The "Exam season is almost over" Update

EDIT: I've been told there's a bug where ships are completely invisible for certain people! This is strange, as I can't reproduce the bug on both of my machines, so it's probably a shader error on specific hardware, or missing meshes. I'll be sure to look into it as soon as I can. The last update is still available if you want to check it out.

Still alive! I'll have quite a bit more time to spend on this project over the summer so expect more updates starting in May. As for this update, I tried to cover the major criticisms of the ship editor - minimizing the UI, better camera controls, better display and a few bug fixes.

The Player Controls have been completely revamped - and some subsystems have been removed. As such, there are now only 5 basic subsystems:

• Hull : Protects the other subsystems from damage (although not entirely, when weakened, damage will still get through). The hull's health is based on the volume of your ship.
• Life Support : Heals your crew. If it is deactivated, your crew slowly suffocates and a ship with no crew can be captured to join your fleet! Your crew automatically repairs your subsystems (although you can deactivate the repair of a subsystem by right-clicking it).
• Warp Core : Allows your ship to function - destroying it destroys the entire ship.
• Targeting Computer : Allows your ship to use auto-targeting turrets (to defend against missiles) and enhances aiming/range of all turrets.
• Engine Core : Allows your ship to move.

The idea is that this is enough to manage in one game - you can add up to 5 additional subsystems that will have various abilities. It also means you can specifically target parts of a ship to allow for an easy capture.

I'm also working on using the Unity 5 assets better (read: fancier graphics), and overall world generation. I've added shipyards that allow you to edit your ship, pirate encounters and hostile fleet encounters - the most basic types, really. Up next is a major revamp of asteroid fields, shops and recruitment hubs to hire crew members.

As always, you can get the latest version here. See top of post - if you want to play, you may have to download an earlier version until this invisible ship bug is fixed!