We thought this update would be a small one. We were wrong! Feature after feature, we now have a whole festival of new things waiting for you the test session of May 17 12:00 GMT!

Two new ship variations

On May 10, we partenered with MMORPG.org.pl and created two new Gemeter variations during an epic 4h live dev stream all in English!

Gemeter Hussar has been created specially for the Polish community of MMORPG.org.pl, with the help of their readers. Its characteristics and the way to build it are identical to the Imperial Gemeter, but thanks to its unique skin, Polish players will be able to recognize each other, and create powerful Polish-speaking battalions of hussars ready to dominate the universe!

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Gemeter Fox is a ship we've announced a long time ago. It is a pre-order bonus to all who pre-order Gangs of Space during the Alpha. This is a Gemeter-class ship, pretty close to the basic Gemeter R ship that is available though research or Medals. Except for its Firefoxy orange-and-blue colors, its main feature are its guns' placement that will make it shoot narrower than its Gemeter R counterpart. It cannot be upgraded through research, but it available for construction for 1000 DNA only in the Motherbase.

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And now, what new ships could arrive in the Gangs of Space universe?

A new skill system

A few months ago, Krayn (from the webTV "LFG") suggested to "add spells to diversify the gameplay". We gave the idea lots of thoughts, and have been working since then to adding this new mechanic.

The system is pretty simple. Every ship, except Imperial models, will have between 1 and 3 skills. These skills work a bit like active items which would be "embedded" in the ship once for all. To use them, you need to affect them a Crew. The higher the level of the crew (from 1 to 4 stars), the more effective the skill will be.

For now, we have implemented 4 skills:

• Rapid Fire for Gemeters (R, Fox, SX). It uses energy to fire a burst of fires at high firerate.
• Hedgehog for Abysses (R). It uses energy to fire 3 volleys of radial shots. These won't get damage multipliers like the regular Abyss shot, but they cover a big part of the screen.
• Big One for Bahmuts (R). It uses energy to launch a huge missile with boosted damage, explosion, speed and range.
• Eraser for Astrolaxes (R). It uses energy to instantly erase all enemy shots around it.

The Aurora skill is not ready yet, since we want to change a bit the gameplay of this ship before that.

Also, higher-level ships (like the Gemeter SX) will have more than 1 skill, so be excited for more skills to arrive in future versions!

Reworking the ship UI

In order to make those new skills easily usable, and also to answer many of your complains and suggestions, we've reworked a number of interfaces:

• The multi-usage slot bar has been replaced by a more-classic system of shortcuts. They will display the equipped items, up to 4 shortcuts, and up to 3 skills.
  

• The ship inventory is now divided in 3 parts. From left to right: the former Ship Info panel, the equipment & shortcuts panel, and the former Ship Inventory panel. All items are now managed from here.
  

• The life bars for players have been made a bit more readable, and now display the energy level in addition to the structure and shield levels (now, you'll know why your Astrolax-friend is not healing you ). These bars are still optinal, and need to be enabled in the settings (F10).
  

• The login screen has been redesigned... well... designed, should we say. No more "programmer art" there!

• And at least, all the shortcut icons (on top and bottom of the screen) are now smaller and more easily identifiable.
  

Patch Notes

But there are a lot more to see, and as with any other patch, you can see the whole list by reading the complete Changelog.

Thanks to the community!

Your feedback is getting more and more constructive, now that you understand the game more and more. Each new session is the occasion to read very instructive messages from all of you, which guide us to change Gangs of Space and make it a better game.

Thank you everyone for helping us make an ambitious and independant MMO that will give you - we hope - lots of satisfaction and fun!

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