Patch 0.30 – Gunlocked Potential
This patch represents the single most comprehensive update that I have ever released at one time for any game I've made in the 7 or so years I've been making games. I took a ton of community feedback and went over every element of the game with a fine-toothed comb to re-imagine what power could look like in Gunlocked 2. The hope is that with this update, players of all skill levels can achieve more powerful builds, and engage with the game in a variety of new and interesting ways.
Special thank you to the discord community for helping me out with closed testing to get this update right. So much has been added and changed, and there's just no way I could have achieved such a massive update without the feedback.
I could go on about this, but there's literally pages of notes below (and a bunch of stuff I probably forgot), so I hope you all enjoy. There's still more to come!
Feature Overview
Turbo Game Mode: Fast paced, arcade action
Weapon Enhancements + Symbionics: 80 new ways to customize your builds
The Data Codex: Track your progress in-game
Steam Leaderboards: Local, Friends, and Global for both game modes
New Pilot: Blaze
New Weapon: Hail Mary
Pilot Rework: Artemis
Weapon Reworks: Light Rail, Venomizer, and more
Achievements: 11 new goals to strive for related to Turbo and Symbionics
Simulator Update: An updated, more functional Simulator should allow for easier build testing.
Requested Features: A pile of updates to stats, descriptions, allied units, and controllers.
Balance Changes: Huge overhaul to pacing and power, with an eye on putting the fantasy in power fantasy
Bug Fixes
New Key Art: A throwback to the key art for Gunlocked 1. Not really a feature, I just really like it.
Weapon Enhancements
The most commonly requested feature is finally here. You can now improve your weapons directly. While the emphasis in Gunlocked 2 is more about creating powerful utility combos to boost your weapons, I still wanted players to have a way to customize their weapons directly.
Every weapon now has 4 enhancements that come in 3 flavors. You earn these every 4 level ups after you’ve equipped all 4 weapons.
Each weapon can only have 1 enhancement, but you can choose the order you want to enhance your weapons, and you’re always offered all of a weapon’s available enhancements. No RNG.
Specializations: Each weapon has 2 ways to specialize. These grant larger stat boosts, but come at a cost.
Modulations: Not a fan of the trade off that comes with specializations or they don’t fit your current build? Each weapon also has a single small stat boost with no downside.
Symbionics: Want something more spectacular? Every weapon now has a symbionic upgrade. These are secret, more powerful upgrades that also bring visual changes with them. Equip the right utility or utilities in the correct quantities to unlock them. Track your unlocked recipes in the codex.
New Game Mode – Turbo
Those of you that have been around my Discord for a while likely know I basically grew up in an arcade. My parents ran a small business next door to an arcade for 30+ years, and I spent a huge chunk of my life wasting their hard earned quarters there. Turbo mode is an ode to my most formative years as a gamer.
10 minute games. No warp gate choices. No saving. No bosses.
Ultra fast paced leveling
Huge waves of enemies to blast through
6 powerups to help you out
Brand new game mechanics to help you max out your scores and your power
2 new enemy types
Leaderboards
Let me just start by saying people are going to cheat. It’s inevitable. But I didn’t want to let that stop me from adding a fun way to engage with the game and the growing community. Track the top 15 scores among your Steam friends, or compete globally. Don’t care for that? Use the local leaderboard to track your personal bests, and see which pilots you gel with most. The leaderboards can be found in the data codex.
The Data Codex
The first iteration of the data codex is now live. For now you can use it to track a variety of things from both the Mission Menu and in-game from the pause menu:
High scores
Symbionic recipes you’ve discovered.
In-Game achievement tracking
More data is on the way in future updates!
New Pilot – Blaze
Weapon: Hail Mary. Lock-On, Sweeping, Plasmic, Missile.
Mastery: When the Hail Mary sweep ends, Blaze launches 2 fireballs forward, dealing 10 plasmic damage to 2 enemies they pass through and always applying burn.
Skill: Every 6th lock-on target applies burn instantly.
New Weapon – Hail Mary
The Hail Mary was a favorite from the original, from all the feedback I got, so the tweaks here are minor. It’s now a sweeping weapon, and you can adjust its position slightly, much like the Plasma Bomb targeting, but it’s otherwise the same weapon you remember. A rapid lock-on missile weapon that applies burn (with the highest base chance of 50%).
Requested Features
Dynamic Weapon Stats: You can now see a weapon’s current stats when reading its description, based on both utility modifiers and its own enhancement
Dynamic Utility Stats: You can now see the current total for various utility stats based on how many copies you have, and when stats can be modified by other utilities, it works just like with weapons.
