Hello,
in today's update I want to recap the changes of the last couple of days, announce the upcoming new demo and give more details on the Angelwatch content update.
If you've kept up with the changelogs on Steam or the Discord you'll already know that I've made some minor changes to several aspects of the game. Today's update includes a larger change to how movement stats work so I'll recap all of it here for easier consumption:
Speed stat has been removed and replaced by new "AGL" and "SPD" stats that show as decimal multipliers, similar to how range and damage bonuses are displayed. This is because the previous speed stat was an internal value that worked together with several unexposed values (like physics drag and mass) to determine ship behaviour, but was not readily comparable and causing confusion. Additionally, because this value was being directly modified by speed-changing elements like modules, forges and meta upgrades, the effect of those upgrades on ships could vary wildly with no clearly visible reason. The rework makes the internal values hidden and exposes only the final multiplier, which affects all ships equally and is also now referenced and changed by all relevant other sources such as meta upgrades, modules, abilities, forges and set bonuses. With this change, upgrades will affect most ships more and especially larger capitals ought to feel more nimble and zippy.
I've aligned the maximum upgrade levels of agility and speed to match at 30.
The chase camera has had translational and rotational inertia added to its movement to lessen the jolt of impact-based movement and accentuate the movement of the ship. The strength of this effect can be changed using the new "chase cam stiffness" setting in the pause menu.
Camera distance changing has been implemented. This works on all cameras and is bound to the prior "Zoom" bind by default. Zoom behaviour is still available by using both the camera orbit modifier (default RMB) and the scroll wheel together, and tutorial texts and the HUD key reference have been appended to show this.
An option has been added to disable the advanced control mode pitch inversion. This feature was designed to help players with prior flight sim experience acclimate to the controls but has been noted to be causing confusion for players that swap between control modes frequently during gameplay. The new option is in the top layer of the pause menu and will change the internal behaviour without changing keybinds.
A small description of drone mechanics has been added to the help&info menu.
Various fixes have been implemented, notably to set bonus behaviour and chaotic gate menu buttons.
If you have any feedback after testing these changes, make sure to let me know!
2026 Demo is coming
Since its launch before NextFest last year, the demo has received a number of updates but is currently way behind the launch version in terms of bugfixes, polish and feature set. While I believe that it still serves as an acceptable introduction of the core game concept, it's been outpaced in several important ways and will receive an update to bring it in line with the current feature and polish state of the game. Because of technical reasons (and dumb decisions on my part back in November) this update will require a larger rework of the demo to fit it within the new world generation and progression framework, which will in turn most likely require a save wipe and lead to some content changes for the demo. I'm aiming to release this update to the demo before Angelwatch later this month.
Angelwatch Details
Before the winter break I announced the coming content update "Angelwatch". While I don't have anything to show yet in terms of screenshots or video, I want to give a more detailed view into some of what's coming:
Angelwatch content will be divided into two parts - Systems (available to all players, regardless of progress) and Content (available to endgame players that have unlocked the chaotic gate). On the content side of things, the last announcement already covered most of it; new ships, enemies and objective structures will be akin to a new faction space that only happens beyond the chaotic gate. This will include a new tab on the endgame menu screen for the new unlockables, but notably, ships will not be simply bought in a menu - instead, celestial ships need to be unlocked in-world at the shrines, with materials and currency in ship cargo.
On the systems side, another new element that will be available to all players is Mythic Rarity items! These will be dropping from normal loot sources and work as modifiers on existing items. Instead of simply being better in terms of stats, like a "MK6"-type rarity would be, mythic items will spawn as extra perks on weapons and extra abilities on modules, enhancing them with powerful effects. Currently I plan to include one to two mythic variants for each item type. A preview of some effects:
Philospher's Stone: Mythic armor that converts sustained armor strip into shields
The Aegis: Mythic shield that can reflect incoming projectiles
Cloudstrike: Mythic cannon that EMPs on hit and produces lightning strikes on EMP'ed enemies
Additionally, new types of "normal" abilities will also be added in Angelwatch, including Field Emitters: A new type of ability that creates a static bubble in space providing a module-specific bonus while inside; this could be a restorative effect, a damage bonus or a sensor/signature buff, similar to how existing Shroud enemies work.
That's all for today, I hope you enjoy the recent changes and are looking forward to Angelwatch!