The secret feature is revealed!
But it's much more than just a crew member's ultimate utterance in this life... These floating texts can also give you valuable information:
- Notifications that your current weapon isn't working.
- Suggestions about which weapons might be more effective.
- A warning that a particular monster might be extra dangerous.
- Notifications that a monster might *leave you alone* if you don't poke it.
- Lots of responses to environmental cues.
- And yes, funny last words.
Of course I want feedback on this new system. Is it useful? Is the text too big or small? Too fast or slow? And what other situations do you think it would be good for?
The Great Rebalancing, Phase 5
Yes, this is still happening.
But from what I can tell, looking at the numbers, it's getting to be just about where I want it to be. Losses on the low end are decreasing, while larger away teams are facing more challenge.
And skill use is up 300%!
YES! I consider that a win on its own. And that leads nicely into the next subject...
Grenade Auto-Replenish
For now, the following changes have been made to grenades:
- A grenade item is not "destroyed" when you use the last grenade in the bunch.
- Grenades are now restocked at the *start* of an away mission.
- Each grenade restored, up to the "max ammo", costs 75 supplies.
- You can find a "hexa-box" in certain areas that will restore 1 ammo to your equipped grenade.
- The newly-introduced "grenade replenisher" device still functions as advertised, for free.
- The max ammo of most grenades has be (re-) reduced.
From a design standpoint, I want people to use grenades. I just don't want them to *only* use grenades. They are meant to be a powerful weapon of opportunity or last resort. Some are intended for other purposes, like deforestation (xenocide grenade) or digging in caves (seismic).
I'd really like to see an increase in grenade usage...
Retribution Changes
Retribution squads can be a powerful deterrent to senseless violence, but sometimes they seem to happen too frequently, or even unfairly. Changes have been made:
- A race's "offendedness" decreases over time.
- It takes about 50% more "offense" to initiate a retribution strike.
- Completing a quest for a race now decreases their offense.
- Races tend to get less offended over the killing of a single individual, especially if they shot first.
If you don't know what "retribution" is in Approaching Infinity, consider yourself lucky...
Xenocide and Scrambler Overhaul
Xenocide (a combination pesticide and military-strength weed-killer) and scrambler (like a focused EMP) are two damage types with narrow use-cases. But when they work, wow, do they work!
But many monsters had some weird numbers for their resistances and vulnerabilities, and I also found that even when the game was saying "scrambler is deadly", I still had to shoot something like 10 times.
Again, changes were made.
- The vast majority of monsters are now completely immune to these damage types.
- They do 500% damage against anything they are actually useful against.
- The base damage of these modifications has been increased, since any large number multiplied by zero is still ZERO.
- Xenocide is still great at removing sight-blocking trees.
- Scrambler is useful because it can destroy short-circuits and remove nano-swarms.
Other Changes
- Base monster damage has been increased by 5%.
- The minimum damage of a melee strike-back has been increased to 33%.
- The auto-explore now tries to picks up (almost) all items.
- Auto-explore ignores the proximity damage of lava and cave-ins unless you set it to "terrified".
Good hunting, Captains!