Closed Co-Op Beta Update, January 16th, 2025

Hello Riftbreakers!

The first Closed Beta update of the year is here, and it is a huge one. In this version of the Co-Op Playtest build we are introducing two major improvements: Gameplay State Prediction Algorithms, and our first attempt at the weapon and loot systems rebalance. Prediction should significantly improve the network performance of the game and reduce camera jittering. The weapons and loot portion of the update is a bit harder to explain, so read the changelog to find out more!

We will send out a new batch of beta keys tomorrow. Please make sure to sign up here:

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The Riftbreaker Closed Co-Op Beta Update, January 16th, 2025. DATA: EXE: Changelog:

CHANGES

• Introduced the first version of Player and Creature Movement Prediction Algorithms. This is a set of algorithms that allows us to simulate the behavior of the player's avatars and enemy creatures on your machine. Player movement prediction allows us to react to movement input without delay and removes the lag that was present in previous builds. This feature also allows us to smooth out camera movement and removes the jitter that was observed when moving diagonally. Creature movement prediction and interpolation algorithms allow us to send creature movement data 5 times a second instead of 30 times per second. This reduces the amount of data transferred by an order of magnitude. We hope it will positively affect your gameplay experience. Still, we have to note that both of these features are still work in progress and have introduced a number of new bugs that were not present in previous builds. That being said, this is the perfect moment to gather feedback from the community. Please let us know if you think that player movement has improved or gotten worse in comparison to the previous closed beta build.
• Weapons and Economy Rebalance Changes - We have introduced several balance changes to our weapons, ammo production, logistics, and loot drops. This is the first iteration of these revamped systems, and nothing is final yet. Your feedback is very welcome. Our aim behind these changes is to bridge the power level gap between the lower tiers of weapons and the higher ones. The following is a list of changes we have introduced in this build. We would like to extend our thanks to one of our community members, Wzysb, who has conducted a lengthy analysis of our weapons system and pointed out many mistakes we made. We managed to correct most of them thanks to Wzysb's help.

Please note that not all weapons and mods have been modified yet. We focused on the most commonly used ones first. The following weapons have received changes:

• Acid spitter
• Atom bomb
• Blaster
• Burst rifle
• Corrosive gun
• Cryo spitter
• Cryogenic atomizer
• Fire spitter
• Flamer
• Grenade launcher
• Insect gun
• Lava gun - immolator
• Lightning_gun
• Minigun
• Mortar
• Plasma gun
• Rocket launcher
• Semi auto
• Shotgun
• Small machinegun
• Sniper rifle
• Swarm missile
• Sword
• Hammer

The following weapons are waiting to be rebalanced/reworked:

• Bouncing blades
• Charged bomb
• Crystal gun
• Floating mines
• Heavy plasma
• Laser
• Railgun
• Rootgun
• Trident
• Sonic fist
• Pickaxe
• Flame blade
• Laser sword
• Chainsaw
• Power fist

