Union: Contracts & Hinterland

Union: Contracts & Hinterland
Release Date	April 28, 2021
Full Patch Notes	Steam
Previous	v0.4.16428
Next	v0.5.18385

Union: Contracts & Hinterland was a major update to Everspace 2 that released on April 28th, 2021, after initially being available on the experimental branch of the game starting April 23rd.

Corresponding Kickstarter update.

Developer notes

We've just released our first big content update. It features new main and side missions, a new player ship class, a new companion, a new boss fight and many quality of life improvements, tweaks and bugfixes.

Note that we rely on temporary text-to-speech voices for the new missions until we've started a new recording session. These fallback dialogs can be turned off in the audio settings. Also, you can continue with your saves, but we encourage you to start a new game to enjoy all the changes we've made.

Additions, Changes, & Fixes

Features

• Added new main and side missions
• Added new player ship class: Bomber (heavy fighter)
• Added new companion
• Increased level cap to 15 and added three new player perks
• Added EMP Missiles
• Added new Outlaw units: Bloodstar Prospector, Bloodstar Overseer, Outlaw Drone Carrier
• Added new Bloodstar-branded equipment
• Added resolution scaling setting
• Added NVIDIA DLSS support
• Added experimental HDR support
• Added setting for third-person camera stiffness
• Added keybindings for cycling through on-screen enemy targets
• Added batch actions for processing multiple items at once
• Added overview screen for data tab
• Added new WIP narrated cinematics
• Added new/hint indication marker for some menu tabs and items
• Added current conditions bar to ship menu tab
• Added dedicated mission inventory to hold mission items instead of ship cargo

Tweaks

• Manual saving is now possible anywhere while not in a fight or mission
• Balancing: Slower leveling by reducing enemy XP, slightly increased enemy DPS and HP
• Enemy levels are more varied now; enemies above player level more common
• Slightly reduced Uncommon and Rare drop chances for low levels
• There are now cooldowns when installing new weapons/consumables
• Homing missiles now require a short lock-on sequence, and missiles will only home in when fired while target is on screen
• Reduced Augmentation bonus from 30 to 20 per Augment
• Increase ship slots on Homebase from 3 to 5
• Greatly increased resulting Critical Hit Chance bonus from Precision attribute
• HUD markers for discovered objects will now be saved and restored when entering a location / loading a save
• Modules will now always have a Firepower, Precision or Structure bonus attribute if rarity is at least Uncommon
• Increased heavy ship deceleration with enabled inertia dampening
• Show additional offscreen damage indicators in HUD
• Reworked movement for most NPC ships, resulting in a less "beeline" attack style
• Enemies will now boost when investigating
• NPC ships will less likely carry the battle to the location bounds
• Reduced Outlaw Sniper Drone focus time
• Outlaw Destroyer: Now fires missiles while weakpoints are exposed, easier to spot weakpoints that now also change color when hit, more base hitpoints, higher weakpoint damage multiplier
• Sniper Drone will now try to keep 2km distance from player
• Consume at least 30% of maximum ULT charge when canceling ULT
• Faction item rewards will now have the player level when claimed
• Challenge tasks are now tracked individually instead of the whole collection
• Increased controller Auto-aiming strength for mines
• Auto-aiming will now ignore friends/neutrals
• Increased amount of damage needed for a G&B Freighter to turn hostile, but now always turn them hostile when a container was (mostly) destroyed by the player
• Changed Speed Booster Recharge Speed from 500% to 300%, increased Recharge Delay from 1s to 2s
• With a Cruise Booster equipped, you can now activate the cruise Mode faster (1.8s → 1s) and closer to enemies (2km → 1km)
• Increased charge duration and energy consumption of Rail Gun, slightly decreased kinetic base damage
• Targets affected by EMP will now receive 30 seconds of EMP immunity after the effect ends
• Energy Orbs: Now always floating towards the player, replaced effect bonus perk level with armor recharge, better spawn effect
• Slightly decreased signal decoder and color drop chances for some enemy types
• Added VFX to make Outlaw Armor Drones stand out more
• Slightly increased maneuverability while webbed
• Added RESIST and IMMUNE impact labels (e.g. EMP on freighters: Immune, EMP on fighters with EMP Resistance: Resist)
• Reduced magnitude of bonus attribute values (Firepower, Resistance, Precision, Utility, Structure)
• Decreased Thermo Gun kinetic damage by 33%
• Baron Executioner: Increased kinetic damage, removed energy damage
• Salvor Jaeger: Decreased spread, slightly increased kinetic damage / decreased energy damage
• Show "influence" offscreen indicators for NPCs that are debuffing the player (e.g. webbed by Webber)
• Dedicated Supralight music in Union system
• Optimized sorting options and internal order of item property priorities
• Removed unnecessary amount selection for some item transfers
• Added small animation and highlight when selling to rebuy shop inventory
• Added icons and quality of life improvements for perk upgrade and the investment process
• Custom ship style slots now display the selected colors
• Hide HUD marker for items pulled with Tractor Beam
• Made page indicators in customization screens navigatable and clickable
• A small indicator is displayed below the player health bars when inertia dampeners are turned off
• Show "tracked" icon in pickup log on top of item icon when tracked for perks
• New mesh for the Flying Dutchess trading ship
• Freelook/orbit cam is automatically entered when activating autopilot in Supralight
• Autopilot can now also be activated/deactivated with target lock binding (middle mouse button is the default)
• Player armor, health, and shield bars now all have the same length
• Show energy bars in a different color when carrying an energy orb to make it more obvious that energy is unlimited now
• Reworked Thermo Gun projectile VFX
• Reduced Energized Boost "High Pressure" mode impulse to prevent physics-related issues
• Rigged Asteroid UI displays the currently activated and the overall amount of detonator triggers
• Changed name and appearance of tutorial "Outlaw Ravager" to "Bloodstar Overseer" in the tutorial
• The game is now also auto-saved when undocking from a station and having visited a menu or made any changes
• Decreased "create new energy sphere" hold duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds
• Show max level info message when reaching Max Level
• Prevent save scumming in regards to ship and shop offers
• Various UI/Menu tweaks
• Updated Unreal Engine to 4.26, potentially fixing some low- level issues (like graphics crashes or problems with available resolutions)

