This patch brings a major improvement to ship rendering when zoomed out. More precisely, it fixes a long-standing graphical issue that I hadn’t been able to resolve until now: when zoomed out, ship parts appeared "pixelated". Your ships now look much better from far away ːsteamhappyː

There's also a bunch of bugfixes, an improved loading screen and a version bump for the rendering backend which should help fix several issues for players using the DirectX rendering backend.

Changes:

• Significantly improved ship rendering when zoomed out

• Loading screen now includes a logo, progress bar, and hints

• Increased drop chance for higher rarity modules a bit

• Ship editor no longer shows background objects to avoid motion sickness

• Rendering backend received a major version bump, resolving several potential issues

• Ship "glow" color is now handled consistently, making side colors much more recognizable

• Slightly improved engine trail rendering

Bug Fixes:

• Possible crash in the starting area

• Startup crash occurring on some systems using the DirectX backend

• Player color was not correctly applied to the player ship

• Opening sandbox risked resetting crew without refunding GG

• Undo of copying parts would create stacked parts (regression)

• Testing after moving core would make ship off-center during test flight

The Happy Hunting update brings a complete overhaul of all bosses in the game. A new target boss, The Cultist, joins the roster alongside several new minibosses.

You can now even design your own boss by placing a Boss Core in the sandbox. It will receive its own boss bar, configurable AI, special boss weapons, and customizable phases. I’m excited to see the bosses you come up with!

A load of new weapons and modules has been added for you to discover and then use to dismantle your enemies. From humble scrap turrets to massive boss only Imperial Artillery, these additions should greatly expand your build options.

Your target has a new surprise for you. Near the start of the sector, you will find a pursuit HQ. This HQ will periodically launch pursuit fleets that try to intercept you before you reach your target. You can avoid these fleets by choosing a safe route, fight them head on, or even try to destroy the pursuit HQ!

This update also overhauls the meta progression across runs. You can now use your bounty to train your crew and permanently improve the performance of your ship. For example, your armorer can increase armor hit points or specialize in a certain type of shield. Every training choice matters.

The crew can be retrained for free, so you can experiment as much as you like, but not during a mission.

Please note that this is essentially a perk system, and there are no plans to introduce detailed crew management.

By completing increasingly difficult missions, you now rank up. Ranking up unlocks new missions, grants more starting resources, and provides access to new starting ships.

The rank icon now replaces the previously unused bounty hunter icon that appeared when starting the game for the first time.

It is now possible to take discovered module blueprints home after a mission. The number you can bring back depends on the difficulty. These blueprints can then be used alongside the ones that come with your starting set, if you are willing to sacrifice a small portion of your bounty. Some crew upgrades even let you bring modules for free.

Instead of perks (which are mostly replaced by crew training), you now find a modifiers tab in the Armory. Modifiers now apply to all ships, not just yours, and can change the game dramatically, introducing all kinds of new and questionable challenges.

Previously purchased perks are refunded, so you can jump right into experimenting with the new modifiers or crew.

But wait, there is even more to see in this update. Here are a few of the most important additions.

• Improved Difficulty Scaling

  • The chosen difficulty now ramps up as you travel toward your target. The gap between difficulties is smaller at the start but grows gradually.

  • Insanity is now a separate difficulty instead of a modifier and becomes available once a mission has been completed on hard.

  • Permadeath is now a toggle that can be enabled on any difficulty. Activating permadeath grants 50 percent extra bounty.

• Remade Ship AI: The ship AI system has been completely replaced. It now works better and faster, can be configured directly from the ship editor, and supports broadside movement.

• New Game Mechanics:

  • Explosions are handled differently. Damage is now applied from a pool starting with the nearest part and moving outward, meaning armor can protect modules behind it.

  • Weapons can have a spin up time, such as beam weapons and miniguns.

  • Charging weapons have been added. Beams can fire in pulses, and cannons can charge up for a stronger shot.

  • Salvo weapons now charge faster when they have more charges, making it more rewarding to fire them when full.

    Power ups are now manually activated. The most recently picked up power up is stored and can be triggered with a key press (T by default). A new thruster super boost power up has been added.

• Quality of Life Improvements

  • A new weapon status display near the cursor shows whether your weapons are ready to fire and if they are within range.

  • You can now load designs from the library even if they cannot be built during a mission, allowing you to remove any module you have not unlocked yet.

  • A new option in the ship editor lets you paint the entire ship at once.

  • The ship info energy display in the editor has been improved. It now shows an easy to read bar that indicates surplus or shortage.

  • Designs can now be sorted by cost, name, last change, and faction.

  • Ship design files are now compressed to about ten percent of their previous size, making them faster to share on the workshop.

  • Designs are now autosaved when discarding, dying in hardcore, or loading a new design.

  • New Delete and Explode buttons in sandbox mode help clean up unwanted ships.

  • A new Import button in the ship editor lets you import another design for copying or comparison.

  • Your bounty hunter name and ship trail color can now be edited by clicking on your name in the bounty hunt screen.

  • An overview of selected part types and their counts has been added to the ship editor. Clicking a part type selects all parts of that type.

• Performance Fixes:

  • Fixed many issues with excessive ship spawns on insane difficulty. In many cases, ships are now brought in as reinforcements instead.

    Ships on the same side are now pushed away from each other to avoid stacking, which was a major source of physics performance problems.

And of course, a whole load of bug fixes and smaller improvements.

Next thing on the development roadmap is Fleets & Arenas. I plan to make future updates smaller and release them more often, so stay tuned!