Alpha 9 was released today along with an update video.

Information on bugs mentioned in the changelog below can be found on the bug tracker. The changelog is here:

New mission interface

• We have substantially upgraded and improved the mission system and all associated screens.
• We can now create rich, detailed missions with multiple stages and multiple objectives.
• The Communicator has also been upgraded and better integrated with the mission screen.
• Characters can now call you with information and instructions, and a log of those calls will be added to your mission screen.

Quality of Life improvements for the Mission Summary (top left of the screen):

• You can now 'Turn In' any completed mission directly from the mission summary
• A new diamond shaped location icon has been added to any objective that specifies a destination. Clicking the diamond will immediately bring up the sector map and highlight that location. This makes it very easy to navigate to the required locations for a mission.
• There is now a 'Prepare to jump' button in the Sector Map, for quick and easy alignment
• All mission types updated to take advantage of these new buttons.

New Story Episodes

• We have begun work on a series of story-based episodes.
• The general idea is to tell short stories with a rich cast of characters, and each story episode will be broken down into 2 or 3 parts.
• This involved the creation of a new Episode Manager system and a substantial upgrade of the Mission system.
• Story Episodes will automatically become available in the Mission Interface at the appropriate time.
• We have plans to add many more story episodes, now that this system is complete.
• Nb. Story episodes are available in Stargate mode, and in Free-roam mode. They are not available in survival mode. The Tiddlets mission remains available in Survival mode only.
• New Episodes:
- A Wolf in sheep's clothing - part 1
- A Wolf in sheep's clothing - part 2

Docking Tutorial

• A new Docking tutorial has been created, and is used directly in the episode Wolf Part 2.
• The tutorial will also show whenever a player is attempting a rescue mission.

SMALL CHANGES

• The time between waves of hostile forces attacking the Stargate has been tripled
• New graphics for crew in a space suit when they are outside the ship
• Reduced the radius at which a system blocks your FTL flight path (from 15 down to 4)
• The star background now shifts into an angry red when 'Battle Stations' is enabled
• Crew now walk 33% faster, and are slowed down less when carrying cargo
• New graphics for dead crew
• After loading a saved game, any ships where the crew are all dead due to suffocation will be recalled automatically under autopilot, and will leave the system

NEW AUDIO WORK

• Battle stations!
• Gun Turrets extending, retracting
• Mission Interface
• Music for the new story episodes

New community ships added to the base game - thank you!

• DOCTORX - DRX Helican Omicron
DRX Helican
DRX Psychopath
DRX Abyss
DRX Scarab

• JOHNNY STRUGGLES - The Altair Citadel

BUG FIXES

• You can no longer pause the game during the introductory flyby
• Fixed: Weapons Consoles are now correctly powered as part of the Weapons power category, not the Science power category
• Fix for drones incorrectly returning home when another ship in the local fleet is planning to jump to hyperspace
• Fixed: Fleet logistics transfers of the same item in opposite directions now cancel each other.
• Fix crash caused by invalid Researching Node.

Alpha 9c hotfix has been released to resolve UI problems with the Tactical screen.

So I am inclined to ask about extended game play. Ya know, after several hours, the entire crew of every ship in the game is dead.

Has this been fixed?

Stands to reason, this makes a very odd long game when ships move around, yet the crew clearly does not matter.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯



Just a closing thought. If a ship design cannot support a crew, it shouldnt be in the game as a deault design. Since literally, every crew was dead......hmmmm......food for thought, no?

I believe this should be fixed in Alpha 11.

Nothing to do with ship crew all dying. But drones seem legit according to the article. I stopped paying attention to them. There already exists a more advanced game that does the same stuff but better....just not on gog....sadly.

Yup, that was definitely the wrong link. Not sure what I was trying to link to... Here's the line from the change log that referred to what I meant.



It doesn't help you anymore, but maybe it's useful to someone else.

Enjoy your other game!