A couple of months back, we started a project to bring the performance of Budget Cuts (BC1) up to Budget Cuts 2 (BC2) parity. We soon realized that the most effective way to do this is to port the game to the BC2 codebase. This had added benefits, such as simplifying the ability to port features over as well! For example we now have the Mutators menu available in BC1, which includes Smooth Locomotion and other, perhaps more wacky, things!
(Pictured: a typical workday at Neat Corporation)
Most important of all though, is the significantly increased performance and bugfixes we gained from the port. This also brings us to the fact that BC2 is recieving an update at the same time, because not only did BC1 benefit from BC2 features, we also added some significant improvements which affect both games:
- Multithreaded AI vision system rewrite
- Single Pass Instanced Rendering
- Multithreaded custom physics force calculations
We hope you enjoy this as much as we enjoy bringing it to you!
Budget Cuts changelog:
(NOTE: it is a difficult task to write a comprehensive changelog in this case because of all the changes that have occurred over the year since the Arcade Patch, but I will do my best. Consider this "including but not limited to")
- Mutators! Replaces difficulty settings. Allows you to customize your experience in finer detail, as well as experience the game in new ways
- Mutator: Homing knives (aka aim assist)
- Mutator: Smooth locomotion
- Mutator: Smooth turning (replaces snap-turning when enabled)
- Mutator: Infinite Stabby Crystals (Grab the air for a free sharp object)
- Mutator: Bullet Time (Triggers slowmo when guns are fired)
- Mutator: Paltkoma (Triggers slowmo when eating)
- Mutator: Gravity modifiers
- Mutator: Enemy aim skill
- Mutator: Enemy detection speed
- Mutator: Bullet speed
- Mutator: NPC animation speed
- Mutator: NPC health
- Mutator: Starting equipment
- Mutator: Can use guns (player can use Supervisor’s guns)
- Mutator: Unarmed Supervisors
- Mutator: Fragile knives (see below)
- Mutator: Translocator launch force
- Mutator: Stealth Translocator (see below)
- HR level scripting reworked, plus new lighting and bugfixes
- Updated HR control panel graphic to match the real one player uses
- Faster loading times
- Valve Index support
- Vive Cosmos support
- Magnifying glass can tag enemies for seeing them through walls
- Controllers now use SteamVR Input 2.0, allowing nicer rebinding of buttons
- Steam Cloud savegame sync
- Distance grabbing and snap turning options separated from playspace type
- Distance grabbing improvements
- Some distance interactions (swipe cards at a distance and more)
- New updated roomba
- Translocator button bindings match BC2
- Better translocator landing logic
- Translocator head origin turns red if the target location is inside a wall
- Quick switch tools (tap tool select button to quick switch to previous tool)
- Multithreaded AI vision system rewrite
- Single Pass Instanced Rendering
- Multithreaded custom physics force calculations
- Portal uses scissor rect to significantly reduce drawcalls
- Spectator screen no longer has a border and takes up the full screen
- Sharp objects now break on impact with an NPC by default ("Fragile knives" mutator controls this)
- Sneak translocation removed (NPCs can only hear you translocate within arms length. Enabling "Stealth Translocator" mutator brings back old style)
- Significantly fewer cases of game not being able to start when pressing play in menu
- Items no longer pile up at world origin on load (in certain scenes)
- Screws are no longer missing after loading savegame
- Fewer random physics explosions with ragdolls
- Can no longer call numbers you haven't recieved on your pager
- Checkpoints now immediately save the status of the game, fixing various savegame bugs
- Inventory stability fixes, no more invisible items
- Most lensflares are now Flaires(tm), allowing them to be properly cropped by the portal
- Simplified grabbing of translocator in Genesis
- Removed useless "graphics settings"
- Wicked new loading bar
- Physics optimizations
- NPC optimizations
- No more lazy devs :)
- Updated sinister voice
- Unarmed state improvements for Supervisors
- Unity updated to 2018.4.21
- Various stability fixes
- Probably more :)
Potential worries:
Q: Where's my graphics settings?
A: The only thing this setting controlled was MSAA, and it's generally not recommended to play VR without MSAA so away it goes. It's still available in the config file if you want to change it anyway!
Q: Where's my difficulty settings?
A: They've been replaced by the new feature we call "Mutators". You can modify the game to your liking more finegrained than before, but if you really want to find the same settings as the old difficulties, here's a list:
Relaxing:
- Fragile knives: off
- Detection speed: Slow
- NPC Health: Very Low
- Aim skill: Weak
Standard:
- Fragile knives: off
- Detection speed: Standard
- NPC Health: Low
- Aim skill: Standard
Extra:
- Fragile knives: on
- Detection speed: Standard
- NPC Health: Standard
- Aim skill: Standard
Q: Why was "Sneak Translocation" removed from standard play? Why do knives break on NPCs now?
A: Consider this the Director's cut. See the mutators if you want to bring the old experience back
