Early Access Update 11
build id: 55CDD799
Hello all! We are happy to announce a new update to Space Beast Terror Fright.
Updated Infravision
We have updated the Infravision mode to be both more aesthetically pleasing and also have more tradeoffs for gameplay. Basically the idea is to map heat to a color gradient. There are three styles to choose from in Visual Options:
- Predator - Inspired by the classic film, this style is purple / orange / yellow.
- Night Vision - Inspired by military night vision equipment, this style is black / green / white.
- Grayscale - This is a simple grayscale.
Aside from the colors, these styles are completely equivalent.
We wanted to update the effect to have noise / artifacts in it to make it slightly less readable than a perfectly clean image, and also for these effect to become more exaggerated as the battery drains. The color mapping also degrades in quality as the battery drains.
We chose to not have the infravision become completely unusable when the battery is completely drained, as we feel this give the player more options than completely removing the usefulness of Infravision with zero battery charge.
Infravision now drains battery 3x normal instead of the previous 4x.
Infravision is now also a dedicated electronics system, and when this is damaged the noise / artifacts become so bad that the Infravision should be almost unusable, but again, not completely.
Text on Datacores / Sentries / Armories / Coolants is no longer visible when Infravision is enabled.
Just for fun, we now cause the weapon to heat as a function of energy fired. Higher level ammo cause the weapon to heat up more. The weapon will cool off again when not fired. All of this can be seen when using Infravision, and has no affect on gameplay.
Updated Bullet Hit Effects on Players
As suggested by the community, we have consolidated the effects of bullets hits on players.
With this update, player bullets will no longer IMMEDIATELY kill allies, but cause electronics damage in the same way that Sentry bullets have done previously. The twist is that now ALL bullets, including those from Sentries, will kill a player that has maximal electronics damage. Sentry bullets still have a chance to ricochet, while player bullets will not.
While highly experimental, our goal with this change is to slightly increase player fear of Sentries, while smoothing out the hard consequence of accidental player vs player friendly fire.
While we have yet to clearly denote all the electronics systems in the HUD (which we intend to do in the future), here is the current list:
- SYS_INFRAVISION - This is a completely new system for this update, and will disable the Infravision (cause massive interference) if damaged.
- SYS_FLASHLIGHT - If damaged, the flashlight will not function.
- SYS_TEXT - If damaged, no text is displayed in the HUD.
- SYS_VISOR_ICONS - If damaged, the visor edge graphics as well as all HUD icons are disabled.
- SYS_WEAPON_DISPLAY - If damaged, ammo counts will not show on the weapon, and no low ammo audio warnings will be heard.
- SYS_TRACKER_MAP - If damaged, the entire tracker / map is disabled. This will also disabled player adrenaline spikes based on motion tracker warnings, and as a result has a detrimental affect on player movement speed.
As a result of all fire now being potentially lethal, we have also added an audio warning that is heard when a player has maximal electronics systems damage. When you hear this, you are in immediate danger of being killed by friendly fire.
Currently damage on hit is caused to a random system, but systems are always repaired in the order listed above. This will probably change.
As a result of all of this, a player effectively has 7 hit points in regards to bullets. We will evaluate if this is a good change, and if so will do further effects and audio passes on it to improve the feedback for all players, as currently only the player that is hit by a bullet gets any real feedback to speak of.
HUD updates
Several players have expressed concern over the amount of text in the HUD.
Due to the intense nature of the game we stand firm in our opinion that the "in your face" objective prompts, interaction / upgrade announcements, and interaction prompts are a critical feature for new players learning the game.
We have however added an option to completely clean up all of these things (under Visual Options, enable Minimized HUD Text), intended for use by players who know their way around the game. With this option enabled, all objective prompts, interaction / upgrade announcements, and interaction prompts will always remain at the top of the HUD.
We have also decreased the font size of the mission log from .5 to .35 (this is the same size as the text associated with the upgrade icons).
The interaction icon animation introduced in Early Access Update 10 has also been reduced in size and moved closer to the tracker / map.
Miscellaneous
- Repairs are now only single use, as we feel that there are plenty of them.
- New level style - Dharkan; an industrial looking silver metal style with orange trims.
- Line of sight between Beasts and players is take into account when mixing the music. This is a big improvement, and now it should be much more clear from the intensity of the music how near a threat is to the player.
- Q/E strafing is now a user option.
- We have added the "interaction denied" sound for the reactor shield controls as well as for broken door controls.
- We have fixed the bug where random breaches could occur inside the reactor shield.
- Beast footstep (clawstep?) audio can now be heard purely based on distance; previously there was a bug where Beasts that were not in the view did not make step sounds.
- We have added 2 new Astro-Creep styles and polished all textures.
As always, thank you for your support and patience,
/nornware AB c/o johno
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