New Content
Ship Loadout Updates
Trailblazer (Frigate)
Standard Missile with Follow-Up Strike (chance for additional missiles on crit).
Subsystem with Gravitic Manipulation (slows nearby enemies periodically).
Nova Lance (Frigate)
Machine Gun with Extended Autoloader (additional projectiles per burst but slower fire rate).
Phase Drive with Dimensional Tear (chance to destroy enemies when phasing through them).
Ironhide (Cruiser)
Rail Gun with Reactor Breach (chance on pierce to create AoE radiation cloud on the enemy).
Electro Reactive Armor (shield reduced, but hull increased and now automatically repairs itself).
Pulsar (Cruiser)
Swarm Missiles with Rapid Swarm (each burst fired increases fire rate).
Burst Drive with Armored Charge (while using burst drive, all damage is reduced).
Nemesis (Battleship)
Cruise Missile with Critical Capacity (increased crit chance and damage, but slower fire rate and smaller damage radius) and Ordinance Overdriver (on crit increases fire rate and reloads a missile).
Leviathan (Battleship)
Autocannon with Chain Reaction (on kill chance to trigger additional explosions on nearby enemies)
Micro Warp Drive with Warp Resistance (increased hull resistance and armor after teleporting).
Augments
Tether System
Death Mark Tether: Tethers up to 4 enemies, increasing damage dealt by 50%.
Gravitational Tether: Tethers up to 4 enemies and pulls them toward gravitational effects.
Plasma Tether: Killing plasma-affected enemies creates tethers that spread plasma burn.
Deep Space Anomaly: Creates tentacle effects that damage overlapping enemies.
Weapon Augments
Focused Fire (Swarm): Damage increases per projectile in a burst, but reduces radius.
Chain Reaction (Autocannon): Kill chance for secondary explosions with reload penalty.
Reactor Breach (Projectiles): Pierce chance to create radiation leaks.
Thruster Augments
Displacement Field (Phase Drive): Knockback and slow on phase end.
Dimensional Tear (Phase Drive): Chance to destroy non-boss enemies while phasing.
Warp Resistance (Teleport): Post-warp hull resistance and armor with cooldown penalty.
Additional New Content:
Emergency Takeover Skill: Replaces Emergency Warp - AI overloads reactor on lethal damage, killing nearby enemies and healing to 25% hull.
Gameplay Improvements
Enhanced Mission Mechanics: Power Zones replace static pickups with interactive buff areas.
Improved Camera Perspective: All ships now use a different camera distance for enhanced battlefield awareness.
Currency Drop Integration: Asteroids now have a 15% chance to drop currency, weapon coolant, or hull repair.
Enhanced Mission Feedback: The Data Salvage mission provides clearer objectives and incorrect scan notifications.
Visual Damage Feedback: Player damage numbers now appear in red for better visibility.
Balance Changes
Difficulty System Overhaul
Linear Scaling: Replaced exponential difficulty with a predictable linear progression while maintaining intended difficulties.
Extensive Augment Balance Pass
Berzerker Energy: No longer prevents shield regeneration, increased shield drain, but buffed damage.
Bastion Protocol: Max Shield increase now permanent, added shield cooldown reduction.
Critical Support: Simplified reload penalty with critical strike chance for other weapons.
Glancing Blows: Now increases Dodge Chance while moving instead of damage reduction.
Phase Corrosion: Added slow effect to armor breach application.
Gravitic Manipulation Field: Now available for Sub-System components with a scaling radius.
Relentless Fire: Damage increases per shot with magazine and fire rate changes.
Winged Hussar Thrusters: Added stun effect and increased knockback radius.
Extended Autoloader: Now starts at +2 projectiles instead of +1.
Ranged Amplifier: Increased targeting range and damage output.
Waste Heat Recycling: Buffed damage increase with updated description.
Weapon Balance
Rail Gun: Damage increased to 35 (from 20), attack speed reduced to 1.5 (from 1.2), max ammo increased to 8 (from 5).
Machine Gun: Increased ProjectileBurstTime to 0.125 (from 0.05) for better multi-projectile visibility.
Mission Balance
Contamination Breach: Reduced scaling from 0.6 to 0.3 to maintain reasonable station health at high difficulties.
Space Station/Containment Breach: Reduced spawn chances and removed from certain pools.
Bugfixes
Mining Laser Persistence: Fixed mining laser effects staying active after leaving range, particularly on Nemesis ships.
Teleport During Level Up: Fixed bug where teleporting during level up could launch players far away.
Mission Progression: Fixed Black Box and Data Collection missing rewards.
Ship Movement: Improved NPC escort and merchant collision to prevent getting stuck.
Quest Tracker: Fixed mission description text using incorrect text source.
Projectile Damage: Fixed projectiles not dealing damage when the explosion radius was less than 0.
Swarm Missile Events: Fixed Swarm Missiles not properly calling OnFire events which was preventing some augments from working with it.
Armored Charge: Fixed damage reduction activating from input press instead of only during Burst Drive use.
Enemy Experience: Fixed enemies using incorrect experience data tables.
Learning Curve: Fixed an issue where the augment was working incorrectly while moving.
Mission Spawning: Reduced problematic Space Station and Contamination Breach spawn rates on the Star Map.
Visual Enhancements
Currency Visualization: New static meshes for Money and Artifacts matching UI symbols.