Introducing Jupiter Hell update 0.8.9 a.k.a. Protocol! You asked, and we listened, now you can command your hacked bots to do something else than just aimlessly stagger around! This is more of a "lots of small stuff" release, so there's a bit to go over!
Protocol
Once you successfully hack a bot or a drone, now you can bump into it to change it's main protocol - be it to wait, follow you or actively hunt for enemies. Additionally you can swap places with it or repair it using multitools! If your dream was an army of robotic followers, Protocol got you covered!
Voice
New voice lines from Mark Meer have been added to the game! We mostly focused on adding more variety to the lines that repeat themselves and add more weapon-specific quips. We also added some rare level entry quips that you may find if playing on the higher difficulties :)
Music
If you're a fan of Roland La Goy's JH soundtrack, you'll be happy to know that 4 new tracks have been added this release! The problematic part is that they're mostly placed on the later parts of the game, especially in Beyond, so hide your pride and lower the difficulty level for a few runs :P
Damage types
All "environmental" damage types have been buffed and most of them got a bit of an overhaul. Most of the status effects now do more damage. Smoke clears gas, gas clears smoke, and both clear fire. Fire now spreads! Fire and freeze cancel each other out. Bleed has a pain addition on tick against the player, and a flat accuracy debuff against enemies. EMP has been reworked so that even weaker EMP sources has slowing effect against the stronger EMP shielded enemies (looking at you CRI bots). Acid now damages armor a lot, but as long as you have armor, damage to health is significantly lower. Speaking of armor - it now degrades linearly, not in "jumps" as before.
Telegraphed attacks
Telegraphed attacks are now more obviously marked - this currently was just the charge attack. Now however being hit by a charge deals critical damage! The base melee damage of charging enemies has been reduced a bit to compensate. Additionally siege ravagers now telegraph their attack before shooting, but have been buffed a bit to compensate for that, and made less rare.
Exalted
If you ever met a RESILENT REGEN exalted you know that it's simply not fair - well, this will no longer happen :P. There's a bit of control what keywords can spawn together, additionally we added three new keywords to the pool - HUNTER, JUGGERNAUT and UNSTABLE. Especially the last one can turn out to be quite fun! Exalted spawn a bit more often, and can come in groups of 2 or 4, depending on difficulty, and spawn further from level entry points.
Balance pass
Late game has been rebalanced a bit, should provide more consistent ammo, and definitely there's more boxes to be found in Beyond. CRI plasma pistols now shoot using 1 cell at a cost of a small range nerf.
Angel of Hubris
While this might seem like a rehash of Angel of Confidence (you start on Io) to make things more fun you start with an exotic of your choice :).
Other stuff
We added a bit of visual flair - fade-in and fade-out animations on level transitions, different look of every class (especially armor-less) and made the game work better with widescreen monitors (no more UI scaling).
Changelog
Beta 0.8.9 - Protocol - February 24, 2020
NEW #986 - reprogram, swap position and repair hack bots/drones!
NEW #997 - Angel or Hubris! (with exotic choice!)
NEW #989 - new voice-over lines for various events
NEW #989 - 4 new music tracks for the late-game levels!
NEW #982 - visual distinction between player classes
NEW #987 - new exalted keywords - HUNTER, JUGGERNAUT, UNSTABLE
NEW #991 - trait pick order in mortem
CHANGE #984 - health orb generated under player can be picked up
CHANGE #803 - added slight fade-in and fade-out on level transition
CHANGE #759 - better telegraphed attack indicators
CHANGE #759 - siege ravagers now have telegraphed attack
CHANGE #759 - siege rav's buffed and made more common to compensate
CHANGE #759 - charge deals critical damage! (x2 fiends, x1.5 rest)
CHANGE #988 - smoke and gas kill fire and themselves respectively
CHANGE #988 - ignite/fire has limited spreading capability
CHANGE #988 - ignite and freeze cancel each other out
CHANGE #988 - bleed - pain on tick, flat acc debuf against enemies
CHANGE #988 - gas and smoke now reset scent to 0 on every tick
CHANGE #988 - all poison damage doubled, poison lasts 4 ticks
CHANGE #988 - acid status damage increased a lot - armor protects
much better from acid, but is damaged by it a lot too
CHANGE #974 - EMP reworked: more range in levels, not binary effect
CHANGE #994 - armor protection is now linear to its damage!
CHANGE #987 - exalted no longer can spawn both RESILIENT and REGEN
CHANGE #987 - slightly increased exalted spawn rate
CHANGE #987 - exalted groups can be 2 to 4 (difficulty factors in)
CHANGE #984 - exalted spawn further away from entry points
CHANGE #985 - CRI plasma pistol shots now cost 1, mag 4, range 4/8
CHANGE #985 - less plasma ammo in the CRI branch
CHANGE #984 - turrets don't spawn near the entry elevator
CHANGE #990 - Beyond has a bit more soldiers, more of them have.44
CHANGE #990 - Beyond L2 and L3 have now guaranteed boxes
CHANGE #996 - slight buffs to underused exotics
CHANGE #997 - UI preserves aspect ratio (widescreen UI better)
FIX #504 - no more MSVC runtime dependency
FIX #983 - fixed kill reason for suicide deaths
FIX #986 - hacked bots will no longer attack new hacked bots
FIX #986 - fixed issue with ALIVE but not TARGETABLE placement
FIX #980 - restarting music from 0% volume will now always work
What's next
Next version (0.8.10) will be subtitled Explorer and be themed around level generation and special levels - it's expected to land in two weeks time, so stay tuned! Also, be sure to drop by our Discord, where most of the design discussion takes place :)