Positech Games has announced the release of the latest update for Gratuitous Space Battles, bringing the space strategy game to v1.48 and adding new improvements, fixes and balance tweaks to the title.

The patch emphasizes performance improvement, specifically noting the major rewriting of several areas to reduce memory usage. Balancing focuses both on the nomads and some general boosts and nerfs.

Mr. Harris says the update is live and to expect the auto update sometime in the next 24 hours. From the full change log:

version 1.48

1) Performance: Major rewrite of tons of areas to reduce memory usage and squash lots of small memory leaks.

2) Bug fix: Tractor beam turrets are no longer drawn when a ship should appear cloaked.

3) Bug Fix: Limpet launchers and Plasmas are now fired from the correct position when placed in multiple-hardpoint slots.

4) Bug Fix: Fixed a few minor miscalculations that meant ship damage looked (purely visually) like it was being repaired faster than it actually was, especially when cloaked.

5) Bug Fix: When you leave the ship design screen, any open module stat comparison windows are now closed.

6) Some playbalance tweaks

7) Bug Fix: Imperial fighters with tiny engine glows (also a nomad fighter) now no longer get drawn when the parent ship is docked at a carrier.

The balance stuff:

nomads:

Awazem loses its cost boost, gets 8% armour boost

Duwasir loses its armour boost, gets 10% speed boost

Majali reduces speed penalty from 22% to 12%

Abbadi gets an 8% armour boost

Nomadic dogfight laser damage increased to 8

Nomadic beam laser power usage reduced to 13

general:

guidance scrambler beam weight increased to 147

EMP Shield ecm strength increased from 66 to 82

All frigate armour maxdamageabsorbable increased by 20%

EMP Missile launchers, (both types) missile speed 25% faster. fireinterval reduced 10%, ecm strength increased 10%

Decoy missile launcher weight reduced to 70

order:

Limpet launcher limpetweight increased to 8.2, cost reduced to 110

[Cliffski's Blog]