Naikari: Eye of Chaos 0.12.0 Release Candidate Testing

[onpon4]

While we haven't done as much work for it as we'd like, it's about time for us to push out another update to Naikari, so we've begun the release candidate testing phase for Naikari 0.12.0.

Download the current Naikari 0.12.0 release candidate:

https://github.com/naikari/naikari/releases/tag/v0.12.0-rc.3

If you're interested in helping us test the release, please consider giving the release candidate a try and letting us know if you encounter any bugs, either by replying to this thread or by opening an issue on the issue tracker.

Further release candidates will be noted in replies to this thread.

Changelog

• Added the Elephant, a bulk freighter which is essentially an upsized
  variant of the Mule.
• Overhauled lots of the coloring to improve colorblind accessibility
  and better unify the coloring schemes.
  • Text colors on screens related to outfits and ships now generally
    indicate something "good" with blue, something "bad" with yellow
    and an asterisk, and something "dangerous" or "critical" with red
    and a pair of exclamation points.
  • Weapon sets shown in the Ship Computer are now colored black for
    irrelevant slots, dark red for relevant but unused slots, and blue
    at two separate brightness levels for used slots.
  • The borders around slots which indicate that an outfit is required,
    exclusive, or has a special type (like core slots, fighter bay
    slots, and bio-weapon slots) are different colors, and the slot
    indicators in the shipyard are now drawn in the same way rather than
    with colored triangles. The color for required outfits is unchanged,
    but for otherwise exclusive or special-typed slots, the coloring is
    a 2-color blue gradient. (With full color vision, they just look
    like brighter shades of blue or cyan.)
  • The selected ship slot in the Equipment tab is now indicated with an
    outline, rather than replacing the color of the entire slot.
  • CPU bar is now orange with a black background, while mass limit bar
    bar is now blue with a black background.
  • Hidden jump hyperspace lanes on the starmap are now indicated as
    orange instead of red.
  • The selected autonav path on the starmap is now colored two shades
    of blue and a shade of orange, rather than the previous green,
    yellow, and red coloring.
  • Standard jump points are now a blue-green color, while hidden jump
    points are a slightly yellow-shifted red color.
  • Jump trails are now green instead of magenta.
• Added a proper hidden tutorial demonstrating weapon heat and Active
  Cooldown: the Llama's stats have been modified so that its forward
  weapons heat up much faster than most ships, and the asteroids in
  Hakoi have been given much more health, pretty much guaranteeing that
  the player's weapons overheat during the mission. When they do, Ian
  Structure gently suggests engaging Active Cooldown to get your weapons
  to start working better again.

