Re: Announcing Expanding Known Space from Valiant Galaxy Associates new up
Folks,
I updated the original post at the beginning, but some people are going to jump to the end of the thread rather than check there, so here is the change log for the new update. Some things did not make this update, but we are planning to make a stab at online play, and other things might creep into it when we do so. The change log follows. One important note: Due to changes in the way the game saves new statistics, older save games are not compatible with this version. We're sorry if this causes loss of progress.
nearby scan N no longer is limited to function only from your unit's point of view. It now works anywhere and displays anything within two squares of the cursor at the time you press n. It does not show anything that none of your units have detected.
k and shift+k will skip earth if it has been taken over, no more invalid
Mission descriptions added as cut scenes just at the end of startup sequence, directly before initial placement or what ever is appropriate given the mission context. You can toggle this using a new item in settings, cut scenes. This setting saves to the guidedog account.
Rearanged settings menu items for a more logical order.
planets discovered, static hazards discovered and mobile hazards encountered are now listed in status menu, game over menu and clipboard copy text. Note that this change makes it impossible to load games that were saved using earlier versions.
examine square menu added. reports planet or hazard if any at the top, with all detail associated. Then lists the number of each ship types present for both alliances. Friendly ship types are sub menus. Hitting enter on the fleets sub menu opens fleet management menu, hitting enter on any other friendly ship type opens a newly created menu that lists every lonely ship on the square of that type. You can hit enter on a ship therein to select it. When listing the ships on a square this way, the type isn't read out for each item to reduce verbiage. Only the purpose if any, the id, and the efficiency, followed by autonav information if enabled is given here in concise format. You can open examine square menu by holding enter or by pressing ctrl+q. These work in placement phase as well.
When you use place with map mode, the game now says "place with map mode" when map mode turns on, instead of "map exploration mode", if the current phase is placement. Helps understand whether you're in movement phase, or if you're still in place with map mode.
* when not activated and you hit escape to continue with demonstration, a new menu appears prompting you to choose lightning game or close quarters mode.
Fix sneaky bug that could cause ships within fleets to be thought discovered or not when they were the opposite.
new lonely universe mode mission, combines capital planet start only with far corners mode
New mission matching minimized start. Both alliances have a pair of space station or asteroid belts in addition to their capitals.
new mission planetary bounty mode added. Get 50 credits for every asteroid belt or space station you colonize, only if the other alliance has not yet colonized it. The spoils of victory credit income is unaffected, but that starts for ice planets and up anyway. Planetary Bounty mode is compatible with existing victory conditions.
Added a note of the selected difficulty to the log file.
A couple new sounds, one for movement phase, and one for a planet being colonized.
new sounds for successful intelligence gathering, combat on square, you win, and you lost. You win and lost experiences can be skipped by pressing enter. They should come after the victory condition met message is given, but before the voiceover says you have beaten the game, or you have been defeated!
rename capital planet sound to our capital planet is here, play this when the capital is colonized by player, play a new, their capital planet is here sound, for a capital colonized by other alliance.
New sounds for enemy ships on square, and capital planet. This only works when announcing the total contents of a square, which for the most part means just in map mode. Certain menus, like nearby, will as well.
New sound for start of placement phase.
Added cash sound for purchase phase and gun battery sound for combat phase, which only plays if there is actual combat.
learn game sounds menu added to the main menu. Lists most sounds and plays the sound after giving a description. Press enter to repeat description and sound, or press space to just repeat the sound.
We now have volume keys (f2 f3), and a scroller in settings, for general sound volume. This setting saves to guidedog account and to disk.
Added a new setting to allow inverting the y axis. Off by default, this saves to the guidedog account.
Now supports alternative speech packs. Place a folder in the program files/ExpandingKnownSpace folder that starts with speech. a speech pack scroller should appear at the top of settings. This scroller's value is saved locally on the system registry, does not cary over with your Guidedog account, for the simple reason that you may not have that pack on your other machine. We will provide at least one alternative speech pack on our website.
Auto scout mode management is removed from the autonav menu (hotkey A) in order to stop it conflicting with the scout purpose assignment (hotkey U). The menu still has enable scout mode, and if you hit this it becomes disable scout mode. You can hit it again to toggle scout mode back off. The stop item does not also disable scout mode. The planets or ships options do not disable scout mode. If scout mode is enabled, the existing path if any will continue to be the travel destination. Once reached, then scout mode will assign a new path. If there is no existing path, then scout mode will assign a new path next time autonav runs. To ensure that scout mode will take affect if there is an existing path, turn scout mode on if not already and then choose the stop autonav option at the top. You may also assign autonav either via the selector or by the menu to a scout ship. doing so will clear the current path, whether that be from the scout assignment or not, and send the ship to the specified destination. If scout mode remains on once it reaches its destination, the ship will resume travel from there in scout mode.
New ships awaiting orders menu, hotkey o. Cash on hand is moved from o to be part of the turn information t. Ships with autonav to this location, and all ships with autonav enabled menus now report the map mode enablement to be consistent with other similar menus when you select a ship or just close the menus out.
Reset in wins and losses menu also resets missions now.
To free up hotkey u for the purpose cycling, cursor location was moved from u to l, and the previous functionality of l to report the location of the last globally selected ship was moved to shift+l.
Player ships can now be given a purpose scout, defense, convoy or attack, or unassigned which is default. Cycle this on a selected ship or fleet with u and shift+u. In fleet management under list ships of fleet sub menu, added a left right scroller to allow setting the fleet purpose there also. Any ship that had a purpose besides unassigned will be set to unassigned when it is added to a fleet, regardless of the fleet purpose - the member's ship never reflects that of the fleet.
Note that scout purpose is what is used to do autonav scout mode, so a ship that is given that purpose will automatically scout.
Note also that when reading a count of more than one ship e.g. 3 interceptors, the purposes of any members of that grouping won't be mentioned.
Manual planet selection in startup sequence now gives the planet type after the planet name.
Enjoy,
Jeremy
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