Hi everyone, it’s time for another patch!
As mentioned on our Discord and forums, we’ve been focusing on fixing two of the most serious issues you’ve reported repeatedly:
persistent cards getting stuck (most notably missiles), and a memory leak that caused performance to degrade during longer play sessions.
Testing indicates that the persistent card issue has finally been resolved. The memory leak fix, however, introduced a few secondary issues that we’re still working through. We expect to have those addressed in a follow-up patch by the end of the year.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about the main new feature introduced in this patch: Equipment Subtypes.
Equipment subtypes are more focused versions of existing equipment. Each subtype has a smaller drafting pool and is built around a clear core theme.
The first example of this system is the Beam Laser. Previously, Beam Lasers lacked a strong identity: some cards applied Shred, others applied Heat, and some simply dealt damage. With a large drafting pool, it was difficult to consistently lean into any of those directions, as the odds of seeing synergistic cards were relatively low.
To address this, we’ve split the Beam Laser into three distinct subtypes:
- Industrial Laser
- Thermal Lance
- Beam Laser
This change aims to do a few things:
- Give players more confidence that they’ll see cards that support a specific playstyle they want to aim for.
- Shift more strategic weight toward which equipment you install, rather than relying solely on draft luck.
- Allow us to give each piece of equipment a clearer identity, making it easier to design cards that reinforce that theme.
We think this system has a lot of potential, but before committing to it more broadly, we want to test it with your help and gather feedback.
We’ve also added new features and refined several existing systems. This includes new shield modes - Focused and Diffuse Shielding, which reduce incoming damage from Precision and Area attacks respectively, as well as new armor types like Angled and Ablative Armor, which mitigate specific damage types such as Kinetic and Laser damage. You can read more about these and other changes below.
Changelog:
- Potential fix for the bug that caused missiles to be stuck in flight, and could make effects that should expire (like suppression) be permanently active
- Fixed an issue where going into a run after finishing the tutorial would hide the ship status screen
- Fixed an issue that would display the first two escalation systems as unlocked after unlocking the first one
- Fixed a bug with Triangulator, that made it boost all attack damage, instead of missile damage
- Added Thermal Lance (Beam Laser subtype). Cards: Singe, Heat Ray, Torch Beam, Lacerate, Pre-heater, Meltdown(Mk.II only)
- Added Industrial Laser (Beam laser subtype). Cards: Drill beam, Cutting beam, Welding beam, Scour, Shear
- Modified Beam Laser. It now has a smaller drafting library built around versatility and utility. Cards: Slice, Slit, Scrape, Beam Sweep, Cross-cut, Focused Beam(Mk.II only)
- Created a new card: Scour - a basic industrial laser card that deals 4 damage, and has a shred value of 2. This basic card is meant to reinforce the identity of the industrial laser - to add and utilize shred for various effects.
- Created a new card: Shear - an Industrial Laser card that deals 4 damage, and on dealing hull damage adds 1 Shred to the enemy any time they receive hull damage for that turn. The effect of multiple Shear cards can stack
- Created a new card: Singe - a basic Thermal Lance card that deals 4 damage with an ignite value of 2. This basic card is meant to reinforce the identity of the Thermal Lance - to add Heat.
- Created a mew card: Cross-cut - a Beam Laser card that deals 4 damage, and repeats the attack if you added any shred on the enemy that turn
- Modified the Beam Sweep card to now deal a base damage of 3, with an ignite value of 2, it gains 1 extra damage for every active energy production. Beam Sweep+ also has its ignite increased by 1 for every active energy production
- Modified the Pre-Heater card: The effect that doubles the ignite of the next attack is now an "On Hull damage" effect
- Replaced Diffraction field subsystem with Focused Shielding (Reduce enemy precision damage by 25% when shielded)
- Replaced Repulsor Field subsystem with Diffuse Shielding (Reduce enemy non-precision damage by 25% when shielded)
- Modified Eutectic armor subsystem , name and mechanic: the effect is now called Ablative armor, and reduces Laser damage and Ignite by 1 for every 15 durability. So the more durability, the more effective the armor is, but it can now be stripped away and weakened by receiving hull damage. The Ablative plating subsystem gives players 30 durability of Ablative Armor on combat start, this stacks with duplicates of this subsystem, so you can have 60 durability or more, making the player immune to most laser damage and sources of Ignite.
- Modified Whipple plating subsystem , name and mechanic: it is now called Angled Armor, and reduces Flak damage and Shred by 1 for every 15 durability. So the more durability, the more effective the armor is, but it can now be stripped away and weakened by receiving hull damage. The Angled Plating subsystem gives players 30 durability of Angled Armor on combat start, this stacks with duplicates of this subsystem, so you can have 60 durability or more, making the player immune to most flak damage and sources of shred.
- Made Quad fire be able to be triggered by point defense attacks as well
- Balance: Fuel Price now increases by 10 credits each sector, but no longer increases by 5 credits after the first level of escalation (which was left over unintentionally from a previous design)
- Balance: Appropriate sector enemies now start 1 node earlier in sectors 2 and 3
As always, thank you for taking the time to play, report bugs, and share your feedback.
This patch includes some meaningful changes under the hood, and we’re especially interested in hearing your thoughts on the new equipment subtype system. Please let us know how it feels in practice, and don’t hesitate to report any issues you encounter on our forums or Discord, it genuinely helps us shape the game going forward.
- Edgeflow Studio