Right, this one is going to be long. This update is the culmination of all the suggestions and requests I've received since launch that were not high-priority enough to do straight away, but I agreed needed doing.
Apologies that it took so long; I vastly underestimated how long some of the tasks on this list were going to take. Ideally, I want to be updating the game every 1-2 weeks at most, but this one has taken a whole month.
I'm going to try my best to give you the most important changes, but there is a lot in this one.
XP Increase
I've increased the experience earned by 25% across the board, and encounters themselves now give their own experience when completed. Now, if you complete the minimal amount of content in Sector 1, you'll finish around level 18, and if you 100% clear it, you'll finish around level 25. I never intended for players to have to clear 100% of a sector, so this is closer to what I was wanting.
Temporary Effect Weapons
I've improved all the temporary effect specials, namely the Phase Shift, Temporal Drive, and Shield Ward. They've all had their cooldowns and durations tweaked. For example, the Temporal Drive now has a much shorter duration and cooldown. If you voluntarily cancel one early, the cooldown is reduced.
So, if your Temporal Drive has a 4-second duration and 12-second cooldown, and you only use it for 2 seconds, you'll only have a 6-second cooldown.
Modifier Distribution
This one is pretty straightforward; the best modifiers are more likely to drop later in the game. This is just to make it harder to min/max early on and give a constant feeling of progression as you slowly improve the modifiers you find.
To add to this, modifiers now show their min/max range in the Assembler so you can judge how good they are at a glance.
Slot Linking Panel
Linking slots was a feature that was often missed due to the old user interface sucking. It's now all in its own panel along with the toggle for primary weapon behaviour. Also in this panel, you can choose the weapon bound to your RMB, and using 1, 2, 3, etc on the keyboard will no longer change it (unless you go and enable the Select on Activate setting under controls).
This is just one of a series of changes that is leading to me allowing you to have more than 4 of each weapon type. I still need to re-arrange the equipment panel and the ship bar before I can remove that limit.
Ship Boost Inversion
This request surprised me, but it makes sense. Small ships can now boost for longer than big ships. Frigates get around 7 seconds of boost on an empty heat bar; Battleships only get 4 seconds with a range in between. You can still extend this time with modifiers and passive items.
Purchase Prices
Items used to cost 5x what they sell for, they now only cost 4x what they sell for. This should result in a global decrease in the price of all items across all traders, the mothership, and the black market.
Durability Fix
You no longer lose weapon durability by using them. They just receive durability loss randomly when you take hull damage. This should fix the issue of some special weapons dropping durability very quickly.
Item Changes
I've checked the maths of Bio Networks, which were bad. I hope they're not bad anymore, as their stats have been improved. If you have one already, you can increase its level to get the new stats.
Similarly, I've improved Railguns, nerfed Spiral Lasers, Improved Auto Lasers, and increased the velocity of Machine Guns and Railguns. All projectile weapons also got around +10% damage to balance against lasers.
Species-XI Encounters
Invader encounters no longer give the 'Local Heat' debuff, which is reserved for molten debris. This should make their heat weapons slightly easier to deal with, especially early on.
GeForce NOW Streaming
Star Vortex and the demo are now available on GeForce NOW if you're one of those people lucky enough to have good enough internet to stream your games!
I don't know why it's for Premium Members only, they didn't even tell me they were adding it.
The next update is going to be far more focused than this one, as I've kept the majority of the weapon improvements I have planned for it. I won't spoil it, but I have some cool new modifiers and weapon types I want to add.
Beyond that, the next major feature will be the new upgrade tree, I think. This will remove unlocks from the tree entirely and allow for far more build diversity, I hope. Enjoy!
Patch Notes
New Features / Content
• Replacing modifiers now displays a small rating slider next to each modifier.
• Replacing modifier slider has a tooltip showing min/max value and extra details.
• Slot linking has now been moved to a separate panel inside the equipment panel.
• Selected activatable (right mouse) can now be selected from the slot linking panel.
• Selected activatable (right mouse) is no longer changed when using number keys on the keyboard.
• Added a setting called 'Select on Activate' to revert this to the old behaviour if you wish.
Balance Changes
• Modifiers are now weighted by sector, meaning you'll get better modifiers later on.
