Hey All,
0.1.3 has now been released. It adds a variety of content as well as some revamp of the GUI, better resolution support, performance improvements and more. A big thanks to everyone on Discord who helped out with testing the beta.
Feel free to provide feedback and report any bugs you come across on Discord. This is a large update that involved rewriting part of the engine to improve performance and enhance the pathfinding system so there is a chance some bugs or "feel" issues have slipped through.
0.1.3 Patch notes
Summary
- New Content (Captains, Spaceships, a Map and more)
- Many revamped GUI icons
- Resolution options and GUI scaling
- Significant performance improvements
- QoL, Balance and Bug Fixes
New Captains
- The Hacker - Harness the power of movable turrets to shore up breached defences. Construct buildings that buff all surrounding turrets
- The Warlord - Take control of an enemy spaceship while doing battle on land with unique specialists and utility beacons
A New Map and Mode
- Elysium Mons - Take the fight to the goo in the shadow of a volcano. Destroy all objectives on the map, but be ready to defend when ash darkens the sky
- The Anomaly Oscar wave is now more difficult and will appear slightly earlier
- Added Endless Mode Extreme where the wave difficulty ramps up significantly faster than normal
New Spaceships and Modules
In addition to new spaceships and modules I have added extra modifiers to many of the original spaceships. This should make some of the smaller spaceships more reasonable to select.
- Added Fury's Mandible - A small partrol ship that comes equipped with auxillary beacons that help transform the battlefield.
- Added SCS-Spiridus - A colony ship equipped with an experimental reactor core significantly reducing passive energy use and boosting Beam Cannon recharge rate
- Added MV-Feldspar - A heavy asteroid refinery that can convert excess ship energy into minerals.
- Added the Laser Cannon Module - Deals high damage in a small area
- Added the Rocket Battery Module - Missiles automatically home into high value targets or land over a wide area.
- Added module modifiers to various spaceships
- Added the ability to select which unit type you want to send via drop pod
- Drop Pods do a small amount of damage in an area when they land
- Some captains can deploy their unique units
- Level 1 ship labs no longer require uranium
- Relays now reveal in an isometric circle
A New Building, Faster Reconstruction and Long Distance Construction
Rebuilding after losing a section of your base often took far too long. The ability to boost construction when building on top of debris helps accelerate this. Additionally resources will now flow better to buildings over long distances. I may add "ghost" buildings in a future update to make rebuilding more engaging.
- Added the Beam Tower - Deals more damage the longer it is firing at a target
- Buildings placed on top of building debris will get an immediate boost of 50% of their construction requirement allowing for more rapid reconstruction
- Idle resources will now travel to buildings more consistently. This should improve the speed of building at long distances
New Goo Units
- Added the Bulger - A late game flying transport currently only available in Endless Mode Extreme. Don't let it reach your base or it'll transform into a horde of thrashers. Both of these new structures are currently only available on Elysium Mons
- Added The Sludger
- Added The Gunkpod
Tribe Changes
- Added a button to gift tribes effort
- Added a button to toggle whether or not you can target and damage tribe units
- Tribes will now send assault groups against enemy hordes if they are allied with you and they have enough units
The Laboratory
- Added 4 new stratagems
GUI
- Overhauled a lot of the art/icons on the GUI
- Added resolution options, including widescreen
- Added the ability to scale the GUI
- All building buttons are now in fixed positions. This means that key bindings will be consistent.
- Added a bar to show all status effects impacting the selected unit including if they can attack air
- Tool-tip text will turn red when you don't have enough of the specific resource
- Increased the resolution of the mini-map and added more colours
- Added a 2x speed button
- Added a restart game button to the menu and end screen
- Added an "Are you sure?" screen to quit/exit buttons
- Turret range indicators will now snap to turret placement positions
- Added a tracker of total passive skill energy use to the captain panel
- Made it clearer if a unit had gained veterency and what they gain via tool-tip
- Level up rewards will now display their item type
Quality Of Life Features
- Units that can move will now move out of the way of placed buildings rather than block them
- A tracker will appear on the final wave showing the amount of enemies left to kill
- Added a 2 cycle minimum duration between endless hordes (So you can save the game)
- Power toggling will now change all buildings to the same state rather than switch them
- Added a keyboard shortcut for the connector (default G)
General Balance
- Weapons teams (Mortars, Machine-gunners etc) can now garrison bunkers. They take up 2 slots
- Changed the unit level cap to 3
- Increased the maximum number of horde enemies on the map at any time on the 2 highest difficulties
- Poison effect duration 5 -> 8 seconds
- Doubled the output of Depots
- SAM rockets will now find a new target if their original target is destroyed.
- Lighter drones -30% -> -15% mining output
- Flamers no longer cause friendly damage when they explode
Weapons
Many weapons had little impact or were inferior to previous tiers. These changes should make more of them feel impactful. Tier 3 weapons were almost never seen so you can now access them at level 9.
