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Experimental Endeavours - Interstellar Rift Development Update 163




Today we're launching the biggest experimental patch for Interstellar Rift ever. In this patch is almost all the content that we've been preparing for the release from Early Access. With this patch we hope to catch most of the bugs that slipped through our own testing, so we can have a stable launch in two weeks.

This experimental patch contains, among other things, temperature mechanics, radiation mechanics, fire mechanics, ship selling for players, onboard defenses, and a new end game boss called the Skrill Queen.





Enabling the experimental branch


To enable the experimental branch, right click on Interstellar Rift in Steam, go to the beta tab, and select the "experimental IR beta patches" option

Please note that galaxy files opened in the experimental build, may turn out to be broken when going back to the regular build. It is recommended to start a new save file when trying the experimental build.

We won’t go in depth for each of these mechanics in this post, but we’ll highlight a few of them.



Temperature


Each device on your ship will now emit heat, and your ship’s hull will warm up or cool down depending on how close your ship is to the star of a solar system. For small ships, this effect is negligible and they won’t need any changes. Larger ships however, will need to be actively managed with a device called the Thermal Extractor. This device will allow you to extract heat from the rooms on your ships and store that heat in heatsinks. With the help of coolant you can keep the temperature on your ships within reasonable levels. Heat is channeled from rooms to the thermal extractor via vents, the same vents that we use to provide oxygen to rooms. So you’ll probably have to update some of your designs to have plenty of vents in each room, and you will need to add a thermal extractor. To make this a little easier we’ve added a new checklist in the editor which shows you exactly how much vents each room needs.



Radiation


Radioactive materials will emit radiation from now on. We’ve made an exception for resources already on your ships and stations, but as soon as they are picked up and placed down again they too will begin to spread radiation. Radiation is harmful to you, so radioactive material will need to be separated from the rest of the ship. When radioactive material is in the Nuclear reactor, the vault, or your inventory it will not emit radiation. But as soon as it is stored on a cargo pad or in a cargo container it will start spreading. There are several ways around handling radioactive material, you could print protective gear, or you can use ACTRs or other devices to handle the transport without physical contact. To prevent griefing, you cannot place down radioactive material on the cargo pads on invulnerable stations, such as the starter stations.





Fire


Fire can now spread from damaged devices and can envelop entire rooms. Fire extinguishers and ammo for them are available from the faction desks and stores throughout the systems. Make sure you get your hands on them in time, before you are faced with an out of control inferno on your ships. Fire will consume oxygen in the room it is in, so cutting of oxygen will also work to smother the flames. Another way of putting out fire without using a fire extinguisher is by installing sprinklers in the rooms. These can be supplied with water by placing water in an empty fuel tank, which will convert it to a water tank that the sprinklers will be able to access from anywhere on the ship.

These three mechanics will need to be taken into account when you start playing on the experimental branch, there is much more to discover, but the other mechanics and content won’t impact your ship designs in the same way.

Please check out the experimental branch, it helps us to eliminate most of the bugs before the patch goes live, and a big thank you to everyone who has helped make the game what it is today by providing feedback and playing over the last couple of years, we would not have come so far without you!

Thanks again, and see you star-side!

- The Split Polygon Team

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