Early Access Update Trettiofyra (34)
build id: 5958DA11
nornware AB is happy to announce a new update to Space Beast Terror Fright.
First of all I'd like to apologize for the amount of time that has passed since the last update and thank everyone for all their support during this period. In response to my current reduced capacity to do SBTF development I am going to try smaller (feature-wise) but more frequest updates moving forward.
Rescue Mode
Finally it is here, the first public release of the new Rescue game mode!
The idea is similar to Salvage mode in that you are tasked with going into a derelict spacecraft to retrieve something, but in Rescue mode the prize is a number of civilian scientists that are trapped in the infested ship. The twist is that unlike the Datacores in Salvage mode these Civilians need to be escorted back to the Airlock in order to complete the mission. Successfully doing this will award the player(s) with upgrades in the same manner as Datacores do in Salvage mode, and the mission is completed when all Civilians are rescued or dead and all surviving players have retreated to the Airlock.
Rescue mode is based on new map generation algorithms that generate Labs throughout the map (lore: where scientists work on questionable experiments...). These Labs are protected by heavy doors that work similarly to the Airlock door in that they cannot be destroyed by Space Beasts and also will automatically close as a security measure. The player must extract Civilians from these labs and manually guide them back to the Airlock.
In Rescue mode your tracker is upgraded to show both the distance to the nearest Civilian as well as the distance to the Airlock at all times. It also displays motion blips for Civilians in a similar way to the motion tracker upgrade, with the difference that Civilians are shown in your current hud / player color (threats are still shown in white as before).
For security reasons Labs are equipped with DNA-screens per room that only allow human DNA to pass. This is part of company containment protocols and works quite well to contain botched biological experiments, at least as long there aren't any power failures... :) Considering that Labs are equipped with said DNA-screens and isolated from the rest of the ship by heavy doors they constitute relatively safe spaces in the scheme of things, but they completely lack utilities such as Armories, Sentries and Repair stations.
Civilians themselves are quite a nervous bunch, and to are subject to panic attacks when Space Beasts get too near, so beware of them getting in your line of fire and in general being a pain to manage. Also they are very fragile and don't take weapons fire or contact with Space Beasts very well. For some reason Astro-Creeps don't attach to Civilians, but that doesn't make Civilians fear them any less... :)
What I've seen emerging is interesting player choice concerning whether or not to rescue Civilians a few at a time or many at a time. A whole bunch of Civilians being rescued at once results in a huge boost of player power in a very short time, so I'm curious as to how this will feel in team games. I'm sure that players will figure out strategies where some players act as defense while others act as escorts.
I am quite happy that Rescue mode as it currently stands embodies the chaos that I originally envisioned. Things can either be very calm or very intense, and even when you think you are in control things can turn on a dime and get very messy very fast. Of course all of this has numerous rough edges since it is such a major addition to all systems in the game, but I expect to iterate on all aspects of it moving forward in response to player feedback.
Miscellaneous
- The game is now built against Steamworks SDK 1.40.
- Updated mouse/key interaction prompts to say "LMB" / "RMB" instead of "left-click" / "right-click".
- It is now possible to recharge your battery from any Breaker by standing near it an holding RMB / A. Recharge speed depends on the level of your Battery Upgrade. This feature still needs more audio, prompts, and icon feedback.
- Fixed bad map flag data which was causing a Fence in some cases where there should have been a Breach.
- Grayscale is now the default infravision style.
- Added check for object overflow in map generation (Fences, Doors, Cores). Bad maps will simply be re-rolled.
- Optimized path map storage.
- Fixed missing normals in smoke vertices; this was causing some smoke particles to look strange.
- Fixed blood drip normals; this was causing some drips to flash white.
- All mesh generation now uses optimized vertex maps to increase speed of vertex re-use checks.
- Refactored infestation generation.
- Light baking is now revision based, and all power outage / restoration audio is driven by this. This solves issues in multiplayer where events didn't correctly update lighting.
- Deathmatch map generation is now fixed so that there are always Breakers available in case of power outages.
- The "last mission" button now reads "last outcome".
- Removed redundant sound system update.
- Consolidated mission log audio; all log events now make a sound.
- Removed redundant Sentry texture from memory.
Known Issues
- Civilians can suffer from animation stuttering when pinned between threats and points of interest. This requires changes to the animation system to allow for smooth blending between animation states.
- Battery recharging on Breakers needs more needs audio, interaction prompts, icons, etc.
- The Library may crash if you have legacy .sbtf.cassette files. If so you can delete all .sbtf.cassette files from: C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\nornware\sbtf
As always, thank you for your support and patience.
/nornware AB c/o johno
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