Galactic Armory 1.4 for Star Ruler 1.0.4.4 has been released!
Here's a "short" overview of some of the new features:
- Implementation of mickleroi's Realistic System Generation. This is an optional feature and can be toggled before starting a new game.
- A lot of the game's values can be changed before starting a game. Among these are weapon range, damage, armor strength, shield strength and regeneration and even more! Note: When using the realistic system generation with standard spacing (3000), it is highly recommended to use a weapon range multiplier of at least 2 or 3.
- Repair works differently now: Crewed repair subsystems like crew quarters, integrated command centers and repair bays have a cooldown timer to prevent repairs while the ship is under fire. Repair tools, repair facilities and nanite repair units do not have this restriction. Any kind of repair also needs metal from the galactic bank to be done. The current status of repairs is shown when a ship is selected or the cursor is hovered above it.
- Implementation of Shield Armor: The shield armor is a hybrid between shields and powered armor. The armor itself can't take much punishment, but the field that is generated close to it's surface (which is invisible due to this!) is extremely dense and regenerates VERY quickly. Heavy hitting weapons - like heavy torpedos - have the best chance of piercing the barrier and possibly destroying the armor itself. Please note that the shield armor can not be used in conjunction with shield generators, chargers, hardeners or pulsed chargers. While this does free up internal space, armor and shield slots are both used for it. To make sure it's strong enough to ward off most weapons, make sure to install as much shield armor as possible on a ship! Just make sure you've got the power supply to keep it running... The status of shield armor is also shown in the GUI via numbers and a bright blue HP bar in the shield HP's place.
- 2 new AI personalities with completely new ship designs as well as new ship designs for the stock personalities (1 huge ship each). Each AI should use bigger ships in larger numbers now; also, they now use ships of a scale between 900-1800.
- Area of Effect weapons: The EMP Bomb (Bomber), Fusion Torpedo and DSM are now area of effect weapons. Fusion Torpedo and Directed Spatial Manipulator both have a minimum range attached to them, so that the firing ship doesn't blow itself up; friendfly fire for AOE weapons is at 20%.
- EMB Bombs are purely anti-shield weapons, so there is no minimum range attached to them (as bombers normally don't use shields)
- Overhaul of Missile Racks: There are now regular Missile Racks, Large Missile Racks and Barrage Missile Mounts unlocked at different tech levels. Standard racks fire 4-shot salvos of highly precise guided missiles and as such have a minimum hit percentage of 50% against fighter and bomber craft. Large Racks are more powerful and fire 16-shot salvos, though the reload time is longer while the range is shorter. They also get no hit bonus against fighters. The Barrage Missile Mount takes this to the extreme with a 64-shot salvo. Each kind of missile (and torpedo) now also consumes proportionate amounts of ammunition.
- Hauler and Tanker hulls: These are specialized hulls with huge cargo/fuel storages. Due to the way they are designed, it is impossible to mount weapons on these... Armor and Shields are still possible, though (this may be changed in the future).
- Bomber hulls and bomber weapons: Along with several other subsystems, bomber hulls and weapons have been added. Bomber hulls provide more space and armor mounts, but are much more massive. The weapons designed for use on these hulls are usually very powerful and/or specialized and generally deplete their ammunition very quickly.
- Implementation of Vanilla SR's way pure projectile weapons are handled by shields. They either hit the shield or pass through (depending on the shield HP). Shield Armor is different and works like shields did before, always blocking a percentage of damage instead (most likely all of it).
- Display of "Alpha" damage for the whole ship: In the blueprint screen you'll notice a stat called "Alpha" once a weapon is added to the ship. This represents the overall damage of the first salvo the ship fires when all guns are ready. High-Alpha ships are generally good at overwhelming the enemy when combat starts and are good as support ships (especially with Heavy Torpedos, Hyper Railguns and Overcharged Lasers). For Missile Racks, the alpha value represents the damage of one complete salvo.
- 2 new kinds of power supply: Zero-Point Generators and Shielded Antimatter Generators are both high-tech power supplies that do not explode upon destruction. Otherwise, the shielded AM generator works like the regular AM generator (with a reduced power output due to the shielding), while the ZPG practically runs "on nothing" and does not require fuel. It takes up the double amount of space, however.
- Superweapons (Superlaser, DSM) don't work like regular weapons: Remember the annoying habit of your big, fat superships to waste that DSM shot on a single fighter? Or vaporize a little size 4.25 Cruiser with your Death-Star-Spec Superlaser? Well, that won't happen anymore. Superweapons now have to be activated via "use tool..." command.
- It has also become impossible to spam "glass cannons" equipped with these ships. The DSM is simply too large to fit into anything less than a size 1000 hull, and the superlaser's energy consumes increases vastly for every unit of scale under hullsize 1000. These are Superweapons, after all.
And that's not everything! Head over to the downloads section and grab 1.4 while it's hot!
