SPL: Skilled Pilots Live

Released: Dec 1, 2020
Platforms
Last updated: 16 Sep 2026, 21:58 GMT

Updates & announcements

20 posts

15 May 2021Developer post
Mini balance patch
Hey, this is the last patch in the series of minor improvements and gameplay polish. I will go silent for a bit now preparing the new content updates. Balance changes No heat generation using normal acceleration, only dash increases heat. Player ship rotation rotate increased - t
Hey,
this is the last patch in the series of minor improvements and gameplay polish.
I will go silent for a bit now preparing the new content updates.
Balance changes

No heat generation using normal acceleration, only dash increases heat.
Player ship rotation rotate increased - this will allow players to tail and out-maneuver the enemy ships more easily.
Enemies will be easier to lock on and hit in high speed scenarios especially fly-byes
Original post
10 May 2021Developer post
Nebula clouds + Many Improvements
Hey there, here's another batch of improvements. Thanks to the super useful feedback I'm getting from you lately the game is getting more and more polished, or rather less and less clunky and buggy :) Visuals The fog is no longer uniform, this finally gives the player the feeling
Hey there,
here's another batch of improvements. Thanks to the super useful feedback I'm getting from you lately the game is getting more and more polished, or rather less and less clunky and buggy :)
Visuals

The fog is no longer uniform, this finally gives the player the feeling of movement, when passing or dense patches of the nebula.
Improved fog rendering.
Added red light shafts coming out from the singularity, this adds a bit of color to the scenery.
Added multi-colored skybox.
Melter (green gun) glow has been greatly reduced .
Balance

Sentinel weapons (triangle potato guns) no longer drop, this weapon variant will be replaced later by a new one. Everyone found this weapon variant pretty useless.
Hailgun heat cost has been reduced, projectile speed increased, rate of fire slightly increased.
Gameplay

More improvements to lock-on and auto-aim.
Fuse has been reworked: It can combine exclusively either weapons or ship upgrades. The fused item level is averaged as before but also increased by ship's tech level. The fused item type will be random, one of the types provided in the fabricator. So if you fuse plasma weapon and death ray weapon, you will get either a random plasma or random death ray.
Bugfixes

Fixed a save corrupting bug where the game would crash if the player exited the game and entered it again more than 32 times. The corrupt saves will get auto-fixed once the game runs again.
Fixed a game breaking bug where sometimes the enemies would escape to infinity (NaN km distance) and broke the players ability to use jump drive, effectively making them stuck.
Also made the Discord button more visible, it's been relocated to the main menu buttons.
Pew
Original post
29 Apr 2021Developer post
More auto-aim + gamepad improvements
Changes The ship slightly rotates to help auto-aim make a lock-on - this should deal with most of situations where the player felt they should be in a position to shoot but it often never happened Improved AI behaviour when engaged with wingman - their movement should be much les
Changes

The ship slightly rotates to help auto-aim make a lock-on - this should deal with most of situations where the player felt they should be in a position to shoot but it often never happened
Improved AI behaviour when engaged with wingman - their movement should be much less erratic making them easier to lock-on
Wingman lock on priority has been greatly reduced
It's no longer possible to lock camera on a wingman
Original post
28 Apr 2021Developer post
Gamepad & camera improvements
Changes Pressing right analog stick now locks the camera at the target, pressing it again removes the lock Same functionality on keyboard by pressing left shift key Added a game setting where auto camera lock during shooting when using gamepad can be turned on/off Camera locks st
Changes

Pressing right analog stick now locks the camera at the target, pressing it again removes the lock
Same functionality on keyboard by pressing left shift key
Added a game setting where auto camera lock during shooting when using gamepad can be turned on/off
Camera locks strongly guide the camera, however right analog input isn't completely locked out, so you can aim ahead of the enemy ship while the camera follows the target.
Bugfixes

