I've recently been running some playtests and this update is pretty much all changes and fixes from the feedback I've received. Mostly quality of life improvements.
Demo Change
As much as I loved the idea of having a Free Edition that players can play it's beginning to hinder our marketing efforts having it out before release. It's an idea I hope to re-visit after we go in to Early Access but for now the demo is back to being a restricted experience of the first Sector.
If you were enjoying playing beyond that and would like to continue to do so jump on our Discord and check the #faq channel for information on how to become a tester!
Discord: https://discord.gg/ePgg7qgs4b
Release Date Change
The release date has been pushed back to Q2 2025 as a result of some of the recent playtests. I want to make sure I have the strongest release possible and I'm going to use these extra months to improve the storyline and content in Sector 2 and 3. Hopefully I'll also be able to cram in some extra features.
Encounter Variety
Warzone encounters felt fun when I made them, waves of friendly and enemy forces colliding leads to some enjoyable chaos. They soon get old when you realise that Intercept and Elite encounters are just warzones with a different final waves though. No longer!
Intercept encounters no longer have waves, the transports will be there at the beginning and to complete the encounter you must destroy them in under 30 seconds before they escape. Kind of the opposite of a Rescue encounter.
Elite encounters no longer have waves either, and you have 60 seconds to destroy the initial enemies before the elite arrives... ready or not.
In addition to this I will add Siege encounters soon, which will be attacks on stationary enemy star bases. These will take the place of the final elites for each faction and be scattered around Skeran and Phantom space.
Narrative Overhaul
While I may have captured the gameplay of old school ARPGs like Diablo it is becoming apparent that I've fallen short with the story-line. Look out in the upcoming updates for some new characters, backstory and strange encounters that hint at some things to come.
Mailing List
We now have a mailing list you can join! I don't always trust social media to show me things I actually want to see, so to be sure not to miss out on our news you can signup here.
https://mailchi.mp/huntedcow/uxgtk0iu7x
Enjoy, full patch notes can be found below!
Patch Notes
New Features / Content
- Demo is now restricted to Sector 1 and Developer Mode is no longer available.
- Intercept encounters no longer have waves and have a 60s countdown to destroy the transports before they flee.
- Elite encounters no longer have waves and have a 30s countdown until Elite arrives.
- Species-XI will now invade intercept encounters with infected seed transports instead of warzones.
- Species-XI now use and drop Void Thrusters.
Balance Changes
- Destroyed transports will respawn if you fail an intercept encounter but will not drop credits.
- Locusts with Plasma Blasters no longer attack the fleet.
- Moved Infernum and Waypoint Bravo spawn ranges slightly further apart.
- Mine damage reduced slightly but they now have an 80m explosive radius.
- Increased base aim speed of ships by +25.
Quality of Life / Accessibility
- Skip tutorial option will now only skips on-rails tutorial and still shows situational advice.
- Your first visit to each encounter type will now include dialog to explain what you need to do.
- Quick sell buttons now also sell everything below the selected rarity.
- Containers no longer show their names if their rarity or type is set to be ignored.
- Default dodge modifier is now ALT instead of CTRL, you can change it back if you wish.
- Novus Prime is now green as it's in Skeran space.
- Increased visibility of cloud layer so movement is more obvious.
- Increased size and screen shake from ship explosions.
- Ship explosions now emit light of varying degrees depending on size.
- Lowered volume of smaller ship explosions.
- Added default keyboard bindings for some shortcuts in equipment / mothership panel.
- Halved fade time of ship parts when a ship explodes but increased velocity.
- Reduced brightness of light lance.
- Transports, Elites and Gateway Disruptors now get a special icon on their sensor arrow.
- Added new tutorial to explain how to link slots when additional slots are unlocked.
- Cost of auto-repair in mothership now displays for 5s instead of 2s.
- Ambient music will now play when all enemies are defeated, not when encounter completes.
- Fixed small text in dropdowns hard to read on Steamdeck and smaller screens.
- Removed setting / bindings related to showing item names on containers.
- Hyperdrive jumps now leave streak effects behind for a couple of seconds.
- Replaced incorrect thruster descriptions with flavour text.
- Cleaned up upgrade descriptions so they should be easier to understand.
- Added link to join mailing list to main menu social links.
Bug Fixes
- Unscanned items will no longer become scanned when moving between encounters.
- Removed vignette setting as no longer used with newer lighting.
- Fixed null pointer in navigation when sector generation is changed by update.
- Fixed null pointer in debris updates when destroying asteroids.
- Moved dialog display down slightly so it doesn't overlap arrival banner text.
- Moved skip dialog keybinding to right side so it doesn't overlap ship bar on 120% HUD scale.
- Fixed ship design tutorial overflowing screen when UI scale set to 120%.
- Fixed overlap between major event banner an dialog at HUD scale 120%.
- NPC only templates no longer show in ship design presets.
- Fixed cloud layer not flashing with thunder since background change.
- Fixed black background on Elite / Boss ship previews.
- Players can no longer hyperdrive jump before collecting tutorial mission.
- Radar now correctly stays at 2x camera distance when zoom is adjusted.
- Radar camera is now attached to main camera and will move with it.
- Items can now be purchased and equipped by dragging them directly on to slots.
- Fixed issue where ambient music would play while invaders still attacked.
- Fixed invalid AABB in AABB error during tutorial.
- Fixed turret tutorial completing too quickly when using mouse and keyboard.