Naikari 0.4.0

We’ve got a new release of Naikari out and it improves a lot of things, particularly with QOL and the new player experience.

The most notable change for this release is the replacement of the start-of-game optional tutorial with a collection of hidden “tutorial” missions that serve the same purpose, but within the narrative of the game rather than separately as it was before. The game still starts with a salesperson (now unnamed) who sells you with your first ship, but that now quickly makes way for a campaign with Ian Structure, a businessman who hires you for tasks and teaches you everything that you need to know about piloting in a natural manner. This mini-campaign then naturally leads into the Empire campaign, with the work you do for Ian Structure directly influencing the Empire Lieutenant who offers you a place in the shipping division.

We also made several improvements to the interface. Most notably, the 3-tone blue slot colors have been replaced with yellow, orange, and red in a sequence that retains full colorblind accessibility, and the subtle 3-tone yellow of mission markers has also been changed to fully colorblind-accessible yellow, orange, and red as well.

There is still much work to do and we’ll be making even more sweeping changes for version 0.5.0 (particularly to enhance the combat experience), but this should hopefully be a welcome update. 🙂

Changelog

• Corrected the calculation for beam heat-up; the previous inaccuracy led to beams heating up faster than they were supposed to.
• Adjusted the Equipment screen and the Info ship tab, showing the player’s credits on the Equipment screen and the ship’s value on the Info ship tab.
• Added a Net Worth stat to the Info overview tab, showing the total value of your credits, ships, and outfits combined.
• Added some NPC messages.
• Fixed and adjusted some missions.
• Knowledge of the FLF’s hidden jumps is now erased if you betray them.
• Fixed bad rendering of marker text.
• The FLF/Dvaered derelicts event now requires a Mercenary License and can only occur outside of Frontier space.
• Changed the name of the Info Window to Ship Computer.
• New combat practice mission available through the mission computer.
• New map showing waste disposal locations.
• Opening tutorial replaced with a new start-of-game campaign that teaches the basics of playing the game in a more natural and integrated fashion. This new campaign is now integrated with the Empire Recruitment mission, used as the basis for why you are recruited by the Empire rather than them just randomly choosing a warm body.
• Reworked the trader escort mission: the trader convoy now travels as a more natural fleet (going into a formation), and it also limits its speed so it isn’t faster than you.
• Replaced the UST time system inherited from Naev with a slightly different time system which is called GCT, or Galactic Common Time. The time units are the same, but “periods” are now called “galactic hours”, “hectoseconds” are now called “galactic minutes”, “decaperiods” are now called “galactic days”, and the words “week” and “month” are now colloquially used to describe time units similar to a week or a month.
• The Equipment screen’s slot tooltips now show slot properties even when an item is equipped, alongside the properties of the equipped item.
• Added tooltips when the mouse is placed over the shipyard slot indicator squares. The tooltips are identical to the tooltips shown on the Equipment screen; they show what kind of slot they indicate and what outfit comes with the ship in that slot, if any.
• Right-clicking on jump points no longer engages auto-hyperspace behavior and instead simply falls back to standard location-based autonav. This is for consistency with planet auto-landing.
• The detail of shipyards being required to manage ships you aren’t currently flying in the Equipment screen has been removed; the Equipment screen now functions identically on all planets that have them. The previous paradigm was unnecessarily confusing and didn’t really add anything to the game.
• Added a quantity display to the image array in the Commodity tab, allowing you to see at a glance what cargo you’re carrying.
• Added a “Follow Target” keyboard control (bound to F by default).
• The Target Nearest key now will not ever target your own escorts, since this is not something you’re likely to want to do. The Target Next and Target Previous keys can still target your escorts if needed.
• Added a jump that’s easy to miss to the Frontier map.
• Imported new ion and razor weaponry graphics from Naev.
• The Brushed GUI now displays the instant mode weapon set for weapons assigned to them. This is particularly important as it shows the player how to launch fighters from fighter bays with the default weapon configuration. To accommodate this change and keep it looking consistent, the Brushed GUI has been altered slightly.
• Hired escorts now list their speed so you can know in advance whether or not they can keep up with your ship.
• Removed the intro crawl when starting a new game. It didn’t really add anything necessary, it was basically just a history lesson delivered in a rather boring manner. Any such information could easily be conveyed in better ways and most of it already is.
• Changed the mission marker colors and slot size colors to yellow, orange, and red, retaining full colorblind accessibility and the gradual color shift of the previous coloring while making the colors used more distinct.
• AI ships that come with fighter bays now count more toward filling the presence quota, which means they no longer inflate the amount of ships in the system like they used to.