- Added The Slip Cannon, Acid Blaster and The Trebuchet MX3 to the general weapon pool
- Tier 3 weapons are rewarded at both level 9 and 10
- RX-Laser - Damage 8 -> 7
- Grenade Launcher - Damage 20 -> 25
- Vanguard (Shotgun) - Time Between Attacks 2 -> 1
- X409 Rocket Launcher - Time Between Attacks 3 -> 2.5
- Stego HMG - Damage 5 -> 6
- Vengeance (Mutant Shotgun) - Damage 20 -> 35
- Railgun Renamed RG-48 - Damage 40 -> 250
- Ion Launcher - Damage 30 -> 50
- Updated some sound effects
Skills
- Audio Stimulater - Cooldown 25 -> 15, Energy Cost 30 -> 25
- Railgun- Energy Cost 30 -> 20
- Remote Turret - Energy Cost 50 -> 35
- Remote Plasma Turret (Roboticist) - Energy Cost 30 -> 25 Cooldown 45 -> 30
- Teleport - Energy Cost 25 -> 20
- Micro Rocket Cannon - Range 5 -> 7 Energy Cost 40 -> 35 Cooldown 35 -> 30
- SL3 Ballistic Missile - Energy Cost 50 -> 40
- Side Mounted Giga Cannon - Range 3 -> 4 Cooldown 10 -> 6 Damage 100 -> 300
- Malicious Nanobots - Energy Cost 35 -> 25 Damage Per Tick 20 -> 40
Passive Skills
Passive skill energy drain often made grabbing the Battery essential. This general reduction in energy use should give players more options.
- Growth Hormone 43 is now a passive skill
- Shield - Energy Cost 15 -> 10
- Rocket Orbitor - Energy Cost 30 -> 15
- Laser Orbitor - Energy Cost 15 -> 10 Damage 5 -> 6
- Saw Orbitor - Energy Cost 15 -> 5 Damage 2 -> 3
- Goopy - Energy Cost 20 -> 5 Damage 3 -> 4
- Earth's Banner - Energy Cost 20 -> 10
- SARA - Energy Cost 20 -> 10 Damage 7 -> 8
- PAPA - Energy Cost 20 -> 10
- Pyro Spinner - Energy Cost 25 -> 15
- Automated Cryo Canister - Energy Cost 25 -> 15
- Mortar Backpack - Energy Cost 25 -> 15
Pathfinding
- Pathfinding will now take into account the connector speed boost
- Reduced the chance that units path through fog when traveling long distances
- Added a delay to the rate hordes spread out to reduce the chance that horde direction shifts or splits unexpectedly
Optimization
- Significantly improved the performance of pathfinding
- Improved the performance of large colonies
- Improved the performance of hordes
- Improved performance when hordes initially spawn
Misc
- Added some missing death animations
- Touched up the graphics of some units
Bug fixes
(Many other bug fixes were brought forwards to the July updates)
- Geysers should no longer spawn on top of ore on non-procedural maps
- Fixed being able to build on bridges
- Fixed reclaimed armour being 1 instead of 2
- Fixed hero specific weapons being in the weapon pool for everyone.
- Further reduced the chance that long thin lines of crystals spawn near the starting area
- Fixed some ship projectiles getting stuck in the air if they are shot down
- Fixed double click selecting abandoned buildings
- Fixed being able to select constructed bridges by double clicking on one under construction
- Fixed weapons not being rewarded if your captain has leveled multiple times since
- Fixed barracks being blocked by bridges and with single terrain tiles and a mismatch between valid placement colours
- Fixed the Uranium gain counter
- Fixed windowed borderless mode not saving
- Fixed a rare error when loading saved games
- Fixed a case where tribe territory wouldn't go away when their platform is destroyed
FAQ
Will the game get modding support?
I’m planning to introduce map making tools in version 0.2, which will allow players to create and share their own maps. Along with that, I’m also working on implementing broader modding support that I hope to introduce in later updates.
Will the game get co-op?
Co-op is not planned. I might experiment with it after the 1.0 release but assume for now that it won't be in the game.
What's in the next update?
The next update, 0.2, will introduce the next playable faction and include the first iteration of the map making tools.
Is there a public roadmap?
Not yet! The first few months of EA has been great for getting an idea of what aspects of the game players enjoy and the pace of development now the game is live. With 0.1.3 released I hope to get a general roadmap together soon, recognizing content and timelines are always fluid. Thankfully, all 3 content updates released so far have exceeded their initial scope but have still been on schedule.
Why no supporter's edition? I want to keep things simple for players by offering one version of the game on Steam. Purchasing the game is already a great way to show your support! If you'd like to contribute even more, you can help by discussing balance and features on Discord, reporting any bugs you encounter, and sharing your experience with game with others.