By the emperor, it's here!
Thanks for the wait, traveler - we know it's been long. But your patience will finally be rewarded with a fully unseen main story arc! Also, not to forget: CARRIER SHIPS. 🚀
As it has taken some time, lots of other things have piled up too, so make sure you don't miss the details! Although we're confident that this will keep you entertained for a while (as we shift our focus back to general QoL improvements and more frequent updates again) we do have more in store - this is not the last storyline expansion by far, and we assure you that all of them will come in form of free updates!
Cheers,
the Warp Turtle crew
Story of the Sphere
Continue the saga! A brand new story experience that comes with:
The initial concept was created so long ago, it was written on papyrus...Turmoil is rising within the Sphere. Old ideals stand in conflict with major upheavals caused by the hands of time - feeding discontent under the surface of this highly evolved faction. Frontiers seem to be hardening to an irreversible extent and call for decisions. According to the Sphere's solidified traditions, there can only be one instance of power. A new, exceptionally young emperor sees himself confronted with the massive task to decide over the fate of the biggest high-tech civilization the solar system has ever seen - will you help him to pave the way for a stable future for the Sphere?
The big ceremony - a major turning point in the imperial bloodline.
The Loyalist fleet: Including a reworked Nancho, and of course the new carrier.
A mysterious incident reveals ships of unknown origin.LANGUAGE NOTE:
As you'd expect, the new story is heavy on words. Therefore, the new arc translations - RU, CN, DE, ES - will not be complete from the start. We apologize for this (kind of sad to reset the localization info on the storepage back to "partial" with new content) - and promise we try to make progress asap, but for now we'll have to ask you for a bit more patience here.
Carrier Ships
CARRIERS: CHECK!
We know you've been eagerly waiting for them - again, thanks for your patience - but there's no need to wait any longer, just go ride these whales (although you have to finish the arc first ;))!
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Weapon Type
As previously introduced with the turret placement system, carriers use ships as weapons - just in form of equipable turrets called launch bays.
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Behavior
With a set weapon target, employed bays will launch a fleet of autonomous ships right at the enemy, fighting until death (no matter whose) and redock if the target is destroyed.
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Availability
Two carrier versions (Sphere, Loyalists) and their respective launch bays will be available at jiraiya, Jamey Tien and Hoshi after the end of the storyline.
Other available Ships
Besides the two carrier versions, all the other ships seen above (whole Loyalist fleet, machine ships) are available in some way - either by purchasing them at a ship trader or by scanning and crafting.
Achievements
The new main story comes with a bunch of new achievements for the modern completionist's profile!
Soundtrack
Over 16 new songs!
- The story expansion features songs from Miguel's new album "2184" (seen from the GB timeline: a true retro-classic ;)) and an even newer track "The Mission" became the new main menu theme!
- In the meantime, our artist who had always been handling all our music, became a music producer himself and contributed tracks to the new arc soundtrack - Kouji's "Eyes of Fury" theme, Pai Pai's ceremonial song, some loops and the trailer score, as well as an unknown number of sound FX. :D
- Aside from the arc soundtrack, there are also some additional ambient tracks and a default moon landable theme!
Locations
New locations on the Sphere and Loyalist capitals: Imperial garden, Nancho throne and command bridge
Other New Stuff
- 🇪🇸 Spanish: partial translation - after an unknown hero named shadowman1 had been quietly working on the ES translation for years, we spent another while finishing the rest 100% (hola, viajero espacial ;)) - before the Sphere arc completion though, which means that it's currently in the state of Mai 2023 and missing major parts of the new arc!
- Portraits: Beside 15 (!) new portraits in the context of the Sphere arc, there is now a female default pirate with 3 versions. Also, Kouji's portrait, as seen in the title artwork, was completely redesigned from scratch!
- Wave weapon: a somewhat experimental thing. Let us know what you think!
- Dai-Naoru, a repair laser with a super-long range!
- FX: White Hole animations and audio design, map icon
- Audio: new ship collision sound and a whole bunch of other new FX
- Some new cargo icons
- Music disks as readables: Start your music collection with Rhapsody in Deep Blue and Eyes of Fury - both come with unique cover art and can be played back at any time.
UI Rework
- Message and portrait box: complete overhaul (borderless design, portrait scanlines added)
- Tooltip improvements: layout rework (including stats resorting and new credits and weight icons), tbc!
- Reworked assets: radar HUD, checkbox graphic to toggle, menu cursor, close button, new game char selector, tab bar changes, loading screen icon, some divider lines and other details
World
- Support view sharing with npc ships
- Location polishing: Hokucho gate, Supreme Court, The Zone, Hokucho Imperial City quick-polishing
Portrait polishing
- Sphere judge, Jack Sperrholz, Sphere / Loyalist military, Sphere male 1 (x7), CoC male 1 (x8)
FX
- Default planet atmosphere visual upgrade
- Advanced cam zooms, improved fireworks, spotlight FX polishing
- "3 frame animation" emitters (Machine Ship)
- Audio: Separate cheering crowd from firework
- Audio: Functionality for playing SFX without background music
- Pluto stays locked if Noob Henderson was destroyed during the journey to Caduceus.
- Mission progress and Finish Mission didn't trigger correctly during 'Revealing Xentron'
- Mouse input and cursor loss on resolution change when a landable window is open
- Defending ships with an existing valid weapon target should regain the attack behavior
- Unintentional Delga and Nobunaga death dialog pop-up
- Multiple places have the wrong leading person
- Readable music is not always playing/stopped
- Landable talk to person triggers 2 sounds if person is mission target
- UI: Portrait box seams on full HD (message, origin, character selection)
- UI: Controller icons LB scaling bigger than RB
- UI: Word-wrap missing on mission instructions / dialog question
- Javelot dropped an Aries blueprint
- "Additional Armor" device: price correction (III had same price as II)
- Pirate Fortress fight auto pause keeps triggering
- Multiple missing translation string
- NPC ships do not activate the thrusters sometimes
- Reduce the ship attack approach angle if the target is way bigger than us
- UI: Analysis render window should not switch the cursor when hovered
- Crash when loading cargo with a ship type with an invalid name
Let's have a chat on Discord:
Learn more & stay tuned!