Dynamic Gamepad Switching: You can now simply pick up and use a different controller and the game will switch to whichever you’ve used most recently.
Quick Destination Selection – You no longer need to cancel out of the inspection mode to lock in your destination at the warp menu
Warp Gate Update: Gates now tell you the specific kind of beacon upgrade you will get when inspecting
Allied Outlines: You can now enable color-coded outlines for your allied units in the settings
Fast Upgrade Menus: The skip animation functionality for the upgrade menus has been removed, and the upgrade animations now play much faster normally.
The Inventory is now color-coded (the Simulator is not yet compatible with this, so all inventory slots will be white)
Resume Timer: Enable/Disable a short timer when returning from pause or choosing an upgrade.
There is now an “Accessibility” section in the Settings menu
Various color changes and other helpful settings have been moved here
Added the option to turn a game resume timer on/off
Added the option to enable and adjust the color of allied outlines here
Updated overall visibility and clarity of currently selected options
Pilot and Weapon Rework – Artemis + Light Rail
As one of the starting pilots, Artemis wasn’t living up to the current pace and state of the game, and subsequently not making a good first impression. She was a little too trapped in the past, and the Light Rail and her skill/mastery weren’t well equipped (pun not intended) to handle the faster pace, and higher quantity of enemies in the sequel, nor their more varied movement patterns.
Weapon: Light Rail
The Light Rail has been rebuilt from the ground up to better fit the Laser synergy.
It now targets the farthest enemy from you within its targeting area, and damages up to 2 additional enemies between you and the target. Its targeting speed, and area have been greatly increased. But its base damage is now down to 20, from 50.
As long as any target remains in the targeting area, the Light Rail will continue targeting an enemy without resetting, while constantly attempting to find the farthest foe.
It will now be much easier to clear multiple enemies in the early game, and hang onto moving targets.
Mastery: Spotting Scope
The Spotting Scope skill and previous Light Rail mastery have been combined into one.
Artemis marks a single enemy with a lock-on target. The Light Rail will instantly fire an additional beam at that target if in its range.
There is no longer a cooldown for how often this can trigger, but this effect only triggers on the Spotting Scope target, and not all lock-on targets.
This effect no longer replaces/interrupts normal targeting, so if the Light Rail is already targeting an enemy, this will trigger in addition to that, making it much more powerful.
New Skill: Frenzy Fire
Every 6th spotting scope explodes in an area when triggered, applying burn to the target and 3 enemies in range.
Balance
This is a massive overhaul to the overall power fantasy delivered by Gunlocked 2. Almost every weapon is now much stronger immediately, with only a few small nerfs on the most egregious upgrades. You’ll also find you can consistently reach higher levels in Mission Mode. Some small tweaks to the end game have been made to account for how much stronger you’ll be.
Sentry Drone has less health, but a shorter cooldown
All upgrades now have a base 1% crit chance
Pyrosiphon now requires 50 charges, down from 100, and is an Uncommon instead of Rare
Particloner no longer has a limited number of charges before dying. Now lasts the full duration always.
Lightning Rod is now a common upgrade (remember to update lists)
Bright Eye is now an uncommon utility, and no longer rare
Flare Out no longer gains % chance to trigger with additional copies, but has 20% base chance to trigger, up from 10%. It now gains +8 damage, up from +5 per copy, but starts with 16 damage, down from 20.
Notes: Flare Out was one of the last utilities to be able to scale its chance on its own. This gives things like Lucky Duck and Proc-Rocket more value.
Circuit Maker has been remade:
Every 6 seconds, Circuit Maker deals 10 chain shock damage to 1 random enemy for every 3 lock-on targets you created since it last triggered. Max 3 targets.
Additional Copies: +3 Max Targets.
Venomizer Update
Now deals 10 damage per missile, down from 20
Now has 12 ammo, up from 8
Its targeting systems now benefit from similar updates to the Light Rail. It will be easier to target enemies, and hang on to them. It will also automatically switch to closer targets without resetting.
The focus speed of the lock-on, before attacking, is much faster
The delay between missiles fired is 50% shorter
The first missile fired after you lock-on to an enemy is faster now. Previously there could be an inconsistent delay
Venomizer missiles no longer count as creating individual lock-on targets
Also fixed a bug that was making the reload timer take longer than it should have
Note: It may seem like the overall damage is untouched when considering number of missiles and missile damage, but the much faster attack and targeting speed means the damage per second is much higher.
