Jumpgate Evolution: Whats Coming In Patch 1.0079

Ordinarily, I would have tried to release patch 1.0079 by now, as we've been on 1.0078 for close to four weeks. People might assume the reason for this delay is that I am working feverishly on the problems with JOSSH. While I am involved with testing JOSSH now that we've reached that stage, the prior assumption is untrue: the JOSSH problems are being handled by SamPenguin and Josh, and I've been continuing general patch programming for 1.0079.

1.0079 is taking so long because I chose to tackle the sector claiming problems. Although this means that I will probably not have a ton of other bugfixes to show for the time invested, I'm hopeful that people will agree that getting one of our most obnoxious bug clusters taken care of will have been worth the wait.

Also coming in 1.0079:

A new command (to be documented on JOSSH): /gear - this will prevent pilots with home faction bounties who accidentally sell their equipment from relying on GM help to get un-stuck, but there will be mild (very mild) penalties for needing to use it.

A bugfix for /home: POS set Invite-only but in neutral space will allow pilots of other factions to /home there (like Squad and Public stations do), as originally intended.

A graphical fix for those annoying shield flares on C25-27 flux.

A bugfix for Pirates: Pirates will not be forced to HG tags for a Civ kill.

Target-under-reticle added for POS within visual range.

Changes to a small number of unused or little-used weapons, which hopefully will make them interesting to some groups of players, and add variety to PvP loadouts beyond everyone's favorite Thorns.

There has been substantial progress on sector claiming in the last two weeks of work, so my hope and intent at this time is to have 1.0079 ready for release sometime next week.

I'm not planning to make regular posts like this about every upcoming patch, because it takes time from coding, and fixes.txt will always contain a report of everything I've done in a patch. However, because this patch is taking longer than I like, I wanted to let everyone know what's going on, by way of apology.