I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. But I will find you, and I will find out what you want...
Seriously though, I read everything. Whether it's on random YouTube videos, foreign media websites, I even read some comments on a forum where people ask for cheats for games. It all gets thrown in to my task board for review and sorting.
This update is the first step towards working through my massive backlog. I've tried to focus on both quick fixes and issues that have been mentioned multiple times in multiple places. I hope this goes some way towards fixing some of the most common complaints, if I missed out your request it's probably still on my task list. Don't worry.
Rescue Encounters
I hate rescue encounters. Not like you guys do. I don't hate playing them... I hate trying to balance them. This should be the final fix, I'm done trying to tweak numbers, this is a hard fix for the issue.
Friendly rescue ships now take no more than 10% of their max hull in damage per second, even if everything is shooting them they will live for 10 seconds. If they get hit by every AOE attack under the sun ...and then the sun itself crashes in to them... they still only take 10% damage. If they die now it's on you guys, stop letting stuff shoot them!
This fix also applies to the friendly ship that shows up for the final boss fight, only for that one it's 2.5% max hull damage per second... so 40 seconds. It can still get destroyed though so do try to be quick. Oh, they're all immune to debuffs and impale damage!
Boost Invulnerability
Playing on harder difficulties was considerably less fun than it's supposed to be. This was due to the fact the 'Aggressive' enemies were literally programmed to abuse boost invulnerability when inside your weapon range to avoid damage. This wasn't fun and has been entirely removed, now aggressive just means they aggro you from further away.
So you can now kite them like this without them going boost invulnerable all the time. In addition to this their cooldown on boosting has been increased and they have to boost for 0.5 seconds before the invulnerability kicks in.
Boosting for the player now generates heat (you get about 4s in a frigate and 7s in a battleship without upgrades). Keep an eye on your heat. If you overheat, escaping gets harder.
Dodge Change
A perk of the Displacement Thruster used to be that it made you immune for 0.25 seconds when dodging. This perk has been removed and now all thrusters do this and for 0.5 seconds.
This should allow you to more effectively dodge enemy attacks as projectiles and lasers will pass through you when you're performing a dodge.
Mission Experience + Credits
Both experience and credit rewards have been increased. Missions will now always give you about 25% experience for the level they're set to and the credits are now slightly more exponential at higher levels. Don't worry if you've already collected them this will be retro-actively added to your player save when you next load in.
If you've completed every single mission in the game expect to receive 12,000,000 experience and 47,000 credits in compensation
Shield Buff
All shields have had their shield values doubled. Internal shields have had their hull bonus doubled. This should make them a little more effective in combat as previously they were dropping way too quickly under heavy fire.
Pathfinding
This one is a bit more boring but enemy ships now engage pathfinding logic when they can't get to you. Don't worry I'm not adding mazes this picture is just to demonstrate.
I'm not going to say they'll never get stuck on obstructions again, but they should be much better at finding their way around and getting unstuck. Everything moves and slides about it's like trying to make pathfinding for ice skaters but this should be a functional fix for enemy ships getting stuck places.
That's most of the highlights, obviously lots more hidden in the patch notes below. I nerfed all the snakes so Vipers, Carrion and the Basilisk should be less over-powered now. Oh and the community items are now live so you should start getting trading cards, badges, backgrounds and emoticons!
ːsv_esaːːsv_gideonːːsv_reliosːːsv_shipːːsv_zorgː
Enjoy, next update shouldn't be too far away. I know you guys want more storage space... but I didn’t want to cram in too many changes and risk breaking everything.
Patch Notes
New Features / Content
• Enemy ships now use pathfinding and should get stuck on obstructions less.
• New players can now play on harder difficulties, but they shouldn't.
Balance Changes
• Boosting now generates heat and overheating prevents boosting.
• Damage per second cap added to rescue targets and mothership.
• Rescue targets and mothership are now immune to debuffs and impale damage.
• Aggressive enemies no longer boost at super short range.
• Enemies must now wait 0.5s for their boost invulnerability to trigger.
• Cooldown between enemies boost usage increased by +50%.
• Dodging now grants 0.5s of immunity to damage.
• Weapon disable when dodging has been extended from 0.25s up to 0.5s.
• Reduced the cost of increasing item levels and replacing modifiers by 25%.
• Vastly increased experience and credits earned from missions.
• Doubled shield values in all shields.
• Reduced damage of Skeran Vipers and Shadow Carrion by 25%.
• Reduced damage of Burning debuff ticks by 20%.
• Reduced missile damage from Basilisk (Skeran) boss by 33%.
Quality of Life / Accessibility
• PDL weapons will now abandon asteroids to shoot projectiles and drones.
• PDL weapons can now shoot through obstructions.
• Increased size of Roach (Drone) weapons by +75% so they're easier to see.
• Assembler upgrade button moved to the left so items aren't accidentally discarded.
• Increased size of floating text (damage, crits, etc) by 50%.
Bug Fixes
• Consumables used will now correctly apply friendly ships during boss fights.
• Hunter (Skeran) trap now despawns when it dies, regardless of other enemies.
• Enemies set to be aggressive will no longer boost at close range.
• Chain modifiers will no longer spawn on or transfer to Vortex Arrays.
• Dragging items you can't afford from a trader will no longer remove them entirely.
• Fixed null reference when using developer tools to watch sector generation.
• Fixed null reference in Thruster.Boost().
• Fixed null reference error in Collider2D.OverlapPoint().
• Potential fix for ArgumentException in sector generation.
• Fixed object pool errors when switching languages on the menu.
• Fixed issue where some Asian player names would not display in player select.
• Changes to HUD scale are now immediately applied.
• Hull leech buff is now pink like hull leech weapons.
• Improved error handling when trying to load custom avatars.