Buzz Bots Update
Now reload every 1.16 seconds, down from 1.5 seconds
Deal 12 damage per hit, up from 10
Have 10 health, up from 8
They now move 10% faster
Conduit Update
Now respawns every 2.6 seconds, down from 3
Has had its base range increased by 20%
Now attacks 4 times per second, up from 3
The Conduit now spawns slightly higher on the battlefield on average. This plus the increased range makes it easier to use aggressively without having to position as awkwardly.
Plasma Bomb Update
Reload every 1 second, down from 1.16 seconds
Deal 30 damage, up from 25
Have 25% chance to apply burn, up from 20
Dronerang Update
When dronerangs return to you, it no longer treats them as being destroyed. They will now only trigger these effects if they hit enough enemies to be destroyed before returning.
Drone Swarm Update
Max 5 drones, up from 4
Drones now create targets when they lock-on to an enemy
Gunlock Update
5 max lock-on targets, up from 4
The Gunlock’s base sweep speed is now 33% faster
Auto Clip Update
Now recharges after 66 bullets are fired, down from 77
Now creates 3 bullets, down from 7 (but a bug was making it create 10)
Now deals 6 damage, down from 7 (but a bug was making the base damage 10)
Its base range has been increased by 20%
No longer gains cooldown reduction from additional copies
Now gains +1 bullet and +6 damage from additional copies. It previously did not gain bullets from additional copies.
Particloner Update
Now gains +1 bullet only on odd copies
Now gains +0.5 second duration only on even copies
Note: A previous update that removed its health component made it too strong to leave as is, especially because of certain other interactions
Megalock Update
Now spawns slightly in front of your ship, unless that would put it out of bounds, instead of centered on it
Scaling and Experience Update for Mission Mode
Early ship levels require less experience
More gems drop in the early game, and gem drop scaling has been increased in early levels
Some small enemy types are now significantly more likely to drop gems
This scaling bonus is reduced over time
Enemies start to spawn more frequently after zone 5 now, and this increases even more after zone 10
Level 3 bosses now spawn more enemies (except the Hive Queen)
Adamanteroids (hard to destroy asteroids) are now more likely to appear in the late game for both modes
Audio and Visual Updates
When Shell Shocker triggers, the modified missile now has an electric trail
There’s now an actual game icon that will be shown in various places
Light Rail has a new target area visual
There’s a new gem collect sound
There’s now an actual game icon that will be shown in various places on your computer
Optimization
All lock-on and missile weapons now run more efficiently
Damage pop-ups now run more efficiently
Various upgrades have been updated to run more efficiently
Simulator Updates
You can now change pilots from the simulator menu
Each pilot now has 3 dedicated save slots
The simulator no longer loads the last loadout when first starting
If you don’t select a loadout and select save, it will default to the first loadout slot
You can now quit the simulator from the editor menu
The menu animation at start up is now much faster, and when restarting the simulator the animation is skipped entirely
Various bug fixes (see below)
Bug Fixes
Playstation and Nintendo control glyphs may now show up correctly (untested)
Fixed a variety of issues related to mouse controls and the mouse cursor appearing or disappearing when it shouldn't, or when switching between menus
Fixed some issues related to switching between control types in menus
Vulcanorb timer disappears properly
The Signal Dongle augment is now working again (a previous fix to NPC events broke this)
Fixed a variety of mouse-related bugs when navigating various menus
The tutorial can no longer activate in the Simulator mode
Fixed an issue that would allow Danimal II to unlock before the zone’s end if you killed 66 enemies without taking damage
Sconcer will no longer grant bonus max beacons on odd and even copies
Fixed a bug that could cause Element of Luck to not apply its bonus
Fixed a bug related to Shell Shocker activation
You will no longer level up if a tutorial prompt has begun to trigger, until after it completes, preventing the game from soft-locking in specific scenarios.
Fixed various bugs related to saving and loading loadouts in the Simulator
Fixed a longstanding bug that could cause various weapons to have longer cooldowns at seemingly random points when the megalock was equipped
Amplifryer will now apply bonus chain shock damage to all upgrades in the event they can trigger chain shock without being electric type (such as with Shell Shocker)
Fixed a bug that would prevent the window resolution from displaying the correct selection until it was adjusted again
Fixed a bug that would prevent the background dimmer setting from changing until restarting a run
Piercing Rounds and Amplifryer are now activating correctly again
Scattershot bullet damage fixed
Fixed some issues related to Weakspotter that could cause other damage types to rapidly trigger it.
Fixed a bug preventing Dronerang from triggering effects when drones are destroyed after enough collisions.