Hello!
After some delay I am very happy to finally release this major update, Catharage: Angelwatch. Before I get into the details I want to thank the new and returning contributors as well as community testers, all of whom helped make this the largest and best update to the game yet.
Systems changes and additions
New Keybinds have been added for many actions such as activating individual weapons, using abilities, cruise and tractor states as well as fleet commands. These can all be accessed and rebound in the options menu, and new hotkeys will also now be displayed on their respective button in the game UI. Note that the new keys will not show on the keyref in the top right, which would otherwise bloat to unwieldy proportions, and that warping and extracting do not have keybinds - I do want players to scramble to hit those still!
Fleet Commands have been greatly expanded and added to a new Fleet UI element, found on the left side of the interface whenever fleet members exist. This UI shows each fleet member's current Health status, speed mode and AI state. Next to individual fleet ships are three command icons, each representing one AI state. Below the fleet UI are larger hotkeyed buttons that apply the AI state to the entire fleet. States work as follows: HOLD will make fleet ships patrol at their current location, engaging enemies as they normally would, HOLD ON ME will make fleet ships patrol at the players' current location, and RETURN makes fleet ships follow the player while ignoring other contacts until shot at. These AI modes also incur specific speed rules, and fleet ships have been retuned to be closer to player equivalents in terms of normal and cruise speeds.
UI Text has received an overhaul, as nearly all instances of contiguous text have had their fonts replaced with a more readable alternative. Most buttons and single-line elements retain the prior font.
Target Lock Indicators have been added to all ship-sized enemies, showing how close the player ship is to attaining weapon locking capabilities. This should help specifically newer players understand the sensor system and develop an intuition for the combat model. The tutorial has been changed to more clearly reflect this new information.
Forges have had their upgrade descriptions made more verbose to be more specific on the numbers behind their effects. They have also had additional upgrades added.
Engineering upgrades have had more speed-related items added as well as a new mercy mechanic for early game: If not yet unlocked via meta upgrades, the most expensive engineering upgrade will always be for armor regeneration. This will provide a consistent path to mid-game-capable power for new players.
Bounty Hunters are a new behaviour for enemy ships that can appear rarely on most spawns. These relentless captains will know where the player is even when not inside their sensor bubble, and chasing the Navigator is their primary aim.
Various tweaks and bugfixes have been made to interface and base game functionality.
New Items and Abilities
A new module ability type has been added: The Field Generator can roll on all module types and will change in functionality depending on the base module. This ability creates a static zone in space that confers a buff on players while inside this zone, ranging from sensor reduction to armor regeneration.
A new agility booster has been added to complement the speed boster, available on engines.
Single-Use restoration abilities have had their values increased significantly to be a more viable alternative to regeneration boosters.
Lure modules and the Lure POI have been reworked: They have more range and work on all enemy ships instead of a single faction. Ships affected by this Lure may now also switch to a cruising speed mode, making the effects much more noticeable (and dangerous).
Mythic items have been added: This new item type can roll on any module or weapon and will modify its behaviour in interesting and/or powerful ways. Akin to uniques in other ARPGs, mythics have a static roll chance unaffected by area difficulty, so they can be encountered at any point in the game. On modules, mythics will replace the module ability, usually with a passive effect. On weapons, mythics roll like perks, meaning they can stack with other effects such as split, escalation beam or ricochet. In total, over a dozen mythics can be found, and there is no restriction on how many can be used at a time!
Relics have been added: These are single-use or stackable upgrades that change ship behaviour and tactics in drastic ways, comparable to Keystones in other ARPGs. They are acquired from the newly added Reliquary structure, where one of two relics can be chosen. The total number of relics is seven, with some focused on pure power gains or utility and others on significant tradeoffs but similarly significant buffs to compensate. A new UI element at the top of the screen shows the currently applied relics during gameplay.
Angelwatch Endgame Content
From here on, everything listed is content exclusive to the endgame, where the majority of the content additions of this update happen - that is the chaotic space unlocked after completing all regular objectives and constructing the chaotic gate.
The Celestials are a new enemy faction exclusive to chaotic space. While their design speaks for itself, their ships are also outfitted with dangerous new weaponry and abilities, including some mythic items and the capacity to deal new damage types. They are very dangerous and should only be challenged by experienced players with a good set of upgrades already unlocked...
A new supercapital boss encounter is included as the final fight of the Celestial progression, and this one is the most dangerous one yet. Prepare well, and maybe bring a fleet to be safe!
Six new playable ships can be unlocked at the new Shrine structure, and unlocking these represents the new Celestial objective track. Unlike previous ships, celestial vessels need to be unlocked in-run using in-run resources. Afterwards, they can be picked from the menu like regular ships. These ships are generally more powerful than base game equivalents and also have some slot/bonus combinations that haven't been available yet, such as range and damage bonuses with drones.
Three new meta-upgrades will unlock as players progress through the celestial objectives: Loot Chance will add a flat loot drop chance to any enemy encountered, making low-loot enemies more reliably drop items and enabling enemies to drop loot that normally wouldn't, such as drones! Scrap and Material Retention allow you to keep a percentage (up to 50%) of your collected currencies on death, which will make risky gathering runs much safer.
New status effects are available to find from celestial enemy loot (and also used by celestials themselves): Ascension will build up stacks on targets until they either die or accumulate 100 stacks, at which point an AoE explosion doing damage equal to the number of ascension stacks will occur. Damnation also accumulates and increased the direct damage received by the amount of ascension stacks, acting as a "reverse escalation beam". While ascension can only be removed by triggering its blast effect, damnation can be cleansed from the player by refusing a relic at the reliquary.
New POIs can be found in chaotic space, usually belonging to celestials. These offer new opportunities for currency collection, but are especially dangerous. This includes a new environmental hazard, the Firestorm.
The Future
With Angelwatch, Catharage is now a larger and more fully featured game than I had ever initially planned, and I consider it to be content complete. There are some small ideas still bouncing around in my head that require more technical exploration, so these may come at some point. While I will of course continue to monitor discussions and all other relevant channels to respond to questions and fix bugs, I also want to be clear in stating that Catharage is not a live service or early access game, and will not receive continuous updates. Further performance optimization as well as better Steam Deck and Controller support are things I plan to explore, but there are also other projects and ideas I look forward to developing (Catharage II?). If you've enjoyed the game so far (and maybe have been here for some of the behind-the-scenes development) I hope you'll join me again then.
And that wraps up Angelwatch! I hope you all enjoy the new features and content, find some cool loot and try your hand at fighting the new enemies. Make sure to let me know what you think, either on the discussion here or the Discord. If you've been following the game but haven't taken the dive yet, or are reading this as your first exposure to the game, note that there will also be a sale to celebrate the release of this update, discounting the game at 40% for a good while!