Patch Notes for Update 0.6.4

Hi there prospectors,

Here's the new stable update with a lot of major changes; with improvements to the game progression, significant game balancing revisions and enhancements to the user interface.

Thanks as always for the invaluable feedback and bug reporting and we hope you enjoy playing this update.

Game Progression

• Forest

  • Overhaul of the initial game experience to improve how things are introduced and explained to the player.

    • Updated instructions during the tutorial to help highlight the benefit and purpose of each upgrade and objective as they are introduced.

    • Added a new tutorial step that explains how base platforms work and gives you four of them to use.

    • Updated the tutorial to highlight the benefits of seam mining when you’re encouraged to mine Iron for the first time.

    • Reworked the ‘Get Hot Swap Module’ objectives - and moved them forward in the progression to appear after the Forest Boss is defeated (‘Minotaur’ - the new name for the Forest Boss).

    • Added a new objective to guide you to purchase your first Cab upgrade from the Forest Trader when you first find it. This Cab (the Pioneer Journeyman Cab) has an upgraded Cargo and Reactor Capacity compared with the starting Scout Cab.

  • Updated Forest enemy Techs in the starter area to drop Light Ammo rather than Heavy Ammo.

  • Added a new base on the hillside near the start of the forest with a small silo filled with treasure as a reward.

  • The ability to sell unwanted scavenged blocks is now highlighted when you first encounter the Forest Trader.

  • Simplified the 'Purchase Lightning Rod' objectives after finding the Forest Trader.

    • You now only need 1 x Gold Wiring for the trade - which can be found in the silo of three different nearby Outlaw Bases - this change makes the objectives flow better.

  • The Tower Base on the hill nearest the starting point no longer contains Gold Wire or has an Insignia, as a single visit to that base would have bypassed the later Lightning Rod objective (it does, however, have other valuable items to find).

  • Updated the contents and position of silos in Outlaw Bases across the Forest continent to make them easier to find.

    • Also bumped the value of their contents to make them more of a reward to seek out.

  • Updated crate reward contents found near points of interest and silo reward contents found at each enemy base.

  • Removed the Lightning Shrubs from the same hillside and added some Outlaw Techs to guard the base.

• Swamp

  • Added lots of Oil Wells (one can be found on each Swamp Beach).

  • Updated crate reward contents found near points of interest and silo reward contents found at each enemy base.

• Polar

  • Added Polar progression objectives that guide you to get a Mobile Pulse Heater, craft Heater Fuel, find the Polar Trader, craft a Climate Regulation Dome, defeat the Polar Boss, Walrus and complete the Polar Bastion.

    • Reduced Heater Fuel recipe to only require Diesel (not SynCoal as well).

    • Added an alternate Heater Fuel recipe that requires SynCoal, which can be crafted in the Fuel Refinery.

    • Added Oil Wells to all of the Volcanic Thermal Areas.

    • Increased the heat output of the Mobile Pulse Heater Block enough that a single Heater will maintain a Tech's temperature.

    • Added Mobile Pulse Heater blocks to all enemy Techs.

    • Set the Mk.3 Scanner as a trader special for the Polar Trader.

    • Removed the Mk.1 Scanner as a trader special from the Forest Trader, as it is now included in the onboarding sequence.

    • Removed Gold Ingots from the Climate Regulator Dome recipe, so that it can be crafted without visiting the Desert continent.

    • Updated crate reward contents found near points of interest and silo reward contents found at each enemy base.

• Desert

  • Added Desert progression objectives that guide you to get a Heat Sink and Water-Cooled Radiator, craft a Beacon Tower, find the Desert Trader, defeat the Desert Boss and complete the Desert Bastion.

    • Changed Beacon Tower recipe to require 5x Hydrofluoric Vial (instead of 8x Sulphur Cakes, the rest of the recipe remains the same), creating a need to find Flourite/Flourine in the Desert before it can be built.

    • Increased the Beacon Tower range to 1,800m, meaning it clears the effects of interference for a much wider radius than before.

    • Re-balanced Desert temperatures are to be hotter during the day (in direct sunlight) and colder at night. And increased the effectiveness of the Heat Sink and the Water-Cooled Radiator to cool your Tech down (the deepest desert is survivable in the midday sun with two Heat Sinks and one Water-Cooled Radiator attached to a full Liquid Tank).

    • Oil Wells have been added throughout the desert; one appears on top of each mesa now.

    • Updated crate reward contents found near points of interest and silo reward contents found at each enemy base.

Tutorial

• The player is now told that the HALO has disappeared if blocked.

• The player is now told about 'space to hover your Tech' at point of attaching Zephyr wheels.

• Provided a clear explanation of the advantages of targeting the seams when resource mining:

  • "Targeting Seams when mining any resource type increases resource yields, reduces Debris drops and mining time."

