A sense of Purpose – Interstellar Rift Development Update 110

This time around we’re introducing a couple of quality of life improvements such as a smaller rift generator and a series of new hydrogen fuel tanks. As well as a new cartridge progression system.

First up the new small rift generator will make it more convenient for players with small ships to get from system to system. However unlike its larger counterpart it can only use regular Xanthium which means that it will only be able to rift ships with a mass up to 100.000. In the near future we will also be adding a medium rift gen to service medium sized ships.

We’re also adding 4 new hydrogen fuel tanks! All fuel tanks will now have an input hopper where you have to insert the fuel. Which means the placement and orientation of fuel tanks will now matter if you wish to refuel them manually. Refueling with the cargo teleporter still works as it always did. In addition we’ve added buttons to the fuel tanks where you can now choose to eject just one crate or fill your entire inventory. This should give you a bit more control over how you remove hydrogen from your tanks. The new tanks also visibly show which fuel is in the tank, and have an indicator that shows how full they are.

And lastly the new cartridge progression system, you will now be able to buy or craft several new cartridges which can be used to advance your standing with a faction or be exchanged for units.
They come in the variety of starmap, faction or research cartridge. For more information, please click the link to the patch notes below.

As always, we’d appreciate any feedback you’re willing to provide, it will only help us make the game better. We have also set up a public discord server which you can join!
Feel free to drop by and have a chat, we’d love to hear your opinion and feedback!

Thank you all for playing and see you starside!

-The Split Polygon Team

A better way to fly – Interstellar Rift Development Update 103

The much needed flight model overhaul is here!

We’ve spent some time to improve the way ships handle for an improved ship flight experience. Although our flight system uses a Newtonian physics system under the hood, a lot of it has been tweaked in favor of gameplay and ease of handling.

So while not physically correct, what we always hoped to achieve was a balance between fun gameplay and interesting build options. What that means for this update, is that the flight model has been tweaked in such a way that the number of thrusters and the mass of your ship correlate. So hopefully it will be easier to tweak your handling experience in the ship editor.

Speaking of the editor, we’ve now added several new features to the editor such as the new turn rate indicator that tells you what your turn rate is a gauge between 0 and 2 with 1 being what we would consider a good and easy to use turn rate. This gauge changes based on your ship’s weight, and the number of thrusters.

To further improve the flight experience we’ve added a chase cam to the exterior view of the ship this should make ship flight feel easier and more natural when flying in exterior view. We’ve also added a slight amount of camera sway in the interior view.

We’ve also tweaked all of the starter ships to function properly with the new flight model and made the S3 starter ship a bit more durable for combat missions.

To help pilots out during warp, there is now a new indicator that shows you when your ship is experiencing heavy gravitational pull from nearby bodies that might drop your warp levels. Simply steer your ship away from the indicator and you should always be fine.

Another addition to the ship editor is ship issues indicator. When you build your ship it will now have an indicator at the top of the screen that will tell you if your ship is missing certain devices to make it viable such as a life support system. Before this would only show up if you saved your ship.

The other major feature is the addition of data cartridges which can give you special rewards such as new and unique armor skins. Theses skins will be tied to your Steam inventory and can be traded through Steam. In order to equip these armor skins you will need to enable them in the character customization menu and then when you equip a regular armor piece in game you will equip the armor piece with the attached skin instead.

In order to receive these items you will need to take a special cartridge which you can get from mission rewards or by looting them, and place them in a special data decoder which can be found the starting stations for each faction.

There’s other changes in this patch, such as rebalanced power costs for a lot of devices, making non-warp flight much, much cheaper. New color palettes in the editor, optimizations, bug fixes and more! Please see the patch notes for full details.

As always, we’d appreciate any feedback you’re willing to provide, it will only help us make the game better. We have also set up a public discord server which you can join!
Feel free to drop by and have a chat, we’d love to hear your opinion and feedback!

Thank you all for playing and see you starside!

-The Split Polygon Team

Fiddling with automation – Interstellar Rift Development Update 094

The second part of industry automation is now ready for prime time! This week we are introducing the Automated Cargo Teleportation Relay or A.C.T.R. for short. This device will allow you to automatically teleport cargo from one device to another. This will allow players to set up their own automated assembly lines!

ACTRs generate heat in a similar way to the nuclear reactor so in keeping with that the ACTRs require heatsinks in order to function properly. Using the ACTR players will be able to teleport items and cargo crates from one or multiple devices to one or multiple destinations. These devices can only teleport one resource at a time. So in order to set up a fully realised assembly line players will need to use multiple ACTRs combined with mining equipment refineries and production equipment.

As a balancing measure we’ve also changed the costs of heat sinks, since they are mainly used in more advanced equipment they now cost rarer resources and more of them. Since the heat sinks are also used by the nuclear reactor this will also be a slight nerf to the nuclear reactor as you will require more resources to build the heat sinks for them.

Today we are also releasing the Interstellar Rift soundtrack, composed by Curtis Schweitzer and produced by The Otherworld Agency! Enjoy!

