Hello everyone, update 18 is released. There were quite a few patches since the last post (update 11) and tons of new stuff since that patch. These are some of the highlights from the updates since the last post, but this list is not exhaustive.
Update 18 brings achievements. In total, there are 16 achievements that can be unlocked by accomplishing different in-game tasks.
All the buildings, tools, weapons, resources, items, recipes, etc. from the crystal tier have been fully implemented. The new collector building can be used to automatically collect materials from the ground and pools instead of manually collecting them by hand. The new replicator building can replicate any item in the game, but it requires 5 ion batteries. And the spacecraft needs to be built in stages and fueled to be able to launch it and get off the planet.
New equipment in the crystal tier include the highest tier melee weapon and armor as well as a new ranged weapon, a new ammo type and a new healing item called medigel.
There is also a new boss called Guardian and is located in the lava biome. In order to finish the game, the Guardian needs to be defeated because it drops some items that are required to get off the planet.
Some of the new resources in the game include the alien vat and the freezer. The freezer can only be mined with the laser miner and it drops a new food item called synthetic meat, which can be cooked both in the campfire and the cookers. The lava biome has a whole set of new resources which include the magnet membrane and the emberphene pool, both of which produce items for late game crafting and building. It also has a gel vine which produces membrane gel. Membrane gel can also be obtained from the new gel pods in the crimson biome.
QOL improvements include gameplay, audio and UI improvements. There is new background music that reflects the gameplay and style of the game a bit better. The UI now has a button that transfers everything from a building’s output to the player inventory.
There are teleporters in the game now, which are spread out and used for fast travel. However, they need to be reached first and activated before they can be used.
Cookers now have their own inventory which only accepts cooking ingredients and you can cook whatever recipe you want as long as the cooker has the ingredients. The UI displays all the cooking ingredients that the cooker can use if you hover over an empty cooker slot. The vegetable garden also shows all the vegetables you can grow if you hover over an empty grow spot.
The solar thumper unearths materials faster and the solar station recharges empty batteries faster (including the new ion battery). There is also an upgraded collector tool which can collect 2 materials at once, which can be crafted in the blacksmith bench and the player animation for collecting materials is faster now.
The 3D models for some enemies, bosses, resources, items and other objects have been updated, which also improves the collision in the game and when objects get destroyed, mined or collected they emit particle effects.
Each biome has a specific type of enemy spawner in it and there are a bunch of new enemy spawners. There are two new enemies in the game: drone and cloaked acolyte which deal a lot of damage to the player.
Enemies and bosses are now tougher to fight in general. Enemies behave a bit different, compared to the previous versions of the game. They deaggro when the player is far away from them and some of them now aggro when the player gets near them. They spawn occasionally to attack the player and they spawn even more frequently when the spacecraft is built.
The game now has an ending, which means that it can be played from start to finish. This is a good point to leave early access. So, this patch will be the last one before the game is fully released. Other than rebalancing some recipes, there shouldn’t be any changes between this update and 1.0. The full release will be in about a month from now, but I don’t know the exact date yet.
Let me know if you encounter any bugs and have fun playing the new update.