Fixed a critical bug where the game would get stuck in a loop creating and destroying encounters which caused a massive FPS drop and soon after it - a crash (and a handful of refunds *sob*)
Original post
21 Apr 2021Developer post
Skull Tokens
A new feature was added to make dying less punishing and I would dare say more interesting: New Feature Whenever you die and loose all your non stashed items you gain Skull Tokens . The skull token gain is equivalent to the worth of the loot you lost. Skull tokens are an auto-use
A new feature was added to make dying less punishing and I would dare say more interesting:
New Feature

Whenever you die and loose all your non stashed items you gain Skull Tokens.
The skull token gain is equivalent to the worth of the loot you lost.
Skull tokens are an auto-use resource. They are consumed when enemy drops an item on death and upgrade this item's rarity. So if a Rare weapon was dropped it will be upgraded to Epic.
The tokens amount consumed is related to the rarity upgraded, higher tier upgrades cost more.
Original post
18 Apr 2021Developer post
Mines!
New feature: Mines Added mines to some of the encounters. Mines will approach any target (you/enemy/friendly) and detonate on proximity. Use full shield to save yourself from the blast. You can lure enemies into mine fields. This is the first of upcoming encounter modifiers, more
New feature: Mines

Added mines to some of the encounters.
Mines will approach any target (you/enemy/friendly) and detonate on proximity.
Use full shield to save yourself from the blast.
You can lure enemies into mine fields.
This is the first of upcoming encounter modifiers, more coming soon.
Improvements

Added key binding listing in the game settings screen.
At least one item - weapon or upgrade - will now always drop in every fight.
Major bug fixes

Fixed a rare bug where sometimes the enemy would use jump drive to jump into infinity, this trapped the player in the encounter forever.
Fixed a bug where defeating the boss very far away from the it's starting scenery would sometimes reset the boss fight causing loss of progress.
Fixed a bug where the music was interrupted by weapon fire and other SFX.
Fixed stash expand tooltip showing not updating the expansion cost if the player kept the mouse over the button.
Original post
30 Mar 2021Developer post
New Gameplay Feature: Wingman !
New Fabricator Ability: Spawn Wingman New ability has been added to fabricator, it needs at least one weapon and one ship upgrade to activate. The wingman will benefit from up to three ship upgrades, exactly as your ship. The better equipment is used for wingman creation the more
New Fabricator Ability: Spawn Wingman

New ability has been added to fabricator, it needs at least one weapon and one ship upgrade to activate. The wingman will benefit from up to three ship upgrades, exactly as your ship.
The better equipment is used for wingman creation the more powerful and resistant to damage it will get.
Spawning first wingman cost depends on number of active wingman, the first one costs 10 rift dust, second 20, third 30 etc. Currently there's no limit of wingman you can have.
The game might get overall easier if you use wingman, on the other hand helping them stay alive in a big fight might be a different kind of challenge.
The wingman will follow you using their jump drive and keep formation unless dodging or heavily engaged in a dog fight.
The wingman have AI similar to silver enemies, quite able in combat but they will still make some mistakes.
UI/UX Improvements

The screen gets a heavy red outline if you get damaged, it gets more visible on very low hp.
Added a distinct siren warning if your structure heats below 40%.
Last stand ability now shows a prompt to use the appropriate button to activate it.
When overheated an on-screen message has been added that remind to tap the key to recover from overheat.
Gameplay adjustments

The ship should steer much better when both you and the enemy have a high speed.
Shooting at a enemy with high velocity/acceleration should be much easier, this is especially useful when the said enemy is engaged in combat with your wingman.
Fixed incorrect cost calculation for fabricator abilities.
Original post
21 Mar 2021Developer post
SPL is back! Gameplay has been overhauled
Hi. It's been a while since last update. I had to recharge my creative batteries and take a few steps back to have a better look at the game. The idea was to make a final decision on the course SPL should take and then commit to it - for good. Looter shooter The attribute based p
Hi.
It's been a while since last update. I had to recharge my creative batteries and take a few steps back to have a better look at the game.
The idea was to make a final decision on the course SPL should take and then commit to it - for good.
Looter shooter

