Endless Sky: The Final Frontier v0.0.1 Alpha is released! You can download it here:
Content
Ships
34 Ships in total were added, including many iconic ship classes from the original movies and TV shows.
The entire 'Enterprise' line was added, including the 'Century Class':
- NX Class
- Constitution Class
- Constitution Class Refit
- Excelsior Class
- Excelsior Class Refit
- Ambassador Class
- Galaxy Class
- Sovereign Class
- Century Class
Other prominent starships from all across the board were added:
- Defiant Class
- Intrepid Class
- Prometheus Class
- Constellation Class
- Nova Class
- Miranda Class (3 kinds)
- Maquis Raider
- Akira Class
Some lesser-known starships were added, including one of the first warp-capable ships (Conestoga):
- Aerie Class
- Antares Type
- Oberth Class
- Saber Class
- Cheyenne Class
- Conestoga Class
- Daedalus Class
Finally, several small craft were added, including shuttles, runabouts, and fighters:
- Valkyrie Class
- Peregrine Class
- Yellowstone Class
- Danube Class
- Type 8 Shuttle
- Type 9 Shuttle
- Type 10 Shuttle
- Type 11 Shuttle
Weapons
8 types of Phasers were added:
- Particle Phaser (Original Blue Phaser from TOS)
- Phase Cannon (Deep Red from Star Trek: Enterprise)
- Type IV Phaser
- Type VIII Phaser
- Type X Phaser
- Type XII Phaser
- Type XIV Phaser
- Type XV Phaser
6 types of Torpedo Launchers were added:
- Micro-Torpedo Launcher (Shuttlecraft)
- Mk IV Pho-Torp Launcher
- Mk VI Pho-Torp Launcher
- Class 8 Pho-Torp Launcher
- Class 10 Pho-Torp Launcher
- Quantum Torpedo Launcher
4 Types of projectile-based weapons were added:
- Phased Plasma Cannon
- Pulse Phaser
- Phaser Cannon
- Heavy Phaser Cannon
Outfits
Not many outfits were added this patch, and most of the original outfit statistics are built into the ships.
There are still a few outfits that needed to be added to enable certain mechanics:
- Warp Assembly (Hyperdrive equivalent)
- Quantum Slipstream Drive (Scram Drive equivalent)
- Transwarp Manifold (Jump Drive equivalent)
- Antimatter Storage Pod (Fuel Container)
- Type 3 Phaser (Laser Rifle equivalent)
- Photon Grenades (Fragmentation Grenades equivalent)
- Plasma Grenades (Nerve Gas equivalent)
- Neutronium Plating [PLACEHOLDER]
- Impulse Drive (Just to enable engine flares)
There are some other, hidden outfits scattered around in the data files. These are a WIP.
Sounds
Many new sound effects were added, some of which replacing stock sounds. This video covers most of them:
Mechanics
A deeper look into the inner workings of ES:TFF and a more detailed description of the game balance.
Heat & Energy
In alpha v 0.0.1, the energy and heat system is significantly simplified compared to the stock system. Currently, Ships generate energy and heat on their own without outfits, and ship movement does not drain energy or create heat.
This simplification was done for two reasons: To help ease the process of future game balancing, and to temporarily eliminate the need to implement power generators or cooling systems.
Here are a few numbers regarding ship heat and energy:
Most ships generate power at a rate just under their stock weapon's power demand. This means that a ship that is fresh out of the shipyard will just barely keep it's weapons firing, and will run out of power reserves after 15-30 seconds of non-stop weapons fire.
All ships generate heat at the same rate they generate energy. This means that a ship that has a power generation rate of 10 will also have a heat generation rate of 10.
Weapons also draw power and generate heat at the same rate, which in the case of phaser beams, is equal to the damage output as well. (e.g. Damage: 600/s Energy: 600/s Heat: 600/s)
Currently, Hull repairing and Shield recharging are the only other things that require power, and they do not put out any heat.
For any stock ship, recharging shields drains 10% of your power generation, and repairing hull drains an additional 20%. doing both at the same time requires 30% of the ship's stock power generation, greatly decreasing weapon proficiency.
Hull & Shields
Ships were given almost arbitrary values for their hull and shield capacities, scaled to match their size or age.
Simply put, small shuttlecraft are more fragile than cruisers, and ships from the 25th century are much more resilient than ships from the 22nd.
Other than those restrictions, hull and shield values are almost completely arbitrary, and are 100% open to change.
As more ships are introduced, the hull and shield values will even out and become much more balanced.
Different types of ships regenerate their hull and shields at different rates. This list shows how long each type takes to fully regenerate their hull and shields (in seconds).
- Fighters - Shields in 40s, Hull in 150s
- Shuttles - Shields in 40s, Hull in 180s
- Freighters - Shields in 100s, Hull in 180s
- Cruisers - Shields in 80s, Hull in 120s
- Science Vessels - Shields in 40s, Hull in 180s
- Tactical Vessels - Shields in 70s, Hull in 160s
All of these values are open to change.
Weapons
Some of the weapons, like torpedo launchers, have pretty straight-forward characteristics. On the other hand, some weapons, phaser arrays specifically, are designed to act in a very odd but specific way.
Phaser arrays by them selves fire for roughly a second, and have a reload period of up to several seconds. If you mount more than one array on a ship, then they will fire one after the other. This was intentional, and it lets us mount multiple phasers without them all firing at once. (This not only looked bad, it also required sound effect files to be really long in order to prevent audio looping)
Different phaser beams have separate firing times and reloads. This list will show you how long each weapon fires for, how long each reload time is, and how many can be mounted to a single ship without the firing periods overlapping:
- Particle Phaser - Fire: 0.66s Reload: 3.36s Max: 5
- Phase Cannon - Fire: 0.66s Reload: 2.7s Max: 4
- Type IV Phaser - Fire: 0.5s Reload: 2.05s Max: 5
- Type VIII Phaser - Fire: 0.66s Reload: 3.36s Max: 5
- Type X Phaser - Fire: 0.83s Reload: 5.08s Max: 6
- Type XII Phaser - Fire: 1s Reload: 7.1s Max: 7
- Type XIV Phaser - Fire: 1s Reload: 7.1s Max: 7
- Type XV Phaser - Fire: 1.16s Reload: 9.44s Max: 8
The Pulse Phaser, Phaser Cannon, and Heavy Phaser Cannon all act similarly. They fire 5, 3, and 4 projectiles (respectively), then they reload for a couple seconds. (Currently they have very similar projectile sprites, and they use the same sound effect. This is planned to change.)
The 5 Photon Torpedo Launchers are quite similar, and follow secondary weapon standards very closely. As a result, the only differences between them are firepower, reload time, and ammunition capacity.
The Quantum Torpedo Launcher fires faster and has more projectile velocity than the photon torpedo launchers, but they don't do nearly as much hull damage, and they have a relatively small ammo capacity.
You may download the current version here. Test it out, and let me know what you think. Any and all suggestions are appreciated, and bug reports are invaluable.
-Swingfire / Theta
