Yet more updates for you to enjoy! And the headline this week is quite a big one for us, as it's a strong step towards the progression overhaul we've been working on behind the scenes for weeks and weeks. But first, more livestreams...
LIVESTREAMS
we're kicking off Season 2 of Squadron 500 tomorrow (Friday 8th June) at 4pm BST/8am PDT/11am EDT over on www.twitch.tv/spiltmilkstudios - come and join us! We're also streaming for 4 days in a row next week, all at that same time; Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday!
LAZARENE
this resource now drops from Asteroids as well as Enemies when you kill them. Pick it up, and then bank it before you die so you get to keep it! We've added a counter to your HUD too but it isn't on the Bank Summary screen yet. Worry not, it still all gets added up properly when you hit that big ol' button.
SHIP SWAPS COST LAZARENE
we've made sure choices are more important now - so swapping ships costs Lazarene. There's more Lazarene in the game now thanks to the drops detailed above, so that's something that will need balancing of course. We plan on adding a ‘confirmation’ dialog for the ship swapping, so you can check out each ship’s stats without automatically spending Lazarene, but that’s for another update.
DROP RATES
have had a balance pass. Enemies and Asteroids now have a 5% chance of spawning a Loot Crate, up from 2%. And then Loot Crates now have a 40% chance to give you a System, up from 10%. we're trying to be more generous, but also keep Loot Crates exciting when they drop, which will stop being cool if we increase things too far. It's a long process getting this stuff right!
GENERAL PERFORMANCE
we've spent a lot of time working on the game's performance on the backend over the past few weeks. What this means is that there are fewer errors, which means the servers are under less strain, and ultimately you should have a much smoother and less buggy experience playing.
THE MAP
no longer gets swamped by hundreds of Fleet Routes. We've done a lot of work to make Fleets behave, plus remove themselves under the correct circumstances... not only did it fix the map, it made the game perform better too!
THE MAP
only shows player icons for territories where players other than your are present. It did get a bit confusing :D
THE RADAR
is now able to show way more markers for Asteroid, enemies, and the like. No more surprise head-on collisions if you're paying attention! There should be 16 'roid markers on theradar in the image below :D
CARRIER SPAWNING CEREMONY
we've added the spawning line vfx, so it's much more obvious which enemies are coming from where!
CARRIERS
now spawn 3 loot crates on death, and all three count when you pick them up! Yay for rewards!
DAMAGE SPARKS
now correctly switch off when you dock and get healed up, this was a tiny visual thing that annoyed the crap out of all of us so we couldn't leave it for any longer.
LOADING ICON
is now a lot less wobbly. Another one that bugged us more than it bugged you, no doubt.
LOOT CRATE
now has a texture on its world model, so we're a lot happier with how it looks :D
5000 LOOT CRATES
used to be the message on your first login, but no longer! It no accurately reflects your total at any time, not just when you first dock.
KNOWN ISSUES:
- it is possible to equip systems in one ship, and then when you swap to a different ship, the systems can stay. So you can end up with configurations of ships and systems that shouldn't be allowed.
- all enemies spawn the same amount of Lazarene, this will be tweaked so bigger enemies give more of a reward soon.
So there we have it! We’re working on even more goodies for next week’s update - we’re not far from the Wipe being introduced fully with all of the progression rework that includes, but it won’t be arriving next week, that much I can say for sure! 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)