cargo Liner is a slow moving ship built with a singular purpose; to move massive amounts of cargo. With a hold rating at 80,000 Mgs, the Cargo Liner is a behemoth in terms of logistics a speciality of the Movers guild.
The Builder is a construction craft larger than a Serf but smaller than an Engineer, designed for mid-range construction tasks. The Builder features a faster speed than other construction ships at 0.15 LYs/m and plenty of power for equipment.
New Crew
Two new crew roles have been added, the Handler and Hacker. The Handler can utilise training grounds for relevant wildlife on your ship to train them on the move, where as the Hacker improves all forms of hacking including hacking treasuries and cyber warfare.
What will be in version 1.5?
We plant to add the following tenants to TextSpaced in version 1.5:
- Multiple selection of items (cargo, buying)
- Defining your colonies focus across multiple metrics
- Upkeep balance change to be an exponential scale instead of linear
- New macro structures including a spatial research structure
- Exploring wrecks through narrative, similar to interaction charting
- Ship based combat (and adding defensive rooms) - including stealing cargo or damaging a ship
- A sublight idle game for optimising speed and fuel usage
The full changelog follows below:
Feature: Services that are no longer available because a planet has been cloaked, will no longer show in the services window.
Feature: An exotic port has been added for the Hoodwink class of ship.
Feature: A new character complete with a new unique reward has been added.
Feature: A new Marquess class of ship is now available to Merchant Guild members.
Feature: Trading role ships now also provide the ship refuel service and can operate in deep space.
Balance: The Baron and Baron G2 have had their fuel capacities increased.
Feature: A total of 5 new wildlife types have been added.
Feature: A total of 74 new books have been added.
Feature: A new Macrofauna mission type has been added.
Feature: A new Macro Knitting mission type has been added.
Feature: A new Macro Focus boost has been added.
Feature: A new Macro-organisms released tracker has been added.
Feature: A total of 50 new consumables for the new Macro-organism Seeds sub-category have been added.
Feature: A total of six new ambient tracks have been added to Twinkle Radio.
Feature: If a faction has achieved superpower ranking but does not yet have a relic, a message is now shown in the faction info section of command.
Feature: A new 'Aether' mech has been added.
Feature: If macro-organisms are present on a body this is now shown in the situations section, system section of the helm window and in the details of the body.
Feature: A situation section has been added to the system entry screen. This section will list situations in the system such as power being offline.
Feature: Added a personal log and faction log option for the marquee in the settings window.
Feature: You can now choose the tone your character will use when sending an inbox message.
Feature: A tracker and leaderboard has been added for fuel scooped.
Feature: A total of 10 new daily objectives have been added.
Feature: A new Handler crew role has been added, which will train wildlife using suitable training grounds fitted in a ship.
Feature: A total of 19 new rooms have been added for training grounds for wildlife.
Feature: A total of ten Fuel Scoop equipment ports have been added.
Feature: A total of 50 new equipment parts have been added.
Feature: A new Fuel Scooper skill has been added.
Feature: A new section for fuel scooping has been added to the engineering window.
Feature: A new category of equipment has been added, Fuel Scoops.
Feature: A new screensaver mode is now available in the settings window. This mode will hide all UI and prevent video from stopping or the background dimming when the window is not focused.
Other: The ownership section of the command window has been optimised for large factions.
Bug: Faction upkeep messages were not being added to the faction treasury log correctly.
Balance: Stopping data mining will now decrease perfectionism factor.
Feature: A new RTFM boost has been added.
Feature: A new 'Cool Breeze' boost has been added.
Feature: A new 'Generation Game' boost has been added.
Feature: A new 'Zero Cool' boost has been added.
Feature: A new 'Terra Firma' boost has been added.
Feature: A new Hacker crew member role is now available.
Feature: Food and drink items now state which wildlife they attract when consumed.
Feature: A total of 10 new personal weapons and 7 new personal weapon perks have been added.
Feature: A new Virus Scanner mission category has been added.
Feature: Missions which have a step to kill another player, will now update the mission step to the targets location periodically.
Feature: You can now see the percentage of guild selections from the profile section of the me window.
Feature: A new Arcane Wisdom contract is now available.
Feature: A new Bird Food season has been add to rotation.
Feature: A new Enigma season has been added to rotation.
Feature: A new Pride season has been added to rotation.
Feature: A total of 33 new augmentation personal weapons have been added.
Feature: The augmentation skill is now available to realise in the warmth factor, allowing characters to augment themselves for personal combat.
Feature: A new points of interest section has been added to the helm window.
Balance: To help prevent confusion, the owner header in the systems ownership table has been changed to "assigned" with an update no assignee message.
Balance: To honour a player that sadly died, a character has been created in their likeness at #11015.90 along with custom music.
Bug: Fixed an issue with the end transmission button after talking with a character not always causing the UI to toggle back.
Other: The Civilian Guild system Nebitus has been renamed to Raven.
Bug: The settings and help icons were not de-illuminating when their respective windows were closed.
Bug: Navigation crew were not consistently reducing fuel usage during sublight travel.
Bug: The treasury amount shown in the services window was actual your own credit balance instead.
Feature: A wormhole video will now play when using a wormhole.
Feature: You can now purchase a boost to be added to the upcoming boosts in the computer window, under boosts.
Feature: The Cargo Liner class of ship is now available at Horizon Heavy Industries, Cromwell's Protectorate, Star Rats and Civilian Guild shipwrights.
Feature: The Builder class of ship is now available at Civilian Guild, Horizon Heavy Industries, Cromwell's Protectorate and Star Rats shipwrights.
Feature: A new faction treasury log is now available in the computer window.
Feature: A faction notification is now sent went a faction founder unlocks or upgrades research.
Bug: Clicking a pinned mission after completing said mission, before the pinned mission has updated, will now state the mission cannot be found.
Bug: FTL travel was sometimes triggering the alien entry rule twice.
Balance: NPC factions are now more likely to end long-standing wars.
Feature: There is now an option to search for the training advanced service offered by strongholds.
Bug: When upgrading a macrostructure a new macrostructure was instead built.
Feature: The fuel quantity slider will now default to the maximum possible value.
Feature: You can now click a region name or region type from the search window in helm, to show the region in the regions view of helm.
Feature: Resetting your password will now also verify your email address if not verified.
Balance: The exotic Tsar weapon for the Flagship has been rebalanced to have a reload of 8.
Bug: Fixed an issue with some 10 reload weapons not firing at the 10 turn mark.
Balance: Exotic hacking modules have been rebalanced for hacking treasury credits.
Bug: Fixed an issue with undefined sometimes showing in toast messages while using interactive charting.
Bug: Interactive charting would show sometimes when opening and closing windows while in an idle activity.
Feature: The live estimated arrival time while travelling at sublight now takes into account sublight modifiers.