Hello everyone!
The much anticipated Update v0.1.4 (Power Rework) is now available for public testing on experimental. This is a huge patch that completely changes how the power system works, as well as introduces a ton of new QOL features and other fixes to the game.
How to opt into experimental:
- Locate Vectorio in your Steam library
- Right click and go to "properties"
- Find the "betas" branch
- Using the dropdown, select "Experimental"
Experimental Info:
- Testing Cycle: ~1 week
- Experimental Saves: Enabled
- Backwards Compatible: No
- Update Type: Patch
- Contains Spoilers: No
Patch Notes
The following is a list of changes pushed to the experimental branch. While changes are usually tested beforehand, please note that some may require further testing to validate.
Please note, this list is not entirely inclusive of all the changes in this update.
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.
- The ability to repair entities with one button press, in exchange for resources.
- Two new music tracks for the in-game OST, Gridspace & Horizons.
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.
Other Changes:
- 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- New UI designs for many of the interface elements that were out-of-date due to the power rework.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.
- 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.
Game Balancing:
- 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.
- A variety of smaller balance changes to improve the overall flow of the game.
Bug Fixes:
- 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:
- 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.
Tentative Additions:
The follow has been tenatively added to the release view for v0.1.4, but is not yet ready to undergo testing in the experimental branch. These changes may be pushed into a future update, but as it stands now they are still planned to be in v0.1.4 when it goes live.
- Build planner, which enables you to customize blueprint priorities.
- New heat path, that will add more heat levels to the end-game in order to produce more of a challenge, and better distribution of the early-game heat levels in order to improve game flow.