• When explaining about structure platforms, there's an added step to explain about how block variants can be selected.

  • Increased the number of platforms that the tutorial gives you to eight.

Bastion Rewards

• Completing and powering Bastions in each continent will now offer Fusion Cores instead of the previous benefits (scanner and repair upgrades - these benefits have now been converted into Tech Yard modules). The amount of Fusion Cores offered by each Bastion are:

  • Forest Bastion - 3 x Fusion Cores

  • Swamp Bastion - 4 x Fusion Cores

  • Polar Bastion - 5 x Fusion Cores

  • Desert Bastion - 6 x Fusion Cores

• For those unfamiliar with Fusion Cores, they enable the use of Fusion Reactor and Fusion Repair Tech blocks, which will increase your Tech Reactor Limit and give your Tech additional Repair Charges.

• Also added Fusion Reactors and Fusion Repair blocks for sale at all traders in limited quantities (The Desert trader already sold 5 x of each, which is still does, but the price per unit has been reduced from 60,000 BB to 16,000 BB - the price per unit is cheaper at each of the other traders).

Game Balancing

• Inventory/Storage

  • Increased the reactor capacity of all Cabs by 30% (rounding to the nearest 5).

  • Doubled the inventory stack size for all resource items (most stack to 120 now).

  • Increased the inventory stack size of all ammo types and fuel to 999.

  • Increased the inventory stack size of all Tech blocks to 100.

  • Increased the inventory stack size of all structure blocks to 25.

  • Reduced all structure block inventory tile sizes to either 1x1 or 2x2 (none are 3x3 anymore).

    • All non-functional structure blocks now have a 1x1 tile size.

    • Most functional structure blocks now have a 2x2 tile size (except those with a smaller world-space asset).

• Tech Power

  • Updated the number of default power cells that each Cab offers.

    • Those that specialise in harvesting or are higher tier have more.

    • Those that are lower tier have fewer, they all range from 2 minimum to 4 maximum.

  • Increased Tech Power regeneration rates by 40% for all Cabs.

• Repair

  • Increased the passive auto repair amount by 100% (up from 25 HP to 50 HP per second, split across all damaged blocks).

  • Reduced the charge time that the button has to be held before a Repair Charge is triggered.

• Ammo

  • Increased potential ammo loot drop ranges from defeated enemies by around three times.

  • Updated ammo and fuel recipes to offer more units and require fewer inputs:

    • The Light Ammo recipe now gives 100 units (up from 20)

    • The Heavy Ammo recipe now gives 100 units (up from 10)

    • The Plasma Ammo recipe now gives 100 units (up from 10)

    • The Grenade Ammo recipe now gives 50 units (up from 5)

    • The Missile Ammo recipe now gives 50 units (up from 5)

    • The Rocket Fuel recipe now gives 100 units (up from 10)

    • Both Heater Fuel recipes now give 50 units (up from 5) each

    • The AntiOxGel Recipe recipe now gives 50 units (up from 10)

    • The Beacon Ammo Recipe recipe now gives 25 units (up from 10)

      • The ingredients required are reduced by over half and removed Copper from the recipe (5 x Fluorine, 1 x Gold)

• Lights

  • Increased the range of all Tech Light blocks and the Light Pole structure.

  • Fixed up the Rugged Light; it now generates light at night (it only glowed before).

• Resources

  • All resource descriptions are now updated. They should have information on where you can get them or how you craft them, and some information on their uses.

  • Increased the health of Quartz (Silicate) by 50%.

  • Reduced the amount of Debris that drops from resource givers by 75%.

  • Reduced the amount of Debris required for all recipes in the Debris Tumbler by 75%.

  • Resource seams now glow for a bit longer.

  • Increased the amount of resources gained from each resource giver when seam mining (+5% to +15%).

  • Increased the yield from resource givers when using a Fragmenter (+10% to +20%).

• Harvesting & Drops

  • Reduced the time that scanned icons remain to 10 seconds, for all scanners.

  • Increased the resource chunks yielded by each resource giver by 50%.

  • Further increased the chances of blocks successfully dropping from enemies.

• Crafting

  • Reduced the recipe cost of the Small Platform and the Long Platform structure blocks.

    • The recipe for Small Platforms is now 2 x Iron and 3 x Organics

    • The recipe for Long Platforms is now 1 x Iron and 2 x Organics

• Wheels

  • Re-balanced and increased the torque power of all wheels.

• Cabs

  • SEA Relentless Orca Cab now applies its modifier buffs only when floating.

  • Zero Cab and Flying Fox Wide Cab now apply their modifier buffs only when flying.

• Block Licensing

  • Reduced licensing costs for all blocks by 30%+ (including trader specials).

