xREL.v3

v. 1.5.4

This list is not comprehensive. It was not kept in great detail over the development, but still captures the vast majority of polish changes and content additions provided.

Polish / Modifications -- Considered general improvements that apply to both Vanilla and Advanced Edition versions of the game.
•Weapon Depower Delay - After removing or losing power a weapon will quickly lose its charge over time rather than immediately lose all charge.
•Additional Music: Ben Prunty has added four new tracks, one of which is only heard within the Advanced Edition Lanius sector.
•New Events: New event scattered throughout the game, some penned by Planescape writer Chris Avellone.
•Additional manning options: Doors and sensors can be manned to provide a +1 level boost to the system. Systems redesigned to 4 levels of power instead of the previous 3. Sensors at level 3 show the player the cooldowns of enemy weapons, while sensors at level 4 show the power bars.
•Store Tabs: Stores can now have an additional tab, often increasing the amount of equipment/crew sold by 50-100%.
•Human change: Humans are 10% faster at learning skills
•Zoltan change: Zoltan explode on death, causing damage to nearby enemies
•Boss redesign: The Flagship and the player start a couple jumps from the base. If the flagship gets to the base, it is not instant gameover. The player has a countdown to fight it back.
•Save & Quit anywhere: Mid-battle or even mid-event, you can save & quit whenever. Closing the game in other means (the window X) also saves the game.
•Crash Recovery: You will be able to continue a game after a crash, usually at one jump prior to the crash. Ideally this is never actually needed.
•Reward boxes: New reward boxes show resource changes, weapon/drone visuals, and any gained (or lost) crew
•Crew colors: Crew sprites now have multiple colors available.
•Rename mid game: Rename any crewmember from the Crew Manifest screen
•Shield recharge bar: Explicitly shows the recharge time on your shields
•Random ship button: Select a random ship from the hangar.
•Drone Re-construction: If a drone is destroyed, there is a cooldown before it can be used again -- preventing enemy from spamming boarder drones
•Drone Auto-Destruct: Battle drones left on the player ship after a fight will self-destruct, no longer creating an annoying obstacle to destroy.
•Saving Crew Positions: Hot keys and on screen buttons available to save and restore crew stations.
•Federation Ship’s Cloaking: Federation Cruiser can obtain the cloaking system (or any other systems, up to the now standard limit of 8)
•Enemy pirate layouts: Pirate ships have completely new layouts for every enemy ship.
•Minor tuning / balance: Changes to enemy AI, event rewards, stalemate prevention etc.
•Minor UI changes: “In Danger” message on Ship button when unavailable and other small modifications to make the game more user friendly


Additional Content - Only present when the Advanced Edition content toggle is enabled within the player hangar.
•Four new systems:
•Hacking: Launch a hacking drone to periodically disrupt an enemy system -- unique effect for every system.
•Mind Control: Temporarily turn an enemy into an ally
•Clone Bay (Replaces Medbay when purchased): Crew are cloned on death, losing some skill progress. Can't heal mid battle, but micro-heal on every jump.
•Backup Battery: Provides temporary power Weapon Stun - Many weapons have a chance to stun crew that they hit in advanced mode

•Enemy ship variations: Every enemy ship now has alternate system distribution, many of which take advantage of the new systems mentioned above.


•The Lanius: New alien that is not hurt by low o2 and drains o2 from the room its in New sector with entirely new events, new music track, and two new enemy ships (the Lanius ships) New player ships: Type C layouts for the 8 base player ships, plus an entirely new Lanius cruiser with its own alternate layout and achievements.


New Weapons:
•Laser Chainguns: Every time it fires, its cooldown decreases.
•Ion Chaingun: Every time it fires, its damage increases.
•Flak Guns: Less accurate, more potential for damage (Area targeting)
•Charge Guns: Can charge multiple times, adding more projectiles every time it charges
•Repair Bomb: Fully repairs the system its fired at
•Stun Weaponry: Minor ion damage along with guaranteed stun of enemy crew

New Drones:
•Ion Intruder: Boards enemy ship and ions systems randomly
•Shield Drone: Charges a green energy shield to defend the player
•* Anti-Drone Drone: Shoots down enemy drones attacking the ship New Beam Drones: A fire beam drone, and an advanced version of the standard Beam Drone

New Environments:
•Anti-Ship Battery: Attacks the player ship, enemy ship, or both depending on the event. Present at every rebel fleet location.
•Pulsar: Ionizes any ship’s shields and possibly other random systems

New Augments:
•Lifeform Scanner: Detects the location of life forms, even when sensors are down.
•Zoltan Shield Bypass: Allows teleporting and mind controlling through Super Shields
•Defense Drone Scrambler: Completely disrupt any targeting by enemy defense drones
•Backup DNA Storage: Crew won’t be lost if they die when the cloning bay is off.
•Battery Charge Booster: Backup battery’s lock time is halved.
•Emergency Respirators: Crew take half damage from low o2.
•Fire Suppression: Automatically put out fires throughout the ship
•Explosive Replicator: Missile based weapons have a 50 percent chance of not using a missile
•Distraction Buoys: Leaves a false signal at sector start to delay rebels 1 jump
•Hacking Stun: Adds a stun effect to the hacking activated power

Bug/Misc Fixes:
•Enemy ships are much less likely to have 2 of the same drone.
•No more comma differences between the text of the marooned slug (sorry /u/Twinge).
•Alternate blue choices to unlock the Mantis Cruiser
•Ion Bomb cooldown increased to 21 from 18
•Automated Re-loader benefit decreased to 10% from 15%.
•Added an animation when fires get put out.
•Hull damage / bonus repairs from events will not mysteriously remain at visited locations.
•Fixed: Enemy boarders going on 'space walks' with strange pathing
•Reverse Ion Field and Drone Reactor Augments fixed to display their correct values
•Cloak meter correctly resets when jumping cloaked out of combat
•Rockmen AI will no longer be 'scared' of fire, preventing repairs.
•Can now re-map options button without causing options screen to open
•Shields only provide skill boost if an enemy is present
•Restored defense drone drift after power off
•Enemies will no longer power their missile weapons if they don't have missiles
•Fixed: Repair progress would reset in some specific circumstances when taking damage
•Fixed: Repair progress could reset when the system was limited by nebula/event
•Jumping away from the boss mid-explosion won't reset progress
•Fixed: Ion lock rendering bug when you had locked systems adjacent to eachother
•Rebel locations will continue to have enemy ships even after you've cleared them
•Flagship will have the proper weapon visuals during its destruction
•Zoltan energy is preserved correctly after loading a game
•System order preserved in ship hangar screen
•No longer plays oxygen loss sound effect when breaching empty rooms
•Shields should properly repower in all situations after damage/ion effects
•Store no longer auto-opens on reload
•Systems will properly repower after limits imposed by events disappear
•Minor text fixes
•Minor rendering bug fixes
•Bombs can no longer miss when targeting yourself
•Enemy boarding drones are destroyed when the enemy ship is defeated
•Maps will no longer have disconnected beacons, everything will be accessible

•Additional price changes on weapons and equipment for balancing


•And finally: bonus, never seen before, new bugs added with all of this new content!