Just got word from Dwarden @PaleStar Inc. that the Free 14 day Demo of DarkSpace is now available! here's the Press release and a screenshot for DarkSpace.
Following our successful beta stress testing we are able to make the following announcement:
---------------------------
Dallas, Texas, July 10th, 2005. Palestar Inc. is happy to announce that a new version has been released
and a free trial for the massively multiplayer online game DarkSpace will begin July 11th, 12:00CST and run until July 25th, 12:00CST.
During the free trial, ALL DarkSpace account holders will be able to play with no limitations, and will have the ability to gain prestige, rank, and join all available servers.
Additionally, DarkSpace Version 1.483, which is being released today, adds several new features and many fixes.
?We have put a lot of effort into this release, added several new features, new factions, and given players even more ships and devices to use against each other.?
Commented Richard ?Faustus? Lyle, Palestar?s President and Lead Programmer.
-------------------------
We have an updated version of the DarkSpace 1.483 client available for download using this link.
FULL version installer
Links:-
Darkspace Release
DarkSpace Beta
PaleStar website
with regards
David Foltyn
Dwarden
DarkSpace moderator
Changelog:
- Ship spawning bug should be fixed.
- Weapons can now fire in any combination of the 4 possible facings (FORE, LEFT, RIGHT, and AFT). For example, a weapon can fire LEFT/FORE now.
- All noun objects now have a technology specification. This means, each hull can be limited to certain types of devices can be installed on that hull.
- Cloaking device has been refactored. A cloaked ship can never be detected now, unless it has a beacon attached. Additionally, a cloaked ship cannot jump, unload, or fire weapons. Energy cost increased from 5 to 25 since it's no longer based on how much signature it's deflecting. This is currently the same energy cost as the interdictor device. Additionally, all hull types have a cloaking modifier value, which will modify this energy usage based on the size of the hull.
- Fixed a crash with the editor when importing a scenerio map into a running server.
- Changed string formatting code so that is uses thread-local storage instead of a semaphore internally. This should actually result in a speed increase, especially for servers which do quite a bit of string formatting.
- Velocity and cloak energy usage modifiers are on all ship hulls now.
- Added code to support homing mines and missiles that will automatically aquire a new target if their current target is lost.
- New hull/devices values have been implemented for balance.
- All hull types now have shield and armor modifiers. This allows the same armor device to be more powerful for larger hulls (i.e. dreads) than for smaller hulls (i.e. scouts).
- Implemented levels for all gadgets. This means, each gadget now has a level from 0 to 10 (even higher if we want).
- Scenario map times now doubled to allow for more time in beta testing.
- All rendering is grouped by material now, which should result in less of a frame rate drop when rendering high numbers of objects (i.e. bombs, mines, fighters).
- When gadgets are uninstalled, they will retain their level now, so if re-installed they will have their previous level. Additionally, devices in a port will display their level before buying and will not merge into other gadgets of different levels.
- Disabled decay of items in a star port
- ICC Fleet - All ships updated to new system. Introducing new ships, Escort Destroyer, Line Station, Sector Command Station.
- UGTO Fleet - All ships stats updated to new system. Carrier Dread still awaiting new visual model.
- K'Luth Fleet - All ships updated to new system
- Fixed a bug which prevented a drive from increasing the maximum velocity of a ship.
- Second and third level stations now properly set to GA Rank.
- New visual and audio effects added. Rail gun and Particle Cannons have new sound effects.
- New visual effects for Earth. Set to propper counter clockwise axis spin. Set axis rotation to once every 12 hours for sake of game play. New high detail texture map. Added light map for darkside.
- New Engine code implemented. Ship speeds adjusted.
- New slot system implemented allowing wider array of ship modification while attempting to limit specialty devices.
- Three new classes of fighters per faction. Assault, Interceptor, Bomber. Factories updated to produce these new fighter bay types.
- Decreased the number of shield/armor rings around the ships to compensate for the higher shield/armor ratings.
- Pulse shields now only work against fighters, missiles, and mines.. they do not work against particle cannons, ion cannons, and torpedos.
- New models and Icons added - UGTO Agincourt Carrier Dread, ICC Carrier Cruiser, PCM and Siege Missiles, UGTO and ICC Bomber and Interceptor Fighters.
- Split the UGTO STS-101 Carrier Dread into two varients, older model carries less fighters but more weapons at 2nd Rear Admiral Rank. New Agincourt Carrier is 1st Rear Admiral Rank and has its stats tested in game thus far and uses a new model.
- New Defense base configurations for all three factions now implemented.
- Mines and Fighters now seperated into their own slots...
- Prestige gain turned off if over the servers max rank. Thank those abusing Newbie for this change back.
- HMA (Jump drive option for Stations) has been updated to charge faster than Wormhole 2 device and provide sufficent range for in-system travelling. Cost of device also corrected.
- ECCM pinging no longer reveils cloaked ships.
