Greetings Pilots! I have some great stuff for this update, so let’s just dive straight into it.

Saving has been expanded. You will no longer see the loadout menu for a save that happened outside a dockable station. Furthermore, missions stay persistent between saves and won’t despawn if you decide to reload. Lastly, you and your wingmen’s stats (specifically hull and ammunition) also stay exactly the same as you left them.

Non-lethal is now a viable playstyle. Utilizing the Deneb disruptor or Lasso missiles, disabling any and all ships in missions will perceive them as ‘eliminated’ and marked in yellow. This is a pretty exciting addition and will be further expanded for larger-scale missions.

NPC Fleets and capital ships in general have been given a buff. They now focus on keeping a healthy roster of ships together and replenish their forces in case losses happen. They can also jump towards and engage other groups that have different IFF values.
Of course if you played previous versions, you might notice that persistent ships like these are not simulated in the same way as ones that are near the player (for performance reasons). Combat in these cases play out like an RPG, each group slowly taking turns dealing a calculated amount of damage dependent on composition.
Capital ships now have subsystems and are more aggressive, with new turrets and AI - capable of broadsiding others and being a general nuisance. All targetable subsystems (including turrets) can be displayed with a diamond (default keys being z or x), and all heatseeker missiles can prioritize these.

HUD provides more feedback and is made generally easier on the eyes. Any bright spots, be it fire or engine flares won’t be as messy on the white colors of your display, as all text and 2d elements now render a small black outline behind them. In terms of feedback, your system can now inform you of changes to toggling between cursor modes and warn you of incoming enemy fire.

And finally, the changelog:

02.08.2018 - Prototype ver. 0.1.6:
Additions:
-Added warning indicator to crosshair when shot at by attackers
-Added subsystems to transports and capital ships, missiles can target selected systems
-Added feedback when toggling cursor mode
-Hull integrity, subsystems, loadout and mission progress now gets saved
-Changing loadout when loading a save file is now only possible when manually saved near a station
-In defense missions each new wave now removes one minute from timer
Fixes/Corrections:
-Updated to Unity 2018.2.1f1
-Disabled ships are now painted yellow, considered ‘neutralized’ in missions
-Corrected collisions between large and small ships
-HUD is now easier on the eyes in brighter locations
-Patrolling fleets are now more active, jumping, reacting to hostile fleet
-Reworked combat AI for capital ships
-POI discovery status now stays persistent
-Fixed bug when jumping through a node in third person

So this is where we are and this is where we take off once again. Besides possible hotfixes, next update will very likely change how small ship weaponry are handled. Other than that, there are so many other things I want to add that I’m still figuring out what to put on the very top of my priority list, so I’ll just keep that as a surprise for next time.

Thank you very much for reading, see you next month as always!