Update news for 2014-03-12 - New player experience

Spotlight features

New player experience

The virtual training island

This patch includes a complete revamp of how players start a new character. Instead of asking them to choose factions already at the beginning of the game, they will be first sent to a virtual training island right after they have created an avatar and named their character. This island is completely sealed off from the normal game world, so players are free to try a lot of things without second thoughts about consequences.

The rusty old tutorial has been replaced by a Rookie checklist, which touches more topics and is generally much more user friendly. Players can spend as much time on the training island as they feel necessary, but can end their training at any time. This is done by activating one of the four exit teleports, each representing a faction preset and starting location combination known from the old character creation process.

Read more about the new player experience in our relevant blog post.

Gameplay

  • New: A "Request Arkhe" button will appear on the terminal desktop if you don't have an active robot. (Additionally to the right-click option, which wasn't really intuitive.)
  • New: Improved NPC AI - Their movement should be much better and responsive, most notably they won't stand still if you are moving. New behavior rules have been also added: while an NPC is aggressing you it will follow you without considering any range limits. However, it will stop chasing you if you move 1km away from it, or you stop attacking it for at least 30 seconds. (When you're trying to flee the latter will probably happen sooner.) Note: the 30 seconds rule only works for orange (passive) NPCs, since red (aggressive) NPCs will re-engage you all the time even if you are not attacking them.
  • New: When you quit the game on the terrain with an active PvP flag, your robot won't be removed from the terrain as long as your PvP flag lasts.
  • New: Spark teleports now work based on a slot system. You still have a maximum of 10 available target slots (controlled by the Spark teleportation extension), but targets now occupy different amounts of slots depending on their location, as follows:
Alpha 1 terminal/outpost: 1 slot
Alpha 2 terminal/outpost: 2 slots
Gamma terminals: 2 slots
Beta terminal/outpost: 3 slots

Note: if after this patch you are over your maximum, you won't be able to use spark teleporting at all. In this case you will need to delete some targets or upgrade your Spark teleportation extension.

Graphic engine

  • New: Client optimizations - there should be a noticeable performance increase while on the terrain.

Industry

  • Fix: The tooltip of items in the research window that says "Not enough Research Points" was not properly updated when you acquired RP.
  • New: The tooltip of items in the research window will now specify which research extension you are missing exactly.

Modular Private Colonies

  • Fix: When you entered a gamma terminal, it appeared offline in the colony management interface for some time and even some connection lines could disappear.
  • Fix: Gamma facilities should not appear offline anymore due to a server restart.

Assignments

  • Change: Added a close button to the bottom right of assignment information windows and moved the abort button to the bottom left.

Market

  • Change: The default setting of the market filter after installing the game is now "Show only available".

General

  • Fix: Removed the package option from private storage containers as it did nothing.
  • Fix: When you got sent back to the character selection screen after a safe logout, the client close confirmation window still warned you about being on the terrain.

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