<tap> <tap> Is this thing on?
Anyhow, for those who didn't tune in yesterday to the livestream discussing the new features of the Alpha 12 release, there is a YouTube archive of it here:
Fair warning, the entire thing is about 3hrs long, and I haven't watched all of it yet to know how much of it actually matters.
Biggest news: Eleon is being... ambitious and implementing an entire galaxy of places to visit. You're getting NMS in my EGS!
Downside: Breaks backward compatibility. No surprise there.
New features I saw while zipping through the video:
-Inventory sorting
-Detectors available in space (similar to /SCAN). This means yes you can find asteroids and bases, the range is probably adjustable (24km in the demo), needs to recharge between uses.
-Overloading your generators into the red can will cause them to take damage and eventually explode (not just excess fuel use).
-PoIs can call for reinforcements (in space and on ground)
-New faction (well, not really new with a12, but expanded from previous)
-Possibility of "salvaging" the NPC equipment from PoIs (turrets, etc), also this means PoI's can use player turrets.
-Can see planetside markers/waypoints while in orbit, and even from one system away to use as a nav guide.
-Gas giants.
-Entire systems can be "owned" by factions now.
-Public teleporters.
-Survival Tents act as respawn points after death, as will medbays in bases/ships.
-Stack sizes are increased, up to as much as 4000 (by default).
-Ship-based teleporters (but can't use them with shields enabled or if the ship is moving)
-Base teleporters have a range of 30ly (subject to change), ship-based are much shorter (intra-sector only?). Teleporters show everything in range when you use them.
-Teleporters will be craftable!
-"Orbit" is now "Sector" - Sector = new collective term for the area and stuff around a planet.
-Gas giant planets - can't land on 'em (but moons and asteroids are still available).
-Added Ice and Titanium as materials, titanium is required for the midrange "hardened" steel (and replaces sathium for starter worlds), ice can be melted for water while in space.
-Sathium rarity is now more in line with that of Erestrium/Zascosium.
-Not ready yet, maybe for 12.1, but they want to add "service stations" - space stations which will refill pentaxid, maybe repair, but at a cost.
-Also maybe not right away, but looking at adding the ability to run trading missions.
-Asteroids are spawnable in creative mode.
-"Blast doors" with high hps. They do not have force fields, but they also don't cost exotic minerals.
-General balance changes for things like CPU usage, weight and volume, etc.
-Possible addition of "Advanced Core" which can eliminate CPU requirement entirely.
-Multi-tool now has a "downgrade" option (but why?)
-Lots of new CoQ errors (at no charge!)
-Control sensitivity with ships (how fast they respond to pitch/roll/yaw changes)
Patch notes say that they are implementing a persistent database (which is the biggest reason for the compatibility issues). This is supposed to enable significant new changes, but they admit there are challenges getting this to work across multiplayer, which is why for now the only multiplayer server available for testing is the in-house Eleon one so they can gather 100% of all the error logs and data. Single-player is still possible.
Who knows, I might fire it up again... if I can tear myself away from some of my other games.
--Patrick