Hello,
What a better way to beat the Venusian heat outside than with a major update to Fleet Battles? We've added a new game mechanic (wrecks), new ships (the Arilou Observer and Kzanti Intimidator), weapons, arena maps, ship parts, and more. Please read below for the complete changes.

Important: Previously saved "fleets" are no longer compatible due to a data change.

New ships

• Arilou Observer: Green skinned aliens have been using this cloaked ship to watch us from afar for quite some time.
• Kzanti Intimidator: Space pirates / low-level predators that like keeping their distance from you so they can blow you up with mines. They'll use your scrap to sell on the black market.

New Maps

• Callum's Deep: Battle around a mysterious dark star with a negative mass
• Maelstrom: A large map with lots of planets and massive asteroids.
• Athara: A distance star system with exotic worlds

New Weapons

• Cloak -- this weapon makes your ship invisible for a short time (Arilou only)
• Octomator-- Short range blaster that fires in eight directions all at once.
• Repulsor -- pushes other ships away from you.
• Proximity Mines -- lay down these explosives that damage enemy ships that get too close
• Salvage -- allows you to quickly collect nearby wrecks

Gameplay

• Wrecks: Battle Arenas now are littered with wrecks from destroyed ships.
  • Scavenge these wrecks for bonuses:
    • Yellow: Acceleration
    • Green: Crew (Health)
    • Red: Battery (Energy Regeneration)
    • Blue: Speed
  • Bonuses accumulate between rounds
  • Destroyed ships leave new wrecks for the next round
• AI vs AI: In single player matches, you can set the AI to fight against itself
• The Camera is more dynamic
• Hit TAB now to highlight your ship
• Changed planet pitches a bit in order to make them look better in Fleet Battles.
• Renamed the "Dannath Trickster" to the"Xraki Devourer"

Balance

• Xraki Trickster: increased battery regeneration
• AI is better at using the Point Defense Laser
• Point cost balance update for ship crafting (lowering costs in general)
• Adjusted arena sizes a bit
• Minor AI tweak to better use certain special secondary weapons.
• AI difficulty updated
• Minor changes to the AI weapon list files to discourage the AI from wanting to get in so close with ranged weapons.
• Tweaks to the AI super melee difficulty levels (generally to make it a bit tougher).
• Enemy view increased to make it more sensitive to being aimed at by guided weapons.
• AOE attacks no longer blow up projectiles of the same team.

Crafting

Added more ship parts

UI

• Added detailed end match screens
• Added support for Chinese and Russian characters
• Improved fonts and text layout

Multiplayer

• Reduced the amount of data sent over the wire to reduce lag
• Fixed numerous crashes especially on match start
• Reduced jitters on the peer