Hello Riftbreakers!

We are very happy to tell you that The Riftbreaker: Metal Terror is available now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1945600/The_Riftbreaker_Metal_Terror/

To celebrate this very special moment, we have prepared a brand new trailer. Enjoy!

Metal Terror World Expansion is a huge milestone for The Riftbreaker. Not only does it expand on The Riftbreaker storyline, but also provides a meaningful update to all players. We’re very grateful for your patience and support over the course of the Metal Terror development. We hope it will match your expectations and make your experience with the game even better.

The World Expansion Update has two components; a huge free content update and a story-driven paid DLC - The Riftbreaker: Metal Terror. Here is a short summary of what both of them include:

The World Expansion free content update:

• An entirely new Biome to explore - the Metallic Valley.
• A new Survival Mode scenario, taking place in the new biome.
• Several new species of creatures, ranging from harmless herbivores to bloodthirsty predators, looking for territorial domination.
• New technologies: harness the power of Morphium, a mysterious resource that seems to break the laws of physics.
• New weapons: defend your base with new varieties of defensive towers. Take the fight to the aliens with Lightning Guns, Heavy Plasma Cannons, and even a Chainsaw.
• Introducing the winners of our Community Design Contests: the Orbital Strike Cannon and Bioscanner Turret!
• Rebalanced Survival Mode experience - unlock more technologies, explore different builds, and gain access to Alien Technology without even building a Lab!
• A lot of quality of life improvements: mass repair and upgrade tools, more intelligent floor building utility.

The Riftbreaker: Metal Terror paid DLC:

• Discover the strange history of the Metallic Valley in an entirely new branch of the Story Campaign, spanning over several hours of gameplay.
• Establish an Outpost in a brand-new area of the planet - if you dare.
• Scan, analyze, and catalog the unique fauna and flora of the new biome.
• Face several new enemy species, each posing a different kind of challenge.
• Research new additions to the technology tree, utilizing the curiosities you discover in the new biome: buildings, weapons, and equipment.
• Solve the mystery that remained hidden for millennia.
• The Story portion of this Expansion is integrated with the Main Campaign from the base edition of The Riftbreaker. The new branch and the contents of the expansion will unlock as you progress through the game. If you have previously completed The Riftbreaker Story Campaign, you can continue your adventure where you left off. The additional part of the Story will unlock immediately, giving you the option to explore the new part of the world.

And for those of you who want to get into the very specific details of this update, here’s the complete changelog!

The Riftbreaker: Metal Terror World Expansion update, July 18th 2022, Package #558, Binaries #179. Changelog:

FEATURES:

• Welcome to the Metallic Valley! Enjoy playing Survival Mode in this new biome - learn all the new tricks, discover the new creatures, and harness the power of Morphium.
• Speaking of Morphium - it is a brand-new liquid resource. It is found only in the Metallic Valley and can serve as a power source and a building block (of sorts).
• Several new species of creatures have been added:
• Wingmite - a deadly, lightning-quick flying creature that swarms the player and uses melee attacks.
• Bradron - a slower flying unit, capable of attacking from a distance with a powerful laser beam. It can also disable some of Mr. Riggs' equipment with an EMP blast.
• Octabit - battering ram in the form of a weird, creepy, self-replicating cube. Will explode on contact. It can split into smaller versions of itself if destroyed.
• Flurian - an enormous creature with a plasma grenade launcher fused within its body. Will try to rip you apart in close quarters using its giant, metallic claws.
• Idapian, Brabit, and Stonger - new neutral, ambient creatures. Real cuties.