- Reflective Armor now reducing beam weapon damage.
- You can no longer spawn from shipyards on blockaded planets.
- There is a delay timer varied by hull that marks the time from when you uncloak until you can fire weapons.
- Rewrote the profiler system for Medusa/DarkSpace. The profiler now supports profiling multiple threads, and now allows for remote viewing of the profiling information.
- Fixed gadget descriptions so the most important information is shown at the top.
- Fixed web metaverse map to show the factions correctly.
- Fixed/Implemented the nojoin flag for fleets. These fleets are not visible to players, moderators however can see and join those fleets.
- Implemented no prestige gain when the player is over the maximum rank for the server.
- Fixed bug which allowed jumps in 3D when targetting an object (such as an asteroid) that isn't on the normal playing field.
- Fixed credit calculation errors when installing/removing devices.
- Implemented new spawn node which can spawn any type of noun into the world. This will be used primarly to spawn damage effects from the ships into the world, so they won't look attached to the ships like now.
- Re-Factored the MirrorUpload executable which is used to upload code/data updates into the MirrorServer.
- Servers will now automatically self-update without having to be restarted by an admin. Additionally, servers can update 99% of the time without rebooting now.
- Mir fleet slotted for AI control now includes: Supply, Engineer, Cruiser, and Dread.
- 5th Faction not named also AI controled now has the following ships: Transport
- New Armor type - Ablative sheds portions of itself to reduce damage caused by projectile weapons.
- Optimized the ground units. The unit path-finding code now keeps A* paths cached for a period of time instead of rebuilding the path each update. Additionally, ground units pick and use a leader unit to select their target, so instead of each unit selecting targets indivdually, they will use the target of their leader unit.
- New visual effects - Torpedo protectile and impact effects updated.
- A shield device's level now affects its repair/charge rate.
- Reduced turn arc for missiles
- Increased range modifier based on level for beam weapons. This increases the range approx 25% to 50% between base 0 and level 10.
- Minor updates to Sabots. Sabots speed and ammo ammounts increase with level of device.
- New ship class added - Dread2. This allows us to set higher stats and limits to the assualt class dreads (410, EAD, Siphon).
- Fixed resourcer error that caused KLuth fighters to not appear visually in game.
- Hotkey fixes: ECM moved to P, ECCM moved to ;
Core weapon hotkeys removed.
- Disabled reloading, building, and mining while cloaked. This leaves using only sublight drives, AHR, Reactors, and EW devices while cloaked.
- New Kluth ship - Instars ~ Minelayer Frigate, Brood ~ Command Dread
Following our successful beta stress testing we are able to make the following announcement:
---------------------------
Dallas, Texas, July 10th, 2005. Palestar Inc. is happy to announce that a new version has been released
and a free trial for the massively multiplayer online game DarkSpace will begin July 11th, 12:00CST and run until July 25th, 12:00CST.
During the free trial, ALL DarkSpace account holders will be able to play with no limitations, and will have the ability to gain prestige, rank, and join all available servers.
Additionally, DarkSpace Version 1.483, which is being released today, adds several new features and many fixes.
?We have put a lot of effort into this release, added several new features, new factions, and given players even more ships and devices to use against each other.?
Commented Richard ?Faustus? Lyle, Palestar?s President and Lead Programmer.
-------------------------
We have an updated version of the DarkSpace 1.483 client available for download using this link.
FULL version installer
Links:-
Darkspace Release
DarkSpace Beta
PaleStar website
with regards
David Foltyn
Dwarden
DarkSpace moderator
Changelog:
- Ship spawning bug should be fixed.
- Weapons can now fire in any combination of the 4 possible facings (FORE, LEFT, RIGHT, and AFT). For example, a weapon can fire LEFT/FORE now.
- All noun objects now have a technology specification. This means, each hull can be limited to certain types of devices can be installed on that hull.
- Cloaking device has been refactored. A cloaked ship can never be detected now, unless it has a beacon attached. Additionally, a cloaked ship cannot jump, unload, or fire weapons. Energy cost increased from 5 to 25 since it's no longer based on how much signature it's deflecting. This is currently the same energy cost as the interdictor device. Additionally, all hull types have a cloaking modifier value, which will modify this energy usage based on the size of the hull.
- Fixed a crash with the editor when importing a scenerio map into a running server.
- Changed string formatting code so that is uses thread-local storage instead of a semaphore internally. This should actually result in a speed increase, especially for servers which do quite a bit of string formatting.
- Velocity and cloak energy usage modifiers are on all ship hulls now.
- Added code to support homing mines and missiles that will automatically aquire a new target if their current target is lost.
- New hull/devices values have been implemented for balance.
- All hull types now have shield and armor modifiers. This allows the same armor device to be more powerful for larger hulls (i.e. dreads) than for smaller hulls (i.e. scouts).
- Implemented levels for all gadgets. This means, each gadget now has a level from 0 to 10 (even higher if we want).
