New Beta Update 0.8.1

Hello everyone,

Beta Update 0.8.1 has arrived

The new beta update is finally here! We look forward to receiving your feedback and further improving upon these changes and newly added systems. Have fun!

Update availability

This update is still under active development. As such, it is only available if you switch to the beta branch of Vanguard Galaxy to test out these new changes. Instruction on how to install the beta updates can be found at the bottom of this post.

Officers

Officers have been reworked, gaining several new skills, a passive bonus when equipped on a ship, and an idle income, they have to be doing something while not on board. Officers can now also be trained at Omnitac Agency Personnel Centers, upgrading their rarity and unlocking new skills.

The Personnel Center is a new facility available at most stations, and serves as the place to browse and hire new officers. You'll also find Crew here!

Crew

A new addition is the crew mechanic, unnamed crew members (grunts) who help increase combat, mining, and salvage power. There are different types of crew: Deckhands, Gunners, Miners, Salvagers, and Marines. Deckhands repair the hull of your ship but offer no specialized bonuses, while the others are more focused in their roles. Marines for instance are great at Boarding...

To complement both Officers and Crew, we added the Leadership skill tree to increase their effectiveness.

Boarding

Enemy ships now have a chance to become boardable. This is where your crew comes in especially useful, boarding the enemy ship, conquering its compartments, and sending the newly acquired vessel to the Dry Dock. The Dry Dock is a new facility where you can choose to recommission captured ships, strip them for parts, or sell them for a profit.

Combat takes place on its own little map where you can send your crew into the different compartments to fight for control of the ship.

Installations

Next to boarding, are the installations. They function is a similar way to boarding, but you explore stations which you find throughout the world. There are Different types of stations which you can dock with and explore. Your crew will find loot, data, enemies and... more!

More smaller changes

• Added Vanguard Marks (replacing the Commendations we had as items, now this is just a currency like credits)
• Added some more interesting bar patrons
• Backgrounds have gotten a bit more vivid (different colors)
• HUD changed slightly to also accomodate Crew/Officers
• Some better Drone Controls/Behaviour
• Asteroids generation changed, they will look more like asteroids probably
• Data is now a new inventory type. Currently used for loot out of the installations. But we can rework other aspects of the game to work with data in the future. Like jumpgate passes.

Patchnotes

Added/Changed

• Sliders can now use the scrollwheel to change the value
• Added Crew to ships, giving different bonuses depending on type
• Added new spacestation facility: Personnel Center where you can find the new Crew and Officers (+Training Center at Omnitac Agency)
• Officers have been expanded upon, more rarities, added idle income (when not on board of one of your ships), and a passive buff
• Added Leadership skill tree
• Ships have a chance to become boardable when almost destroyed + a new mission to board and capture a ship (easy way to test boarding)
• Weapons have received an EMP stat that can accelerate an enemy ship to become boardable. The value for this is shown on combat turrets below the range indicator.
• Added a boarding simulation where you have to try and take over the enemy ship compartment by compartment.
• Changed the name of the Recruitment Center to Mercenary Guild
• NPC ships at stations have a random change to come in with damage and repair or unload crew
• Added a new spacestation facility: drydock where captured ships can be repaired, scrapped or sold
• Changed ship name (Kamin > Bulav)
• Changed ship Name (Skrap > Rezak)
• Removed Officer offer in bars
• Added ore/salvage/equipment traders in bars, giving you a premium for trading in ores/salvage and equipment
• Added icons to the spacestation menu buttons (will get other icons)
• Added several sorting options for Officers
• Added a delete option to save/load overview
• Changed holding left click to move to Right-click (dragging still works with right-click as well)
• Changed the HUD slightly, crew/officers has been added
• Removed Industrial officers for now (does not make that much sense to have buffs for crafting on stations while officers are on your ship) - will revisit later
• Changed how asteroids are generated, reducing the weird shapes they can form sometimes and making them a bit more like asteroids
• Changed all existing commendations to be Vanguard Marks, and moved it to data (no longer an item)
• Added more interesting/vivid colors to systems/sectors (background)
• Added facitlies to the game that can be entered and cleared for loot! Events and combat inside these facilities will make life difficult sometimes. So come prepared.
• Added new mission types, capturing a ship and clearing a pirate base

Balance

• Part of the officer changes: changed the amount of skills Standard rarity officers have (from 3 > 2)
• Changed Officer skill Efficient Miner (10% > 5%)
• Changed Officer skill Harvester (5% > 2.5%)
• Lowered the Frozen Core aspect's debuff

Fixes

• Changed ship Stinger's manufacturer, (RedStar Forge > Marada Wharf)
• Systems with umbral infestation will show the correct faction icon on the map

Our next priorities

• Improving and balancing the mechanic for boarding and installations. And we want to integrate it better in the rest of the game. Like the story missions and umbral activities.
• Currently ECHO is not compatible with boardables and installations. This will be added soon.
• Hull Upgrades, the Dry Dock will function as a place where you will upgrade your ships
• Pocket bosses and Expeditions
• More torpedo types
• Activities that require a specific size of ship

If you find anything that should not happen or just want to give your opinion. Let us know. :)

You can find us on Discord and we will of course keep an eye on the Steam forums.

Join the Vanguard Galaxy Discord

Cheers,

Bat Roost Games

Enable the beta version

Make sure to keep an old save game when switching to the beta, just in case. We always make sure that your save games will keep working, but as long as the beta is ahead of the release, the beta save game won't work on the release version until it catches up.

To take part go to Manage and select Properties for Vanguard Galaxy in Steam:

And select the open-beta under Game Versions & Betas as shown below.