Lots of changes for drone bays and a few for turrets this update.
Construct Upgrades
Construct is the new name for what used to be deployable weapons. They no longer include mines and seeking launchers and have a new set of upgrades that should allow for easier balancing in the future.
We've done away with invulnerability in favour off giving them more hull as this will be easier to balance in the future. For any existing saves upgrades will have been reset for free.
Construct Damage Types
Constructs weapons now have a damage type and debuff chance. This change has been applied retro-actively to any drone or turret weapons you already own.
Construct Control
We used to have some drones that would orbit their parent ship, some that would lock in formation and some that would fly off and hunt enemies. While we still have this (and each weapon has a default behaviour) you can set it yourself per drone weapon now.
Flora Ships
Although the content for Sector 3 is still in the works the enemy Flora ship parts are now available to play about with in the sandbox. Check our Discord for information if you don't' know how to unlock it.
Ship Classes
As is also visible in the above screenshot your ship class is now derived from the size of your ship. You can no longer make a tiny ship and call it a battleship. If you want a battleship you'll need to make it big enough!
Unity Upgrade
Finally, we've upgraded to Unity 2022 which comes with some performance improvements. I've also improved the graphics settings for choosing fullscreen modes, etc. The cursor will lock to the window whenever you're using it to aim but be free to move to other monitors when the game is paused.
Full details of everything below. We've got some new graphics from one of our artists coming in the next update so lookout for that!
Patch Notes
New Features / Content
- Ship class can no longer be chosen, it is derived from the size of your ship.
- Added all new Flora ship parts ready for Sector 3 enemies.
- Added all Flora templates in preparation for Sector 3.
- Renamed Deployable weapons to Constructs and removed Mines / Beacons from category.
- Removed Invulnerable Constructs upgrade and replaced it with Construct Hull Points.
- Re-arranged order of Construct upgrades to make more sense.
- All drones can now be set to roaming / formation / orbit when equipped.
- Range of drone bays now changes based on whether they are roaming or not.
- Turrets and drones now have debuff types and chances.
- Hornet drones now use machine guns instead of lasers.
- Updated ship design tutorial panel to talk about new ship class mechanic.
- Upgrades have been reset for all players due to construct changes.
Balance Changes
- Increased hull of friendly rescue ships by an additional +33%.
- All friendly ships now get shields that match the encounter debris type.
- Mines are now seeking launchers that do not require unlock.
- Turrets now have a max range stat that can be modified set to 200m.
- Increased damage of Watcher Turrets by +200%.
- Beacons are now Temporary Effect weapons.
- Increased max size of Destroyer ship designs by +22%.
- Skeran Beacons (both player and enemy) no longer summon Plasma Blasters Locusts.
- Plasma gun is now only seeking and does not require homing unlock.
- Improved level overlap from end of one sector to start of next.
- Increased Nightfall level from 9 to 10.
- Increased Infernum level from 10 to 11.
- Increased Avalon level from 12 to 13.
- Increased Bifrost level from 20 to 21.
- Increased Tartarus level from 22 to 23.
- Increased Nilfheim level from 24 to 25.
- Blast Wave pulse / EMP / Frost Nova Pulse now have 50% debuff chance.
- Increased range of Spore / Orb drones by 20%.
- Reduced effective range of drones by 15%.
- Reduced maximum modifier on charges from +100% down to +50%.
- Drone bays no longer get more charges at higher levels.
- Balanced damage of all drone bays against each other.
- Lasers now roll for debuff chance once per tick (5x per second).
- Lowered debuff chance of most lasers due to tick change.
- Increased debuff chance of cone weapons.
- Lowered debuff chance of most projectile weapons.
- Increased debuff chance of Auto Tesla coil as only strikes once per second.
Quality of Life / Accessibility
- Fullscreen setting now has option for borderless or exclusive.
- Refresh rate is now separate from resolution setting.
- Cursor is restricted to the game window when aiming during gameplay only.
- New setting added to prevent the game from pausing when minimized or out of focus.
- Backups of save files will now only be kept on your system for a month.
- New setting added to choose which consumables drops to ignore.
- Repair all option at Mothership now also repairs cargo items.
- Increased docking range of mothership by +100%.
- Increased interact range of gateways by +50%.
- Increased interact range of waypoints by +50%.
- Slot icons on equipment now match images in ship design.
- Included slot icons in upgrades and ship design panels.
- Thruster slot icon in ship design now shows emission direction.
- Infect waypoint mission now clearly says place seed in waypoint.
- Improved controller navigation when selecting player and difficulty from main menu.
- Loading templates in ship design now remembers your folder when opening / closing.
Bug Fixes
- Allow Anonymized Analytics setting is no longer disabled when resetting settings.
- Error handler now displays over HUD elements and works with controller navigation.
- Fixed null pointer when double-clicking play button.
- Fixed null pointer in sector generation due to invaded encounters.
- Fixed smoke / trails emitted from ships not matching encounter color.
- Enemy drones now correctly explode when their parent is destroyed.
- Fixed invalid SortingGroup index set in renderer error.
- Black Market label no longer wraps on Steamdeck resolution.
- Fixed bug where drones / turrets would not receive hull bonus from modifiers.
- Mouse will no longer highlight buttons when disabled due to active controller.
- Fixed Junker Merlin being a Destroyer when it should of been a Frigate.
- Changing ignore items setting no longer breaks the tractor beam tutorial.
- Fixed logging in code that upgrades save file versions.
- Fixed issue with cursor leaving game window when using multiple monitors.
- Navigation map will now redraw when the UI Scale setting is changed.
- Items in containers will now correctly be updated / fixed when game version changes.