Open Realm of Stars 0.16.0Beta

New version of Open Realm of Stars is available.

One of the newest features is that game has rare technology. This can be acquired mostly from space anomalies or special events. There are new weapons in rare tech: Ion cannon and plasma cannon. New defensive components: Organic armor, solar armor and distortion shields. Tractor beam can be found when exploring the black hole. Deadly virus is learned when deadly virus random event happens. Now this deadly virus can spread when trading with another realm or even on purpose by using espionage mission. Ion cannons damages mainly shields and only one hull damage but it does not penetrate armors. Plasma cannon cannot be deflected with high shields or armors like other weapons. Drawback there it needs to go through both shield and armor before it damages hull. Organic armor makes armor regenerate during combat. Solar armor gives armor and energy for ship. Distortion shields gives shield and jammer bonus. Tractor beam can be used for pull smaller ships closer to yours.

Combat has got new feature where previously passive components can be overload if ship has extra energy. Shields can regenerate faster, engines allows ships move faster, cloaking devices prevents enemy locking on your ship. This energy is regained only if non component is overload during combat turn. Overloading can cause malfunction or even energy surge if ship energy levels go negative. In one of the test games I was able to beat more powerful fleet by using cloaking devices and destroying one ship per turn and then running away from the combat just to get back energy reserves before attacking again.

For diplomacy there is possibility to gain casus belli against another realm. This can be achieved if another realm makes border crossings, demands or war declarations. There is also new espionage mission where, your leader explodes his/her own ship and claims that another realm exploded that. This may grant you also casus belli against that realm. When making war declaration with casus belli you do not gain any negative diplomacy bonuses while doing it.

AI has been improved so that it will now try to reason what espionage mission it will select. Previously it just randomly picked mission from the list. AI privateer ships should now also leave trade ships in peace after they have stolen the valuables from those. Previously they just stolen the valuables and destroyed the ships, but that wasn't so clever since if trade ship returns back with cargo it can stolen again. AI also tries to utilize ship component overloading in combat.

Then there are new sound effects for new weapons, energy surge and when privateering the ship. Also alarm sound is being played when combat starts. All space race now have unique ship bridge background image. There are also numerous small bug fixes and typos fixed. Now saved games are sorted correctly, game does not crash if game screen width is wider than full map. Then there are small but minor improvements like giving message if some leader is unassigned, where planet gets it's production is shown in tool tips, casualties of planet nuking are shown from whole attack not just for the last bomb, realm's ruler perks are shown in realm view depending on espionage level or how many meetings you have had with that realm.