• Quality of Life update: we have added Mass Upgrade, Repair, and Deconstruction tools. We have devoted an entire article to them, so click the link to learn more.
• A new tool has been added to the building menu: the Power Switch. It allows you to quickly power buildings on or off, a handy feature when dealing with a power grid that is under heavy load. As with the other tools, you can increase the size of the brush.
• New buildings: Liquid Compressor and Liquid Decompressor. You can provide the Compressor with any liquid resource to, well, compress it. That will allow you to transport that liquid over a large distance without using any pipelines. All you need to do is to build a Decompressor wherever you want to use the liquid you provided to the Compressor. Best of all - this works between maps as well! Magma Power Plants in the Jungle? You bet!
• New building: Morphium Power Plant. This building requires only morphium to operate. In return for supplying it with enough of that resource, it will reward you with a nice and steady stream of power. Great for setting up resource outposts.
• New building: Energy Walls. These are slightly more expensive than the regular walls. However, they are pretty great against melee attackers, as they deal damage in retaliation to being hit.
• New Defenisve Tower: Morphium Tower. Boost your defenses with alien technology from beyond time! The tower commands the influence area around itself to form massive spikes that shred the enemies to pieces. Additionally, it does not require any power or AI hubs to operate - you only need to supply it with Morphium. Oh, and it can be placed on liquids and it generates shields for buildings around itself, too.
• New Defensive Tower: Lightning Tower. This energy-based weapon will be a shockingly good addition to your arsenal. Yeah, I know, I'll see myself out.
• New weapon: Lightning Gun. You can now cosplay as Emperor Palpatine. Unlimited power.
• New weapon: Heavy Plasma Cannon. Shoots powerful plasma projectiles with high splash damage potential. The alternative fire mode changes the weapon into a portable shield, protecting you from projectiles.
• New melee weapon: Laser Sword. It deals a bit less damage than its regular counterpart but can attack at a much faster rate.
• New melee weapon: Chainsaw. Rip and Tear until it is done.
• New skills: Orbital Bombardment and Orbital Laser added. These are the winning design of one of our previous competitions.
• New consumable: Bioscanner Turret - another winner of our design competition. This consumable item can be deployed anywhere you find something interesting. It will scan all objects of interest within its range for as long as its battery lasts.
• New consumable: Mini Miner. This consumable item can be placed on any ore deposit. It will mine resources for a short amount of time and automatically transport them to your storage.
• The first iteration of player drones has been added. After equipping certain upgrade modules, like Offensive Gear or Maintenance Tools, an accompanying drone will spawn and follow Mr. Riggs around. Drones can (based on their type) repair structures, collect loot, attack enemies, or destroy incoming projectiles. All upgrades come with only one drone, meaning you can have up to four robotic buddies following you at any given time. GO! GO FORTH AND DO MY BIDDING, LITTLE ONES!
• Added new Kermon species for the Metallic Valley biome.
• Added new Hedroner species for the Metallic Valley biome.
• The new building menu is here! You are now able to select the building level for each structure individually by using the ALT-toggle. Simply highlight the building you want and press alt to switch to the desired level. Not only does this help with building max-level buildings, but also allows you to place 'intermediate' structures - for example, you can't always afford a level 5 Communications Hub, but you can switch to any lower level at any time. Thanks to this feature we also grouped decorative buildings, such as floors and lamps together, shortening the building menu by a lot. This was one of the most requested features from the community. We refactored the entire “build menu system” to make it happen. Feedback towards this feature is especially welcome!
• Added cheat_unlock_award command that can help you test modding flow. Or fill your inventory. Your choice. Although I don't know how you will be able to carry on living like that.
• Buildings built on sloped terrain (such as the ones close to liquid pools) will now have small foundations underneath to prevent them from hanging inexplicably in the air.
• Flurian Boss added. You can spawn them in by using the Sandbox Control Panel. Watch out, it's a bit clumsy.
• Flying units can now navigate across bodies of water, as well as canyons and small rock formations. You thought you were safe setting up that base between a lake and a canyon? Think again!
• Added liquid splash effects. When a physical object drops into a liquid pool it will now result in a splash. Purely visual.
• Introducing 'Alien Influence System' - Whenever you place any of the alien-tech-based buildings in your base, it is going to surround the ground around itself with metallic, self-replicating plates. This is only a visual effect.
• For all you crazy modders out there: we have added support for the creation of non-square maps. This can help make your missions more special, giving them a completely different feel than a standard survival or campaign mission.
• We have added several new options to the gameplay settings menu: you can now adjust the amount of debris, parts, decals, and other effects. Turning these down will reduce the overall 'chaos' on the screen during battles. It can also positively affect your performance.
• Added a set of new, hi-tech decorative structures to give your bases a nice, futuristic look.

CHANGES:

Major Survival Mode rebalance/rework:

• In order to give ourselves the flexibility necessary to introduce meaningful changes, the research trees for Survival and Campaign are now completely separate.
• The player is now awarded more completed research items at the beginning of a Survival run: Liquid Resources Handling Level 1, Tower Ammunition Handling Level 1, Alien Research, all resource handling tech, and the entire tier one of Mech Upgrade Tree. Previously, after getting access to Communication Hubs, you would have to churn through some basic research options that you had no real use for (looking at you, cobalt handling) in order to gain access to technologies further down the line.
• Each Survival Mode Biome now has a slightly different starting loadout for the Mech. We wanted to give you early access to weapons and tech that will give you a fighting chance against those biomes' enemies.
• The Alien Research tech tree no longer requires a Laboratory to be built in Survival Mode. This means that you can start researching those technologies right away, giving you access to more tech to fit your strategy and playstyle. Yay nukes!
• Volcanic Biome Survival maps have been tweaked to feature a little bit more of open spaces to reduce the 'tightness' of the map.
• Volcanic Biome: big Magnetic Boulders now have a reduced amount of hitpoints for easier removal. Cryo Stations building time decreased.
• Geoscanner and Bioscanner are now available in Survival from the start.
• Changed most of the map tiles - increased the number of resource spawn points, player spawn points, and objective spawn points, plus some tweaks to prefabs and unit spawn points.

