Transcendence 0.98

 

The Fleet Awaits!

The saga of the Commonwealth Fleet continues in this release, culminating in an encounter with Admiral Decker himself. Will the secrets of the mysterious Project Lamplighter help turn the tide of the war? Will you hunt down and destroy the rogue CSC Antarctica? Or will you fall to the guns of the mighty Ares dreadnought?

Transcendence version 0.98 has the following new features:

• Asteroid mining is now implemented. Use a mining laser or a plasma torch to mine asteroids for ore.
• Weapon enhancements have been improved. Use a hexagene booster to increase the damage of a blast weapon by 10%; use more to increase the damage further.
• Help the chief scientist at the Rasiermesser factory by bringing him rare weapons and armor; he may reward you with an experimental weapon that he's working on...
• The AI has been improved: ships now retreat when their shields drop and return after they've recharged them.
• Picking a ship at the beginning is now much easier with a new screen that shows all of the capabilities of each ship. Also, there is now no limit to the number of player ship extensions.

For a complete list of changes, consult the version history page.

Extensions

Version 0.98 also has many features for modders. The following lists some of the major new capabilities of extensions:

• The deviceSlots attribute specifies the number of slots that a device takes up. Both 0 and values >1 are valid. The patch spider, for example, now uses 0 slots.
• The external attribute specifies that a device is mounted outside the ship's hull (and armor). External devices have a chance of being damaged when a hit penetrates the shields.
• The <OnObjDocked> event is called for all handlers in the system, not just the station that the object docked with. aObjDocked is the object that docked. aDockTarget is the station that the object docked at.
• The <OnOrdersCompleted> event is called on a ship class when a ship (of that class) has no more orders. Using this event, a modder can create a new ship class with custom behavior. For example, the ship class could have code that orders the ship to dock with a random station. When the order is completed, the event will be called again and the ship could be ordered to dock with another station.
• Mining is implemented with an <OnMining> event. When a weapon that has mining damage hits the object, the OnMining event is called.
• <EncounterTable> and <ItemTable> definitions are supported in extensions.
• In debug mode, the F9 key brings up a command line window that lets the modder enter and evaluate Transcendence script. Use this command line to check the state of variables and to test commands.