Naikari: Eye of Chaos 0.10.0

It’s about time for another update to Naikari: Eye of Chaos! This update comes with a lot of changes, some of which are a continuation of the work started for version 0.9.0.

One of the biggest changes with this release is a quality-of-life improvement lifted from Naev (the project Naikari was originally forked from), but improved: when you have a destination to go to (a planet to land on or a system to fly to), that destination, or the next jump en route to it, is now hilighted. Coinciding with this, we also imported a shader from Naev and modified it to replace the cross display for system position markers (used e.g. by the patrol mission), and we also fixed a long-standing issue where the text of these markers was able to clash with other text on the overlay.

But it’s not just interface improvements in this release. This release also comes with a new outfit which we had been thinking of adding for a long while: the Turret Conversion Module. This outfit converts all of your ship’s weapons into turrets (yes, all of them) for the cost of a large utility slot, some CPU, and reduced energy efficiency. We’re thinking of adding more outfits like this as we think of them in the future.

And on top of that, we’ve also added some new stuff to do! Firstly, we’ve overhauled the race missions; instead of boarding randomly placed stationary pilots, you now pass thru planets and/or jump points in a virtual “track” for a certain number of laps. Secondly, we’ve added a sort of “mini-event” which causes traders to broadcast a request for fuel. You can answer these requests.

And while those are the most significant changes, there are also several more updates to gameplay, the interface, missions, and events, and a large number of bugfixes. You can rēad a full list of changes in the changelog below.

If you give it a try, please let us know what you think! 🙂

Changelog

Major Changes

• Planets you need to land on and jump points which lead you to systems you need to go to are now hilighted (similar to the way Naev does it, but a little better).
• Added the “Turret Conversion Module”, which enables turning all of a ship’s weapons into turrets.
• Completely overhauled the race missions: instead of boarding randomly placed stationary pilots, you now pass thru a random set of planets and/or jump points for a certain number of laps.
• Traders will now sometimes broadcast requests for fuel, which the player can answer by hailing them.

Other Gameplay Changes

• Reduced the number of hidden jumps given to the FLF.
• Removed “hypergates” (which were really just glorified jump points to a hub system), since they don’t really seem to be all that useful in gameplay and don’t make much sense lore-wise.
• Warlords battle no longer sets the faction of the winning side to the standard Dvaered faction (which means you don’t risk e.g. reputation loss if you find yourself on the losing side).
• Added a garbage dump location to Empire space.
• Slightly improved the waste dump mission.
• Adjusted some hyperspace connections in the universe.
• Removed the randomness from the Drinking Aristocrat mission which could lead to needing to make as many as nine stops. The total number of stops (including the correct one) is now fixed at exactly four (three wrong ones plus the correct one).
• Forward-facing beams now rotate in the same manner as turret beams, rather than instantly facing their target.
• Changed the balancing to give large turrets an inherent advantage over large forward-facing weapons, now that forward-facing weapons can be easily converted into turrets.
• Civilian NPCs are now smaller in number, but much more likely to give rewards.
• Reduced the number of services on introductory worlds, to more gradually introduce planetary services to new players.
• Generic planets can now always be bribed, even with minimum standing.
• Bribe price for “low-class” planets is now lower.
• “High-class” planets can now be bribed as long as you are not enemies with their faction, but at a very high bribe cost.
• Different factions now have different landing bribe costs.
• The Derelict event is now less common, but hilights the derelict so it’s more visible.
• The Derelict event no longer spawns in systems with volatile nebulae (since the nebula would destroy them, which would be a bit weird).
• Mercenaries no longer protect civilians and other peaceful AI pilots.
• Larger and factional derelicts are now rarer than smaller and non-factional derelicts.
• Quicksilver, Koäla, and Mule now all have three weapon slots.

