Patch 0.1.7: ASTRA Teaches Everything, Better Mining and Station Guns

Thanks for all the feedback and support! if Your request, suggestion, bug report isn't listed they are carried over to the next update!

NEW

ASTRA teaches everything

• About 400 new cards in 120 lessons, each starting the first time you meet a screen or feature, with a pulsing orange frame on the exact button she means.
• If a new card appears during a fight or an Asteroid Rush, the game pauses until you read it.
• The mining lesson makes your cuts 5x stronger until it is done.

Make it yours

• Name your faction (New Game wizard, or right-click your name on the pilot pages).
• Fleet groups: up to 8 named groups in the Fleet tab.
• Rename your own stations and buildings, and the ship you are flying.

Mining

• Ore chips off in chunks while you cut. Same total per rock, but you get it as you go.
• 8 rare finds, from Uncommon to Legendary (about 250 Cr to 2,700 Cr), with better odds on rarer fields.
• Mining Beam Toggle (on by default): one press keeps the beam cutting.
• Gunners seated on a mining beam mine nearby rocks by themselves.

Trade and stations

• Blueprint Library tab: every learned blueprint, searchable, with pins and how many ingredients you hold.
• Item tags on all weapons and modules, with one-click tag filters on the big lists.
• Faction Build Requests: Ask, Always Allow or Always Refuse, globally or per sector.
• "Store up to" limit on every fleet Store switch. The rest is sold there.
• Make an Offer (Trade Magnate): buy a faction building in a sector where you own a station.
• Outfit packages in Build Mode, from Bare to Elite, installed when the build finishes.
• Population needs at your stations: order any need, Order All, set a premium, or switch on Auto-Order.
• Auto-list for Sale: dock at your station and your hold goes up For Sale. Mark items "Keep" to store them instead.

Flight and fleet

• Mouse Look-Ahead (Middle Mouse): the camera leans toward your cursor.
• Long Range Optics now lets you zoom out 40% farther (80% enhanced).
• Fleet captains use their own Warp Drives when it beats the gates.
• Commander attacks now ask you to confirm war with every faction in that sector, then raze their stations and buildings.

Station weapons

• Flak Battery, Railgun Battery, Plasma Mortar, Ion Disruptor and Missile Silo now each fire their own way, with their own turret art and rounds: flak shreds rockets and drones, rail slugs pierce hulls, mortars lob wide blasts, ion jams weapons, silos launch homing missiles all around.
• Faction stations now carry them, mixed per faction and station size. Overall station firepower is unchanged.
• The Heavy Defense Beam got its own turret art and longer reach. The Minigun has a new bullet, muzzle flash and impact.

CHANGED

• Every Childhood Talent and Profession is open from your first game.
• Auto Pilot always flies at full speed, with or without Flight Assist.
• Mining beams cut 2x faster. Miner hulls get a built-in ore hold 3x their hold. Mining contracts pay 2x.
• Heat is now shared: Heat Vents and Heat Sinks are split across all your guns. Stations and fleet turret ships use real heat too. Starting ships got extra module slots and extra vents.
• Ore Bay, Munitions Bay, Survey Pod and Freight Bay hold 2.5x, but only their own kind. Overflow goes to your plain hold.
• Contraband is now illegal tech (Black-Market Implants, Stolen Nav Codes and more). Old saves convert automatically.
• Market colours: green is always a good deal for you, buying or selling. Tooltips say it in words.
• New blueprints start as Never Run at your stations. Recipe lists are alphabetical, Upgrade Kits on top.
• For Sale no longer stops your station's production.
• You can sell stored goods while you owe rent: the sale pays the debt first.
• Identical gear shows as one row "Name xN".
• Docked: E always undocks, I opens the Inventory.
• Ancient Warp Drive: into Vigil space from anywhere, back out to any visited sector, and it fits beside a normal Warp Drive.
• Conquered sectors become yours through your first finished building there, like any sector.
• Saves are one file each, so Steam Cloud can no longer load a different save than the one listed.
• Abandoned sectors show as a hollow ring on the galaxy map.

FIXED

• Fixed the most common crash of 0.1.6 (Fleet tab, Commander ships).
• Fixed memory growing every time you returned to the Main Menu.
• Fixed Auto Pilot and Cargo Drones crawling at about 20 kph.
• Fixed: Sensor Array, Communication Array, Cargo Expansion, Docking Bay, Refining Facility, station Drone Bay, Repair Bay, armor platings, building reactors and bays, Stellar Igniter and Zero-Point Engine didn't work as intended. They all do what their text says now.
• Fixed: rocket launcher fire rates, many captain and officer traits, Trade Diplomacy, salvage skills on wrecks, and the Diplomacy Fund buttons didn't work as intended.
• Fixed renaming the ship you fly, Become Commander while docked, and level-up weapon slots going only to rocket mounts.
• Fixed reverse boost pushing you forward, and clicks cancelling docking.
• Fixed new pilots losing their starting station early: it is fully protected for its first hours, war fleets can't hurt you near it, and the first autosave happens right at launch.
• Fixed warping out of a fight being slowed by Combat Speed.
• Fixed small ships shoving big ships around.
• Fixed the sell menu showing a different total than the sale paid.
• Fixed destroyed construction sites still taking deliveries, and empty sectors never returning to the wild.
• Fixed drones storing goods (and charging rent) in stations still under construction.
• Fixed rockets and shells passing through buildings, which stalled conquests.
• Fixed opening the Codex from the galaxy map.
• Fixed clicks passing through ASTRA's card.
• Fixed Continue doing nothing on a damaged or newer save.
• Fixed two achievements counting wrong.
• Many tooltips now show real numbers, including module ranges.

Note: the five station weapons (Flak Battery, Railgun Battery, Plasma Mortar, Ion Disruptor, Missile Silo) use temporary sounds for now. They will get better sounds in the next update. and if you prefer them say so!