Welcome! Let's get to it!
THE MAP
now includes icons for locations of Players, as well as last week's Carriers! Not only that, but you can also see the movement and attack routes of all the Drone Fleets in the game, so you can run like a coward or intercept and take the fight to their doorstep! Comes complete with a key so you know what's what, and a toggle so you can choose what info to be shown. [Known bug: when you undock from a Xenotaph, the routes are shown on your screen. you can get rid of them by bringing your map up, and then minimising it. Just hit M twice!]
COLLISION DAMAGE
is now locked, so asteroid collisions will no longer kill you. Damage is different per size of Asteroid, but the same amount regardless of your speed. Much more predictable, arcade-y and fun. Essentially you need to ram into the biggest Asteroid three times at full speed to kill yourself in the default ship - obviously different ships have different HP amounts so be careful!
A COLLISION TIMER
has been added to the game too. It means we give you a small period after taking damage from a collision in which you cannot take any more collision damage. It's currently set to 1 second, and does not make you invincible to any other kind of damage. It's these kinds of things that seem like maybe they'd break the game, or are overkill, but they definitely help make the whole thing a lot more friendly and fair-seeming to players.
TURRETS
have been balanced a lot! their HP has been reduced to 25% of what they were, and they do a lot less damage too... 35% of what they used to. They're still very useful and great for keeping territory safe, but Drones are definitely able to smash them up a bit more easily, making the back and forth of territory a little more interesting.
TELEPORTING
is now fixed, with costs increasing depending on the distance, and the costs of the travel are displayed correctly too. Remember, you can only fast travel to territories that the players own.
STREAM REWARDS
are in! If you've been playing with us in the previous two streams, you've been awarded the relevant skins, and you can equip them right away! Of course you should join us tomorrow for the next one and get another skin!
SKIN UNLOCKS AND SELECTION
is back in! We'd broken the code redeeming, but now it's all fine :D
SYSTEM ENERGY USAGE
has been tweaked heavily, so things are a lot more balanced and fun.
ASTEROID
movement has been addressed, tweaking so that the weird random movement is reduced. This is ongoing though, there's still more we can do to make this better.
GLOB WALLS
are all fixed up, so now they properly remove their soft selves when they've become impenetrable, plus they're locked in position and will not move once impervious. Much less stress on the server (things that move cost data!) and also much more useful in gameplay terms.
We're still working incredibly hard to get the Wipe content in - when we finally do it will be worth the wait, but for now we're going to stop making promises about time scales. It's just not fair being such a tease to you all! Tell us what you think about this week's update - and what you want to see in the next one - over on our Discord! (https://discord.gg/spiltmilk)