Revision 206 (2007-02-04) - Preview Version

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Release notes

Revision 206

• The piston objective at the rear of the large leviathan now has two destructible parts instead of being one giant destructible part. This makes it... somewhat... more difficult to destroy.
• Beam weapons have been fixed to display for the correct period of time after hitting something. This was only a problem on very fast computers.
• Added more detailed instructions.

Revision 205

• Friendly frigates are much better at avoiding collisions.
• Enemy fighters are a bit more enthusiastic now, and are less likely to fly off into space by mistake.
• Leviathans have more interesting subsystem setups. In particular, there are several secondary subsystems which can be attacked to disable turret groups.
• Objectives (but not all subsystems) are highlighted in the radar with a box with a triangle in it.
• Made it impossible for ships to damage themselves with their own guns.
• Various cosmetic improvements.

Revision 192

Too many changes to mention. Some highlights:

• Several new models.
• Friendly ships to support your attack.
• Leviathans can have linked objectives which must be destroyed in order.
• Torpedoes now work properly.
• Preliminary hyperspace effects.
• Some initial dialogue to try to explain what's going on.
• Mouse support.

Revision 108b

No major new features in this version. I simply rebuilt it with the final version of Unity 1.5 in the hope that it would fix problem which were caused by previous beta versions. A proper new version will be released at a later time.

• Fixed joystick support.
• Added support for return and enter as synonyms for space on the menu screen.

Revision 108

• Added a basic front menu, as well as a game over message. Pressing a key at the end of the game returns to the menu. For now, you must use the arrow keys and space to operate the menu - you can't redefine the menu controls.
• Pause mode now displays a message. See the instructions above regarding pausing with no message onscreen and using slow motion mode.
• Wingmen now automatically get into formation when launched.
• Fixed the transfer-to-wingman crash bug.
• Rearranged the level a bit to make it less messy.

Revision 103

• The rest of the player's squadron has been added. Due to a bug, they'll dive into battle the moment they launch. You may want to reign them in by pressing Q - this causes them to fly in close formation. They'll also return to the formation if you fly too far away from them. You can send them into battle by pressing E. At the moment these keys are hard coded. I'll fix that shortly.
• When your ship is destroyed, control is transferred to the nearest wingman. Look after your wingmen or you'll run out of lives! The status display in the top right of the screen shows how they're doing. IMPORTANT: there is a crash bug which may occur when you first get transferred to another wingman. Also, the game does not stop when you run out of wingmen... it just waits forever.
• When firing a missile, it either fires a homing missile or a torpedo depending on whether or not you're locked on to something. At the moment it also locks onto turrets, although it shouldn't. It also tends to target things behind leviathans. These bugs will be fixed shortly.
• There's a group of enemy gunships to the left of your start position. Their AI is pretty bad and they tend to shoot themselves by mistake, but they're good for target practice.
• The destructible leviathans now have two extra weak points which must be destroyed. These are the two long, thin heat sinks located on top of the ships, towards the front.
• Added a basic scoring system, which may or may not be used in the final game.
• The radar no longer fades things as they pass towards the front of the ship. The pointer remains visible until the target moves inside the circle.
• Fixed various bugs and some (but not all) AI behavioural problems.

Revision 74

• Auto-aiming now only takes effect when you're firing your guns and when you're not holding the boost key. When auto-aiming is in effect, the word 'LOCK' appears in the bottom right of the screen.
• Added an incoming missile (ICM) display in the bottom right of the screen. The number tells you how many missiles are locked onto you, not necessarily how many missiles are still out there.
• Added animated fins to the player's ship for fun. Also, the player's ship breaks up when destroyed and the camera follows it for a few seconds.
• The two smaller leviathans now launch fighters when you get into range, and relaunch new ones as necessary.

Revision 69

• Auto-aiming has been added. You still need to aim a bit, but it'll automatically haul your ship around to point at the target. It's a bit whippy right now... needs refining a bit. Incidentally, if you find yourself locked onto something that you don't want to fly right into (like a turret), you can break the lock by hitting the thrust key and turning away.
• The large leviathan relaunches one of the fighters if it gets destroyed, so you can have unlimited target practice!
• Trails now persist after the thing they were attached to was destroyed.

Revision 66

• The player's homing missiles have been temporarily replaced with torpedoes. These are supposed to be used against the leviathan ships, and will attempt to strike the precise location that's in the targeting circle when you fire. You can occasionally hit fighters with them too, if you're lucky!
• Leviathans' engines are now dangerous to fly through (on the two smaller ships, at least).
• The player can now die and be respawned.
• The rear view camera is now fullscreen.
• The screen flashes when a leviathan is destroyed.
• The radar now displays target squares for all homing missile targets, not just the current missile lock target. You can also turn the radar off if it makes everything too slow for you.
• Random designation numbers for the sides of ships!

Revision 56

• Your shields can be knocked down by gunfire but you can't be killed at the moment.
• Guns have been switched to beam weapons in this version... easier to aim!
• It's still quite hard to hit things with missiles, although a head on shot usually works. Fighters need at least two missiles in quick succession to be killed.
• If you want to dogfight with the enemy fighters, you'll probably need to hold the brake key and turn hard using both yaw and pitch controls at the same time. Sometimes it's better to fly away, then come in for a better shot.
• Turrets can be destroyed, but they take several missile hits. It's best to throw missiles at them while hiding behind bits of the ship's superstructure (aim high so the missiles don't hit the hull first).
• The large ships have some destructible parts. They look like small boxes near the rear of the ship. The two smaller ships can be destroyed by blowing up their destructible parts (mind the debris!).
• The graphics are still a work in progress and the scene design is just a test piece.
• Mouse and joystick control will come later.