There is now an optional cursor for menus. You can specify whether there is a cursor for both windowed mode and fullscreen mode. The intended use case is to not use a cursor for fullscreen mode, but then the user can quickly ALT-ENTER to windowed mode and use the cursor to click outside of the window.
The game now uses a SQLite database for saved games. This should help Linux users. This will apply to new games that are created, but old games will use the old database model. You can tell if the old database model is being used because there will be a yellow cylinder on the HUD.
In Tweedle-Dee Air there is a Tweedle Haunted House. These has several dungeons all focused around the idea of it being dark and you need to worry about seeing.
In addition to the old waypoint system, there is a new related system: bookmarks. Many waypoints in the world are now next to "bookmarks" (when it is not confusing). When you right click on a bookmark, it will become your "current bookmark", and you will be teleported to your current respawn point. This is intended to quickly go back to town to buy and sell. Then, when you right click on ANY respawn point, you will be teleported back to your current bookmark.
There is a new weapon mode for your Dark Hole weapon called the Black Hole Drive. This decreases air drag for 30 seconds, allowing you to move at about twice the speed. This can be found at the end of the Catacombs.
You can improve your telekinesis ability at certain stations. You can increase your telekinesis radius. The starting radius is 24. Also, if you have not used telekinesis for 30 seconds, your next telekinesis is free (does not cost money). This number 30 is decreased when you upgrade your telekinesis ability.
There is now a town at the top of I3 Inner Trees called Starksboro. Inside this town is the Library Library, which tells you where the libraries are in the world. Also in Starksboro is a Green Key. Can you figure out where to use it?
There is now a library in the treasure rooms of Amethysts: the Pink Library. This tells you which areas have Pink Rings which allow you to teleport outside of those areas.
Several modding API functions have been replaced (or removed entirely) by better solutions. This includes the genesis mode bool, Pink Ring teleportation, and Blue Ring teleportation. If you are a modder, you can now create your own entities that function like Pink Rings, Blue Rings, or Teleporters.
You now create a mod to change the font that the game uses.
If you open the console and run the command gendoc, then in addition to what it did before, it will create the folder Output/Documentation/ProgrammingAPI and it will generate several useful files there. These files list the functions you can call from Lua and the Lua functions which are called by the engine. This is useful if you are a modder.
Blocks can now have their own custom render functions. See package_tutorial2 for how to do this. If a block script has an __on_render function, that will be used to render the block. However, in this case the block must not be "visibly solid".
Previously the game could render 6 levels of detail. Now it can render up to 50. You can specify the number of levels to render by putting a line like the following into your Input/Scripts/program_startup.txt file:
set engine.render.num_render_levels 10.
If you do this, you might also want to open the console while you are playing the xar package and enter the following command:
set package.state.globals.render.levels_fade_out_local.enabled true
This will cause levels to be shaded darker if they are far away from the player's current level. For example, since in this configuration we are rendering 10 levels of detail, the player's level L will be 100% bright, the next coarsest level L-1 will be 90% bright, the next coarsest level L-2 will be 80% bright, etc. You can also set
package.state.globals.render.levels_fade_out_local.max_level_shade and
package.state.globals.render.levels_fade_out_local.min_level_shade
to tweak the behavior (setting the shade value of the viewer's level (max render level) and the min render level.
