Greetings Gaters!
We’re pleased to finally get this latest update into your hands! This is the biggest gameplay patch yet, so update your game on Steam and let us know what you think! To celebrate the launch we’re also putting the game on sale, at 25% discount for 10 days.
Despite the many changes, existing saves are still compatible. But for the optimum experience we recommend starting a new run.
Read on for the highlights - including some surprises not previously revealed! - and find the detailed changelog at the end of this message.
New Invaders & Adaptive Difficulty
Invasion waves are no longer limited to Sqarb Drones: 3 new types of invader join the ranks of those pouring into the base, each requiring a unique combat strategy to deal with.
Sqarb family portrait, circa 2057
The complete set of invaders now comprises:
- Sqarb Drone: Versatile unit, which attacks power generators and breaks through locked doors (and sometimes walls)
- Sqarb Guardian: Heavy defensive unit, which protects other nearby Sqarbs with its energy shield
- Sqarb Warrior: Aggressive combat unit, which escorts other Sqarbs and attacks gaters on sight (not just soldiers!)
- Sqarb Swarmer: Small unit that follows Drones and attacks power generators, using the energy to replicate itself
The makeup of each wave will vary dynamically now too. Rather than a linear increase in difficulty, each wave will adapt to your playstyle and performance, for a truly unique, fair and challenging experience.
New Weapons & Upgrades
To deal with the new threat we’re introducing new weapons for your soldiers, along with upgrades and automated turrets!
The turret was too big to fit in this image, but if you like these you’ll love that
The full arsenal now at your disposal:
- Pistol: Basic sidearm available from the start, favored when assault rifles are unavailable
- Assault Rifle: Powerful automatic rifle, favored over pistols
- Plasma Launcher: Deals damage over a large area by launching a deadly plasma shell - useful for dealing with crowds of enemies
- Railgun: Deals massive damage but takes time to reload, due to its high-velocity firing mechanism - useful against shielded enemies
- Turret: Automated artillery weapon, which targets enemies in a cone in front of it, and reloads automatically
Each weapon can also be upgraded along two tech paths: Smart, which increases firing rate, and Heavy, which increases damage dealt. You’ll want to be fully upgraded by the time the late-game invasions ramp up!
To unlock advanced weapons and upgrades in the tech tree, you’ll need to use Alien Biotech Points: this is a new currency, which is accrued by your scientists when they study the remains of dead invaders.
New Defenses, Controls & Equipment
You’ll need more than just guns to stop the Sqarbs though - but don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with new defenses, equipment, and direct invasion controls!
An excellent example of non-authorized personnel
New defenses to place in the base:
- Security Blast Door: A reinforced door, which locks automatically for non-authorized personnel
- Shielded Guard Post: Shielded version of the standard guard post, affording soldiers protection during combat
Assuming direct control!
Direct invasion controls, so you can better manage your soldiers and civilians:
- Combat Zone: Designate an area for your soldiers to rally during an invasion
- Guard Post Controls: Order soldiers to man their guard posts, or to leave them and proceed to the Combat Zone
- Safe Zone: Designate areas where your civilian gaters should gather during an invasion
- Safe Zone Controls: Send civilians to their nearest Safe Zone, or give the all-clear
- Lock All Doors: Lock/unlock all doors in the base with one click
New equipment, which you can craft at a Workbench and equip to individual gaters:
- Body Armor: Reduces damage received, both during missions and in the base
- Servo-Assisted Boots: Increases walking speed in the base
- Mining Exoskeleton: This one isn’t technically about defense - but when the dust settles after an invasion, and your dusty mining missions resume, it allows gaters to carry more ore
Gater Training & Team Composition
New training unlocks in the tech tree now allow any class of gater to carry Bio Samples, Specimens, and Raw Ore during missions. This means you can send more diverse teams of gaters without sacrificing loot, such as soldiers and medics to improve mission safety, or other classes to help with events.
What might on first glance seem like a small feature, we think will address what is without doubt the most requested feature right now: larger team sizes. Implementing variable team sizes would have a big knock-on effect on the design of the game; we’re hopeful that we’ve instead introduced something that will serve the same purpose.
We’d love to hear what you think about this new feature!
What’s Next?
Now this hefty update is behind us, we can focus on the last big area of content before our 1.0 launch: Alien factions and 4X gameplay, bringing a new level of strategy and consequence to claiming territory on the star map. This will also see the introduction of the long-awaited Diplomat gater class.
What You Can Do To Help
We’re constantly listening to your feedback and using it to improve the game, alongside fixing bugs and adding polish. So please continue to let us know your thoughts about the game - whether it’s here on the Steam forums, on our Discord, through our player suggestions website, or through the in-game feedback tool itself.
As we near our all-important 1.0 launch, we’ll need all your support to help us make as big a wormhole-splash as possible! If you’ve not yet reviewed the game on Steam, now would be a great time to do so, which will boost us in the algorithm and help us reach as wide an audience as we can. Or if you’re waiting for the 1.0 launch to pick up the game, then a wishlist on our store page would also be a huge help.
