Alien Sightings

A big update. Shot-down UFOs now leave a wreck you can scavenge, and the alien pilot might still be alive.

Crash wrecks

• A shot-down scout no longer scatters its loot. It leaves a smoking, half-buried wreck.
• Right-click the wreck with an empty hand to scavenge it. Hull plating comes off first as scrap (iron, copper, redstone and gold ingots). After that you get the cargo, and the Element 115 reactor comes out last.
• As the plating comes off you can see the frame, the deck, the glowing reactor and the gravity amplifiers inside.
• Each wreck holds two special salvage items. With those mods installed, these include Ice and Fire dragon scales and blood, Born in Chaos dark metal, and rare or legendary Iron’s Spells ink.
• Wrecks can’t be destroyed and are saved with the world. In Creative, hit one to remove it.

The Serpoian pilot

• Every crashed scout has a grey Serpoian pilot in a blue flight suit. Usually its body lies dead beside the wreck. Search it for a used Anomaly Scanner, and sometimes its head.
• About a third of the time it’s only playing dead (never on Peaceful). The odds are rolled the moment the scout is shot down.
• Step within its reach and it either:
  • leaps at your face in a full-screen jump scare, clawing you for two hearts and blinding you for a moment, or
  • turns invisible and stalks you from behind. Look round and it pounces.
• It’s tough: 40 health, about as fast as an enderman, and it squirms out of the way of hits and arrows.
• New, creepier sounds: click-language chatter, mechanical breathing and a wake-up shriek.
• Kill it to get a Yellow Book, and sometimes its head.
• New client options: jumpscare.fullScreen and jumpscare.shriekVolume.

The curse and the execution

• The pilot’s claw curses you. Your vision swims with Nausea. Then it lifts you into the air with its mind and blows you apart, while a cinematic camera watches.
• While the curse counts down, its claws can’t take you below 3 hearts, so you live to see the move.
• It sizes up your armour. Against players in gear up to full diamond:
  • its telekinetic barrier soaks up 65% of incoming damage;
  • the countdown is faster;
  • it teleports behind you if you hide or run.
  Only a very skilled player with a top sword can kill it in time. Players in netherite-tier gear get a fairer fight.
• A Totem of Undying saves you. Getting more than 32 blocks away breaks the curse.
• ReviveMe: the execution kills outright instead of downing you.

Sightings

• Sightings are rarer and counted per player. In the Overworld each player sees one about every 5 hours of play. On Ad Astra planets and in orbit, it’s about every 30 minutes.
• More than one UFO can fly at once, each near a different player. Friends playing together share one. Up to 8 can fly at once on a server.
• Ad Astra orbits: scouts drop out of warp, streak past you and warp away toward the planet below.
• Pilots and UFOs are no longer harmed by Ad Astra’s space environments.

Other

• Two spawn eggs: an ordinary pilot, and a playing-dead body.
• Pilots ignore Creative players.
• Fixes for items in item frames.
• New config options:
  • Spawning: ufoSpawnRateMultiplier, minutes per sighting, the most UFOs at once, and player spacing.
  • Loot: salvage rolls and weights.
  • Pilot: playing-dead chance, barrier strength, the early-game armour limit, countdown length, the teleport, and cursing on a claw.