WEAPONS & ECONOMY CHANGES

• The first and probably most significant change is that weapons, consumables of higher levels, and player skills can now be dropped as loot from Bioanomalies, Biocaches, Omega creatures, and underground treasures.
• The weapons you find as loot are marked as unique. They have additional skills and a higher DPS ceiling than the ones you can craft yourself.
• Your research level determines the quality of the loot. You can find an Advanced one if you have blueprints available for a regular-level weapon. You may find a Superior item if you have access to Advanced blueprints. Researching Superior items opens up the possibility of finding Extreme items.
• The parameters of all weapons have been rebalanced. Weapon stats have been adjusted to be more helpful and to give each weapon a distinct purpose. Higher-tier weapons have been tweaked with co-op in mind.
• Many previously missing weapon characteristics have been added to the weapon rolling process. All characteristics have been adjusted to make them useful.
• Weapons crafted by the player no longer receive additional abilities, like cluster projectiles. You can add them later via mods or try to loot a weapon with these stats. This has been changed to make the items you find in the wild more exciting and powerful compared to what you can craft.
• Higher-tier weapons have had their fire rates changed. Some of them have had it increased to make them more useful. Others have had their values reduced, such as the Repeater Rifle - no one could physically pull the trigger 40 times a second, and it seriously messed with the DPS calculations, leading players to make wrong assumptions about the power level of the gun.
• The ammo cost for higher weapons has been adjusted to offer a steady consumption rate. We wanted to eliminate situations where you would never run out of ammo or, completely opposite, where the high ammo cost would render a weapon unusable.
• The amount of ammunition stored by the mech has been increased.
• The number of Ammo Storage buildings has been reduced. Initially, you get to build 2 Ammo Storage buildings. At level 2 of Ammo Storage technology, the limit is increased to 4, and it is up to 6 at level 3. The amount of ammo stored by individual buildings has been increased. Your total ammo storage for Mech ammo will be slightly lower. Tower Ammo has been kept at the same level.
• The armory building limit has been reduced to one. Armory upgrades are more significant now, increasing ammo and consumable production by a considerable margin. You will save on the amount of resources and space needed. However, you must protect your sole armory at all costs!
• Consumable manufacturing speed has been increased to compensate for the lower Armory building limit.
• Solid Material Storage buildings now store more resources.
• Carbonium and Ironium production speed has been slightly reduced. Level 1 factories remain unchanged - 1 resource per second. Level 2 factories produce 1.5 resources per second. Level 3 - 2.5 per second. The cost of factories has been adjusted to reflect this change.
• Weapon Mods have been rebalanced to make them more useful. Some bugs that caused certain mods to be overpowered have also been fixed.
• Spread and Critical Chance mods have been removed from the loot pool since they were not quite as helpful as we hoped. If you have a save file with these mods, they will still work, but you will no longer receive new ones.
• Consumables and Skills don't get as much stat increase as they used to on higher levels.
• Biocaches now always drop Carbonium and Ironium, with a chance to drop advanced and rare resources.

Please note that all of these changes are up for debate and none of them are final at this point.

OTHER CHANGES

• The in-game chat is now displayed in the middle-right portion of the screen. Message history has been added. Server messages are also displayed in the new chat window.
• The party members status icons have been moved to the left side of the minimap to accommodate the new chat window.
• Lesigian Omega has received a new, custom model.
• Hammerrocerros Omega has received a new, custom model.
• All Omega creatures now have NetAlwaysRevelantComponent added to ensure that their position and state is always up-to-date between clients and the server.
• Added localization strings to warning and assist ping menu actions.
• Drexolian Ultra has been added to the Volcanic Zone survival ambient creature pool.
• Acidic Yeast Colony event has been changed - the colony now grows at a rapid pace, making it a real threat that you can't ignore for more than a couple of minutes before it destroys your base.
• Biocaches now explode with more force to scatter the loot in a bigger radius.
• Changed the 'stunned' visual effect. The particles are more visible and rotate faster. Adjusted effect placement in many units.
• Changed the earthquake visual effect to be better visible.
• Added a custom effect for lightning cascade Omega attack.
• Shortened the duration of acid bulb explosions.
• Shortened the visual lifetime of acid spitter explosions. No functional change.

FIXES

• Fixed Twitch streaming integration authentication.
• Reduced the minimap system network transfer usage,
• Removed TransformSystem from various areas of the game to improve the network performance.
• Updated many textures to reduce their memory usage through emissive channel optimizations and resolution fixes.
• Fixed Nurglax Omega projectile errors.
• Reduced the loudness of sounds for many defensive towers. Added instance limits to tower sounds.
• Gravity grenade model has been removed from the magnetic rock destruction effect.
• Fixed an invalid memory read in UpdateWorldTransform when bone didn't exist, which resulted in a crash.
• Fixed an issue that caused building explosions not to deal damage to nearby structures.
• Fixed the Metallic Valley wind power generation ratio back to 1.25x.
• Introduced many transfer, replication and latency optimizations.
• Improved CPU performance.
• Multiple miscellaneous fixes and improvements.

EXOR Studios