- Scenario map times now doubled to allow for more time in beta testing.
- All rendering is grouped by material now, which should result in less of a frame rate drop when rendering high numbers of objects (i.e. bombs, mines, fighters).
- When gadgets are uninstalled, they will retain their level now, so if re-installed they will have their previous level. Additionally, devices in a port will display their level before buying and will not merge into other gadgets of different levels.
- Disabled decay of items in a star port
- ICC Fleet - All ships updated to new system. Introducing new ships, Escort Destroyer, Line Station, Sector Command Station.
- UGTO Fleet - All ships stats updated to new system. Carrier Dread still awaiting new visual model.
- K'Luth Fleet - All ships updated to new system
- Fixed a bug which prevented a drive from increasing the maximum velocity of a ship.
- Second and third level stations now properly set to GA Rank.
- New visual and audio effects added. Rail gun and Particle Cannons have new sound effects.
- New visual effects for Earth. Set to propper counter clockwise axis spin. Set axis rotation to once every 12 hours for sake of game play. New high detail texture map. Added light map for darkside.
- New Engine code implemented. Ship speeds adjusted.
- New slot system implemented allowing wider array of ship modification while attempting to limit specialty devices.
- Three new classes of fighters per faction. Assault, Interceptor, Bomber. Factories updated to produce these new fighter bay types.
- Decreased the number of shield/armor rings around the ships to compensate for the higher shield/armor ratings.
- Pulse shields now only work against fighters, missiles, and mines.. they do not work against particle cannons, ion cannons, and torpedos.
- New models and Icons added - UGTO Agincourt Carrier Dread, ICC Carrier Cruiser, PCM and Siege Missiles, UGTO and ICC Bomber and Interceptor Fighters.
- Split the UGTO STS-101 Carrier Dread into two varients, older model carries less fighters but more weapons at 2nd Rear Admiral Rank. New Agincourt Carrier is 1st Rear Admiral Rank and has its stats tested in game thus far and uses a new model.
- New Defense base configurations for all three factions now implemented.
- Mines and Fighters now seperated into their own slots...
- Prestige gain turned off if over the servers max rank. Thank those abusing Newbie for this change back.
- HMA (Jump drive option for Stations) has been updated to charge faster than Wormhole 2 device and provide sufficent range for in-system travelling. Cost of device also corrected.
- ECCM pinging no longer reveils cloaked ships.
- Reflective Armor now reducing beam weapon damage.
- You can no longer spawn from shipyards on blockaded planets.
- There is a delay timer varied by hull that marks the time from when you uncloak until you can fire weapons.
- Rewrote the profiler system for Medusa/DarkSpace. The profiler now supports profiling multiple threads, and now allows for remote viewing of the profiling information.
- Fixed gadget descriptions so the most important information is shown at the top.
- Fixed web metaverse map to show the factions correctly.
- Fixed/Implemented the nojoin flag for fleets. These fleets are not visible to players, moderators however can see and join those fleets.
- Implemented no prestige gain when the player is over the maximum rank for the server.
- Fixed bug which allowed jumps in 3D when targetting an object (such as an asteroid) that isn't on the normal playing field.
- Fixed credit calculation errors when installing/removing devices.
- Implemented new spawn node which can spawn any type of noun into the world. This will be used primarly to spawn damage effects from the ships into the world, so they won't look attached to the ships like now.
- Re-Factored the MirrorUpload executable which is used to upload code/data updates into the MirrorServer.
- Servers will now automatically self-update without having to be restarted by an admin. Additionally, servers can update 99% of the time without rebooting now.
- Mir fleet slotted for AI control now includes: Supply, Engineer, Cruiser, and Dread.
- 5th Faction not named also AI controled now has the following ships: Transport
- New Armor type - Ablative sheds portions of itself to reduce damage caused by projectile weapons.
- Optimized the ground units. The unit path-finding code now keeps A* paths cached for a period of time instead of rebuilding the path each update. Additionally, ground units pick and use a leader unit to select their target, so instead of each unit selecting targets indivdually, they will use the target of their leader unit.
- New visual effects - Torpedo protectile and impact effects updated.
- A shield device's level now affects its repair/charge rate.
- Reduced turn arc for missiles
- Increased range modifier based on level for beam weapons. This increases the range approx 25% to 50% between base 0 and level 10.
- Minor updates to Sabots. Sabots speed and ammo ammounts increase with level of device.
- New ship class added - Dread2. This allows us to set higher stats and limits to the assualt class dreads (410, EAD, Siphon).
- Fixed resourcer error that caused KLuth fighters to not appear visually in game.
- Hotkey fixes: ECM moved to P, ECCM moved to ;
Core weapon hotkeys removed.
- Disabled reloading, building, and mining while cloaked. This leaves using only sublight drives, AHR, Reactors, and EW devices while cloaked.
- New Kluth ship - Instars ~ Minelayer Frigate, Brood ~ Command Dread