And as mentioned, for anyone who’s considering purchasing the game to check out the latest update, it’s on sale at 25% discount for 10 days!
We’ll be in touch again as we move closer to the 1.0 launch. But for now, we hope you enjoy the new patch, and wish to thank you for your continued support.
Until the next Exogate activation!
Safe travels,
Maxime MILLET
Creative Director, Xeno Bits
Changelog 0.8.7
Please note that previous saves are still fully compatible, but due to many balancing changes you will have a better experience by starting a new game.
New
- New Sqarb units will appear alongside the usual Drones during invasions, each requiring their own strategy to deal with: Warriors, Swarmers, Guardians.
- Adaptive difficulty for invasions: each wave will now adapt to your performance, so it always offers a fair but challenging experience.
- New weapons for defending the base: Pistols, Plasma Launchers and Railguns can now be unlocked!
- New tech tree resource for unlocking weapons and upgrades: Alien Biotech Points, which accrue when scientists study invader remains. They grant access to new weapons, as well as Smart and Heavy upgrades, which increase firing rate and damage respectively.
- New defensive objects to place: Security Blast Doors, which automatically lock for invaders; a shielded version of the Guard Post; automated Turrets, which deal massive damage, but take time to reload.
- New direct invasion controls: designate a Combat Zone where your soldiers will rally, and one or more Safe Zones for civilians to gather at. Also order soldiers to leave or return to their Guard Posts (they are sent there automatically 3 days before an invasion), send civilians to or from their Safe Zones, and quickly lock or unlock all doors.
- Civilians now flee when they spot an invader - especially useful since Sqarb Warriors aren’t picky about whom they target.
- New equipment to craft at a Workbench and assign to each gater: Body Armor, which reduces damage received; Servo-Assisted Boots, which increases walking speed in the base; Mining Exoskeleton, which allows gaters to carry more ore during mining missions. There are also new shelves to build in the Armory to store this equipment.
- New unlocks that allow all classes of gater to handle and carry Bio Samples, Specimens, and Raw Ore during missions, opening the door for more diverse team configurations that won’t sacrifice loot gain.
- New unlocks to improve Foundry processing speed and efficiency, getting you more refined material sooner. You can also now filter which ores are processed by each Foundry.
- New Workbench crafting queue: crafting tasks for equipment and exosuits can now be queued, rather than initiated one at a time; the queue can be managed from the Workbench’s detail panel.
- We’ve added the complete list of all contextual tutorial pop-ups to a Tutorial Codex, which can be found on the pause menu.
Changes
- The Common Items section of the build menu has been reorganized into Security and Weapons, to make it easier to navigate given the new objects now available
- Pistols replace Rifles as the new default weapon for soldiers, unlocked with the Security category in the tech tree. Assault Rifles are now unlocked through the Advanced Weaponry category, using Alien Biotech points
- The Assault Rifle now fires in bursts rather than continuously
- Alien Culture Data Packs are now automatically assigned to empty Culture Study Consoles
- Improved soldier AI at Guard Posts - they will each now try and target a different invader
- An engineer no longer needs assigning to a Workbench to craft items - any available engineer will take up the task
- Health bars now appear above the heads of invaders and soldiers involved in combat
- Hitpoints now appear on invaders to show how much damage was dealt to them
- Exonium Generators will now only activate if there is not enough energy available from other generators, to avoid them draining your exonium reserves unnecessarily - unless you activate them manually
- Improved the invaders’ detail panel
- Added the correct icon for the Alien Culture Data Study in the tech tree
- Reworked psychological diagnosis - a medic will now only go to the desk when a gater requires diagnosis
- A medic’s social need will now decrease after treating a gater
- Medics will only interrupt non-critical tasks to go and treat other gaters
- A Nuclid alien gater will take longer to repair themselves after a Meltdown
- You can now cancel an active research project from the Current Research panel in the tech tree
- It will now take longer to reach the Sqarbs’ homeworld
- A soldier’s weapon damage bonuses are now visible as a tooltip when hovering over their class name on their detail panel
- Alien gaters joining the initiative from mission events will now be level 5 instead of 10
- Sqarbs patcher cost was increased by 10 Exonium and 5 Cobbium
- Gaters will get more XP after recurring missions
Fixes
- Engineers will no longer craft at the Workbench if they are carrying something
- Better AI management for Engineers refilling Exonium Generators
- The maximum monthly wage for applicants to a Recruitment Campaign was not the one used by those hired
- Gaters assigned to a Nap Pod were sometimes asking for a locker
- The Recruitment Campaign list was sometimes corrupted
- Fixed the animation of soldiers using the Dance Station
- Fixed a bug where the Arcade Cabinet was still playing after the gater left
- Fixed a bug where the Patent Writing Console was still active after the gater left
- Fixed a looping animation bug when a female Engineer fell unconscious
- Fixed a bug when selling a Meal Dispenser while new stock was being delivered
- Fixed a bug where the ICU was still playing sound when a gater died before reaching it
- Fixed a bug where the wrong gater could be assigned to a new team
- Fixed a loading bug where gaters on their way to use the Bench Press had the wrong animations