Patch 0.9.5 - New missions and smarter AI news - ASTROKILL

New missions

2 new campaigns missions have been added: Guardians and Fury. In addition, existing missions have been improved by adding clearer objectives, better ship-selections, and more balanced enemies.

Guardians

The first Outer Belt mission has been replaced by a new mission called Guardians. This mission introduces the mechanics of the game to the player. The goal is to rescue a friendly frigate under attack. There are a few novice enemies that do not pose too much of a threat, and there is a turret-armed dropship that can be optionally destroyed. Starting the level from a distance, the player can take their time getting familiar with the controls before entering the battle.

Fury

A new mission has been added to the end of the Dominion campaign. This mission serves as a campaign finale and introduces a new weapon capable of destroying warships with one shot. A small Dominion force is tasked with overtaking a heavily defended Beltor base. The new beam weapon is used to take out 3 warships beforehand.

Smarter AI

AI will now seek and destroy in the direction of enemy fire if the source is unknown. This means that fighters taking fire from an undetected opponent will respond accordingly instead of helplessly taking damage.

Fighters will now rearm in hangar bays much faster and more accurately. Before, they had the tendency to take too long aligning with the hangar and would occasionally get stuck inside the hangar.

More advanced pathfinding has been introduced in this patch. AI now take the size of obstacles into account when navigating around them. For example, a fighter will know to make only a minor adjustment to find its way around a small asteroid-fragment. Also, the AI is now less likely to get stuck finding an alternate path.

Fighters engaged in combat with eachother will now keep the fight in the general area it started. Previously, fighters coupled in combat would collectively accelerate to far corners of the map, making gameplay less manageable for the player. Also, the AI is now more stubborn about finishing a fight. They will not flee to rearm if it is likely they will be destroyed in the process.

Pilot damage

Ejected pilots can now absorb a few hits before being vaporized. A new blood-spray effect was added for this feature. Each bullet exhibits a force on the ragdoll proportional to the energy of the projectile. So, a dead pilot will be flung around in zero-G if peppered with bullets.

Gameplay improvements

All missions have been re-balanced to reflect their difficulty level. Clearly marked objectives have been placed in most levels and some existing missions were redesigned for this patch. To reduce confusion, the placement of playable ships has been made more intuitive. Previously, some fighters might be oriented away from the objectives initially. Also, a wider variety of ships have been made available to the player in most missions.

Less damage is taken from collisions with other ships, asteroids, etc. Dying or taking damage due to an accidental collision is no fun. Thus, only very high-speed collisions will damage the player or their wingmen.

Wingmen can now be ordered to rearm. This can be useful if the player wishes to repair a slightly damaged wingman during a lull in combat. As before, the AI will do this automatically when there is a significant need for it.

Homing missiles are now capable of changing targets in mid-flight as conditions change. Previously, a homing missile fired without a specific target would choose a target automatically and keep that target throughout its flight. Now, a missile may change its mind and track a different target. Smarter missiles make the Dominion more dangerous overall.

0.9.5 patch notes

A full list of new features and fixes in this patch can be found here: Steamcommunity.com