Hey Commanders,

This week, we've focused a lot on refining the core gameplay experience, with on-hit VFX, sound effects, sound volume normalization and performance.

You will now hear and see different effects that match what is being hit: armor, shields, vehicles, and biologics. You will even notice different sounds and visual effects play based on how much armor a unit has, 5 armor and 1 armor sound differently and show different effects. We think these changes make the game feel very satisfying and more intuitive to play.

With all these new effects, will performance be worse you ask? Well, while you'll see a lot more effects in game, maybe 2 times the normal amount, we've found ways to boost VFX performance by about 4 times on specific VFX without losing any quality. So you can actually expect to have higher FPS now on bigger maps like Shadow Tide, whilst enjoying all the new visuals.

We've also normalized a lot of sound, making their relative volumes feel more natural against each other. We added many new sounds as well, including start, stop, and turn sounds for many units in the protectorate roster, as well as updated Xol sounds.

Below are some images and a short video to showcase the improved on-hit effects and sound.

There are many other changes including economy updates to campaign, a balance patch, tons of bug fixes, and crash fixes.

Thanks for your continued bug reports and feedback!

Intel 13th and 14th Gen CPU owners: after a crash, the game may now show a notice recommending a motherboard BIOS update, which addresses a known stability issue on these processors.

Changelog: Update #16

New: Hit Effects & Audio

Mechanical units show sparks

Shielded units show shields

• Blocked shots now have a different visual and sound

• Certain units now have sound effects for starting to move, stop moving, and turning

• Updated death animations for Xol, vehicles, thralls, and a few other units

• Updated building selection and extractor sounds

• New xol unit, ability, and destruction sounds

• Updated menu hover and click sounds in some areas

General Campaign

Economy Updates

• Operating tower build time decreased from 40s to 30s

• Extractor build time decreased from 126s for a full set to 66s

• Hexite pits mined out income reduced from 40% to 25% (Gold Hexite pits remain 50%)

• Hexite pits starting resources reduced (Mine out time is around 30% faster, dependent on difficulty)

We're looking to make the economy a more engaging part of the campaign, where you are actively hunting for resources as the ones you have access to run out rather than the amount of resources you are gaining being rather static. This is a first pass, and we'll be doing more changes, with most missions likely to receive additional expansions, especially flux (which in a future patch, will also be depletable)

The overall goal is to increase gameplay pace, decrease dead time, and increase how much you care about the state of the map.

General

• Corsair Demolitionist

  • Increased weapon cooldown from 2.14s to 2.54s

  • Changed weapon damage from 20 (+300% vs Medium) to 25 (+200% vs Medium)

• Mera

  • Health reduced from 600 to 550

  • Sword damage reduced from 100 to 90

  • Sword cleave reduced from 50% to 40%

  • Charge damage reduced from 150 to 100

  • Shield cooldown increased from 30s to 40s

• Decreased Valkaru Flamewalker damage

• Updated UI for loading older campaign play throughs (also fixes campaign corruption)

• Fixed an issue that stopped the defeat screen from triggering after losing all structures on some missions

• Misc cinematic cleanup/improvements

• Misc UI updates in Ship menus

• Fixed Top Bar appearing in some missions it shouldn't

• Fixed cinematics, cutscenes, and talking heads playing at reduced speed when a slower game speed was selected

