We did it! After nearly 4 years, NeonXSZ is now both content and feature complete.
Build 0.95 adds the last major new feature: Objectives/Achievements. We don't like to do anything the normal way around these parts so in NeonXSZ the achievements award in-game currency (uranium) rather than some e-peen points. They also don't expect the player to jump through some crazy tedious hoops to complete them.
A typical objective may be something as simple as 'Kill 10 ships in the F1 hull'. They are designed to encourage the player to try out all the different hulls, gadgets, upgrades and play styles that are possible and in turn help the player to get the most out of the game.
The reward sizes have been balanced so that these new objectives are also entirely optional. For a sandbox game this is obviously important. We want you guys to play NeonXSZ however you damn well please, but if the totally open ended game structure doesn't suit your taste you can now follow a list of objectives throughout the game and be rewarded for completing them.
New and improved Gadget FX:
The second most noticeable change in this update is an improvement to the visual effects for many of the game's gadgets. Above you can see the new Blink effect, and below we have the much improved Gyro Shield. See the full patch notes below for more details on the changes to the other gadgets.
So is the game finished?
Pretty much yes, however we aren't planning to do a final release just yet. First we'll take this latest build for a spin, make whatever tweaks necessary, and then enter the final Beta phase. Beta will likely last for a few months and further visual improvements are expected.
During the beta we'll be working on new promotional videos and preparing all the behind the scenes stuff to hopefully ensure a successful full release.
You guys have been amazing throughout Neon's development and we can't thank you enough for all of your encouragement and support. Be sure to push the game to breaking point now and let us know if you run into any bugs or issues. If you have any last minute suggestions for tweaks and improvements please do let us know.
Build 0.95 Changelog
- 68 new Objectives/Achievements added. Can be found in Options/Objectives.
- New Advanced Gadget FX toggle option added to Options/Video
- GyroShield visuals dramatically improved with new shaders, and other improvements
- Ship spawn effect tweaked
- Ship spawn effect added when launching drones
- New sound effect added to the Barrier gadget when activated
- Barrier brightness increased for better visibility
- Barrier outline added
- New animation effect added as Barrier reaches max size.
- Black Hole gadget particle effects now only appear when Advanced Gadget FX is enabled.
- New effects added to Blink Gadget. Psychedelic rings appear along the length of the Blink path. Blur reworked during Blink when used by the player. Dynamic environmental recoloring effect added while Blink is used by the player.
- New blinding flash effect added around the target when hit by CorruptAI : Blind gadget
- Impunity now has a new, additional, shield visual effect
- New, simple, but high performance, Leech visual effect added. Advanced Gadget FX must now be enabled to see the previous fancy bezier curve based leech effect.
- Neutonic Shield shader tweaked with subtle kaleidoscopic effect.
- Slight rework of the Shockwave visual effect.
- Electrocute gadget's visual effect transparency increased for better visibility while installed.
- New positional marker effect added around all floating turrets to make them more visible.
- WarpPipe shaders tweaked
- Docking ports with upgrade shops are now guaranteed to also have garage services
- Docking ports with dealerships are now guaranteed to also have Quantum Teleporter services
- New Introduction page added to the beginning of the in-game help system
- New Objectives page added to the Beginners section of the in-game help system
- Non-player ships can no longer be pushed around during docking procedures. This prevents a number of potential issues with docking bays.
- New toggle option added to Options/Video to enable/disable the Vignetting effect. This setting is automated when using the game's video presets. Disabling this should improve GPU performance for very low end systems.
- Tooltip popup delay reduced to 0.3 from 0.5 seconds.
- Fixed missing loot pedestals and teleporter frames from Station 7 Arena 4.