What's New?
A lot has been changed with the latest version, including a revamped interface for the editor, character physics, and over 110 changes on the changelog! With the editor in a far more stable state, we now move to gameplay for Blockade Runner!
Check out some of the update highlights below or skip to the end for some more info!
Up-to-date Lite Version
Everyone can play and follow Blockade Runner as a "guest" with limitations by clicking on "Play as Guest" when the game starts!
In-game “Rock Monster” Character
Explore the ships now with one of our 1~ meter "rock monster" character! Humans will be a class on their own, just consider these guys the hermit "dwarves" of the game.
Character Physics
Turn your ships into virtual playgrounds, every angle of your ship will respond appropriately with the character physics.
Gravity Boots
Your new gravity boots will automatically magnetize towards any surface that's a few meters below you. Use Q/E to rotate!
Physics Crates
Mess around with the new physics engine by spawning crates in the editor!
Revamped Editor
The editor has been completely re-built and should be much easier to navigate.
Autosave
Losing a ship you worked on for an hour and a half straight really blows. Use Autosave from now on to make sure your work is preserved in case of an error!
Mirror Tool
Use the mirror tool to immediately duplicate one of the ship symmetrically onto the other side!
New Materials Window
A streamlined materials window in the editor provides a much more convenient way to choose which objects to place!
Keytag System
Just type what you're looking for in the new and improved materials window and if it's in the game it'll show up!
Angles Moved to Materials
Previously an awkward popup, now the angles are directly accessible from the materials window!
Real-time Stats on your Ship!
Weight, dimensions, class, and the time you've spent working on your ship now appear in realtime in the editor!
All New Prefabs
Dozens of new prefabs by MrVorgra, Micah and Terah!
Range Slider!
Provides quick access to the range of the editor's reticule through a slider! (Scroll on the mouse will also cause the slider to appear)
Easier to place "big" objects!
Prior to v.67, this was a royal pain. Now, it is much closer to the placement of angles!
Symmetrical Prefab Placement
You can now use symmetry/mirror to symmetrically place prefabs! This makes placing weapons a breeze.
New Singular Materials Pill
One pill is now at the center of the screen for changing your materials and the shape the blocks are placed with!
Cleaner Textfields
Textfields have been spruced up a bit!
Compass Locked Visual
New display for when the compass is locked (By pressing V)
Blocks Deleting/Spawning Between Corners Fixed
Ever inadvertently aim "between" blocks and accidentally delete/create blocks on the other side? A thing of the past!
New "Camo" Plating
By popular demand, military camo textures. (To... "hide" behind asteroids...)
Full 3D Models In Materials Window
Every object and prefab is given a proper 3D rendering in the material window!
New Toggles
Systems Toggled on (or off) in the editor can now be set to their default settings by clicking on the corresponding "toggle".
ALT+TAB Crashes Eliminated
Alt+Tabbing or moving the Blockade Runner window across multiple screens no longer causes the game to crash!
Center of Mass Drawn Ontop
Watching where your ship's "center of mass" is going becomes much less of a hastle now that the Center of Mass is drawn ontop of the screen!
On-screen Controls
Default "QWERTY" controls are displayed in the editor to help newcomers find their way around.
Unique Reticules For Shapes
Each shape in the editor gets its very own reticule to help remind you which setting you're in!
New Save / Load Dialogs
Streamlined and with, *gasp*, scrollbars!
Ship Name Changed To Button
The old textfield we'd used before seemed more annoying than helpful!
Proper Mass for all Prefabs
Micah painstakingly assigned realistic(ish) mass to all prefabs so you'll have accurate weight for every chair, reactor, etc!
Fixed Grid "Jittering" When Placing Objects
Could get a little irritating when placing blocks. Some had apparently thought before that it was a "perk".
Mirror/Symmetry Tools from "Pill"
When you're done with Symmetry or Mirror, just click on the pill to pop open the Materials window again
Four Interior Presets
Interiors pre-set to four basic patterns until time can be set aside for finishing off the glitches in the interior system.
Window Trim Prefabs
New window trim prefabs by MrVorgra, Micah and Terah allow you to design larger windows for your ship! (Glass is not present yet, however)
Smoother Launch / Editor Transition
You'll now retain your position when you switch between the two, and if you're too far outside you'll be re-centered outside of your ship!
Download Blockade Runner 0.67.2
On The Horizon
As you can tell, the big focus for this update was certainly the editor. We hope it'll provide a reasonably clean "playable" piece of entertainment for Blockade Runner while the main game is worked on. This was intended to be accomplished with 54's release of Blockade Runner, it's just taken us a bit longer to reach some of the development goals!
With the release finally out, we'll again be pushing out regular updates as soon as they're ready to go! Most all of the updates will be directed towards gameplay portions of Blockade Runner, however if you spot any bugs in the editor please let us know here so we can put them up on our "mighty magnet" wall!
Also coming up are the results of the last vote, as well as an all new vote. This upcoming vote is very important to us! Gameplay is becoming the development focus for all six of us and we'd like to know where you value the new and old items up for vote.
Expect all that plus a bunch of other important announcements over the next week!
- Zack, Aaron, Nathan, Micah, Gabriel, Terah