The attribute based progression has been removed from the game.
You can now equip up to 4 weapons and 3 ship upgrades.
Items drop randomly from enemies with random tiers ranging from Damaged to Legendary.
Any weapon combination can drop from any enemy, if you like your Trident Deathray it may just drop from the first enemy.
Higher tiers have greater number of item modifiers.
Items also have a level: for weapons it's power level, for ship upgrades it's resilience level.
The higher the resilience level the more resistant to damage you are.
The higher the is the weapons power level, the higher is it's damage
To determine the ships resilience level average resilience level is taken from all ship upgrade slots. So if you have only a single ship modular with level 300, your ships resilience will be equal to 100.
By beating tougher enemies the level of the loot drops will increase.
You can earn a multipurpose resource - rift dust by defeating the enemies.
You can scrap items to gain rift dust.
You can fuse a selected item with some other items. The main items type and rarity is retained but the level is taken from average of all items. This way you can re-roll your Legendary items or fish for specific ship upgrades and weapons.
Death is not final

Dying doesn't end the game.
All your ships equipment is lost with the ship's destruction.
You can expand you subspace stash and store items there. These precious item slots are retained after death. Even if you die you can have good loot saved after you respawn.
The enemies will still drop items with level as high as before death, so you can quickly bounce back even if you have no items left.
Encounters are no longer random

Each hostile encounter has been designed and is no longer random.
Enemies can now use any one of 63 weapons.
Enemy waves are designed with enemy tiers, weapons, upgrades, formations to provide a unique experience in each encounter.
Boss fights are a fixed sequence: Forgotten Hero, Mother of Many, Nexus Zero. In the future this will mean three tiers of boss fights. So when new bosses are added Forgotten Hero will still only appear as first boss fight.
More varied combat

Flying quickly is as viable defense as dodging, the enemies will most often miss you if you keep moving. This promotes more aggressive tactics where you approach or rush the enemies instead of sniping from afar and dodging away from danger.
Some weapon types have been reworked to provide unique gun-play.
The boss fights are more deadly.
New direction
SPL will focus in future updates on:

Loot: Improving looting experience
Loot: Adding completely new item types with new purpose
Combat: Adding new encounters, enemy types and boss fights
Combat: Adding interactive arena elements and environmental traps to enhance combat
Combat: Adding synergies between enemies
Visuals: Making the sceneries more varied in shape and colour
Score
The in game score (fame) has not been perfected for the new gameplay. The leaderboard has been temporarily hidden and the score will likely get wiped soon.
I didn't want to hold the release for another week for the sake of this feature.
Other improvements

Added volumetric fog and lighting.
Improved SFX.
Greatly reduced save game size.
Fixed numerous crashes.
Original post
29 Dec 2020Developer post
For new players: Three new introduction encounters
Hi, Dear new players. I might be working on the roadmap for SPL for the next few months, but firstly I need to make the game more approachable for you. New intro encounters Created a new tier of enemy - crippled. They can't move, or use jump drive. Added three new introduction en
Hi,
Dear new players. I might be working on the roadmap for SPL for the next few months, but firstly I need to make the game more approachable for you.
New intro encounters

Created a new tier of enemy - crippled. They can't move, or use jump drive.
Added three new introduction encounters where the new players can get used to the enemy types and do some target practice. Also it might be a good intermediate step between the tutorials and the real fight.
Each intro encounter starts with 6 crippled enemies, once these are cleared a fully active bronze enemy appears, as a tutorial 'mini boss' - the real deal to fight.
Each intro has some brief description about effective strats to use against the specific enemies, their strengths and weakness.
UI Changes

