Patch 5.0.1 is up

[John DiCamillo]

Sorry this is a bit late. I ran into one additional bug during regression testing last night.

You can get it from the starshatter.com downloads page. Just unzip it into your game installation direction (you should save a copy of the original stars.exe file first).

This patch fixes the following issues with Starshatter 5.0.0

1. Excessive fighter fuel usage is now more reasonable
2. Thrusters use fuel more realistically
3. Radio menu pagination for starhip communications
4. Fixed crash bug in Campaign 5 - Operation Nightfall
5. Improved scripting in Campaign 4 - Operation Firestorm
6. Improved AI related to recovery and queuing of inbound fighters
7. Fixed location of hud contact markers (were displayed incorrectly after playing letterboxed cutscenes)

Let me know how it goes, please.

[Dragonlead]

Wilco.

V/R

[Kuokkanen]

May we have those fixes for Starshatter 4.5?

[John DiCamillo]

May we have those fixes for Starshatter 4.5?

I have no plan to do that, no.
 
Only points 3 and 6 in the above list are even relevant to version 4.5.  Of those, item 3 (the radio menu pagination) has a trivial work-around, and the problem that item 6 (recovery queue processing) is intended to fix, I've never reproduced even once in any version of the game.
 

[Kuokkanen]

Anyways it is very good to hear from you Man [&o]

[Jepep Hepep]

Any idea when we can expect support for TrackIR 4.x?

[John DiCamillo]

We're working with Natural Point to get set up with a current developer's kit (I only have the old TrackIR 3 series at the moment).  Once that happens, we will need to figure out which TrackIR 4 features make sense for Starshatter, and then implement them.  Ironically, that last step is probably the easiest part.

[Jepep Hepep]

I'm glad to hear things are progressing. If there's anything I (we) can do to help, just ask.

[Raven™]

First of all, hello everyone. Not usually my style of first post, but I just had to ask... is anyone else still getting many many crashes of fighters while trying to land?
I applied the patch and the only thing that changed is now they call the final approch before landing (which they didn't do on 5.0.0) but they are still crashing alot, way too much for me to use the fighters at all. I'd say 8 in 10 landings are a crash.

I did think maybe I didn't patch it right... but the fact the radio menu has changed and the radio chatter calling for final approch I think means I did infact patch it correctly.

It's a good game, just wish you guys would fix the known bugs so it becomes a great game.

EDIT: I forgot to add that while the new fuel usage is much better, I think the intercepter class of fighters for all factions should get much more fuel. Now I know they role is to intercept in coming fighters and what not, but I also think it would be a good idea to look at human war history to really define their role. The last real time two or more powers faced off was the USSR and the USA, the carrier brone F14 had a very large tank, it's true this was partly due to the fact they carried the phynix missle but also because of the role of airborne patrol. The fact they might need to scout out far from the carrier group was important. The same plans were in place in the USSR, although they never got their carrier project off the ground, the SU-34 was being developed into a maritime intercepter, because it was already "arguebly" the best intercepter in the world at the time. The stock SU-34 came with a very large fuel tank too.

OK I went off on one, sorry The point I'm trying to make is.. we don't have a real scouting class of fighter in the game... i think if needs be, a carrier should be able to scout the whole grid of a given sector, and I think the intercepters would be the best for this.. being fast and quick turning. The I think the fuel should be more than any other fighter bar the ThunderBolt, yes more than the other two, BUT keep the hardpoints low.. so they are not over powered. This gives them the right attributes to forfill the carrier fleet patrol role as well as forward scout as well as their normal expected fast intercept. Also please don't think I'm just trying to get more fuel so they can fly for longer.. I really like the dynmaic of fuel usage, I just think it's not working for the intercepters as it should be. With 5.0.1 the thunderbolt feels just right... slow attack craft with very large fuel tank... the eagle is also just about right.. maybe a tad more fuel, because of their multi role aspects they often get into alot of fights which hangs them up and means their is a good chance they will run out. Also the other fighter class *I forgot the name [&:] * might do with a little bit more.

Man that came out longer in writing than when I thought of it in my head haha. Maybe I should just do a bug/sugestion thread with all of them together hehe

[Dragonlead]

Or as an option...

Add an external fuel tank (drop tanks) that consume a hardpoint location. This gives the extended range, but at the expense of ordnance (just like in real life.)

V/R