Alpha build 52 is live, and this one is a required update: the game and the server changed together, so Alpha build 51 can no longer connect. Exit Steam completely and start it again to get build 52. The game server restarted at 00:45 UTC. Nothing was wiped.
A countdown before every battle
A battle now begins ten seconds after the two fleets meet. Both fleets stop where they met and nothing fires until the ten seconds are up. They are not part of the battle's five minutes.
- When a fleet of yours is about to fight, a prompt comes up wherever you are: which fleet, where it is, who it is facing and the seconds left. Press WATCH to go straight to the battle, or DISMISS to stay where you are. It goes away by itself a few seconds after the first shot.
- Anyone watching a battle before it starts sees the countdown in the middle of the screen: BATTLE BEGINS IN, the seconds left and a bar that runs down. The battle clock stands at 05:00 until the first shot.
This is new, so tell us if the prompt or the countdown does not show for you, and what you were doing when the battle began.
Fixed, from your notes on watching battles
- A fleet you order to attack now heads for the point where it will meet its target. It used to steer at wherever the target was at that moment, so against a fleet of the same speed it trailed along behind it.
- When a shot hits a ship that was in its way, the explosion is now on that ship. Fast long-range shots used to blow up in empty space, well short of anything.
- The camera on a battle can pull back further. Late in a fight the ships at the edges were outside the picture, most noticeably if you left a battle and came back to it.
Fitting screens that keep up
The fitting screens no longer redraw everything when one thing changes. Fitting a module used to rebuild every ship tile, every module tile in the tray and the whole stats card; now only what changed is touched. On a full hangar and a large stock this is the difference you will feel most. The Shipyard keeps its ship tiles in the same way.
If a module count, a ship tile or the fitted total ever looks out of date, tell us what you had just done. Those screens now update in place, and that is the kind of mistake they could make.
Good to know
- If you updated between 00:39 and 00:45 UTC and could not connect, that was us: the new game went out a few minutes before the new server. It connects now.
- A restart of the server brings every deployed fleet home to its bay, and a battle that was running when it stopped is called off: no damage, no report. Deploy again and carry on.
- If Steam does not offer the update, exit Steam completely (Steam, then Exit) and start it again.
- Alpha Round 11 — Watch the Fight on the playtest page is still open.
Thank you for the notes on watching battles: every fix in this build came from one. The changelog has the full list.