Wall of text popups now appear on the left side of the screen instead of center, should feel much less intrusive.
Thanks and enjoy!
Original post
28 Dec 2020Developer post
SPL - what's next?
Hi, Have some very good news and a little bit of bad news: Bad news - The first big patch will be delayed for some (finite and not very long) time. Very good news - The next patches will follow a complete plan towards a milestone that will make the game much better. I am working
Hi,
Have some very good news and a little bit of bad news:

Bad news - The first big patch will be delayed for some (finite and not very long) time.
Very good news - The next patches will follow a complete plan towards a milestone that will make the game much better.
I am working on a whole plan for the game, rather than trying figure out from update to update how to make the game incrementally better. Incremental changes are ok, but they're a bit like wandering in the dark.
The whole plan for the game - sounds big doesn't it ? The idea is pretty simple, take the most fundamental flaws of SPL and get rid of them while adding more gameplay.
Coming from the creator of the game:
This is the biggest criticism and my motivations for the 'whole plan'

SPL is predictable in the wrong way, monotonous instead of familiar.
SPL is linear. Fight arenas, get upgrades, beat boss, repeat. Arena based action roguelikes are like this, but SPL is a space game with free, very fast movement. This contradicts the linear gameplay. Also I spent months of programming preparing the game to be more open. In the end I got scared and stuck with safe, linear play. It's time to get braver and finish what I started.
SPL doesn't have a good hook for new players. The game doesn't suck you in initially, there should be much more easy gratification in early game.
SPL doesn't challenge you anymore if you got good at the game.
SPL doesn't reward you enough for the play. The upgrades are too easy to obtain and predictable.
SPL confuses new players.
SPL doesn't capitalize enough on the movement part of the gameplay, the speed, the realistic physics. More gameplay should revolve around it.
SPL doesn't have roguelike replay-ability, no meta-gameplay.
SPL offers arsenal limited to 'normal weapons', there's no special combat abilities, items etc.
So the plan in a nutshell is:
Keep what we have, the core is pretty great, make it more open and exciting.
I hope this is something for you to look forward to. Keep in mind that I'm not the most patient person in the world and the first update will be pretty soon. I'll want to show some progress as soon as possible!
Best wishes in the New Year,
Paweł
Original post
15 Dec 2020Developer post
SPL is now rogue-like
Hi, the time-management mechanic didn't survive the test of time (haha), most importantly - it wasn't fun. It took away meaning from dying and put unnecessary pressure on the player. From now on SPL won't rush you. The perma-death is always on. So is the game just harder now ? Wh
Hi,
the time-management mechanic didn't survive the test of time (haha), most importantly - it wasn't fun.
It took away meaning from dying and put unnecessary pressure on the player.
From now on SPL won't rush you. The perma-death is always on.
So is the game just harder now ? What about other time related gameplay?
Read below.
Last Stand

New ship ability, used via Left Ctrl or gamepad Y. Will heal you to maximum, knockback enemies and incoming projectiles - effectively saving your life
Tied to new resource - Energy. It consumes 100% energy and requires 100% energy to use
Energy

Can be recover by flying through Irides
Overheal decay recharges energy - if you are healed to 100% and you are overcharged, the disappearing extra health replenishes energy
Purging tech progress recovers energy - 1 ship/terran/native/starborne point converts into 1% of energy
Perma death

Yep -it's always on. If you die - you die, game over
You no longer can die instantly from a collision with a static objects (even when using jump drive), figured that dying from mistakes in combat is fun, crashing into asteroids ending in game-over is not
Exposure

This mechanic is disabled for now, as the timer is gone, looking for a new place for it
Balance

Removed Expansion weapon mod, weapons still have 4 mod slots, however each slot can have unlimited quantity of mods of same type - so you can have 'Accuracy x5', 'Efficient x10', 'Anti-Armour x3' etc.
Less enemy waves per encounter
Less enemies per wave, this means that silver and gold enemies will be much more common above 100% threat
Starborne will jump very close to the player, becoming a close-combat, almost melee opponent
Nexus Zero spawns minions more often
Overcharge decays more much more quickly (and converts into energy), if you are fully healed
Performance

