High Albedo: Twisted Skies - v1.3 Released news

Intro
After a mere 2 weeks of work, I am proud to release High Albedo 1.3, which is the finest build yet! This build improves graphics, improves AI, adds new controls, fixes bugs, and polishes gameplay. I am very proud of this build, so here's a tour of what you can expect from your download!

New Features

• Bailing system! Play pirate and claim the abandoned ships of your enemies!
• New menu music!
• Repair paste. You can now repair ships using a commodity you buy at shipyards and HQs.
• Improved graphics. Over 50 new space scenes and higher quality star sprites.
• New targeting commands allowing you to target nearest friendly (F key) and nearest neutral (V key).

Balancing

• Red Sky and Skybus Interstellar are now friendly to each other, so killing Skybus ships will hurt your Red Sky standings.

Interface Changes

• Screen resolution settings are now stored between sessions. Thank you for your patience.
• Docked ships will no longer be displayed on the sensor list or overview.

Bug Fixes

• Improved the avoidance algorithm the AI uses to navigate around obstacles, ships get hung up on stations far less often and big ships can move about more freely.
• Fixed lots of spelling and grammar mistakes in the CONVERSATIONS file.
• Redid package and assemble commands in cargo window so they can package and assemble things without using double the cargo space as the item normally uses.
• Improved autopilot code so it always flies through jumpholes correctly.
• Shipyard will no longer sell you a new ship if it doesn't have a free docking port that is also big enough to hold the ship. This means battleships can no longer spawn into fighter docks.
• Fixed a sound bug involving some weapon effects where the effect could still be heard after the effect was out of range.
• Fixed Cainan-Gunpower standings, Caina was hostile to Gunpower but Gunpower was neutral to them. Both are neutral now.

Bailing System
The bailing system, something I wanted to do since the beginning of this project, has been released! Now you can try to make pilots eject from their ship under fire so you can claim their abandoned property. This means that you can acquire ships that traditional diplomacy and markets would not allow you to do, due to your standings.

Be aware that bailing is not an easy thing to cause. The probabilities are low, and you'll have to be careful not to accidentally destroy the ship when the pilot ejects. Bailing also causes a standings hit, although it is a smaller hit than if you had killed the pilot. Finally, claiming bailed ships requires Salvage Software which is available at pirate bases or from destroyed Archers ships. This is all detailed in the updated game guide.

Repair Paste
Now you can repair your vessels without using another ship and a repair beam! All you have to do is buy Repair Paste, the spreadable solution to all your hull damage. This paste is sold at shipyards, HQs, and pirate bases and comes in both capital and standard packages for different sized ships. Be aware that paste is consumed to make repairs and that extensive damage will require a lot of paste.

Improved Graphics
This version of High Albedo is a larger download than the last, mainly because the quality of some graphics has increased dramatically. All of the system backgrounds are now higher quality graphics, (1280x1024 is used for 4:3 aspect ratio, 1920x1080 is used for 16:9, 16:10, and other widescreen ratios) and there are way more of them. There used to be 8 backgrounds, there are now 54! This means a more visually interesting and interesting world to explore.

In addition, star sprites have gotten some love. Gone are the flat looking solid colour star sprites that were also kind of laggy, as they have been replaced with more complex graphics that also use less disk space. Now that's what I call progress!

Finally, graphics settings are stored between sessions. This means you won't have to input your screen resolution and window settings every time you start the game. Be aware that this version of High Albedo is completely incompatible with saves from 1.2 and before, since so many things about the internals of the game have changed.

Comments
It's been a long two weeks for me and I'm very happy to be done. Please send all feedback to me either here or at masternerdguy@yahoo.com, your voice counts and I do care what you think. Expect further news about what to expect in 1.4, because 1.4 is going to be my most ambitious expansion yet!