Other Changes

• Added several more possible randomly-generated pilot names.
• Yachts are now generally equipped more lightly.
• Split the Fighter class into Fighter and Light Fighter classes.
• Split the Cruiser class into Cruiser, Light Cruiser, and Battleship
  classes.
• Adjusted the way AI ships are equipped.
• Afterburner outfits now properly display their heat up stat.
• Lowered energy cost and increased heatup time for afterburners (making
  them more widely usable).
• Reordered stats on ships for better consistency.
• Fixed an issue where a beam turning off would stop the sound effect
  from playing on any beam at all which uses the same sound effect.
• Renamed "wrist computers" to "palmtops".
• The type of colorblindness simulated can now be configured via the
  Options menu rather than having to edit the shader file.
• Changed TC display to be relative instead of absolute (meaning e.g. a
  doubling of time passage rate is displayed as "+100%" instead of
  "200%" as it was previously).
• Energy regeneration is now simply linear, just like shield, armor, and
  fuel regeneration, which also brings it in-line with the way energy
  costs of weapons and activated outfits work.
• Derelicts now award less credits on average, but can rarely give very
  large rewards.
• Increased mass limit of Hellburner a bit.
• Emergency Shield Booster is now a medium outfit and has been made a
  bit stronger.
• Ship Computer embedded maps are now centered on the current system
  when navigating to the tabs they're in.
• The first derelict boarded is now guaranteed to give a large sum of
  credits.
• Amount of deposit for hired escorts which is eligible for refunding is
  now displayed in the escorts' credentials.
• You can now board hired escorts to rescue them if they are disabled.
• Made jammers use a bit less energy.
• Doubled all weapon energy costs. (This is to correspond with the move
  to linear energy regeneration.)
• The Empire Recruitment mission is now always guaranteed to spawn after
  you fulfill its condition (i.e. Lieutenant Chesc now follows you
  around everywhere you go in Empire territory).
• Added an event following the Big Time mission where Commander Soldner
  scolds you for going off on your own.
• Added a master volume knob to the Options menu.
• Teddy Bears From Space now guarantees a bit more for its reward.
• Jumps that you only know one direction of are now displayed in the
  starmap as if they were one-way jumps.
• Shrunk the blinker on selected pilot to its original size.
• Replaced the extra blinker on hilighted pilots with the animated
  circle which is used for hilighted planets and jumps.
• Derelict, distress, and shipwreck events can no longer spawn on top of
  or extremely close to planets or jump points.
• Modernized the way the position of the Shipwrecked August is
  determined. (The way it was previously determined was a leftover from
  Naev's very early days, where systems were small and centered around
  singular planets.)
• Renamed the "Defaults" button in the Input tab of the Options menu to
  "Presets".
• Added hotkeys for buttons in the Options menu.
• Adjusted wording of text in the Baron missions.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that caused text in the second Ian Structure mission's OSD
  to get cut off.
• Fixed a mistake in the text of the race missions that caused racer
  names to display as "nil".
• Fixed and touched up text explanations for map trade modes.
• Fixed a bug where you couldn't get trade information for a system
  while landed on a planet without commodities.
• Fixed a bug where one planet's hilight could obscure another planet
  on the radar and overlay.
• Fixed a possibility of the time compression display showing "TC +0%"
  or "TC -0%".
• Fixed asteroid mining and boarded ship looting not updating the OSD of
  the Commodity Run mission.

[onpon4]

Sorry for the slow release this time around. Lots of factors have sort of conspired leading to us not testing the release candidate as much as we like to. We'll try to do the necessary testing this week.

In any case, we're currently pushing a second release candidate. Changes compared to RC1:

• Jumps that you only know one direction of now show up on the map as unidirectional. Previously, you had no way of knowing that you only knew one direction of a jump.
• Fixed and touched up text descriptions for map trade modes.
• Fixed a bug that stopped you from getting trade information of a system while landed in a planet within that system that had no commodities.

[onpon4]

I'm pushing another release candidate with some further fixes and adjustments. These fixes are all of bugs that exist in the previous release, which is generally a good sign of moving forward with the release being ok (since it means it's probably less buggy than the previous release). I think we'll be all set to push the release if we don't find any additional problems.

Changes to RC3 compared to RC2:

• Replaced the extra blinker on hilighted pilots with the animated
  circle which is used for hilighted planets and jumps.
• Derelict, distress, and shipwreck events can no longer spawn on top of
  or extremely close to planets or jump points.
• Modernized the way the position of the Shipwrecked August is
  determined. (The way it was previously determined was a leftover from
  Naev's very early days, where systems were small and centered around
  singular planets.)
• Renamed the "Defaults" button in the Input tab of the Options menu to
  "Presets".
• Added hotkeys for buttons in the Options menu.
• Adjusted wording of text in the Baron missions.
• Fixed a bug where one planet's hilight could obscure another planet
  on the radar and overlay.
• Fixed a possibility of the time compression display showing "TC +0%"
  or "TC -0%".
• Fixed asteroid mining and boarded ship looting not updating the OSD of
  the Commodity Run mission.

[onpon4]

I'm pushing the release now, with just two changes since RC3:

• Adjusted some text in one of the Hakoi Pirates missions.
• Made Turret Conversion Module medium, and took away most of its downsides.