Introduction
Greetings - I hope that your Advent is going well so far! A new version of Project Helia has just been released for you to enjoy, featuring new mechanics, ships, and modules - read on to learn more :)
Cruisers
The stars of this release are undoubtably cruisers, with each of the four great nations getting their own. Cruisers will likely be the largest ships that you'll routinely fly - future battlecruisers and battleships will be significantly more expensive with a diminishing return on investment. These ships are powerful, however they are still susceptible to mobs of skiffs, electronic warfare, and saturation attacks.
Schematics are available for all four of these ships from stations of their respective faction. Note that you will need a Station Assembly Yard to manufacture them (an intermediate sized workshop will be introduced in the future). In addition, cruiser-sized modules have been added - however, in Helia it isn't always the best idea to fit the largest modules that a slot can hold!
Since Helia is in alpha, ships and modules are being added gradually. As the project matures there will be more ships available across more factions. For example, currently only the four great nations have frigates and cruisers - in the next release (0.2.7) pirates and corporations will be getting their own frigates to help close the power gap.
Transient Asteroids
If you've played Helia, then you're likely familiar with transient jumpholes - connections between systems that change every downtime. Transient Asteroids are very similar except they are asteroids instead of jumpholes!
These temporary asteroids can be identified by the warning symbol and "C" at the start of their name. They can contain any ore, and may also have significantly higher yields than normal asteroids. Like their jumphole counterparts they tend to be far from anything else in the system. However, if you see one it might be worth investigating as it could bring a highly valuable, easy to extract, ore somewhere it wouldn't normally be!
Just make sure you have enough fuel to get there and back :)
Salvager NPCs
In Helia, you can salvage loot from wrecks using a salvager. However, previously there were no NPCs that would do this! Given that empowering NPCs to do things players do is a core idea in Helia, I am happy to say that has changed.
These NPCs will roam the universe looking for wrecks to salvage, and will attempt to sell their loot at stations. Unlike traders, they may spend a significant amount of time working on a wreck making them easier to catch! If you're willing to take the standings hit, or if they already hate you anyway, they are essentially "loot pinatas" containing whatever they happened to salvage - just don't forget your own salvager.
Feedback
At the moment, very few people play Helia. This is understandable, given that its a very challenging indie MMO that is in open alpha. With that said, feedback is always appreciated! If you have a question, suggestion, or find a bug, you can report it here or on the official subreddit.
Don't miss your chance to get in on the ground floor of a different kind of MMO! If you'd like to try it out, Helia is currently free to play (and will remain so as long as its in open alpha)! You can start your journey here :)
The release is taking a little longer than expected - this went out prematurely :)
Now its deployed for real!