We're back on the regular, and this update has a bunch of rather signifiant changes bringing a lot more excitement, strategy and dynamism to every fight. But first, BIG NEWS!
STREAMING & SQUADRON 500
We've got an exciting goal - to get 500 players in Lazarus at once! We want to achieve this before we go to Early Access, and we can't do it wihtout you! We'll be running livestreams regularly between now and the end of May to try to get that many pilots involed, and if you join the game during those timeslots you'll get exclusive skins that won't be available any other way. You'll get the basic for turning up to one stream, but an even better and more exclusive skin for every extra stream you play with us during, up to the 4th!
The skin rewarded for playing during 1 stream.
If you playing during 2 streams, you get the above skin, plus this extra one:
If you playing during 3 streams, you get both previous skins, plus this extra one:
And if you playing during all 4 streams, you get all the previous skins, plus this extra special one:
STREAM TIMES
The schedule is as follows:
28th April - Stream 1
12th May - Stream 2
19th May - Stream 3
26th May - Stream 4
Every stream is on a Saturday, and will be at 6pm BST (10am PDT, 1pm EDT) over on our Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/spiltmilkstudios)
Yup, that's right, the first stream is tomorrow!
So how can you help?
1. Come and play the game during those times! We'll be playing with you and hope to have some fun activities to get up to, but we'll have more on that down the line.
2. Invite your friends too! The game's free to grab on Steam this whole weekend, so it's easier than ever.
(If everyone in our Discord invites a friend, we're nearly at 500 already, so we feel like we're pretty close!)
Other than the skins you'll win for turning up, we'll also be unlocking an extra special skin for the whole community... if we get to 500. So y'know, that's an added incentive right there.
But hey, this is a weekly update right? Correct, it's not all about the streams - we're still working hard to improve the game week on week, and this one's no different. Read on for the big changes we've made to combat!
AMMO/OVERHEATING
All the Blasters in the game have been reworked entirely with regard to their firing, which is now tied to your Energy bar (the blue one that feeds your boost). Every shot will use Energy (which still automatically regenerates) so you won't be able to just spam bullets all day long any more. In addition, emptying your Energy bar will have a consequence. Essentially your System will overheat, and you'll have to wait for the bar to fill at least a little bit before being able to shoot again, so it's wiser to fire in bursts. Each gun now behaves differently within this setup too, which is something we're keen to run with and will iterate on as the weeks go by.
See how my energy bar's depleting as I shoot, without moving? Yeah, we're gonna balance this and have a LOT of fun with it.
BLASTER RANGE
We've also taken the opportunity to globally limit to the range/lifespan on all the Blaster variants' bullets. This will be different per weapon eventually, but for now the blanket improvement means you're not just killing stuff offscreen (which is boring), or firing bullets far into the void (which is better for your CPU).
DEATH & SHIP REPAIR
In the first step towards the big features we've been promising, we've added some more gameplay around dying. When you die in anything other than the default SH-15, your ship is busted up... and you'll have to spend Lazarene to repair it before you can use it again. This is to add more of a cost to death, which in turn should make you play more cautiously, making all combat that little bit more tense and exciting. Also, it puts the focus on hoarding more Lazarene, which in turn means you'll want to go out and get more Loot crates, but then what if you get caught unawares with a big haul before docking safely?! This kind of drama is central to the vision we have for Lazarus. Sadly this is a bit buggy at the moment, and it looks like it doesn't charge you... it does though, rest assured!
Look at those nasty skulls, preventing you from playing with your favourite ship!
ENEMIES
Now they're a lot more awake and dynamic. We were seeing some cases where it'd take a few seconds for them to wake up and notice the player's presence, hopefully that's all fixed now, and the game is a lot more fun and responsive for it.
SYSTEMS
We've limited the Limpet Booster , HP Recharger and Repulsor to have only 1 level, as we're still a way off from properly implementing all their upgrades.
PERFORMANCE
We've fixed a lot of server side issues that should mean the world stays performant and you should all see far fewer bugs. Fingers crossed!
KNOWN ISSUES
We're hearing audio cut out intermittently. If anyone else gets this, please do let us know!
We've also been working away on the much-teased big features behind the scenes, so that's still incoming. It's a ton of work around the Wipe, player accounts, progression and XP... so it's taking some time but it'll be worth it when it's in!
Next week might see the introduction of this work, but regardless we'll also be fixing some of the more immediate issues for you. Stay frosty, and don't forget - play with us tomorrow, help us get to that magic 500 concurrents!