GPU related framerate has gone massively up. If your graphics card wasn't enough, it should work much better now
What's next?
There are two major priorities ahead:

New player experience - the game should be much easier to pick up and more fun from the start
Breaking the routine - add more game elements that will push the player to make a mistakes and die, but still holding the principle tough but fair
Original post
08 Dec 2020Developer post
Gameplay update - 0.3.1
Hi, A bit late with the patch notes today. So you said that the ship is unresponsive and overheat is not fun? Well I agree, it was! Gameplay changes You can recover significantly quicker if you press any key rapidly when overheated. C'mon, star... start working damn it! Hit that
Hi,
A bit late with the patch notes today.
So you said that the ship is unresponsive and overheat is not fun?
Well I agree, it was!
Gameplay changes

You can recover significantly quicker if you press any key rapidly when overheated. C'mon, star... start working damn it! Hit that space!
All ships have now twice the acceleration and maneuverability.
Player ship has higher turning rate compared to AIs to allow easier flanking.
In the light of new, crazy velocities the aim assist has been tuned up. Now the player has the same aim assist accuracy as the AI. Shooting was never really about aiming but timing and positing so it's all for the best.
(Prototype) As a request from one of the players holding SHIFT now activates auto-look-at-lock-on camera. We'll see how it lands. On gamepad this is turned on via Right Thumbstick press.
Intuitive gamepad mapping - to fly according to Left Analog stick. Left analog now accelerates forward, left, right, backward. LT, RB are up and down acceleration. Braking was remapped to A.
Disabled the ability to select empty weapon slot, as it didn't serve any purpose but could confuse new players.
Doing all the tutorials is mandatory now if you start the game for the first time, but each tutorial objective has been significantly shortened. This way we ensure the new player will learn the basics but not get bored by tutorial length (hopefully!).
Have fun, and let me know what you think!
Paweł
Original post
03 Dec 2020Developer post
Patch 0.3.0
Patch 0.3.0 Hi, so the first patch for the released game is here! Gameplay Enemy attack broadcasts are now much more visible Bronze Tier enemies and Bosses will no longer have perfect accuracy Explosions caused by death of enemies defeated by the player no longer harm the player
Patch 0.3.0
Hi,
so the first patch for the released game is here!
Gameplay

Enemy attack broadcasts are now much more visible
Bronze Tier enemies and Bosses will no longer have perfect accuracy
Explosions caused by death of enemies defeated by the player no longer harm the player
Maximum enemy wave size reduced to 5, while the enemy wave size difficulty remained the same
The game will restricts the number of enemies that can attack the player at one given moment. This means that it's less likely to encounter huge wave of very easy enemies. Silver and gold tier enemies should appear more often
Reduced the time needed for the boss to appear each chapter
Other

Improved UX of the starting loadout screen
Original post
01 Dec 2020Developer post
New Content Update #6
Hi, so the game got released to Early Access ! It's been a while since the last update announcement. I was too busy bugfixing! New features Every object in game (asteroid, megastructure cube etc.) is now physical and many have angular velocity, which means they rotate. This is th
Hi,
so the game got released to Early Access!
It's been a while since the last update announcement. I was too busy bugfixing!
New features

Every object in game (asteroid, megastructure cube etc.) is now physical and many have angular velocity, which means they rotate. This is the first step to make the sceneries alive.
Due to some mysterious presence all megastructures deteriorate while the game progresses
Added two new megastructure sceneries
Each weapon has been limited to 4 weapon mods. Mods don't stack anymore by default (see below)
New weapon mod - Extension. If equipped the next slot has 3x capacity. So if you use it, in the next slot you can put 3x Accuracy mods instead of 1x Accuracy mod
Added a new game settings: Invert Pitch and VSync options
Improved death mechanic: After respawn if in presence of the nemesis te time is consumed quicker. So you need to kill the enemy that bested you or the exposure will kick in quicker. The weaker the enemy that killed you the stronger the drain. If you were bested by a tough enemy the time consumption multiplier will cap at 120%
Tutorials

