The Storm Update brings new content, requested features, balance changes and bug fixes, but not without a few growing pains.
If you haven't already heard, I'll be moving (back) to California after an extended stay away, and The Storm Update is my way to packing as much new content into the game as possible for all of you while I take the time to settle in. But it was perhaps a bit too much.
Ultimately, I had to roll back a few pieces of content that were causing all manner of game breaking bugs, so that I could ensure I got this update out, with time to make adjustments before I begin my travels.
That means, the new zone, The Lepi Sector won't feel as full of brave new ideas as I had hoped (YET), but over the coming days I hope to add those back in. The new boss is my most ambitious yet, and that remains, but several enemy types had to be taken out for now, and replaced with enemies from previous zones. It also means the Symbionic upgrades were pushed back, though I expect 1-2 of the planned 3 to make it back in before I move.
Oh, and many of you have mentioned the music gets a bit repetitive after a while, and I've heard you. My musician is not only updating the current work in progress tracks to be more polished, varied, and longer, but he's also working on act variations to bring fresh sounds to the fight after each boss battle.
With all that said, let's get in to what actually IS in this update. It's a lot!:
Major Features
- The Lepi Sector
- New Boss: The Monarch
- 4 new enemy types
- New music track (work in progress)
- Updated music for the Rachni Belt (work in progress)
- Pause Inventory
- New Player Tutorial selectable on Apoid (work in progress)
- 2 New Pilots: Tempest, Ace
- 3 New Unlockable Ship skins: The Hawk, The Cobra, The Mantis
- 3 New Weapons
- 5 New Utilities
- 3 New Augments (2 pilot-specific)
- 10 New Achievements
- Community Item Drops Enabled - 7 trading cards - 5 badge ranks - 4 profile backgrounds - 5 emotes - 4 point-shop-exclusive animated avatars
New Features
- New Player Tutorial: Selectable from the deploy menu on the Apoid Colony, pop ups will explain the very basics to plays as they progress. More tips and some overlays for using the upgrade menus are coming. Let me know if there's something that's hard to understand that should be included.
- Upgrade Inventory: You can now pause the game and select the inventory to take a look at what upgrades you have, their types, synergies, and read a level-agnostic description of what they do.
New Zone
- The Lepi Sector: Work in progress. Features 4 new enemy types, an ambitious new boss (wait for it...), a new music track, and 1 new background. Expect regular updates to the content and polish of this zone. There is still a lot to do, from new enemies and combat events, to visual and sound polish. It's also the HARDEST zone yet.
New Pilots
- Tempest: An electric new pilot, with a penchant for shocking behavior. - Weapon: Buzz Beacons - Augment: Shock Collar
- Ace: For those of you wanting a silly challenge. Ace picks all of his upgrades at random, and you can borrow one of three augments from another pilot. He can start with some strange weapon choices, and push you to get a little creative.
New Weapons
- The Dronerang: A boomerang style drone launches out in 1 of 5 directions before returning. Dealing damage both directions.
- Buzz Beacons: Swirling, electric beacons rotate around your ship, damaging and stunning enemies they collide with.
- Static Surge: A new "powerup" type weapon, that turns you into a ball of electric energy, allowing you to crash through enemies, damaging and stunning them as you go. Beware! You overload your own systems briefly, so make sure you end in a safe space.
New Utilities
- Crystal Drone: A drone made of crystalline gems floats down the screen. Damaging it causes it to shoot beams out at nearby enemies.
- Voltarget: Your lock on weapons can now deal electric damage and stun enemies
- Amplifryer: Electric weapons deal more damage and stun enemies longer
- Recycler: Charges from collecting powerups. Spawns a mini powerup omewhere on the battlefield. Works with Hot Streak and Static Surge, as another new "powerup" type of upgrade.
- Drone Cloner: Creates a temporary copy of a random drone that you have equipped. The more drones you have equipped, the shorter the cooldown.
New Ships: "Smol Ship" variations have not yet been implemented, but will be coming soon
- The Hawk: Unlocked with the Aces Hive achievement
- The Cobra: Unlocked with the Stingking Hard achievement
- The Mantis: Unlocked with the Moth-R-Load achievement
Balance: Major updates to a number of older weapons and utilities are also in the works
- Sideline: Levels 1,3,4,5 all have had the beam width increased.
- Hail Mary: Distance based damage has been removed. Now does full damage at any range. A major rework to both the Hail and Heal Marys is in progress.
- Unstable Core: Does 75 damage up from 50
- Jumper Cables: Now charge faster, and triggers as soon as it's full - 96,000 -> 7000 charge - Grants 2 shields - Now deals 10 damage to enemies around you and stuns them for 0.5 seconds
- Space Net: Chance increased to 50%
- Power Converter: Now only gains 1 max HP for mini powerups
- Electric effects can only stun enemies once every 3 seconds
- EMP effects now remove powerups
- Kinetic upgrades no longer charge while you are EMP'd
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue with the Light Rail that caused its impact effects to get stuck in memory despite not being visible to the player
- Further adjustments to prevent the Sting King from soft locking the game by becoming invincible and refusing to play (this may not be entirely fixed yet, but it will be in a near future patch)
- High Roller achievement will no longer improperly trigger.