  • Increased the sale price for scavenged blocks by +18% (now 33% of the total price, up from 10%).

  • Increased the $crip rewards for objectives by a minimum of 50% (often more - up to 500%).

• Tech Blocks

  • The block despawning time on the dropped Tech blocks is now longer on Classic mode.

  • Buffed the Water-cooled Radiator’s reduction in temperature danger zone when in use by 20%.

  • Added some passive cooling to the Tech’s temperature to Water Cooled Radiators too (less than Heat Sinks, but still useful).

  • Increased the passive cooling of the Tech’s temperature for Heat Sinks by around 33%.

• Structure Blocks

  • Reduced the health of all structure blocks.

  • Increased the Power Pylon connection range from 50m up to 300m.

  • Increased the range of Beacons dropped from the Beacon Layer from a few meters up to 500m.

  • Changed 2 recipes, taking into consideration when the player gets hold of a scanner.

    • Block Storage Module:

      • Iron x20

      • Organics x20 (not Silicate)

    • Basic Repair Module:

      • Iron x20

      • Silicate x10 (not Lithium)

  • Updated the recipe for the Debris Tumbler (previously 'Nano Sieve') to make it available from the Swamp onwards.

    • It now requires:

      • Carbon Fibre x16

      • Copper Wiring x4

      • Sulphur Cake x6

      • Synthetic Polymer x24

    • It no longer requires FerroSteel or Photovoltaic, meaning it can be crafted once you have access to resources found in the Forest or Swamp and an Intermediate Fabricator, a Processor and a Chemical Plant.

  • The condition for detecting when a player's inventory is nearly full in order to initiate the "build a silo" objective has been increased from 30 scavenged blocks to 60 scavenged blocks.

  • Increased the conduit transfer amount for Debris from 1 to 10 per tick.

  • Added Long, Small and Large Platform recipes to the Basic Fabricator to maintain parity with the Cab Crafting recipes.

  • Updated the alt Rocket Fuel recipe (in the Fuel Refinery) to use Chlorine Ampules - rather than the unobtainable Refined Chlorine.

  • Increased the amount of rocket Fuel it yields from 100 to 200 units to recognise the extra effort required to render it from Chlorine rather than Petrol.

  • Increased the total units of power generated from Diesel Drums from 3500 to 4000 and the power generated from the Diesel Power Generator from 320 to 400 power.

  • Added a new recipe to the Chemical Plant that allows you to reform 3 x Diamond Chips into a complete Diamond.

Enemies

• Added enemy threat markers.

  • The range goes from one skull (least dangerous) to five skulls (most dangerous).

    • One skull enemies only ever have one weapon

    • Two skull enemies only ever have two weapons

  • Updated most enemy Techs for each continental faction to group them more tightly by threat.

• Updated all four boss fights (Forest, Swamp, Polar and Desert).

  • All four bosses now feature multiple stages to their fights, where they will hotswap to a new form after taking enough damage.

  • Each stage features different behaviour and attack patterns and mobs/adds/supporting enemy Techs.

  • Updated the names of each boss to fit with their new behaviours.

• Added Mobile Pulse Heaters to all Polar enemies.

• Added Heat Sinks to all Desert enemies.

Blocks

• Added two new slimline variant wheels:

  • Zephyr Slim Wheel 1.5M

  • Medium Armoured Slim Wheel 2M

• Block purchasing and licensing settings:

  • There are 2 options for how the purchase and license cost of a block increases with each successive block:

    • Linear - price increases by a certain amount for each successive block.

    • Fixed - price remains fixed regardless of how many successive blocks.

  • A further option has been added to set a discount rate for blocks purchased or licensed

• Updated descriptions for Sea and Air Cabs to note that their modifiers only work whilst floating or flying.

Structures

• Updated names and descriptions for structure blocks to provide a straightforward explanation of what they are and what they do:

  • Fragmenter Y2 is now Ore Fragmenter

  • Launch Pad RA7 is now Delivery Rocket

  • Light Pole HL is now Light Pole

  • UPA Nano Sieve is now Debris Tumbler

  • Smelter 0E is now Smelter

  • Refinery is now Fuel Refinery

  • Platform Fabricator is now Panel Fabricator

  • SI1 Silo is now Small Silo

  • SI2 Silo is now Medium Silo

  • SI3 Silo is now Large Silo

  • Repair Charge Module is now Basic Repair Charge Module

  • AC Organics Turbine is now Carbon Power Generator

  • hOS Solar Generator is now Solar Power Generator

  • Ar6 Wind Generator is now Wind Power Generator

  • Diesel Generator is now Diesel Power Generator

  • Reserve Power Cell S1 is now Small Reserve Power Cell

  • Reserve Power Cell M2 is now Medium Reserve Power Cell

  • Reserve Power Cell L3 is now Large Reserve Power Cell

  • Splitter is now Conduit Splitter

  • Advanced Splitter is now Advanced Conduit Splitter

  • Merger is now Conduit Merger

  • Advanced Merger is now Advanced Conduit Merger

  • Lightning Rod 200ka is now Lightning Rod

  • AntiOxGel Sprayer is now HazMat Tech Wash (AntiOxGel is now HazMat Gel)

