Dear Silica community,
It's been two months since the Early Access release, and many things have been happening on the surface of Baltarus. We want to look into the most crucial improvements we have been able to release so far. Let's take a look!
While carefully reading the Steam reviews and feedback on social media, we noticed that you, the community, are really looking for better performance. There is a demand to partake in huge battles with large swarms of aliens. Dram, the main developer of Silica, wants to make sure that those battles feel smooth and fun. That is why he dived into optimizations that improve the FPS and performance in general. Take a look at the comparison in the video below the article! The performance also improved for construction effects or situations where the harvester is attacked by alien swarms.
Another area that has been improved across the board is communication between players, as well as the commander. You can now clearly indicate friendly units thanks to player tags. The chat window has also gone through improvements in terms of readability and better responsiveness. The addition of a ping system allows players to clearly indicate points of interest or enemy targets.
The commanders can use the new feature called "Direct Control", which allows them to jump into a selected unit and play in the FPS mode more seamlessly. Alien commanders can now instruct the crabs to submerge by giving them the "stealth mode" order. Harvesters have also received improvements and fixes. The updates brought better pathfinding, turning, as well as the addition of machine guns on top.
We also focused on quality-of-life improvements. For example, labels of points of interest and buildings which help you navigate better around the structures. Both alien and human vision modes have been significantly improved, and playing at night is now clearer and more enjoyable!
And that's it. Thank you for your support during these unforgettable two months. Join our social media so you can continuously follow all the updates. We're already looking forward to next month, which will bring air units to Silica.
See you on Baltarus!