As mentioned in the latest update, Alpha 13 will be released on January 17th.
[Update: Alpha 13 released! Full release notes and changelog here.]It's, um, not small. Another huge changelog and plenty of fun new stuff--stuff which is not at the end of the game
. Most of the additions and changes can be experienced in the lower half of the world, so it's cool that a majority of players will have a chance to check it out. As usual there's a bunch of QoL, too, and a continuation of the balance work begun with Alpha 12.
Overall it's just
better (a good direction to go in
), more about which I'll discuss in the full release notes.
And without further delay, I bring you a collection of Alpha 13 feature images!
Part sorting is now
fully automated! (you can turn it off or adjust the delay in the options)
Scrap piles will no doubt save a few players from impending doom in the Mines and Caves.
An example of searching Scrap.
Item lists at interactive machines are color-coded by integrity.
Broken items are marked as such directly in a Repair Station's target item list.
Default item label colors are darkened for items with less than 75% of integrity remaining.
Option to color labels by item integrity.
(
animated version)
Dozens of new parts.
And among them are some new mechanics, like the Triangulator.
Viewing how close hostiles are to spotting you (Triangulator).
Indicating how many enemies are currently tracking you (Triangulator).
Activating a Triangulator.
Cloaking Devices really cloak now, effectively reducing the distance at which you can be spotted.
Darkened HUD borders while cloaked, for that super sneaky feel
Refit option becomes available immediately at Repair Stations if they take your last power source or other replaceable part.
Glow effect when the next action will confirm destruction of a processor.
Imp. Signal Interpreter differentiates between known non-hostile classes (green) and potentially hostile classes (red) for faster visual parsing.
Run-ending options require confirmation to help prevent unintended suicide.
Option/toggle to persistently use darker regular colors rather than the green overlay for areas outside FOV.
Near-to-far armed-hostiles-only keyboard cycling (with three pairs of valid keys).
Automatically re-targeting the same space again (for obvious nefarious purposes).
Auto-recall previously used waypoints for subsequent guided weapon firing.
Item near-to-far examine (although in most case it'll still be more efficient to just move or jump the examine cursor, or use the popup labels).
Said jumping is here--cursor jumping a customizable distance via Shift-Numpad (sorry, no vi/arrow support for this one).
Never miss that you're running low on resources again, with flashing on-map indicators for matter, energy, and... integrity.
Of course Alpha 13 also includes a bunch of stuff that we wouldn't want to spoil here!
...okay, here's a neat new effect that doesn't tell you what's coming, but only hints that something is very very wrong... or very right? Might depend on your point of view...