Bugfixes

• Fixed Bomb- Thrower re-enabling shield after death
• Fixed broken state when loading a save game on Ayres Relay Station with Striker
• Fixed player ship not being auto-repaired when leveling up while docked at a station
• Fixed energized boost "Compressor" mode stacking
• Fixed weapons not always facing straight during supralight
• Fixed overlapping dialogues after finishing a job
• Fixed finished job locations still showing on Map if they have item rewards that are unclaimed
• Fixed Tractor Beam sound not pausing when the game is paused
• Fixed camera view occasionally being automatically switched to third- person after using jump gate
• Fixed playing time not properly updating after crossing the 144 hours mark or so
• Fixed Interceptors "Power Converter" not using Boost Energy for charging weapons
• Fixed Coil and Rail Guns having the "high-velocity" affix
• Fixed Corrosion Injector "Mercy Kill" mode not resetting cooldown for insta-kills
• Fixed consumable/device keys not showing changed keybindings and also automatically refresh many icons/buttons after a keybinding change
• Fixed new high- risk area waypoint not immediately showing after using signal decoder at a location and setting waypoint via map
• Fixed "Tag Mines" attribute of Sensor not working correctly
• Fixed having to change joystick throttle or other axis input again after pause/resume in order to receive the current axis input
• Fixed Missile Defense System sometimes locking up in a loop
• Fixed that when trying to use shoulder buttons as modifiers for keybindings the options menu tab would change instead
• Fixed that activation of Signal Decoders was were not possible if max amount has been reached and one high- risk area was just discarded
• Fixed stat attributes not updating after upgrading an item
• Fixed shop discounts falsely granted for non-equipment
• Fixed previously used player ship in Hangar still casting a shadow when currently viewing another player ship
• Fixed high-risk-location icon looking different in Supralight to what it looks like on the map
• Fixed secondary weapon meshes being hidden after having switched to "1st person no cockpit view" and going back to third-person
• Fixed dialog window being transparent after plating help message was shown
• Fixed interact repair hold sound not stopping when moving out of interact range but still holding the interact button
• Fixed that EMPing a mine counted as having cleared the mine although the effect wears off after some time
• Fixed reactor repair costs not matching the mission amount
• Fixed player mines being hostile after loading a saved game
• Fixed minable resources HUD marker being visible after fully mining a resource and then re-entering the location later
• Fixed multiple bugs regarding sorting of inventories
• Fixed a problem that showed zero credits for all items in shops
• Fixed wrong rarity displayed in resource log (HUD\) after taking-all-items action in containers was used
• Fixed inaccessible Distress Calls being shown on the map
• Fixed that upgraded modules may not receive mandatory firepower, precision, or structure attribute
• Fixed devices and ULTs becoming less powerful in higher levels