Added new information when the player finishes all the tutorials, giving few more tips.
After the player finishes the first tutorial they are now encouraged to get into an easy fight to teach the player that the tutorials are optional and can be revisited
Combat tutorial has been reworked.
Balance

Nerfed Starborne Nexus. It's using sentinel deathray and scatter starlance in second phase. Greatly reduced rotation rotate so it can be flanked effectively. It's overheat time is much longer giving more time to catch breath
Nerfed Native Nexus. It can now overheat. Greatly reduced it's rotation rate to enable flanking
Native Nexus will now dodge and be overall annoying as the rest of the natives.
Time flows when inventory is open
Irides are now much evenly distributed in the 'Relics' encounter
Gamepad has much stronger autoaim now
All enemies try to approach the player even closer, each species has even more distinct defense/dodge/parry behaviour.
Silver and gold enemies are much more challenging
Performance

Fixed performance drops that often occurred during combat and caused unfair deaths
Disabled framerate smoothing - this feature caused momentary performance last longer
Bugfixes

Break to match velocity mechanic was broken most of the time which was especially dangerous in the combat tutorial
Fixed bloom glitches causing graphics artifacts during fights and greatly reducing visibility
Fixed numerous bugs with gamepad and UI interaction
Fixed a bug where when fast travelling with inventory open the jump drive would accelerate the ship in opposite direction than desired
Fixed numerous bugs with scenery displacement. These issues were haunting the game for more than a year. Megastructure elements ended up in wrong spots. This was especially bad in the 'Relics' encounter, where Irides were spawned inside level geometry making the encounter impossible to finish
Starborne Nexus physics glitching when consuming red shells
Fixed numerous bugs with collision avoidance logic. These caused enemies to eventually die due to collisions without any shots fired
Enemies will no longer chase you if you jump drive. This chasing effectively locked the player in encounter and made escaping fights impossible
Original post
07 Nov 2020Developer post
New Gameplay Update #4
Hi there, In this patch two new crowd control mechanics have been added: Kinetic blast Full shield has been improved with new functionality! When activated it charges with incoming bullet kinetic energy Once released it explodes with the stored energy knocking back everyone aroun
Hi there,
In this patch two new crowd control mechanics have been added:
Kinetic blast

Full shield has been improved with new functionality!
When activated it charges with incoming bullet kinetic energy
Once released it explodes with the stored energy knocking back everyone around
The more massive the enemy the less affected they are, the fragile ones will be hit most hard
Can be life saver if you find yourself overwhelmed by the enemy numbers
Can be used to smash enemies into asteroids or other static objects
The kinetic blast becomes weaker with distance, having no effect at 4km, with biggest kick at point blank
Explosions

Staggered ships (glowing in yellow) explode when destroyed
When performing glory kill you are immune to this explosion
The explosion strength is proportional to the ships health bar length
Only regular stagger-able enemies explode, lesser minions and bosses do not
As with kinetic blast the explosion strength depends on distance from the epicentre, fading completely at 4 km
Bugfixes

Dynamic objects like destructible asteroids or Irides were sometimes not stationary and flied away when the player arrived at the scene
Scenery static elements like megastructure parts or asteroids would occasionally pop out of place when approached
Original post
01 Nov 2020Developer post
New Content Update #5
New Content Update #5 Hi there, Native Nexus Third boss fight is available Native Nexus can be defeated in a direct fight, but without understanding it's behaviour it might be difficult. It's the most fragile but at the same time deadly Nexus from the three This boss excels at lo
New Content Update #5
Hi there,
Native Nexus

