Allright crew,
it's time to make a big list! We have a LOT of new things coming in version 1.0 of NITRO GEN OMEGA that is releasing on May 12th. New features, content, UI/UX improvements and more.
Here's a deep dive on everything you can expect this upcoming Tuesday.
The Main Quest
One last chance to save the world. Will you take it? NITRO GEN OMEGA adds a proper Main Quest that starts at Anchorage and will take you across the whole Continent on a last attempt to defeat the machines for good.
The Main Quest is pretty significant in size, and it is meant to run in parallel with the rest of the content of the game.
We do not expect you to be able to blitz through it - you will always need to do contracts on the side to keep the Marbles flowing in. Still, the Main Quest is a journey where you will visit every major faction on the continent and we reworked the unlocking of Side Quests to flow nicely with the progression of the Main Quest.
The Main Quest introduces new characters, cutscenes, dialogues and new tracks in the soundtrack. It is also meant to give a canonical ending to the game. We always described NGO as a "Sandbox RPG" and that's still largely true, but many players felt the need to have a story to tie it all together. We listened.
In order to experience the Main Quest you will need to start a new savefile. Your old savefiles should still be playable but will not include the new content and might present some issues here and there. More info below.
All the major additions related to the Main Quest
Main Quest starts right at the beginning of the game (regardless if the tutorial is on or off). It runs alongside the rest of the game - you're free to complete it at your own leasure or do side quests, sonar events and contracts.
Added several cutscenes inside/outside of combat, sometimes featuring dialogue between your characters and NPCs
Some Characters (like the Mechanic) have been rewritten compared to their Early Access version.
While there aren't dialogue options, the game now has a proper dialogue system where your characters will talk among each other or with NPCs at certain point of the quest (before it was essentially mostly monologues).
Please note that failing some Main Quest encounters will result in an immediate Game Over. You can always reload your savefile and try again but you can't exactly "regroup and retry" after some particularly high stakes fights.
All of the existing quests have been moved to "Side Quests". The major questlines related to the various factions will now unlock organically while playing the Main Quest (Junkers, Arbus Desert and Resonant Accord).
After completing the Main Quest you can continue to play with your current save file normally.
The "Turbo!" quest has been removed. The Airship Booster will be unlocked in a different way.
We have reworked the color of the quest icons: Orange Exclamation marks for Contracts, Yellow Question Marks for Secondary Quests, Red Question Marks for the Main Quest, Cyan Stars for Aspirations, Purple for Sonar Events.
Mech Selector & Tutorial Skip
Aside from being able to skip the tutorial, you are now free to start a new game with any of the Mechs you have unlocked. The tutorial is only available if you play as the Monki.
We also added an explanation for what Ironman Mode is.
New Features & Quality of Life
There is now a notification popping up on the left of the screen every time you complete a quest or a new quest starts.
You can now enable/disable the tracking of quests on the minimap and side panel.
Locked activities now have a tooltip telling you which item you need to unlock them.
Available activities now have a tooltip recapping their effect.
You now get a popup warning if you try to buy a part for a different Mech than the one you currently own.
When you buy a part for your Mech you will now get a dialogue window comparing it to the one you currently own and with the option to immediately install it.
You can now Tryout pilots in a Fool's Inn before hiring them. You can pay 10% of their hiring cost to reveal one of their skills at random.
You can now rotate the Mech in Paint/Loadout Screen by clicking and dragging or by using the Right Analog Stick.
Reworked the Management Screen to be much more performant. This should be evident on older PCs and Steam Deck.
Items in the inventory and in stores are now paginated instead of being an endless scrolling list.
In the Loadout Screen you now get a preview of what Statuses do.
Both Bass and Paradise Dance get dedicated tracks that play when you perform those activities.
Gameplay and Balancing Changes
With the game now "complete" in terms of content we took this time to review everything in terms of balancing to ensure a challenging but fun experience, with changes made across the board.
Drama Director
Overall the Drama Director should kick in more often. This should mean more Critical Hits, more Instinct Guards, more Limit Breaks, more Crisises, more Breakdowns.
Wounds
It is now harder to sustain light wounds in battle.
Wounds overall now heal faster.
Wounds heal twice as fast for pilots who don't take part in combat.
Fatigue
Pilots who don't take part in combat will have their fatigue drop slightly. Overall this should ensure that you don't have to rely 100% on activities and you can rotate people out of combat to have them rest.
New Parts
We added around 260 new parts, bringing the total to over 540 parts. Overall the main goal was to ensure a smoother progression for all three mechs and provide more options wherever possible.
Monki
Guard now also reduces Explosive damage.
Slightly increased the Hull Points provided by legendary parts.
Ocelot
Overall increased the Hull Points provided by Ocelot Parts.
The Ocelot now starts with 3 stability at the beginning of the first Round.
Patriot
Overall increased the Hull Points provided by Patriot Parts
Most movement orders of the Patriot now provide damage reduction of some sort, giving it more defensive options.
Target is dealt an extra 5% damage for each Combo Point it has.
Enemies
Medusa: Whip now deals Ranged damage, allowing it to be evaded. Overall this should give you more defensive options against it.
Razer/Pillager/Defiler: Reduced the damage of Thorns by 1.
Sniper: Reduced the frequency of Track. Reduced HP. Reduced the chance of finding two Snipers in an encounter.
Miscellaneous Changes
Bumpers and Triggers have been swapped on all menus that have both. If you have to re-train your muscle memory: sorry!
The game is now VERIFIED on Steam Deck.
Added a proper loading screen with gameplay tips!
Save slots now list the last mission of the Main Quest you played to make it easier to recognize them.
You can now delete both Save Slots and Team Profiles.
Added 20 or so new achievements.
Various minor improvements and bugfixes.
Important note about existing savefiles
Your existing savefiles should could work with the 1.0 version (i.e. they might not crash) but we can't guarantee that they will work 100% and they won't include any part of the Main Quest. (Edit: we've since learned that if your savefile is from a particularly older version of the game then it will crash on load). We made significant changes to the game and the map and some things might not work on your savefile. For example a quest might not be triggered when it should or present some other issues that might not be readily apparent. In other words you might be experiencing issues and not know that they are happening.
All of your Custom Characters will be retained normally.
We strongly suggest you start a new game on a fresh savefile when 1.0 hits. This way you will experience the Main Quest in its entirety and everything should work fine. In case you want to continue playing on an old savefile, we well leave the current version in a dedicated 'Early Access' branch on Steam that you can always go back to.
That's it folks - we're almost there!
Be sure to join us on Discord to interact with the development team and stay up to date with everything NGO.
Thanks,
GP