You can buy the soundtrack now! Right Here

As always, we’d appreciate any feedback you’re willing to provide, it will only help us make the game better. We have also set up a public discord server which you can join here![discord.gg] Feel free to drop by and have a chat, we’d love to hear your opinion.

Thank you all for playing and see you starside!

-The Split Polygon Team

Droning on! – Interstellar Rift Development Update 092

Update time! This week we are pushing the new Sentinel Security Systems security drones into the live servers!

These new drones will be patrolling all faction stations except those of the drifters. The security drones will from now on be enforcing the no fire zones, which means that your weapons will no longer be locked when you are near one of the starter stations. Which brings us to the wanted level, when a player violates a no fire zone, attacks a protected station or player the player will receive a wanted level which determines how the security drones will respond to you.

Your wanted level ranges from 0 stars to 5 stars and will decay slowly over time. If you fight back against the security drones your wanted level will increase, however if you stop attacking or damaging the drones your wanted level will decrease. When you’re at max wanted level it will take roughly 5 minutes to completely decay. Oh and these drones can chase you through warp so good luck 🙂

The security drones can also be hired to protect your ships and stations, on the major faction stations you will find a new sentinel security systems service desk manned by Geoff the droid.
Here you can hire a up to 9 drones to come and protect you for up to 72 hours for a nominal fee.

When you are attacked these drones will warp in and destroy any threat that was made against you.

In addition we have fired a new volley in the fight against desyncs. While it is not a true fix but more a stopgap to prevent major issues which result from desyncs. The game will now automatically reconnect you when you’re desyncing, however this should not take nearly as long as when you’re connecting to a server normally. And when the entire server is desyncing and a reconnect doesn’t fix it. It will automatically reload the server save and reconnect everyone.

As always, we’d appreciate any feedback you’re willing to provide, it will only help us make the game better.

Thank you all for playing and see you starside!

-The Split Polygon Team

Captains of Industry! – Interstellar Rift Development Update 090

Today we introduce the first section of industry automation! With this update the extractor, refinery, salvager, 3d printer, and the assembling machine will all have a new cartridge slot which can be found at their control console. Players will be able to insert an automation cartridge into these machines which will let them function autonomously until the cartridge is expended.

These cartridges can be crafted in the 3d printer. Automation cartridges work in a similar way to the upgrade cartridges in that they decay after a period of time, in this case 12 hours. Once they are completely spent players will have to replace them.

These cartridges come in 3 types:
Processing cartridges – these are meant to be used with the assembler and refinery
Extraction cartridges – These are meant to be used with the salvager and the regular resource extractor (strip miner also has a built in automation function and does not need a cartridge)
Printing cartridges – This one is meant to be used with the 3d printer.

Note that these devices will stop their function if their hopper is full. Therefore in order to keep these devices functioning at peak efficiency players will have to keep up and clear the exit hoppers whenever necessary.

The next part of industry automation will focus on moving cargo from one device to another or onto cargo pads. This will be done through new devices called the Automated Cargo Teleportation Relays (ACTR). This device will use two heatsinks and can be programmed to move a cargo crate from one device to another automatically. Combined with the automation cartridges players will be able to set up their own assembly lines for whatever materials and items they require.
This part of automation will be coming soon.

In addition we have also made several quality of life changes. Hydrogen fuel is now 4 times more efficient and thus will last 4 times longer. The salvager has had its range increased to 1000 meters which should make salvaging easier. We’ve also added in some more diagnostic tools that should make it easier for us to find desyncs!

As always, we’d appreciate any feedback you’re willing to provide, it will only help us make the game better.

Thank you all for playing and see you starside!

-The Split Polygon Team

Shining a new light on the galaxy – Interstellar Rift Development Update 086

This week’s update will add the ability for co-op crew missions. With this new feature you can share some mission rewards automatically with anyone in your crew. Players in your crew will also see objective markers.

In addition we’ve also introduced the ability to give other players items and resources. If you look at another player you can press “E” and give them the item you currently have equipped. This should make it a little easier to work together with players and share stuff like repair guns, ammo and more. You are also able to give other players mission critical items so that missions can be completed by other players.

Additionally, a new Skrill has awakened. It is called the Disruptor. The new Skrill can deploy a warp disruption field. Which will prevent ships caught within from warping away until they leave it’s radius or kill the Disruptor. Be careful though because the Disruptor is seldom seen alone.

We’ve also added the first iteration for random events into the game. This update will bring the Asteroid Storm event. You might see hundreds of asteroids fly by around your ship and some of them might impact your ship, causing a little damage.

We’ve also made some changes to the space around your ship. For instance, some planets will now have rings. And the sun will now actually illuminate the objects in space. There have also been some changes to the shield visual effects. The shield is now only shown when it is hit by objects or projectiles.

As always, we’d appreciate any feedback you’re willing to provide it will only help us make the game better.