Third boss fight is available
Native Nexus can be defeated in a direct fight, but without understanding it's behaviour it might be difficult.
It's the most fragile but at the same time deadly Nexus from the three
This boss excels at long range combat and summons deadly minions to help in the fight
Narrative

Added missing radio chatter for Natives and Starborne, now all species will talk to you during combat
Different enemy tiers have something different to say
Enemy chatter should give you a better idea on what's going on in SPL world, if you take a careful notice of what they're saying
Upgrades

Added new weapon keyword: Dooming - it will reduce heat cost of weapons by 50% or 100% if taken twice. The amount reduced will damage your ship.
Balance changes to some of the weapon keywords
Have fun!
Original post
28 Oct 2020Developer post
New Content Update #4
New Content Update #4 Hi there, Narrative Added Journal accessible via Inventory screen or by pressing 'J' button. Some encounters will unlock journal entries. First three part mini story has been added. More will come, hopefully every week. Added radio chatter, the Terran enemie
New Content Update #4
Hi there,
Narrative

Added Journal accessible via Inventory screen or by pressing 'J' button.
Some encounters will unlock journal entries.
First three part mini story has been added. More will come, hopefully every week.
Added radio chatter, the Terran enemies will communicate with you. Messages from Natives and Starborne coming up next.
Balance

As the game starts with a weapon choice and free upgrade, new tech levels are leveling up 50% slower. It was observed that you can very quickly get a crazy amount of upgrades in the first chapter.
Enemies will prefer now to fight at a much shorter range. Sniping with hailgun shouldn't be the easy default tactic anymore. This also makes Terrans and Starborne much more deadly but Natives easier to kill.
The enemies will get more deadly, the more of them are in your close proximity, their aggression and accuracy will increase.
Starborne will now be much more defensive by default and fall back to using shield instead of blindly attacking. They are the slowest and biggest target and it made them very easy to kill. Flanking should be now the default tactic when fighting Starborne.
Original post
21 Oct 2020Developer post
New Gameplay Update #3
Hi there, New death mechanic If you get defeated by another ship they will steal all your tech progress! The enemy that defeated you is marked with purple colour on hud and has purple electric discharge VFX You can get back your lost progress by defeating this enemy Progress will
Hi there,
New death mechanic

If you get defeated by another ship they will steal all your tech progress!
The enemy that defeated you is marked with purple colour on hud and has purple electric discharge VFX
You can get back your lost progress by defeating this enemy
Progress will be retained if you crash in a collision with a static object or during boss fight.
Consequence of death for will be specific to a given boss fight, starborn nexus will respawn one yellow shell and terran nexus will regenerate a large portion of it's armour
Gameplay changes

The AI director will now do a better job of scaling the AI difficult in larger fights. Decreased AI aggression and accuracy when fighting multiple enemies while retaining difficulty of smaller fights
The enemies will defend - deflect or dodge more often
Combat encounters with threat above 100% will become significantly more difficult
Gold tier enemies will spawn more often
Silver enemies will use shield counter infrequently
Gold enemies will use shield counter quite often
Enemies that can counter will do it only if they clearly see the projectile coming, you should be safe from counters when flanking or shooting them in the back
Countering now instantly fails if you got recently damaged or received a shield hit
Failing a counter will render the shield inoperable for a short while
Countered projectiles are much more accurate
Enemies won't intentionally deflect or dodge incoming countered bullets, making counters more effective
Encounter changes

Doubled the size of the smallest iris rings, tpp camera made it hard to fly through, resulting in frustrating collisions and deaths
A hud indicator will now point at the next iris ring - most of the players got lost or had trouble fiding the last few irides, especially after crashing and dying
Gamepad improvements

Analog stick rotation is much more precise
Added analog stick acceleration, quick turns during a flyby are now possible
The reticle becomes sticky when using gamepad, it sticks to hud targets making it easier to aim or pick fast travel targets
When shooting the reticle will quickly start pointing directly at the enemy
The whole UI is again fully supported and usable via gamepad
Bugfixes

