v.0.85.0
Patch Summary
This patch updates the Crystalloid deck mechanic, adds some new low level cards, balances a few existing ones and adds a new card attribute as well as fixes a few bugs.
Overview
Crystalloid Updates
Crystalloid mechanics have seen the most gameplay changes over the past few patches as they are definitely the most experimental of the base decks. This patch makes another change that builds on the previous update, which made Crystalloids only placeable adjacent to other Crystalloids.
Now, Crystal Growth, which is the base element of Crystalloid Decks, loses HP at the end of its turn and adds a new Crystal Growth to your hand. This is similar to the old Crystalloid mechanics where Crystal Growths lost HP and grew new copies of themselves automatically, but it gives you full control of which direction you want to grow by giving you a card you can place yourself.
Crystal Growth is now also Fragile, which keeps your deck from overflowing with cards and counterbalances the now fairly powerful deck type with the possibility of losing your Crystal Growth cards for the rest of the battle.
The new changes let you continuously grow crystalloids in a controlled direction without littering the map and your deck with Crystal Growths and opens up a bunch of synergies with other non-crystalloid cards.
Let me know what you think of the new changes in the Discussion Forums!
Low Level Variety
Up to this point, most of the game's diversity has been in the mid to late game and the beginning of the game has not been very varied from run to run. This is mostly due to the fact that there aren't that many low level cards and ships and the beginning nodes' cost budgets are not large enough to generate varied enough decks.
This patch includes 4 new low level cards and reduces the rarity of a number of existing cards as well as starts adding some premade low-level decks into the mix. The next few patches will all include similar changes to make sure the beginning of each run is as varied as possible.
Fast Attribute
One of the new cards added has a new Fast attribute. Units with Fast do not lose their movement point when moving (though movement still costs a command point), allowing them to move multiple times in addition to their attack.
A couple of existing cards had Fast added to them as well. Fast units will almost always have a movement range of 1 by default.
Detailed Change List
Gameplay
Added the Fast card attribute.
Made AI a bit more aggressive.
Cards, Ships and Balancing
Cards added: Combat Bot, Drunk Pirate, Guard Hog, Photon Cannon, Federation Core.
Crystal Growth now Fragile and loses 1 HP end of turn and gives you a new Crystal Growth start of turn.
Some small updates to the Robot Factory boss deck and ship tiles.
Stimpack is now called Synthohol.
Reduced rarity of a number of cards.
Assassin Drone is now 1 move range and Fast.
Fungal Zombie is now Fast.
Grenade now deals fire damage.
Command cost bumps to Bumper Bot, Scrap Bot, Charge Bot, Crystal Pillar, Mechanic, Pulse Cannon; Battery, Shield Shard.
Infested Mount now triggers every turn.
Bug Fixes
Fixed mutating timer entities breaking their timer.
Fixed Thorn Shot poisoning units through shields.
Fixed card level stars overlapping with fatigue icons on the card.
Fixed some actions showing incorrect player color in the rewind bar.