WELCOME TO THE BIGGEST UPDATE. This one pushes the game a huge step closer to completion and I couldn't be happier about it. As always please share your thoughts on whatever you can.
ENDLESS MODE:
The wave cap has been increased to 100 WAVES (it can't be infinite because of reasons). The difficulty spike after wave 10 is a little steeper than before, and continues to ramp up from there. For those who are used to consistently making it to wave 20... YOU WILL NOT.
STAGES:
Every 5 waves you'll DRIVE to the next battleground! The second stage has a new gameplay element too which is specifically designed for the structure of endless mode.
WEAPON OVERHEAT CHANGES/FIXES:
- You can now "cancel" the effects of overheating by swapping your guns side. I actually discovered this exploit on my own and decided to make it a feature, I'm quite surprised no one else found it.
- Heat-based weapon pickups will no longer transfer heat from one weapon to the other. So for example you can now swap out a hot Plasminigun for a fresh cold one off the ground.
- Heat UI elements and effects improved, plus the overheating sound now plays on the side of the gun that is overheating.
ENEMIES:
- NEW ENEMY: Bombs.
- NEW ENEMY: Assassin Gunships. Model is a placeholder.
- NEW ENEMY: Turrets.
- "NEW" ENEMY: Regular gun truck.
- New and expanded mini-waves.
- Obliterator? More like oBIGilirator (its bigger).
- Airship has a much higher top speed and will SWOOP by .
- Maximum Shlugoid speeds increased significantly.
- Frag Cannon rounds are now twice the size.
WEAPONS AND UPGRADES:
- ITEM CHANGES: Rapid enemy kills no longer have the chance to drop extra fuel, instead they have the chance to drop extra ammo. Additionally, ammo drop amounts are no longer random, as of now all ammo drops are a specific amount; 5 for a regular kill, 7 if both your guns are low on ammo, plus a 25% chance of an extra 4 from a rapid kill.
- MICROWAVE BEAM: Now operates with heat. As such, its un-charged ammo usage has been lowered and its fire rate increased to encourage heat-cancelling. It also regenerates its own ammo now, but very slowly and after 7 seconds.
- PLASMA RAIL CANNON: Fully charged shot can now pierce though one enemy. Fully charged shots use a LOT more ammo.
- CHANGED UPGRADES: The "Ripdrive X.0" upgrade series has been dissolved. They're no longer required to equip in a specific order.
- CHANGED UPGRADE: "Ripdrive 3.0" is now "Quantum Fuel Tank".
- CHANGED UPGRADE: "Ripdrive 4.0" is now "Thermal Ammo Converter".
- CHANGED UPGRADE: "Low stress" is now "Plutonium additive", which permanently increases your overall speed.
- CHANGED UPGRADE: "Cataclysmic Compression" is now labelled as a core replacer, spews even more core, and requires 2 full cores to use.
- CHANGED UPGRADE: "Cleansing Flame" no longer requires you to have "Cataclysmic Compression".
- CHANGED UPGRADE: "Magnetism" is now split into 2 upgrades, the first one doubles your pickup range, the next one triples.
- REMOVED: "Tungsten Obliterator". I don't want players to feel like they have to kneecap their range just for extra damage.
- NEW UPGRADE: "Rifled Barrels": tightens bullet spread and increases bullet speed.
- NEW UPGRADE: "Atomizer Beam" replaces core dump with a giant laser beam. Requires 2 full cores to use.
HUD:
- Score and multiplier HUD elements are a bit smaller now, with their size finally relative to the HUD scale.
- Floating text/damage numbers are now adjustable in video settings (Turn these off for more fps).
- Red vignette flashes on the edges of the screen when taking a hit. Health bar also flashes when on 1 HP.
- Weapon side-swap button reminder now sits in the top left as part of the HUD.
- More visual and audio feedback for being unable to do a core dump.
- The stopwatch/game timer will now only tick up during a wave.
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS:
Things that run a little better:
- Chickens.
- Shlugoids.
- Player tank rendering.
- Basic enemy vehicles (They no longer spam texture swaps).
- HUD rendering.
- Item drops.
- Particles, with better particle settings.
Lowering the particle settings will now sequentially remove different particles. So for example, "Less" will remove your tank's long dust trail and hover effects while "Minimal" will also remove the shorter dust trail.
MISC:
- Maximum multiplier drain speed increased significantly, incremental drain speed increased slightly.
- 7 new achievements, with the ones requiring you to reach wave 20 being altered. The upgrade tree one has been removed too.
- Water and bell towers can now be completely destroyed. Still needs proper sprites though.
- The microwave beam now affects the CUBE.
- Bullet impact sounds try their very best not to overlap anymore, which means no more shotgun impact jump scares.
- Fixed some controller menu navigation issues.
- Enemies should no longer get stuck way off screen.
- Shooting down rockets is much easier
SO WHATS LEFT TO DO?:
-Weekly mode of course. Once the tweaking/fixing period for this update cools off it will be my focus.
-A few more upgrades and at least one more unique weapon.
-Stats and achievements menu, aka boring UI stuff.
-Unlockable Sandripper models via the achievements menu.
-Public demo?????