• Reduced the price of all items from 5x sell price down to 4x sell price.
• Encounters now grant 10% of the player's level in XP when completed.
• Increased XP earned from killing enemies by +25%.
• Temporary effect specials no longer cancel their effect when dodging or boosting.
• Temporary effect specials cancelled early now only give a partial cooldown.
• Vastly decreased both cooldown and duration of Temporal Drive.
• Slightly reduced cooldown and duration of Phase Shift.
• Slightly reduced duration of shield ward.
• Frigates can now boost for approximately 7 seconds on an empty heat bar.
• Destroyers can now boost for approximately 6 seconds on an empty heat bar.
• Cruisers can now boost for approximately 5 seconds on an empty heat bar.
• Battleships can now boost for approximately 4 seconds on an empty heat bar.
• Displacement thrusters now generate 25% of the ship's base heat capacity when used.
• Bio Network starting hull regeneration increased from 0.1% up to 0.3%.
• Bio Network per level hull regeneration increased from +0.001% per level to +0.007%.
• Increased damage of all primary non-spread launchers by ~10% to balance against lasers.
• Reduced damage of Acid Gun by 25% to bring it in line with other weapons.
• Increased the damage of Railgun by 20% as it feels quite weak when not piercing enemies.
• Reduced damage of Spiral Laser by 10% as extra damage for being kinetic was excessive.
• Increased damage of Auto Heat Ray by 10% to bring it in line with other weapons.
• Increased damage of Auto Caustic Laser by 10% to bring it in line with other weapons.
• Increased velocity of Machine Gun / Railgun by 20% to make them easier to hit with.
• Doubled the duration of all consumable capsules from 30s up to 60s.
• Frozen debuff now lasts 10s on NPCs instead of the 5s it lasts on the player.
• Durability loss is no longer triggered by using weapons, only by taking hull damage.
• Species-XI no longer triggers the Local Heat debuff on invaded encounters.
• Species-XI now attack anything when they invade, not just the player.
Quality of Life / Accessibility
• Quick sell now has checkboxes and remembers your settings.
• Encounters in navigation can now be double-tapped to hyperdrive jump to them.
• Default selected buttons on delete confirmation are now cancel, not delete.
• Mothership equipment can be sold back for its buy price until you leave the fleet.
• Trader equipment can be sold back for its buy price until you leave the encounter.
• Sorting cargo now merges any split stacks of consumables.
• Tracked mission encounters are now shown in yellow on the navigation panel.
• Cleaned up default slots for Conclave Eagle preset so it's less confusing.
• Assembler now remembers your last storage tab and page and opens to that.
• Phase Shift, Shield Ward, and Temporal Drive are now flagged as unique for clarity.
• Removed confirmation on selling items based on rarity due to the buy-back option.
• New setting added to auto-fire primary weapons when aiming with a controller.
• Bosses and elites now show their damage types in navigation.
• Schematic modifier transfers now play their own animation instead of shattering.
• Radial display setting is now an opacity slider instead of a toggle.
• Damage number setting is now a scale slider instead of a toggle.
• Enemy modifiers are now more clearly labelled in navigation.
• Console is once again using a monospaced font for improved readability.
• Player level is now displayed next to ship class in the equipment panel.
• Updated all missing Polish translations.
Bug Fixes
• Fixed bug where hostile debris would not explode on impact with ships.
• Fixed display issues with the stock display on 140% UI scale.
• Fixed display issues with storage on 140% UI scale.
• Ship design tutorial now correctly appears in the middle of the screen.
• Ship design tutorial no longer overflows the container in Japanese.
• Quick sell can no longer be invoked when there are no valid items to sell.
• Fixed some controller navigation issues around the new quick sell layout.
• Fixed text alignment of the assign button in item stats.
• Fixed null reference in Obstruction.CircleCollides() check.
• Fixed incorrect plural/singular text in upgrade/slot display under player bar.
• Fixed some broken controller navigation within the settings panel tabs.
• Fixed projectiles showing as black in the equipment panel for flamethrower-style weapons.
• Fixed bug where the destroy item button in the assembler would keep its tooltip when active.
• Fixed brightness and size of obstruction backgrounds shown in navigation.
• Auto Special weapons and PDLs now correctly face forward when inactive.