Attention, pilots - to your stations!

Fleet Battles just received a massive update and we can't wait to see you online to try it out.

We've added some new alien ships, a few devastating new weapons, and customization

options for your matches. Buckle up - it’s time to fly!

For full details on the updates, view the changelog at the bottom of the post!

[ Download this for your desktop wallpaper ]

TOP CHANGES IN BETA 2

New Ships Greegrox Swarm

They might look squishy, but these space jellyfish are not to be underestimated! Each ship within their swarm represents a single unit of crew that fires an individual microbolt. Did we mention that the swarm can heal itself, too? They must go through a lot of band-aids… Mu’Kay Grasper

Don’t make them ink! It gets messy. This giant squid-ship can throw down ink blobs that both damages and sucks energy from their enemies. Unlike most other ships, the Mu'Kay don’t use any projectile weaponry - they rely on getting up close and crushing their opponent with their ship’s tentacles. Lexite Interceptor

Be careful with these guys - they’re hardy! This fast-moving ship has “dual-shot” blasters and an extremely tough-to-penetrate shield. When the shields are engaged, the ship is pretty much invincible - but, it drains energy. You’ll have to time your attacks carefully in order to achieve victory against them.

New Weapon Components

Heal: Restores lost crew. Does that make them zombies, or..?

Death Ray: The name explains itself. You probably don’t want to get hit with this one.

Dual Shot: Fires a fast double shot. Hey, two for the price of one!

Ink Blob: Drops an inky blob that drains energy and crew. Clean-up on aisle three!

Shield: Holding down a button makes you invincible... until you run out of energy. Suggestion? Don’t run out of energy.

Custom Matches

First things first: you can now use your own custom ships in multiplayer mode. Woo-hoo! You can also customize your battle experience with the following knobs and dials:

Enable custom ships in multiplayer

Create a private, password protected lobby for multiplayer

Set the arena size

Adjust the number of asteroids, wormholes, and ion storms

Adjust the Fleet max size

Choose from one of three different arena maps

Other Improvements

We’ve made a lot of other tweaks and adjustments to Fleet Battles in order to continue bringing you the best experience! Beta 2 includes things like:

Pilot Graphics - Many ships now have custom animations for their pilots. More will be coming later!

High-Resolution UI - Fonts and UI graphics now look better on high res displays.

Balance Updates - Almost all of the ships and weapons have been updated for a superior experience.

Improved Performance - Substantial improvements have been made to memory use and visual effect performance.



Haven’t gotten into Fleet Battles yet? Pre-order here to join the beta today!



We’ve been working really hard on the development of Star Control: Origins and are excited to show it off!

Please enjoy some of these bonus screenshots from the game and let us know what you think. See you online!

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

OFFICIAL CHANGELOG

Custom Matches

Choose "Custom matches" to enable the following customization options

Enabled custom ships in multiplayer

Create a private, password protected lobby for multiplayer

Set the arena size

Adjust the number of asteroids, wormholes, and ion storms

Adjust the Fleet max size

Choose from three different Arena maps.

"Invite" friends to join your multiplayer matches

Gameplay

New ships

Lexite Interceptor: Dual Shot, Shield



Mu'Kay Grasper: Harpoon, Ink Blob



Greegrox Swarm: Microbolt shot, Heal

New weapon components

Heal -- restores crew



Death Ray. The name explains itself



Dual Shot -- fires a fast double shot



Ink Blob -- drops an inky blob that drains energy and crew.



Shield -- hold down to be invincible until you run out of energy



Note: Harpoon and Microbolt are not available for custom ships.

Full balance pass on all of the ships and their components

Custom hull sizes have been modified for better balance.

Changed the planet in the "Super Melee" map (the original one) to be Mars.

Updated names of many of the ships and their components.

Graphics / UI

Many of the ships now have custom animations for their pilots. Animations for additional factions will be added over time. Pilot animations change based on the state of their ship.

Improved font appearance, especially on higher resolution displays.

Updated UI to work better at high scaling factor.

Improved appearance and framing of custom ship thumbnails.

Adds tooltips to mounts in ship editor.

Players are now set to "Great" graphics quality settings by default.

Increased the length of "Ship Design Description" text field.

Better looking 'Flak Cannon' explosion

Ship death explosion and Scryve Flak cannons VFX are now less likely to crush your frame rate.

Significant reduction in memory usage.

Updated credits with help from the community.

Updating gradient swatches for Tywom-style ship parts so the parts don't look so dull.

Bugs