Hello everyone!
The next power rework patch (v0.1.4) has been tested on experimental and all changes have been confirmed to go live. This update is largely comprised of many small changes, in addition to back-end improvements or reworks in preparation for Multiplayer. (v0.1.5)
NOTE: While many of the new features in v0.1.4 have been tested, some may require further testing. Expect a follow-up patch early next week to address any remaining bugs or balancing issues.
Questions? Comments? Concerns?
Let me know below or on our Discord server: https://discord.gg/vectorio
v0.1.4 Patch Notes
Below is a compiled list of all changes throughout the experimental phase on the changes that have made it in for v0.1.4 live. Next weeks patch will tie up some of the changes mentioned here, as they require a larger testing audience to obtain good data and feedback on them.
New Additions:
- Complete refactor of the power and heat system. Power only affects defenses, while heat only affects logistics. This will heavily affect how the game is played, so I am looking for feedback on it!
- New generator mechanics. Now requires either resources or a resource node to produce power.
- Removed collection mode and collector drones from the game, in place of having cargo drones unlocked from the get-go, and improving the overall control-flow of the game. This change is not final, and I'll be looking at feedback from it very closely.
- New UI designs for many of the interface elements that were out-of-date due to the power rework. Should improve overall clarity and readability on many of the interface panels.
- The ability to repair entities with one button press, in exchange for resources.
- Two new music tracks for the in-game OST, Gridspace & Horizons.
- New menu music track for the menu, with a new menu scene for power rework.
- Complete new heat tree, including new heat levels 11 - 15 that add more challenge with new units later in the game. (NOTE: Some of these units are currently not finished)
- New tutorial screen, and the ability to replay tutorials through the pause menu
- New material for drone route previewing to enhance clarity at a longer distance
- New construction sound effect that plays when a building is placed
- A variety of other smaller changes to certain notification windows, to again help with the actual information being presented to you due to things happening in-game.
Quality of Life:
- Multiple hotbars, and the ability to quick scroll through them using left-control.
- New entity tooltip panel that shows info without needing to click on the entity.
- Quick-edit keybind that enables the ability to edit certain entities in one click.
- Defenses and reclaimers will now auto-reconstruct themselves if they get blown up.
- Holding shift to move faster will also increase the speed of camera scrolling.
- A variety of smaller QOL improvements to the overall control-flow of the game.
Balance Changes:
- Majorly buffed all turret stats, in turn for not being able to build as many now.
- Improved the default drone speed and storage, to help with early-game automation.
- Increased the cost of many of the earlier research techs, as well as the actual cost to build them after unlocking them. These changes were made in correlation to the power rework.
- Lowered the health pool of larger units signficantly (dropships & spectors)
- Lowered the power cost of many defensive structures
- Various tweaks to resource costs for certain buildings that were too expensive
- Lowered cargo drone cost from 50 gold to 20 gold
- Increased cargo drone speed from 35m/s to 45m/s
- A variety of smaller balance changes to improve the overall flow of the game.
- Final heat values are still being tested and balanced, but will be in next weeks build
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed an issue with power generators disappearing after reloading a save
- Fixed cargo drones deploying to previous routes after the route was changed.
- Fixed cargo drones being able to deliver to buildings of different factions
- Fixed region boosters causing negative values on certain multipliers
- Fixed Quantum Decryptors causing all sorts of strange artifacts when activating
- Fixed burners miscalculating power values when being deleted
- Fixed an issue with the new research complete event that was causing labs to disappear when finishing a research tech due to an unassigned variable in the interface component.
- Fixed entity tooltip not disappearing when hovering over blueprints
- Fixed old tutorial showing up when disabled
- Fixed labs causing a "Bug Reported" error when certain resources were put in them.
- Fixed cargo drones sometimes going to the wrong target after being object pooled.
- Many smaller bugs have been fixed from the core system improvements listed below.
Core Tech:
- Refactored the screen activity detection for entities, which now calculates screen space orientation during setup. This will fix instances where on-screen entities would simulate as off-screen entities.
- Completely changed the way gamemodes are handled. Everything now runs through a central scene which is constructed based on the provided modes data, instead of having separate scenes for each mode. This may cause short-term issues with creative while the kinks are worked out, but will enable extensive support for custom gamemodes in the future.
- New backend stat system for handling entity stats that will open the door for levels and upgrades in the future, as well as improve the reliability and accessibility of stats in the game now.
- Multiple refactors to many of the manager scripts, that should help to improve their overall reliability and help support the new content coming in v0.2.0, which will have new unique mechanics to it.