The APEX update will be released on Tuesday, February 6th.
General Notes
If your APEX console is stuck in a loading state after the update, please make sure to refresh it once after the update to ensure you got the latest version.
New features
(PRO) You can filter CONTS by contract status
(PRO) You can filter orders in CXOSby type, status, material or exchange
Added expert progress bars that show how close you are to gaining another expert per category
You can now link planets and systems in chat messages by typing out their identifier (for example OT-580 or OT-580b)
Changes
Ship repairs are now possible at any shipyard, whether you have a base there or not (all local storages will be searched for the required materials)
The sidebar now shows 10 pending contracts (up from 5)
Changed the system naming rules so that names of type "[Name] [Roman Number] " are possible
MTRA now shows storage locations so you can differentiate them more easily
The blocklist now has scrollbars
Removed “no image data” field from the SHP command
Balancing
EDC MM: 13000 → 11500
IDC MM: 18000 → 16200
BSE MM: 475 → 425
Ship repairs:
Reduced the amount of shields (of any type) required by 33%
Added fixed costs of MFK + FLP per repair
DRF is now required in repairs if the ship has repair drones installed
Increased effect of “Family Support” government programs by 5%
Fixes
Fixed a bug that would render the population infrastructure inaccessible when contributing materials to the infrastructure before the respective planet was initially settled.
Fixed a bug where demolitioning of a very old storage module would not decrease the available storage capacity
Fixed a bug that prevented the deletion of a FX order in rare circumstances
Fixed a bug that would cause an inconsistency between selected and shown production template when re-selecting an already active filter
Fixed a bug that made STL-only ships show up in inventory lists when filtering for FTL fuel tanks
Fixed a bug where editing the deadline of the first condition in a loan contract would lock the command “in progress”
I think the EDC\IDC nerfs are good, need that, but why BSE? It’s nowhere even close.
I’m also curious on how the CXOS search will work when you have hundreds of orders, will it search the orders which haven’t been loaded by the infinite-scrolling thing yet?
That’s great and all but nobody from outside Germany has that symbol on their keyboard. How about just use $ and have the system resolve whether a company code or planet name is requested? There will be no conflicts as long as you don’t allow linking to planet/system by name (which you’re not doing atm).
EDIT: In fact, why is the prefix character even necessary? Dynamic tickers (MAT.CX) link without a prefix, I suppose because the full-stop is a pattern to match. Couldn’t a dash in VH-331a be matched in the same way? Planet/system codes are unambiguous after all.
EDIT2: Here’s how it would look like (couldn’t remove the extra space between the link and closing quote but yeah):
Does this apply to all repairs? I only have the starter ships and it doesn’t appear to be indicated anywhere (although my ships are at a CX currently). And, what are the values for those if they’re fixed?
EDIT: Also, for the planet prefix, Windows users without a 10-key are in for a rough time. the Alt-codes don’t work with the number row.
Why would you nerf ship repair drones? They are used little enough right now as they are too expensive for the benefit. The only selling point they had was that they didn’t add to the cost and complexity of repairs. Now that that’s gone, they’re not going to see any use at all.
Older players need high tier products with complex production chains in order to keep them engaged. The goal should be to buff special parts like ship repair drones or to increase the situations where they are necessary (for example, increasing the various types of damage that some systems or planets will do to a ship passing through or landing on them).
Ship damage is already enough of a rounding error that even if it reduced the damage taken to zero, it would be a hard sell on whether it’s even worth it. Ship damage is quite a bit less than even fuel, and fuel in terms of costs of servicing your bases is a pretty small line item on your expenses - unless your entire empire exists a round extrading raw resources (gasses, ores, etc).
I never even bothered running SRD on any of my ships because it would only reduce the maintenance costs of my ships by like 10% or something which is a meaningless rounding error.
