Aetherswarm Update
It took a long time. but 0.9 is finally here. And what an update it is!
Eerie voices in your ears, dark clouds moving under the mist, sharp spires growing like tumors through the surface. Aether eyes are looking at you.
With this update, we bring you a whole new faction of unique and dangerous inhabitants of primal Aether - the Swarm. Playing by their own rules, they will make every encounter much more interesting and intense.
Rival kingdoms aren't just going to sit and watch - they will use forbidden raw Aether magic as a means to greater power, corrupting factories and challenging your builds and strategies. This system will replace much despised building tier degradation on capture, so you can finally stop worrying about your buildings losing the third tier after one stray fireball.
To help you with those challenges, we introduce the artifact system that requires you to kill swarmlings and collect their remains to charge powerful relics for substantial bonuses on each level. Yes, so very original, but in our defense - we always wanted golems to collect and pillage resources for you, and this first step towards this turned out really nice.
⚠️Important!⚠️
Your old save file is compatible, but it is highly recommended to start a new game to unlock all new features of this update.
Full Patch Notes
- [New] Faction - Aether Swarm
- [New] Swarm Units: Crab, Spider, Crawler, Ranger, Jumper, Swarmie, Medusa
- [New] Swarm Structures - Nest, Spire, Hatcheries
- [New] Game Mechanics - Aether Swarm Waves (triggers every 5 minutes or when Nest is destroyed)
- [New] Game Mechanics - Corruption (boosts some enemy structures, removed upon capturing)
- [New] Game Mechanics - Artifacts (collect Aether shards to charge useful artifacts during the battle)
- [New] Game Mechanics - Worldstones (collect 3 to complete a level)
- [New] Fog of War introduced to make levels more interesting to explore
- [New] Tutorial hints for Aether Swarm, Worldstones and Artifacts
- [New] Trait 'Artifacts', increases maximum amount of active artifacts
Fixes and Improvements
- T2/T3 structures can't be 'downgraded' anymore. Yay!
- Better icons for selected structures and golems
- New dodge effect icon
- Abordage platforms won't spawn if player is nearby
- Main Menu UI improvements
- Victory and Game Over screens improvements
- New upper level info panel with a better efficiency bar (in progress)
- New vortex visual effect for vortex levels
- Performance optimization - sleeping state for units under the fog of war
- Move camera with keyboard by holding right [shift]
- Level bounds border becomes visible when you are close to it
- Secondary music theme for Desert Region
- Some other very important things I forgot to write down (Duh!)
Balance
- 'Cacti sands' tiles now allow structures placement
- Much shorter range (~50%) for HexBusters (Flame Cannon, Dark Cannon, Heavy Ballista)
- Multiple Firebowl buffs make fireball attack more powerful instead of adding more fireballs
- Poison debuff can be stacked from now on
- Structures are now immune to parasite/poison/freeze debuffs
- AI enemies will counter flying units more often with spells
- AI enemies could use spells more often when receiving huge damage
- T2/T3 structures have more heath, +50hp each stage (e.g. Archery: 200, 250, 300)
- Fleshmound - attack distance 0.4 (was 0.3)
- Elite Archer Golem - reload time 2.0 (was 1.5)
- Wasp Nest - spawn time 3.0 (was 2.0)
- Hornet Nest - spawn time 2.0 (was 1.0)
- Hammer Archont, Sacred Hammer Archont - reload time 1.2 (was 1.5)
- Divine Hammer Archont - reload time 1.0 (was 1.5), damage 14 (was 12)
- Hound Golem - hp 40 (was 50)
- Battle Hound Golem - hp 60 (was 75), armor 2 (was 0), damage 10 (was 8)
- Elite Hound Golem - hp 80 (was 100), armor 5 (was 0), damage 16 (was 12)
- Scarab - damage 8 (was 10)
- Royal Scarab - damage 12 (was 15)
- Sacred Scarab - damage 16 (was 25)
