Updates in this version: A nicer success/death screen with animations. Iceteroids made a lot more dangerous. Added mining laser and tractor beam to Aegis weapon options. Made mid-level batteries and shields more useable. Added a couple of nice new explosion effects. All configuration options accessible via dialogue box. Pops up first time game is run and when a shortcut on startmenu clicked. Fixed D3D sprite corruption when task switching and changing options. Multiple cargo pods don't slow down the unloading time. Improved in game registration screen ease of use. Hard mode game can access all weapons now. Stopped weapon effects rendering underneath the Aegis turrets. Demo autosave now only ever creates a single autosave. Stopped hard mode autosave occasionally updating the wrong saves. Stopped parts of the player history hanging on when a new game started. Ingame popup messages don't cancel your current action i.e. you can keep charging your weapon and moving at the same speed. The game wont mention picking up wreck pods every time you enter a new zone. The two prompts to play the main game on "instant action" and "survival" are removed after registering. A button linking to a hints and tips page was added, the page attempts to collate everything mentioned on the forums. Fixed crash when saving a short game after a long game that spanned zones. Added exit-confirm on main exit. All the dialogue has been redone to try and fix remaining grammatical errors. Percentage world explored and percentage zone explored added to navigation screen. Hyper-grid shows all the zones all the time, so people know there is more than one zone in the game. The map key popup explains that transfer nodes can be used to move between zones. Nodes the player has visited at least once are marked on the map. Fixed the "ship health is zero and I am invincible" bug. Plus everything from previous patches: Survival mode long timer crash bug fixed. Timers continue when game paused - fixed. Node map not resized when running at 800X600 - fixed. Survival mode difficulty curve improved. Note that older highscore codes from version 1.4 will be incompatible with the score table. Support for 800X600 screen resolution (extended play area) New difficulty modes: easy | medium | hard limit your access to available technology until certain zones are completed. New Survival game mode. Free to play in demo for 10 minutes. Full version can be played as long as you can last! Note that Survival mode may require higher specced machines to cope with the higher levels of enemies as you progress. Survival mode score upload. Demo and full versions can also enter the '10 minute mode' high score table too. New equipment: Cargo pods increase available space on your ship to store resources. Additional DirectX 8 renderer which should help compatibility and performance on some hardware / driver combinations. Older Matrox and ATI cards in particular should notice better compatibility. Sound effects on intro Fixed bug which could cause rare crash after extended gameplay. Fixed messaging directing you to ship wreckage when it isn't there, apparently happened when the enemy drag you into a node sometimes. Gems extremely close to the ship now suck in with the grav beam. Warp out effect fixed when Aegis gets knocked. Early abort of the demo's 20sec outro screen, and reduced time on intro message screen (demo only). Some spelling improvements in equipment definitions. Reorganised in game exit dialog to prevent accidental game quit. Reduced the time the game waits forcompleteion of first tutorial i.e. if you don't know how to control the ship you wont have to wait very long. Warp in and warp out effects can now be skipped with a key press When the demo aborts it will try and save the game to "AUTOSAVE" If the station launch doors are blocked by asteroids the station will attempt to push them out of the way, this should stop players getting stuck inside the station. Can set the game to permanently run in a window by altering the config text file. Vastly improved support for Non-USB gamepads. Save game problems. Demo version opening multiple web browsers on exit when Opera is installed as default browser. Rare crash bug in front end system. Problem with disabling audio. Rare crash when killing final boss. Disabled audio problem when changing screen mode. Crash if fire1+2 pressed on launch screen. Multiple resource deduction when visiting Xenarch. Stuck in research and development screen. Can't select between hulls sometimes in ship construct screen. Stuck in stores screen when pressing right on recycle button. Bug in effects system. Progress recording problem. Added bonus score boost for completing hard mode. Stopped a cracking problem on Radeon/ATI cards. Enabled save in the demo (so you can carry on when registered) Added mouse support to menu screens Stopped auto-save updating easy mode saves in hard mode Fixed errors in the ingame text.

Starscape v1.4e (36.7MB)

Starscape v1.4e Demo Patch (8.06MB)