Other Changes

• Replaced the cross display of system position markers (as used by e.g. patrol missions) with a shader based on the one Naev uses for the autonav go-to position indicator. This makes these markers much easier to see especially when they happen to be on top of planets (as is the case for patrol missions).
• Removed the superfluous “TARGET” text next to the autonav go-to position indicator.
• Aiming helper crosshair now has an outline.
• The target clear control will now clear an asteroid target as well.
• Relaxed some of our eccentric usage of diaereses. It’s no longer used on “ao”, “ei”, “eu”, or “ea”. This also means that the subtitle is now “Eye of Chaos” instead of “Eye of Chaös”.
• New saves now include information about what system they’re landed on in the load screen.
• Removed use of system claims for some missions.
• Autonav resets speed less aggressively, and by default (togglable with an option in the Options menu) does so even less aggressively by ignoring passive (not actively hostile) enemies entirely.
• Land and Jump keys will now cycle thru targets if already in the process of auto-landing / auto-hyperspacing.
• Hilighted pilots no longer come with a text label.
• Clicking on empty space now clears the current target.
• The Mission Computer now centers the newly selected mission again when you click on a mission in the list.
• The map in the current missions list in the Ship Computer can now be interacted with just like on the Mission Computer.
• The letter on outfits in the outfitter now indicates outfit type (weapon, utility, stucture) again, instead of size.
• Adjusted text colors to make colored text easier to read.
• Changed the autobrake key to make it engage active cooldown without a second press (as in Naev).
• Added some more pilot names.
• The first Ian Structure mission now tells you the reward up-front and explains credits conversion instead of the second Ian Structure mission doing so.
• AI ships now have an amount of fuel which is matched to where they spawned from (i.e. they always have full fuel when taking off, and they always have no more than their max fuel minus their fuel consumption when jumping in).
• All ships in the Warlords Battle event are now hilighted, rather than just hilighting the leaders.
• Simplified and fixed the way near zoom is chosen (it was previously based on velocity and didn’t really follow the Zoom Near setting in practice; now, the near zoom level is static).
• Setting zoom levels no longer “requires” a restart. (It wasn’t entirely necessary before, but the options menu told you that it was and changing the settings messed up the stars in the background temporarily).
• CPU usage for outfits is now displayed as a positive “CPU Usage” value instead of a negative “CPU” value.
• Salvador now has no Empire presence (to match the Hakoi Pirates storyline).
• Adjusted some wording in the third Hakoi Pirates mission.
• Removed mention of Arnold Smith’s “boss” in the Shark mission.
• Renamed the second Nexus mission to “Nexus False Flag”.
• Changed the word “steal” to “loot” in the boarding window (since it fits better with boarding derelicts).

Bugfixes

• Text of system position markers is now “optimized” to avoid collision with planet/jump overlay text.
• Fixed player and asteroid radar icons being allowed outside the overlay boundaries.
• Fixed some potential for conflicts with the Hitman missions.
• Fixed a typo in the Emergency Shield Booster description.
• Fixed a potential for inconsistent text in the Love Train mission.
• Fixed a design oversight which meant player fighter bay escorts did not escape jump as intended.
• Fixed dust amount not being recalculated on resize events.
• Fixed Dolmen missing common outfits.
• Fixed an issue where the Credence in the Teenager mission could get stuck flying around in circles.
• Fixed a mistake in the code which could lead to combat music playing when it shouldn’t.
• Fixed the Credence in the Teenager mission not being given bad cores as intended (which is meant to slow it down and make it easier to catch).
• Fixed mass limit of afterburners being listed as tonnes rather than kilotonnes.
• Fixed failure to update the hilighted OSD objective in the Shark mission if a Shark was acquired via trade-in.
• Fixed the Hakoi Pirates missions not generating portraits when loading the game while landed at the destination planet.
• Fixed Empire ships interfering in the Dvaered warlords battle event and attacking the player.
• Fixed a rare bug that could cause fighter bay fighters to enter a limbo state when changing systems (which would continue until the clear orders command was given).
• Fixed display when gathering from asteroids to show kilotonnes rather than tonnes.
• Fixed derelicts giving reputation changes and kill rewards when you blew them up (which didn’t make much sense as they’re derelicts with no living occupants).