• Decreased some research costs in the beginning of the campaign mode to decrease gameplay friction.
• We introduced some changes to how building repairs work. Instead of being instant, a repair job will now take up to 10 seconds, depending on the amount of missing hit points. You pay the cost of the repair upfront, all at once. If a building takes damage while it is being repaired, the process is stopped. These changes were introduced to offset the ability to mass repair buildings in combat situations. It also opens up the road to adding a “repair all” button in the future.
• Gamepad Controls: Build Mode selector speed reduced for easier control and fine-tuning.
• Bioanomalies reworked: You now have a much higher chance of getting something useful out of the Bionanomalies - a craftable item blueprint or a skin. They have priority over decorative buildings. Item quality will progress the way it should - you will not get an Extreme Power Jump variant before getting all the lower quality ones. A lot of new items added to the drop list. After researching Resource Handling you are guaranteed to get some of that resource from the first Bioanomaly you open. Additionally, you will get more useful resources (ironium and carbonium).
• Biofactories and creature nests are now accompanied by alpha and ultra strains of creatures on Hard and Brutal difficulties respectively.
• Alpha and ultra variants of creature eggs added.
• We have introduced several significant balance changes based on the data available to us:
• Plasma Towers damage has been reduced across all levels. Its splash damage has also been reduced.
• Railgun Tower now has less damage per shot on higher levels but also a slightly higher fire rate to maintain the DPS level.
• Minigun Tower damage has been reduced across all levels.
• In order to eliminate energy spikes during combat situations, we have eliminated the energy cost per shot in energy-based towers. Instead, they consume a constant amount of power each second. Make sure to revise your existing power grids.
• We rebalanced the ammo production rate of Armory and Tower Ammo Factories to be more reasonable. The previous increase rate was a tad too low.
• Melee weapons have been rebalanced slightly. The spear’s effectiveness has been reduced by making the hitbox a bit more narrow (but just a little), and higher levels of melee weapons increase in scale much more than they used to.
• Plasma Gun damage, fire rate, and splash damage have all been reduced.
• Grenade Launcher ammo cost has been increased to avoid the 'infinite ammo' scenario that would happen at lower levels if a player built six Ammo Storage buildings. Shooting only one Grenade Launcher would consume less ammo than the Armory would produce.
• Pipelines’ hitpoints increased.

• The maximum number of Outposts you can control during one Campaign Mode run has been increased to 10.
• Added the Super Moon event to both Campaign and Survival modes. It can allow your solar panels to work at night.
• Various Campaign Mode difficulty tweaks.
• Added sound for Ion Storm event.
• The lights on all plasma projectiles have been slightly increased.
• Localized events, such as tornadoes, can now affect only part of the map when it comes to wind speed. That means only the wind turbines within a certain radius from a localized event will be affected by it.
• Lesigian is now able to travel across liquid pools and rock formations.
• Aiming priorities changed for Sentry Guns. They will no longer try to shoot down air units.
• We added a little effect that spawns at the end of the laser beam to mark its maximum range. Previously, beams would just end abruptly. Now they’ve got a nice little flare at the end.
• Bioanomalies now have a bigger chance of containing something useful. Skins appear more often, too.
• Changed the attack wave spawned when Bioanomalies are opened. It's a big one. Really. You have been warned. We want to make opening a Bioanomaly a conscious decision you have to prepare for. This change is currently implemented only in the Metallic Valley biome.
• The Power Jump flight pattern has been changed to make it feel a lot more powerful.

• Additional tweaks to underground mushroom detection. It should now feel more reliable and less based on luck.
• The Geoscanner now reveals underground mushrooms more effectively.
• Drilling animation begins faster and is quicker itself, resulting in a shorter time needed to defuse an underground fungal death trap.

• We have completely reworked our audio system. Previously, it had the tendency to get a bit overwhelmed when there were a lot of things happening at once. Some sounds would get cut in half, and others wouldn't start playing back at all. All sounds should playback properly and stick to their limits with the new system.
• The game package has been completely remastered. All the data zip packs have been repackaged back to pack 0. This is important information for modders and also saves you 800MB of disk space.

FIXES:

• Due to the extensive nature of this update it is impossible to name all the things that we have managed to fix. There have been hundreds of fixes for bugs and errors over the course of the past few months - most of which would not have been possible without the invaluable help of our fearless Discord Beta testing community. Warm thanks to everyone who participated! That being said...
• We have introduced multiple optimizations for the CPU performance. The added options for reducing the number of decals, corpses, and other objects can also help!
• We fixed multiple campaign progression bugs.
• We fixed a large number of obscure crashes.
• We fixed multiple problems that caused the power grid to stop working in certain conditions.

And by the way, the Mr. Riggs Plushie Campaign has launched! It's strictly limited - get yours today! https://shop.makeship.com/3mKcpJf

While this is the biggest expansion of The Riftbreaker to this date, we are not planning to slow down anytime soon. A couple of days from now we are going to publish an update to our roadmap, outlining the plans for the future months. We can tell you right now that those plans include both the co-op mode as well as the next expansion. More details to come!

Hope you have a lot of fun with this one! We're waiting for your feedback on our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios and on the Steam Discussions Forum.

Love,
EXOR Studios