New Content
Game Flow Redesign: Streamlined mission structure, shifting focus to secondary objectives.
Single Primary Mission: Survive for the designated time—your baseline objective.
Secondary and Engagement Missions: The primary focus of each map, these offer meaningful rewards and challenges. 'Engagement Missions' are optional objectives that appear, requiring the player to accept them.
Secondary Missions now reward immediately upon completion.
Normal vs Challenge Maps: Two distinct map types on the star map.
Normal Maps: Standard difficulty with no modifiers.
Challenge Maps: Higher difficulty with map modifiers (Meteor Storms, Radiation Clouds, High-Alert Enemies, etc.). Challenge maps offer better rewards but pose greater threats.
Interactables System: Interactive world objects are spawned throughout maps.
Free Interactables: Credits (low/medium/high) and experience (low/medium/high).
Paid Interactables: Random augment and upgrade choice.
9 New Mission Types: Expanded mission variety with distinct objectives.
Planetary Scan: Use deployed scanners to gather planetary data.
Unknown Technology: Scan old ships to identify lost crew members.
Gas Control: Defend gas containers while they complete collection.
Militia Defense: Power up militia missile defense stations under attack.
Alien Station: Upload AI to control rebooting alien stations.
CWM Station: Take control of CWM stations before construction completes.
Anomaly Crystals: Collect valuable crystals from slipspace anomalies.
Broken AI: Recover AI fragments with Schema Project information.
Militia Support: Recover lost militia missile supplies.
Currency Drop System: Enemies now drop physical currency pickups instead of instant rewards.
Adjustable Camera: Camera distance can now be adjusted (default scroll wheel).
Score Chase - Players now accumulate a run 'score' based on enemies destroyed. Higher-tier enemies are worth more points.
Gameplay Improvements
Automatic Warp Progression: Primary Missions automatically trigger 30-second warp charging when complete.
Faster Mission Pacing: Reduced mission requirements across the board.
Compact Star Map: Hex map reduced for shorter runs.
Enhanced Enemy Behavior: Recycling system teleports distant enemies to maintain engagement.
Performance Improvements: Various optimizations, including projectile pooling for smoother gameplay.
Balance Changes
Movement Ability Overhaul
Fuel System Removed: All movement abilities now use only Cooldowns and Duration.
New Action Bar Widget: Visual display for cooldown and duration tracking.
Ability Cancel: Because feathering fuel is no longer possible, chemical thrusters and phase drive movement abilities can be canceled by pressing your movement ability key again while the ability is active (default shift).
Ship Classification Movement Rework
Differentiating Ship Classes: Frigates, Cruisers, and Battleships have all had their unique speed and acceleration characteristics adjusted to differentiate them further.
Augment Balance
Major Functionality Changes
Bastion Protocol: New functionality; shields always recharge while stationary with an increased recharge rate.
Chain Reaction: Simplified to chance-based explosions on kill.
Combat Catalyst: Removed stacking limitation for more consistent scaling.
CQC Targeting Computer: Complete rework; "Damage increased by {1} for each enemy within targeting range".
Defense Protocol: Now shoots extra projectiles at random enemies (scales with level).
Exposed Shot: Now reduces health and shield resistance by 50% instead of flat armor reduction.
Phase Corrosion: Now reduces health and shield resistance by 50% instead of flat armor reduction.
Pulsing Plating: No longer slows, now inflicts knockback.
Soft Point: Renamed to 'Disabling Rounds', buffed damage increase, and piercing chance reduction no longer scales with level.
Plasma Aftershock: Changed from activating on 'one-shot kill' to 'on kill'.
Prime Condition: No longer debuffs the player for being under the health threshold.
Reactive Recharge: Removed cooldown (movement abilities now have their own cooldowns).
Phase Corrosion: Fixed bug with resistances not applying correctly; now scales with level.
Buffed Augments
Critical Capacity: Increased critical strike damage bonus.
Deathmark Tether: Damage increase set to static 100%.
Emergency Assault: Buffed global damage scalar.
Radiation Leak: Fixed description, increased cloud size, and damage.
Heated Chamber: Removed increased projectiles and debuff.
Shattered Shields: Damage radius now scales, max damage increased.
Gravitic Manipulation Field: Slowing radius increased.
Shield Extender: Increased shields given (decreased shield recharge rate slightly).
Weapons Matrix Override: Buffed damage scalar.
Plasma Overload: Increased damage and damage radius.
Explosive Rounds: Increased damage radius.
Thermal Feedback Loop: Damage scalar increased.
Reactor Breach: Simplified description, removed reload reduction.
Micro Warp Rounds: Increased targeting range.
Kinetic Guidance: Crit chance and projectile speed reduction are now static, crit damage increased.
Glancing Blows: Increased maximum dodge amount to 20% (previously 10%).
Nerfed Augments
Electro Reactive Armor: Decreased maximum health bonus to 175% (previously 250%).
Bastion Protocol: Decreased shield recharge percentage.
Drop Pool Adjustments
Reactive Countermeasures: Added to armor drop pools.
Reactor Hit: Now available on all weapons (previously autocannon-exclusive).
Removed Augments: Heavy Armor, Neutron Plating, Weapon Energy Recycler, Enhanced Missile Storage, Weapon Modulator, Plasma Tether, Missile Proficiency, Projectile Proficiency, First Contact, Concussive Warhead, Perfect Reload, All For Me, Fragile Bullets, Deep Space Anomaly.
These augments have been removed either because they cause imbalance, don't provide a significant advantage to players, or aren't distinct enough from other augments. They could be reintroduced after rebalancing.
Combat Balance
Level-Up Knockback: Upon leveling up, the player's ship will now knock back surrounding enemies.
Weapon Capacity: Frigate and Cruiser max weapons have been reduced to 2, and Battleship maximum weapons have been reduced to 3.
Enemy Scaling: Movement speed and acceleration now scale with difficulty rating.
Enemy Catch-Up: Distant enemies receive a temporary speed boost.
Environmental Dangers: All maps can now spawn meteor storms or radiation clouds at reduced rates.
Stun Mechanics: 10-second cooldown before reapplication, mini-bosses and bosses are now immune.
Visual Enhancements
Complete CWM Faction Overhaul: Entire rebel faction redesigned with new ship models. New "scrappy human" aesthetic reflecting limited resources and creative engineering.
Mission Asset Improvements: Updated materials and visual polish for mission objects.
New Missile Models: Standard, Cruise, and Swarm Missiles feature new static meshes.
Enhanced VFX: Updated trails for XP and currency pickups with color-coded effects.
Improved Sun Visibility: Added a polarizing filter over stars for increased visibility.
New UI Animation: Augments, upgrades, and weapons now 'pop-up' in their respective UIs.
New Augment Art: Many augmentations now feature new artwork.
Augment Level Coloration: Much like enhancements and rarity, augments are now color-coded to reflect their level.
Enemy Damage Indicator: Enemies will now briefly flash white when taking damage.
Modifiers Tooltip: Modifier tooltip (above weapons bar) now displays correctly when hovered and has received a visual upgrade.
Stun/Slow Indicator: New VFX to indicate enemies affected by slow or stun.
Audio Enhancements
Interactables SFX: A slew of player interactions (mission capturing, power-up containers, mining) have received new SFX.
Known Issues
Caches and other interactable containers/stations cannot be interacted with if the player's camera is zoomed too far out.