[2020] Alpha 12 Public Release

Hi Galactic Survivalists!
Today is the day: we are releasing Alpha 12 to the public!



First of all, a giant thank you to all our testers and bug reporters and to all of you players out there, sharing feedback on the new and updated features, starting new games and retesting new setup over and over again. This cannot be valued enough! :)

For those, that did not actively follow the Experimental phases, find a brief breakdown of some of the main features below.

While you read, we suggest to open up our Empyrion Soundtrack[soundcloud.com] and check out the three new 'Legacy Faction' tracks, created by Alex Jordon

Feature Overview
1. The Galaxy

• A fully randomly generated galaxy with several thousand star systems.
  
• For the start, the galaxy offers nearly two dozen new celestial objects, like different sun types, gas giants and even black holes!
  
• The skybox in any orbit is now showing the real galaxy stars and its nebulae. Both elements are correctly displayed, depending on where you are in the galaxy.
  
• Each of the (new) NPC main faction not only has gotten its own POI and vessel design, but also has its own territory in the galaxy: Zirax, Polaris, Kriel, Traders Guild, Pirates, The Legacy (UCH and Talon are available as well, but are used as implicit faction in the default game)

2. Station Services

• When in range of a station which has the station services enabled, open the control panel of your vessel (P) and find the new tab 'Station Services'.
  
• You can buy and refill fuel, ammo and pentaxid, as well as repair your ship (repair-2-template!) and quick-load your shield - in case you have the required credits.

3. All new scanning detection systems

• Detectors, available as handheld devices with low range, but also for every vessel, will reveal deposits and points of interest while actively managed.
  
• Detectors work on planets and in space!

4. Player-build Teleporter

• Add a teleporter device to your base or your capital vessel to create shortcuts between your structures or simply to avoid landing or having to go outside in your space suit..
  
• You can use teleport destinations from discovered stations of friendly NPC factions

5. Interactive Dialogue System

• The player avatar now has choices when talking to an NPC (depending on the mission or the setup of the NPC of course)
  
• The dialogue system can be used to create short quests (without using the PDA) or react dynamically on what the player has achieved in a mission

6. Storyline

• The game now includes the first part of a multi-staged storyline, which currently includes six consecutive chapters for several hours of playtime!
  
• The Robinson Protocol Tutorial has been updated as well, especially for early vessel repairs and base building basics.

7. Crafting

• Four new materials: Titanium, Platinum, Aluminum and Ice
  
• (Note: Titanium Plates will be used for Hardened Steel from now on. Sathium plates (Former 'hardened steel plates') will be used for combat steel.)
  
• Stacksize up to 4000 + a heap of balancing (blocks, devices, techtree etc pp)
  
• Sorting persistent per inventory per savegame & auto-stacks when used!

8. Registry

• The Registry got improved up to serving as your personal Journey Book, achieving all your discoveries and allowing to easily browse all its items and plan your next steps
  
• Markers and Bookmarks can be shown beyond playfield borders (managed in Registry), for example you can see your base marker from orbit.

9. Multiplayer

• The old scoreboard has now been created into a fully fledged leaderboard with up to 15 rankings, seperated to you personally, all players or your faction
  
• The Proximity log is an addition to the Registry. It will show you which players got close to one of your structures
  
• Offline Chat messaging has been added!
  
• Marketplace has gotten several updates too, e.g. now you can claim your goods at any Trading Station Device, if you do this remotely some transport costs are applied.

10. CPU

• The CPU system now offers the 'Advanced Core' which, when replacing your structures core, will remove the CPU limitations. It can only be looted from very dangerous (!) enemies..
  
• CPU system offers a buff for not exceeding CPU Tier amount of points

Beyond those main features, Alpha 12 will of course add a lot of other changes as well.

For example:

• New Snow Starter Planet for experienced players! No Tutorial or help given, but all Story and Loyalty missions are activated.
  
• Invader vs. Defender and Multiplayer Default scenarios fully updated
  
• NPC Faction structures in space will call for reinforcements when you attack them
  
• Generators now take damage and will explode after 2 minutes, when constantly overloading
  
• You can now respawn in a survival tent and you get respawns options to spawn on friendly NPC factions or own structures (without the HOME button set)
  
• Use the new TOKEN-system for creating keycards and such.
  
• Multitude of POI updates and additions, Device model updates and Rebalancings!
  
• All of the game configs are now available for you to edit in the configuration folder!

One change is maybe one of the most important, although not really visible to you as a player at all: the Database.

The 'database' is now the backbone of the game and most of the features of Alpha 12 rely on it or would not have been possible at all. A lot of changes had to happen behind the curtain, before the Alpha 12 features have had the chance to go into full swing.

We will of course set up feedback threads for each of the major features right here[empyriononline.com] in the next hours

Feel free to ask any question there & help us to track down and eliminate remaining bugs by reporting them over here:

• Read first[empyriononline.com]
  
• Bug reports[empyriononline.com]
  
• Note: Please retest your not yet solved A11.5 issues!
  
• Most of the A11 & A12 bugs fixed during A12 Exp can be found here[empyriononline.com]

Now, without further ado - have fun playing the Alpha 12!

We are looking forward to your feedback!

Cheers,
Empyrion Dev Team & QA


PS: All our multiplayer servers will be wiped completely for the Alpha 12 release, including the benefits gained from the EAH Virtual Orbital Autominers to ensure a clean and fair restart into the Alpha 12 season.




Foe those interested, please find the full changelog[empyriononline.com] at the end of the copy of this release post in our forum.

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Latest updates:

- 2020-06-19 Patch 12.1[empyriononline.com]

: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page [url=https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/383120/announcements/detail/2382915044654299552]here[/url].