NOTE:
Rebuilding old saves is necessary, to do this in single player, press F8 and under rebuild select the third rebuild option. To do this on servers either join the server as the admin and do the same, or in the console type “rebuildServer 2” to start rebuilding

Thank you all for playing and see you star side!

-The Split Polygon Team

Death, a minor inconvenience – Interstellar Rift Development Update 082

After a brief incubation in the experimental oven, we feel this patch is ready for prime time!
First on the list is the new Skrill stinger, this agile Skrill creature can’t wait to give you a hug upon which it will explode with joy! This new enemy can be found star systems with a Skrill rating of 2000 and higher.

We’ve also taken the time to revamp several of the game’s menus. Primarily the server browser and the respawn menu. The server browser now allows you to sort servers based on name, player count, and on another new feature, password protected servers. You are now able to set a password for your server so you and your friends can play without fear of having to deal with uninvited guests. You can set your passwords from the in-game menu or from the server config file.

The respawn menu has also had a major overhaul. Plus respawn costs have been added based on the distance of the target ship. This is to provide more of a penalty for dying and respawning.
You will now also see a list of nearby available ships when respawning, you can always respawn on friendly ships within a range of 100 kilometers, the Black Pit, or your starter station. After respawning on a ship in the same system that is more than a 100 kilometers from your grave, you will have to wait 15 minutes before being able to do this again. The Black Pit and your starter station will always be available though.

We’ve also taken the time to add the ability to turn lights on and off. Simply look at any light in the game and press e when prompted to turn it off. We will soon be adding in the ability to turn off lights per room.

This update also includes a healthy dose of bug fixes, and server optimizations, as this is where our primary focus is at the moment.

Thank you all for playing and if you want to stay up to date with all Interstellar Rift news you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and you’re free to leave your thoughts on our forums! We hope you’ll enjoy this new update and we’ll see you star side! 

Carpe Nuke’m – Interstellar Rift Development Update 080

Nuclear power is here! This patch introduces the nuclear fission reactor to Interstellar Rift! Finally you will be able to power your large ships with a more efficient fuel source.

Nuclear power however is not without risks. The reactor operates on three resources, The first of which are fuel rods which come in three variants, Uranium 238, Plutonium 239, and finally Plutonium 241. These are ranked from least to most powerful. Once a fuel rod is depleted, the fuel rod in the slot will become a depleted fuel rod marked by the D after the type number, also the fuel rods core will be empty. These depleted fuel rods can be used to craft the next tier of fuel rods. However you will need 4 depleted fuel rods to craft one of the next tier.

The second type of resource are heat sinks, these items need to be inserted in the small slots on the side of the reactor. The heatsinks keep the reactor from overheating. But like the fuel rods they come in 3 different tiers, each tier is capable of handling a higher heat output, and has a longer durability. Once the reactors heat output exceeds that what your combined total of heatsinks can handle the reactor will start to take damage.

The third and final resource required to run the nuclear reactor are the turbines, just like the other two these come in three varieties, Iron, Steel and Platinum turbines. The turbines are required to generate power. If you activate the generator without turbines it will consume fuel and generate heat but it won’t generate any power. Each tier of turbine will last longer and generate more power.

You can configure the nuclear reactor to suit your ships needs while still keeping it economical. But at it’s absolute maximum output the generator will output around 30k of power.

In addition to the nuclear reactor we have also included the new Tech 3 Engine, This new engine is designed to be used with a nuclear reactor as it needs a lot of power and will be rather inefficient when used with hydrogen generators. The T3 engine is designed for large ships, not so much for smaller ones. And the engine will cap out at around 800 m/s

Also in this patch, two new construction resources, Aluminium and Lead, both used for the new reactor. Aluminium and Lead are quite common and can be found in most systems. Another new resource however, Uranium, can only be found in systems with a Skrill rating of over 3000.

Aluminium, Lead, and their ores can be bought in most shops. Uranium can only be bought as a refined resource and is one of the most expensive resources in the game. Fuel cells can not be bought anywhere, though you may find depleted ones on ships belonging to the Drifters.

Big changes have been made to the underlying systems of Interstellar Rift, in relation to saving and joining a multiplayer game. These changes are live in this branch and you can enable them for your single player games via the options menu.

For multiplayer servers however, you will need to set a flag in the server.json file in your Interstellar Rift appdata folder to true. This flag is called: “CreateGhostClients”, if you also want to keep track of all the ghost clients that are made, enable the next line as well; “GhostClientConsoleVisible.” This will show a console window for every running ghost client. These clients will do the heavy lifting of the save and load function of Interstellar Rift in the background, mostly eliminating any ingame hiccups. They are still a work in progress though and might negatively impact performance. Our own server will be running with these turned on, but you might have to check for yourself if you find them to be optimal for your gaming experience.

As always,we hope you’ll enjoy this update! and we’d appreciate any feedback you’re willing to provide as it will only help us make the game better. See you Starside!

-The Split Polygon Team

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Learning new Lingidies- Interstellar Rift Development Update 078

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