Every gun, every kill, every Spacer: the Feel & Identity update

I was playing Gunmetal Orbit on my Steam Deck and loving it, but the guns didn't feel different enough in my hands, every enemy died the same way, and the crew looked soft up close. So I spent this whole stretch on feel and identity. Your controller rumbles now, every weapon looks, sounds and kicks like its own gun, machines tear apart into real wreckage, and all twelve Spacers wear suits rebuilt from real armour plates. This post covers everything since 2.08, so it's a long one.

Feel it in your hands

• Controller rumble, with an intensity slider. Set it anywhere from full to off under Options, Accessibility.
• Every weapon has its own kick. Light guns tick at the start of a burst, medium guns add a short rumble and a light camera bump, and heavy guns like the Railgun and Breach Driver shove the camera back and freeze the frame for an instant when they land. Six guns at once never turn into constant buzz.
• Kills land in your hands. A light tick for small fry, a firmer kick for elites and a long, heavy rumble when a boss goes down. MULTI-KILL, MASSACRE and ANNIHILATION roll a rising swell, and near death the controller beats like a heart.

Every gun is its own gun

• Every gun fires its own shot. The Rotary Cannon throws green tracers, the Hydra fires blue-white rockets, and the Breach Driver hurls a glowing gold slug. The Blaster is now a hand-cannon firing a heavy gold slug. No player shot uses enemy red or orange any more.
• Gravity Well throws an actual gravity well: a dark orb with a violet rim that swells as it flies and drags sparks in. The Orbital Wrench throws a tumbling wrench, and Drone Hive drones fire twin darts.
• Every gun flashes and hits in its own way. Rapid-fire guns throw a hard star, heavy guns kick a wide blast, cryo cracks into ice and Tesla snaps forked lightning.
• Weapons and enemies sound like themselves. Enemy fire has its own muffled, far-off sound, every ultimate has its own sound, sibling weapons like the Railgun and Breach Driver sound different, and hits match the weapon.
• Tracers and rocket motors are easier to see on the Steam Deck screen.

Machines come apart

• Enemies break into real wreckage. Drones shed rotor blades and severed cable, armoured hulls shed bent plate and frame spars, and even huge wipes never go quiet: every wreck bursts.
• Every kind of machine dies its own way. Swarm drones pop in sparks and shorting arcs, bladed raiders bleed sparks from torn joints, and heavy frames go up in a fuel-fire burst with a shockwave. Blades and drums tear off, heavy hulls leave burnt-out, smoking wrecks, crits and overkills shatter, and multi-kills leave a debris field. No blood, ever: these are machines.
• Every kind of enemy dies with its own sound. Drones crunch as their rotors whine out, blades shear apart and heavies thud and vent.
• Bosses break apart into four burning sections that tumble away from the Artifact Core, and the Marauder dies like the rival it is, in a fuel flash that cooks off twice more and leaves a scorch mark.
• You can see a tough enemy breaking before it dies. Below half health, elites, heavy frames and bosses spit sparks and trail smoke. Below a quarter the sparks come faster, the smoke thickens and their eyes flicker like failing power. The flicker is a slow dim, never a strobe, and it follows your screen-flash setting. Small fry stay clean, so a crowded wave never turns into a smoke screen.

Every Spacer rebuilt

• Four suits rebuilt from real armour plates. The Drifter wears white ceramic shells with safety-orange bands, the Gunner layered navy plates with a brass ammunition belt and cyan eye slits, the Prospector worn ochre miner's plates with a dome helmet and forehead lamp, and the Bulkhead thick olive heavy armour with the widest pauldrons in the roster. At combat size every suit now reads as plates and hardware.
• Every Spacer wears their own paint, only on the armour. Valkyrie, Phantom, Ronin, Foreman, Magnate, Smelter, Wrecker and Hauler share those four suits, and each now has their own colours on the painted plates only, matched to their roster painting. Bare steel, visors and glowing strips stay true.
• Spacers stand out in combat. Each suit gets its own lighting, so dark suits read as steel instead of black shapes, and a bug that flattened white plating, orange markings and glowing accents is fixed.

See every kill, read every fight

• Your guns take enemies down on screen. Guns, drones, chain lightning, ricochets, escorts and Uplink strikes lock on once an enemy has crossed into view, so the wreckage, fire and death sounds land in front of you. Anything shooting or charging at you from off screen can still be shot back, and bosses are always fair game.
• Range now pays past the screen edge. When a gun could reach farther than the edge of the screen, the extra reach becomes extra damage on that shot: +4% per metre, up to +40%. The Range card and Long Optics now say so.
• Health bars are bigger, clearer and exact. Enemy bars are taller and a deep hostile red, and the chunk a hit just took off shows as a pale stripe that drains away, so you can tell health left from health lost at a glance.
• Regular enemies show a small health bar once they survive a hit, and it fades 1.5 seconds after you stop hitting them, so one-shot kills and a full swarm stay clean.
• The health bar under your pilot is larger, with quarter marks and the same draining damage chunk as the main bar.

Balance

• Level-ups no longer turn you into a god by mid-run. Free level-up damage cards are now +6% (+10% Refined) and attack speed +5% (+8% Refined), and Refined cards get common more slowly. Shop cards keep their full value, so the big power spikes come from what you buy, and a strong build still gets near-invincible late in a run.

If you're enjoying the game, a Steam review helps more than you'd think.

Found a bug or have feedback? Post in the Steam Discussions. I read every thread.