  • Small Base Heater is now Base Heater

  • Climate Regulator Dome is now Climate Dome

  • SI3 Liquid Silo is now Liquid Silo

  • Spot Light HL is now Spot Light

  • Rugged Light HL is now Rugged Light

• Individual structures will now deactivate if there is insufficient power.

  • The whole power grid of a base no longer trips. Instead, individual structures are switched off based on the available power.

    • A "no-power" icon appears above structures that have been turned off because of insufficient power.

  • Power is prioritised to structures that have been drawing power the longest.

    • Players can toggle structures on and off to affect priority.

  • When there is sufficient power again, structures come back online automatically and their "no-power" icon disappears.

  • The power trip panels from all UI panels have now been removed, as they're no longer required.

• Added 2 new Tech Yard Modules:

  • Scanner Upgrade Module - The Scanner Upgrade Module increases the range of your equipped scanners.

    • This block offers a similar benefit to the one previously given by completing the Forest Bastion (which now offers Fusion Cores instead).

    • Players are now gifted one when the Forest Bastion is complete, along with a Fusion Reactor Block.

    • It can also be crafted with an Intermediate Fabricator for 5 x Aluminium Ingots and 5 x Tantalum

  • Intermediate Repair Upgrade Module - The Intermediate Repair Upgrade Module increases the speed of your Tech's auto-repair and adds an additional repair charge.

    • This block offers a similar benefit to the one previously given by completing the Swamp Bastion (which now offers Fusion Cores instead).

    • Players are now gifted one when the Swamp Bastion is complete, along with a Fusion Reactor and a Fusion Repair Block.

    • It can also be crafted with an Advanced Fabricator for 5 x Titanium Ingots and 2 x Photovoltaic.

User Interface

• The balanced mode tooltip has been updated to tell players this is the "intended game experience."

• Power improvements:

  • More consistent depiction of how much power each structure provides or uses.

  • Generators show grid power usage when there is insufficient power.

  • Simplified and fixed many issues with existing power and crafting UIs.

• Added UI elements connecting the objective panel to the HALO and map.

• Thumbnails of resources are now shown when they're collected.

• An ON/OFF switch graphic has now been added to the related UI panels for added clarity.

• Ammo counters will now flash when they fall below a minimum threshold to help indicate that they are running low:

  • 50 for Light Ammo and Rocket Fuel

  • 25 for Heavy, Plasma, Grenade and Missile Ammo

  • 10 for Beacon Ammo and Heater Fuel

• Revisions to the crafting interface, snapshots and Xpedia to provide improved clarity on how they function and the information that they telegraph:

  • Crafting interface

    • Each crafter now displays the full list of items that it can craft.

    • You have the choice to filter only items for which ingredients are available.

    • "NEW" marker indicates which types of items are yet to be crafted.

    • The pop-up on the crafting menu now has more space for the item description.

    • Revised the crafting UI to indicate that structures are not craftable due to insufficient recipe ingredients rather than being locked.

  • Snapshots interface

    • The Create Snapshot button is now more obvious.

    • Changes to a snapshot are committed to disk, without the need to click save.

  • Xpedia

    • Structure block information is available for all blocks which you can craft (e.g. the block which crafts them has been discovered).

Audio

• Reduced how often you hear "enemies nearby" music.

Localisation

• More work-in-progress translations added for early game text for non-English languages.

• Corrections to current translated text that contain errors.

  • Many thanks to the players who've helped identify translation errors:

    • Anton

    • SugarMickVains

    • ZeVc

    • zhiza

Bug Fixes

• The following list of bugs should now be fixed in this update:

  • Crash when a base is merged to another base.

  • The quest "Purchase a Lightning Rod" should actually read "Purchase a Mobile Lightning Rod."

  • When the pulse furnace activates for a client in multiplayer, it will use four heater fuel for each activation instead of one.

  • Pulse furnace VFX cannot be seen by client in MP game.

  • Having four water-cooled radiators doesn’t stop the player Tech from overheating in the desert.

  • "No HUD" option renders scanner functionality useless.

Known Issues

• Some content in the Prospector Portal needs updating as it shows older UI.

• A significant amount of in-game text has been added or revised and has not been fully localised yet.

  • We will add more translations in following updates for all non-English languages.

Until next time, Prospectors!

- The TerraTech Worlds Team