Limited the maximum length of enemy health bars. If the limit is exceeded the bars will get thicker
Original post
15 Oct 2020Developer post
New Content Update #3
New Content Update #3 Hi there, Terran Nexus The second boss fight is available! The Terran Nexus is a slow turning, bulky but very powerful cruiser. It knows how to dodge, and use it's shield well enough to counter your shots. Unlike Starborn Nexus it can be defeated in a direct
New Content Update #3
Hi there,
Terran Nexus

The second boss fight is available!
The Terran Nexus is a slow turning, bulky but very powerful cruiser. It knows how to dodge, and use it's shield well enough to counter your shots. Unlike Starborn Nexus it can be defeated in a direct fight.
The game will now finish after both fights have been complete.
The icon next to the nexus arrival bar tells you which boss you are going to fight in the current chapter. At the moment the boss fights come in random order. If you want to specifically fight the new boss, just restart the game once or twice and make sure you see a Terran species icon.
Boss fights now scale according to threat level. If you constantly pick very difficult fights, the nexus encounter will get more difficult but succeeding will yield much more fame. Nexus fights below threat 100% will be accordingly easier.
Finishing the first nexus fight will replenish 50% of the elapsed time.
The game will now increase the combat pacing if you are doing well.
I will be focusing next on making the death mechanic more meaningful and interesting.
Also as the game gets longer the next design goals are to make the mid game more varied and interesting: A new tier of elite enemies will appear at least once each combat, they will drop a 5th resource, used to unlock Perks.
Original post
09 Oct 2020Developer post
Patch 0.2.30
Hi there, Changes As a test made targeting enemies more challenging with fix weapon variants (Trident, Auto, Scatter). Turret mounted weapon variants have been slightly improved Fixed a bug that weapons could scale VFX and SFX without limit, so for instance shooting a phasebolt i
Hi there,
Changes

As a test made targeting enemies more challenging with fix weapon variants (Trident, Auto, Scatter).
Turret mounted weapon variants have been slightly improved
Fixed a bug that weapons could scale VFX and SFX without limit, so for instance shooting a phasebolt in a large fight would make you blind and deaf.
Balanced Starborne Nexus fight, the phasebolt doesn't guarantee a easy win anymore. The boss will use Starlance and Deathray weapons in different fight stages.
Enemies will change acceleration and trajectory much smoother, this addresses the auto-aim jittering.
Enemies that fly in formation (including Starborne nexus shells) will have much less erratic trajectory if the player aims at them.
Balanced some of the new weapons
Greatly increased Native's armour regeneration cooldown after hit, they were almost impossible to kill with slow shooting weak weapons.
Fixed a couple of random crashes
Made the game leaner, reduces the size by 200MB
Have fun!
Original post

Updates & announcements

Balance changes

Visuals

Balance

Gameplay

Bugfixes

Changes

Changes

Bugfixes

New Feature

New feature: Mines

Improvements

Major bug fixes

New Fabricator Ability: Spawn Wingman

UI/UX Improvements

Gameplay adjustments

Looter shooter

Death is not final

Encounters are no longer random

More varied combat

New direction

Score

Other improvements

New intro encounters

UI Changes

This is the biggest criticism and my motivations for the 'whole plan'

Keep what we have, the core is pretty great, make it more open and exciting.

Last Stand

Energy

Perma death

Exposure

Balance

Performance

What's next?

Gameplay changes

Patch 0.3.0

Gameplay

Other

New features

Tutorials

Balance

Performance

Bugfixes

Kinetic blast

Explosions

Bugfixes

New Content Update #5

Native Nexus

Narrative

Upgrades

New Content Update #4

Narrative

Balance

New death mechanic

Gameplay changes

Encounter changes

Gamepad improvements

Bugfixes

New Content Update #3

Terran Nexus

Changes