Hey Survivors!
Pavel finally found the balance sheet Zombiestein tried to steal — turns out it was buried under wrench grease the whole time. This week the crew on the Machine spent more time with numbers than night hordes: consumable timings, crafting costs, and the Zombieburg's spawn window all got passes until the friction stopped working against us. The countdown to launch is on! Here are a few more changes coming on June 12.
Buffs that finally feel like buffs
Carrot Juice, Mushroom Salad, and the Sprint Potion had their effect durations pulled wide open — Carrot Juice went from 2 minutes to 10, Sprint Potion from 3 minutes to 15, Mushroom Salad the same 2→10 treatment. The old windows evaporated mid-fight; the new ones are long enough to actually build around. Every consumable in the stack — Apple Shake, Berry Jam, Berries — also had its total stacking ceiling expanded, so effects accumulate longer before the cap cuts in.
Gunpowder, rifles, and the resource cleanup
Gunpowder had one crafting ingredient requirement cut from 5 to 2 — late-game ammo spending was compressing tighter than intended. Sniper and precise rifle recipes had their crafting station assignments corrected while we were in there. A separate pass also covered gear upgrade components, tailoring materials, and a handful of mid-game resources that had started to dominate economy pacing.
Combat: headshots land, sprint moves
Headshot mechanic — bonus damage when a shot connects with an enemy's head — now fires reliably across ranged weapons. Sprint got a fix too: transitioning out of combat no longer carries the combat-speed penalty into the sprint, so movement stays at full speed instead of a hybrid crawl. The Advanced Cannon — the Machine's heavy stationary turret — had a second variant built and balanced this week, adding more firepower to the night defence lineup.
Loot V2: drops match the fight
Loot V2 — the rebuilt loot system with rarity tiers and signature drops per enemy type — had rarity tiers activated across all enemy types this week. Drop pools now split by enemy class, so what you pick up reflects who you fought rather than a shared bucket.
New looks for familiar tools + Zombieburg timing
Iron and Steel tier IV tools — pickaxe, axe, hammer — now use dedicated models instead of shared placeholders. The Zombieburg's spawn logic also got a reliability fix: Pavel reports the encounter now fires on schedule, which he seems suspiciously cheerful about.
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37 days out from June 12 — the Machine is getting tighter by the week. Anything in current EA that's still fighting you? Drop it in Discord — we triage daily. Every fix, every balance pass — we hope it hits different when you're actually in it. That's the whole point!
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