• Fixed Valkaru artillery projectile being misaligned

Dead City

• Updated Bessie model

Liability Waiver

• Fixed scientists in the intro scene using the wrong model

Celestari

• Updated speaker model

Galactic War

General

• Retribution mutator

  • Scales units down after the bonus times out

  • Each stack is now independent with a duration of 60s

• Fixed an issue related to Mine Layers mutator

• Updated reaver boss model

• Updated icon for credits

• Updated visual style of tooltips in some areas of Galaxy Map

• Updated descriptions in some areas of Galaxy Map

• Improved Co-op Xol Ai Partner

Galavax

• Updated tornado VFX

Vynthra

• Reaver topbar now shows correct cooldown for clients

Xol

• Fixed Molten Xyther sometimes not reviving

Pirating Power

• Fixed areas of the map that allowed you to teleport into ravines

Versus/Skirmish/Survival

General

• Mera charge cooldown time increased from 9s to 17s

Legion

• Reanimate power cost reduced by 20%

• Hero Upgrade Cost Changed

  • Tier 1: 125 flux/45s to 100 flux/50s

  • Tier 2: 175 flux/70s to 150 flux/60s

• Dreadnought turret health increased from 225 to 400

• Terror Tank turret health increased from 225 to 250

Protectorate

• Shield power cost reduced by 10%

• Hellfire

  • Weapon cooldown reduced from 5s to 4s

  • Turret rotation speed increased

Xol

• Anrubic

  • Health increased from 175 to 250

  • Shields decreased from 175 to 0

  • Grapple cooldown increased from 12s to 14s

  • Spectron Form Blink cooldown increased from 18s to 24s

  • Spectron Form Blink stun time increased from .4s/.2s to .6s/.4s (Channel time before/after blink)

• Recall can no longer recall harvesters

• Orbital Laser move speed reduced from 500 to 450

• Efficient Replication changed from reduce replicate time to 2s to reduce by 50% (6s)

• Echo weapon damage increased from 13 (+50% vs Medium) to 13 (+100% vs Medium)

• Spectron weapon damage bonus changed from vs Medium to vs Heavy

• Synapse

  • Armor type changed from Light to Medium

  • Damage reduced from 30 to 20

Misc/Bug Fixes

• Fixed Valkaru Brute not doing damage

• Fixed Emperor Scarification site not working on dedicated servers

• Fixed Predator mine

• Ironwing missile now shows vulnerable progress bar

• Fixed Molten Xyther sometimes not reviving

• Molten Roller splash no longer hits air

• Fixed Echo hallucinations not spawning when attacking structures

• Fixed Aegis weapon range vs ground (0 to 10)

• Fixed Aegis merge time (5s to 24s)

• Fixed Loi'Kru healing cooldown (15s to 30s)

• Fixed being able to merge to Havoc after learning Havoc talent

• Fixed Cataclyst Ground Rupper having no cast range limit

• Gravitron and Paradox now have shields after merging is completed

• Valkaru beast topbar now shows correct cooldown for clients

• Updated reaver boss model in survival

General Changes/Bug Fixes

• Options hotkey now also closes the options menu instead of only opening it

• Fixed an issue with some units visually having double recoil for host

• Melee units with increased size automatically gain range to match the size

• Fixed a pathing issue related to units temporarily removed from the map counting as larger than they are

• Unit wobble on hit is less framerate dependent

• Updated localization for campaign defeat

• Updated Tanners hair

• Fixed stealthed units not showing for replay spectators

• Fixed ship movement being broken in replays

• Updated idle unit behaviour when pushed

• Updated ship banking

• Fixed roller animations being broken in replays

• Replays now correctly show unit tilt

• Updates to vehicle movement, primarily on tanks

• Updated Aster ability VFX

• Fixed a crash related to control groups

• Fixed impulse effects on non vehicles being jittery

• Fixed AI players not receiving a refund when cancelling queued buildings

• Better display of connection lost

• Updated animation system for Endari Needler, Xol Spectron, and Xyther to be more performant

• Performance updates for units shooting, weapon projectiles, and many abilities

• Updated logic for AI expanding with Legion and Xol

• Fixed ability unit highlight not always clearing the highlight

• Updated tooltip styling in some areas

• Fixed cutscene dialogue playing multiple times

• Visuals of turrets on tanks now aim up/down more correctly

• Fixed flickering of some units

• Performance improvements for when units spawn

• Fixed vector targeting abilities not working when casted via minimap

• Fixed charge base structures causing an unintentional purchase right after construction finishes in some cases where a hotkey was repeatedly pressed

• Fixed AI occasionally selecting a hero it shouldn't be able to

• Escape key now closes popups

• Fixed infused seedling selection circle being misaligned

• Fixed Mera's charge not being able to reduce a building past 1 health

Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters

Hi commanders, we'd like to ask that you please consider taking a moment to leave a Steam review. Your thoughts and feedback truly help shape the game. Even a short review would be a great help to the team.

Community Guides and Resources

Be sure to check out the latest community resources and guides.

• ZeroSpace.gg Library: Unit stats and faction guides for every faction, built by the community.

• Academy of Orion Warfare: The community academy on zerospace.gg with great builds and guides. Maybe contribute something yourself.

• Rankings: See where you and your rivals stand on the ladder, download anyone's past 25 replays to learn new strategies.

Engage and Stay Informed

You can find us on Discord, X, YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook for discussions, updates, and feedback. You can also find every patch note on our website.

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