New Content
Ship Hangar Customization Level
New Ship Selection Screen: You now choose your ship and loadout in a hangar bay with atmospheric lighting and background activity. It looks way cooler than the old menu.
Improved Gamepad UI Support
Shop UI: Full controller support for browsing and purchasing.
Skill Tree UI: Complete gamepad navigation (MVP implementation).
Star Map: Now uses widget stack with pause menu access.
Social Buttons: Added to the main menu and pause menu with controller support.
Map Summary UI: Can access pause menu with gamepad.
Movement Ability Bindings: Now displays gamepad button bindings alongside keyboard.
Gameplay Settings
Camera Shake Toggle: Enable/disable camera shake effects.
Show Damage Numbers: Toggle damage number visibility.
Format Damage Numbers: Choose damage number formatting style.
Negative Sign Removed: Damage numbers no longer show negative values.
Settings UI Improvements:
Revert to default button added.
Depth of field is disabled in the scalability settings.
Balance Changes
Player Shop
Shops No Longer Increase Map Index: Prevents difficulty spikes from using shops.
Shop Prices Adjusted: Slightly reduced costs across the board.
Ship Movement
Speed Increased: Base movement speed improved across all ship types.
Acceleration Increased: Ships reach top speed faster.
Rotation Improved: Better turning responsiveness.
Warp Drive Cooldown Reduced: Less waiting between map transitions.
Mission Balance
Forced Miniboss Encounters: Maps 3 and 6 now guarantee 'Ambush' secondary missions.
Miniboss Spawn Behavior: Normal enemy spawning pauses during miniboss fights, resumes after defeat.
Ambush Boss Rewards: Now drops weapon cache if the player is not at max weapons, and XP + choice of Augment if they are.
Map Modifiers Blocked: Maps 3 and 6 no longer allow map modifiers (prevents blocking Ambush missions).
Ambush Removed from Distress Calls: Now only appears as a forced secondary mission.
Region Scanners: Now take off when the mission is complete.
Enemy Balance
Carriers: Now actively orbit targets rather than remaining static.
Enemy Spawning: More spread out around the player.
Performance-Based Scaling: Weighted more toward single enemies, triggers only when the player performs very well.
Cluster Prevention: Reduces the number of large enemy groups following the player.
Enemy Collision:
Damage Cooldown: Enemies can only damage the player once every 1 second (instead of per hit).
Increased Knockback: Enemies are knocked back further on collision with the player.
Movement Speed Penalty: Enemies gain a temporary movement slow after hitting the player.
Weapon Balance
Autocannon: Damage increased from 15 to 18.
Standard Missile: Damage increased from 12 to 15.
Augments
Buffed Augments
Critical Burn: Damage increased.
Evasive Fire: Fire rate increased.
Hologram Skin: Now scales with Thruster Component Level.
Nerfed Augments
Phase Drive: Movement speed scales less from Thruster Component Level.
Heated Chamber: Pierce chance reduced.
Functionality Changes
Rapid Retrieval: Removed movement speed bonus, increased pickup radius scaling.
Drop Pool Adjustments
Non-Weapon Augments: Less frequent (weight reduced from 5 to 4).
Radiation Rounds: Should now appear more consistently.
Thruster Targeting: Temporarily removed.
Interactables
Thruster Power-Up: Removed from drop list.
Upgrade Beacons: Now cost much less.
Mining System
Mining Functionality Changes: Asteroids now explode when fully mined and drop all your currency at once instead of giving small amounts constantly.
Visual Enhancements
VFX Performance: Explosions, projectile trails, and other effects now run much smoother without sacrificing visual quality.
Radiation Clouds: Radiation clouds are darker, allowing enemies and projectiles to be seen through them better. Lightning effects are more visible and impactful.
Shield Visual Feedback: When you or enemies are hit, the flash effect is more visible with glowing edges. Shields now get brighter as they're about to break, giving you a clear warning.
Visual Polish: Improvements to background environments and ship damage effects. Enemy outlines are clearer, making them easier to see during combat.
The game runs significantly smoother everywhere, especially during intense combat with lots of enemies and explosions on screen. You should notice much better framerates across the board!
Audio Improvements
Better Sound Quality: Fixed audio crackling and popping sounds during intense combat.
New UI Sounds: Added new sounds for missions and UI interactions.
Mining Volume Adjustments: Mining lasers are much quieter now.
Quality of Life Changes
Trader Interactable: Now has a HUD marker so you know you can interact with it
Unknown Technology: Mission object no longer blocks your movement.
Ship Unlock Text: Updated to say "AVAILABLE IN EARLY ACCESS".
Skill Tree: No longer pauses the game (you can keep an eye on the action).
Fixes
Victory After Death: Fixed players winning a run even after dying.
Enemy Projectiles: Fixed not being able to damage players.
Ion Storm Hazard: Fixed having projectile speed applied.
Gravitational Anomalies: Fixed not spawning in the correct location.
Glancing Blows: Fixed showing as a percentage instead of a distance.
Swarm Missile: Fixed initial speed getting overridden in subsequent launches, now scales with weapon projectile speed.
Projectile Explosions: Fixed doing additional hit reaction on initial enemy hit.
Boss Shield Collision: Fixed old shield collision still active (caused weapons to hit empty space).
Boss Despawning: Fixed bosses not despawning when dead.
Boss Spinning: Fixed destroyed ships spinning out of control on self-destruct.
Enemy Stunning: Fixed enemies not receiving the stun cooldown and appearing unstunned.
Star Map: Fixed widgets not positioning correctly.
Settings UI: Now properly allows applying graphic settings.