Greetings citizens!
A string of patch updates have been lurking in the beta branch for a while now – fixing a few bugs, addressing balance issues, adding a few oft-requested features, and making drones slightly less smooth-brained :)
Now we need your help to make sure it's ready to be rolled out to everyone. So please check it out and let us know if you encounter any show-stopping bugs, annoyances or mistakes. In the meantime, rest assured that all of your feedback is being heard and work on the next major content update is underway, more news on that soonish!
++ Version 0.814 is now live on the BETA branch ++
CHANGELOG
Adjustments / Improvements
Direct city collisions are now less harmful for 5 seconds after a shield break, ramping from 95% protection to 0% over the period (city already receives a finite amount of immunity to nuke burn and vampire damage during this period (expended more quickly if being continually burned / drained))
Shield collision detection against Asteroids is now more accurate
High Voltage Arcing chain range increase raised to 20% (was 10%)
Fissile Pellets from the Garbage Blunderbuss no longer invalidate rewards that require enemies be destroyed 'without nukes'
Hovering a reroll now highlights potential offers in the tree as a preview, including a rolling selection of currently accessible Opportunities
Vacant Opportunity slots now show a brief explainer in the info panel and open the Opportunities list when clicked
Reroll avoidance weighting now makes previously-offered upgrades 100% less likely to be offered after a reroll (was 87.5%), unless the daily pool of not-yet-offered upgrades is exhausted mid-roll, in which case repeat offers are given temporary equal weighting so they can reappear (and rare ones can become more likely after multiple rerolls)
Rerolls will not be offered if the entire pool is already on offer
Ground-based enemies appearing in groups of 2 or more (eg. Capsules, Gorilla Tanks, Heavy Blobs) now always approach from alternating sides
Work Retreat, Red Flag Day and Refugee Asylum Scheme no longer have unlock requirements beyond their day ranges (each previously had some oblique hidden requirements)
Overclocked Fire Rate (Volley) misfire chance reduced to 4% (was 8%)
Blunderbuss Sawn-Off Barrel spray increase reduced to 2 degrees (was 2.5)
Technosphere core has 20% less health
Gorillas spawning before day 9 will appear as the last enemy of the day
Rerolls are 6.25% more likely to be offered
Opportunities are 7.77% more likely to be offered
Technosphere turret segments pulse 40% more intensely to signify vulnerability
Various upgrade and reward descriptions revised for clarity
Drone brain improvements
Drones now anticipate expanding nuke blasts more intelligently and avoid them with greater urgency
Atomic drones will not attempt to ram enemies with nullifier fields, and will actively retreat when inside nullifier fields
Aggressive atomic drones will adopt more cautious behaviour regardless of their config while retreating from nullifier fields to avoid a wasted detonation
Atomic drones now avoid all other drones with 2x greater urgency
Atomic drones with automatic targeting will prioritise miniboss enemies over others if they're within 60% of their max target acquisition radius
Atomic drones actively avoid outposts and an unshielded city (unless in guard formation or with a manual target conflict)
All drones will give the Technosphere a much wider berth
Improved accuracy for drone-to-enemy collision detection
Aggressive atomic drones with manual targeting now respect their engagement mode setting (warden / knight / rogue) and only enter 'missile mode' to actively ram their target if it's within their range threshold (rogue atomics will still always seek and ram)
Aggressive non-atomic drones will now actively attempt to ram enemy missiles out of the way if they are extremely close (previously they only rammed missiles as an emergent behaviour of their steering)
QoL / UI
Added gamepad deadzone adjustment settings to misc options menu: default (which is just above the noise level for a typical xbox controller) up to +15% in 1% steps.
Factory Reset function now has options to retain Opportunity progress and/or Highscore
GPU information popup added to display options panel
Chroma Slew trail mode now has adjustable frame delay from 1-3 (recommended only for high refresh rate displays, unless you like being confused)
Fire rate changes in all upgrade descriptions are now stated as percentages rather than RPMs, actual upgrade values unchanged
In-game HUD and status screen nuke production readouts now display whole nuke values (nuke ammo still displays post-rationing missile count)
The terminally impatient can now skip studio logos by holding down gamepad A or the mouse button for 1.5 seconds (logos can still be disabled entirely in BIOS options)
Proxy-mouse gamepad control is now suppressed on the reward summary screen, preventing gamepad players from accidentally entering proxy mouse mode and being unable to use gamepad shortcut buttons without first returning to tabbed UI mode with the d-pad
Early Access introduction popup appears once when playing the game for the first time (seen state resets via factory reset)
Audio
Audio menu now has latency options to help avoid buffer underrun dropouts / crackling: best stability, balanced or best latency (restart required after changing)
Revised audio mix
Engine
V99 now actively clears cached shaders and recompiles them on every launch (usually a negligible amount of time) in an attempt to avoid startup hangs / blank screen issues after driver or OS updates
V99 now disregards overcautious GPU compatibility blocklists and will attempt to initiate rendering on a wider range of discrete GPUs
V99 will now attempt to re-initialise GPUs that throw minor warnings during startup (max 3 attempts) and show a more detailed error message if it still ultimately fails
Various shader tweaks
Fixes
Fixed build speed bonus not being applied to Atomic Drone factories
Fixed Flare Link Priority bolts not arcing between multiple enemies after backtracking from the fruitless end of a flare chain
Fixed Basilisk Incendiary Coating burn damage not propagating between firing mode profiles correctly with differing upgrade order
Fixed rare race condition where Capsules could be destroyed and spawn Fronds in the same frame
Fixed classic/geodesic shield option not being saved between sessions
Fixed Mint Condition reward not being invalidated by vampiric damage
Fixed Technosphere generator pieces becoming orphaned in rare circumstances
Fixed Advanced Drone Systems' manual targeting not working without a missile launch facility (CND hermit), target crosshair now remains active after nuclear decommission
Fixed city turret not resuming in an alt firing mode after recovering from a stun
Fixed various UI glitches and typos
Cheers!
Datassette