Hello Riftbreakers!
We're super happy to present you with the first large update of The Riftbreaker in 2022! The Lunar New Year update brings, among many others, a new seasonal event, an all-new Statistics Screen, as well as many tweaks and optimizations to enhance your experience.
Let the festivities begin!
As soon as you launch the game after this update, you will be greeted with a message that will inform you about the Lunar New Year event. Similar to the Christmas celebration that we held just a month ago, this is a purely cosmetic event to spice up the Galatean atmosphere a little bit. Some of the basic structures in your base will be replaced with special, seasonal versions. Enjoy the premium wooden floors, designed by the best carpenters in the galaxy. Frighten your enemies with your new Sentinel Towers, which now have golden tiger heads instead of their regular turrets. Let the light of the paper lanterns warn up the night.
If this seasonal event is not your jam, you can turn it off in the options menu at any moment. You won't miss any content because of this.
Additionally, we have added two entirely new skins for Mr. Riggs! You can get them by redeeming the codes TIGER and SPRING in the options menu.
The code SPRING will unlock this skin for you. Gold and red really work well together for some reason.
The code TIGER will unlock this skin for you. Just look how happy Mr. Riggs appears with that... massive predator painted on his windscreen!
Another addition to this update is the Statistics Screen. You can access this screen at any point during gameplay and also after a finished Survival run. The stats will give you all the useful data we could think of about Mr. Riggs, your buildings, and the enemy creatures. This will allow you to analyze your tactics on a much more factual basis, showing you exactly what works and what doesn't. As always, if you have any requests or see any areas we could improve when it comes to this screen, please let us know.
The update also comes with numerous tweaks and fixes for many of the problems that you let us know about, including the ability to switch back from Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) to Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA). Some players disliked the overly smoothed-out look of TAA and the ghosting that it could cause. If you experienced these problems, please try using FXAA and see if it works better for you.
Check out this great video to learn more about Anti-Aliasing techniques!
Changes in this build are not limited to technicalities only. After receiving tons of feedback regarding the energy system in The Riftbreaker, especially in case of a power shortage, we have done a lot of work on it. The energy priorities are much more logical and predictable now. For example, the energy network will prioritize AI hubs instead of defensive towers, as towers can't work at all if AI hubs are inactive. This should result in a much more natural experience and save you some trouble in those tight situations.
These are, of course, just a couple of changes that we made to the game over the past few weeks. You can check out the full changelog at the end of this news article. We are waiting for your feedback and reports.
Now, back to work on the World Expansion and online co-op...
EXOR Studios
The Riftbreaker, Lunar New Year Update, Package #106, Binaries #498 Changelog:
FEATURES
- The Spring Festival is here! A new seasonal event has arrived in Galatea 37. Celebrate with two new Mr. Riggs skins (unlock them with codes TIGER and SPRING), new lamp models, new floor patterns, new Sentinel Towers, and even a custom weather event! Just like the previous winter seasonal event, this is purely cosmetic and entirely optional.
- The mouse cursors implementation has been completely reworked. It is now much more responsive and faster, reducing lagging and any other potentially unwanted behavior.
- The Statistics Screen has been reworked and added to the in-game menu and the end game screen.
- The full version of the game and the Prologue now feature different main menu backgrounds to differentiate more easily between the two.
CHANGES
- We re-enabled the option to change the anti-aliasing method from TAA to FXAA. Use it if you dislike the minor TAA ghosting artifacts. Enabling FXAA will prevent you from using FidelityFX Super Resolution as it requires TAA.
- The energy priority system has been dramatically improved. Previously, in the case of an energy shortage, the buildings would come on- and offline semi-randomly in case of an energy shortage. Now, it’s more granular and predictable, with AI hubs taking priority over defensive towers.
- Changed the radius of the objective marker in the Tanzanite Concentration mission from 100 to 10 meters.
- Adjusted the minimum number of spawned Cryogenic plants in the Magma Find Samples mission.
- Deployable Sentry Guns are more visible now, thanks to tweaked visual effects.
- Temporary (green) Rift Portals are now light emitters.
- Adjusted fade-in and fade-out timings for dynamic decals - blood splats, explosions, and similar.
- Reduced the amount of hitpoints for large Magnetic Rocks, making them easier to deal with.
- Menu screens have been adjusted to fill the screen space better on non- 16:9 aspect ratio displays.
- Ammo research requirements added to the Corrosive Gun, the Cryogenic Atomizer, the Nuclear Launcher, and Swarm Missiles. This is to prevent a rare scenario where you could develop a weapon but have no means of producing the ammunition required.
- Loot from Acidic Yeast should be more visible now.
- Planetary Screen is now hidden in Survival Mode and the Prologue.
- Bigger chance for "something useful" in Bioanomalies (skills, skins, etc.), instead of random resource caches.
- Additional Bioanomalies spawn in on bigger maps.
- Requirements are now visible for a couple more items in the Alien Technology research tree.
- The Acidic Yeast can now destroy any non-acid-resistant floor.
- When the player tried to upgrade the Headquarters building without the necessary resources to do so, they would get the warning pop-up, just as if they could afford the upgrade. This is no longer the case.
FIXES
- Fixed an error that caused some meteors to spawn double decals.
- Fixed collision of multiple small vegetation pieces to improve scanning with the Bioscanner.
- Fixed AI core cost errors that happened while using cost-reducing gear, like Maintenance Tools.
- The Cryo Station no longer takes damage shortly after being built on the Magma floor.
- Fixed an error that happened when deleting saves through the main menu.
- Nurglax Drones are no longer selectable.
- Fixed the Uranium Ore icon in research.
- Fixed a bug that caused problems with the Build Menu focus after using a hotkey while building.
- Floors no longer cast shadows, which should result in performance improvements.
- Fixed multiple issues related to minimap zooming.
- The buttons on the Journal screen now correctly display their corresponding tooltips.
- 'Remove from the research queue' button has been fixed.
- Fixed a large number of minor errors and crash bugs.
SOUNDS
- New sound added for gates opening and closing.
- The sound framework has been reworked entirely, eliminating many issues and crashes that happened before. Please let us know if you notice any strange behavior regarding sound.