Hello raiders!
It's time for another update, and it's a big one. Our demo version 2.0 is now live!
The update brings a series of fixes, changes and gameplay improvements. It also adds a series of requested features and balancing following the feedback of the community.
With this release, we want to fill you in on what's changed and the bugs we've fixed.
In-game experience
- In this new version of the demo we focused on making sure that the game flow is not interrupted by the presence of bugs or other design limitations. For this reason we’ve implemented a number of backdoor solutions that prevent players from getting stuck and beefed up our save system to prevent loading errors.
- Added new speed gates and corrected their positioning in order to facilitate the navigation in the level.
- Complete refactor of the monitors found in the cockpit. The new system is designed for a more immersive first person experience.
- Improved the positioning of the quest marker that would occasionally mislead the player direction.
- Improvement of the spaceship's AI and stat balance both for enemies and allies.
- Improved the combat with Jammer, the mini-boss raider at the demo’s end, with particular attention to its abilities activation and balance.
- Boosted the positive and negative effects associated with the three different ship setups (attack/balance/defense) in order to make their activation more significant and give more value to the tactical decision of the player.
- We went through a complete refactor of the navigation of the UI using the gamepad making sure it is possible to navigate all UI panels correctly
- Added the possibility to change the game resolution of the game and to run it in windowed mode.
- Added the possibility for the player to deactivate the motion blur
- Game now will pause automatically when the game application is losing focus.
New Feature, quests and environments
- We add a new quest that introduces the player to The Stability system, and we also add its own tutorial. DEV NOTE: Stability reflects a raider's mental balance and was partially present in version 1.0 but not fully implemented. It is the main mechanic driving the encounters with the Alters, the ghostly entities that populate the Galaxy of Neterun. In Limbo Alters would be tto dangerous but the new Demo will give you an idea on how the fight would work.
- New station unlocking system that player can experience in the secondary quest “Damn Anomalies” DEV NOTE: The Galaxy of Neterun is anything but safe. Some stations are safe havens while others are under threat from rebel raiders or space creatures. Defending attacked stations unlocks modules and consumables. In the new version of the demo, we have added a station that can be unlocked after the station area is cleared of enemies.
- A new type of enemy, the E-Was. DEV NOTE: E-Was are failed raiders, never fully integrated into ships, accumulating as waste. However, some of them still have some brain activity. They are not fast, but they shoot missiles, so they can potentially do a lot of damage.
- We made some changes to the final segment of the main quest playable in the demo, and to the secondary quests;
- Improvement to the sonic matter delivery reward system, granting credits for each delivery.
- Aesthetic changes to environments around the level, in particular the areas associated with the secondary quests that where lacking details in the first version of the demo.
UI
- Update of the panel describing the modules specifics in the crafting and trading menus of the space stations
- Adjusted the marker size and their appearance distance
- The quest objective marker is now more visible
Visual
- We've done a major overhaul on the lighting design. Most noticeably this include a fine-tuning of the auto-exposure system to make both first- and third-person more enjoyable in dark areas.
- Optimized shaders and texture streaming for improving performance.
- Changed the appearance of the Prometheus Station to match the style of the space station in the game
- Improved the overlap visual of the Vfx indicating when a stance selected by the player is active, also making more clear what part of the spaceship are affected by the stance.
- Projectile visual has been changed in order to diversify better gatling projectiles from lasers.
- Improved the visual of the Vfx highlighting objects identified by the use of the scan
- Improved the visual of the enemies ship trailes
Bugfixes
- Fixed an issue where the laser speed would appear slower than it actually is.
- Fixed an issue where combat music would not stop after the combat with the zanion.
- Fixed an issue where collectible would all appear with the same icon
- Fixed an issue where after a checkpoint load the fast consumable selections would be empty.
- Fixed an issue where in the raider log checking completed quests would trigger dialogs.
- Fixed an issue where the health bar would not display the correct values after a reload.
- Fixed an issue where ships integrity would not update correctly after a ship repair at stations.
- Fixed an issue where the rarity assigned to modules and resources would not display correctly in color.
- A series of other minor fixes.
We hope these changes in the 2.0 demo take us a step forward, and we can't wait to hear what you think.
Farewell, raiders!