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