Summary

Painful trains: new Training level with perilous minecart trains which also destroy any enemies caught in their way.

New biome: new mine-biome is now used for four levels.

Sandbox level: The perfect place to test out different loadouts. Accessed from Mission Select.

Loadout change restrictions: Loadout can now only be customized in Missiong Briefing, and with Loadout Customizer stations which are found in a few levels.

 

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Mine biome

New earthy biome which is used for four levels (from Plasmine to Danger Below)

 

New levels

Training (New level): Featuring minecart "trains" which destroy everything in their way. Placed between Plasmine and Highway.

Sandbox level

A level for testing weapon/upgrade loadouts
- Respawning passive enemies. Various groups and single enemies of 2 types: small enemies with 60hp and big ones with 600hp
- Respawning ammo/shield pickups
- Loadout customization workbench
- Stats view which shows Damage total and dps, Ammo used, and time for current test run. Test run starts and is refreshed when either using ammo or doing damage to enemies, and stops after not doing either of those for 3 seconds. Stats remain displayed until next test run is started.

 

Level changes

General

• Hidden room area floor and ceiling materials are now colored differently to help stay oriented a bit better

Danger Below & Cybernoodle boss

• Level changed to the new Mine biome


• Start area layout modified and boss arena updated to be a bit more open


• Removed hidden rooms from boss arena


• Boss weapon parts health increased, and total increased 3500->4400


• Beefed up laser and ball attacks (Laser now fires a cone of 4 bullets, Ball weapon fires 7 instead of 4)

Glass: expanded blue area a bit, plus some other layout changes. Replaced reactor with lockdown encounter. Divebombs are now introduced in this level.

Vertical: red key location changed & small layout changes. Changed some enemy types. Homers are now introduced in this level.

Trifork: updated most areas of the map, removed reactor and added lockdown encounter to the end area which introduces the Destroyer enemy type. Removed Plasma Charger enemies from the level.

Plasmine: Reworked entire level, changed to the new Mine biome. Added Plasma Bomber enemies.

Highway: Changed to Mine biome. Blue key location changed, adjusted several areas. The energy wires from the mini-generators now turn off when they are destroyed.

Redball: Big Scouts and Rocket Propellers are now introduced in this level.

Rising Heat: Fixed issue where heat didn't rise, increased rise speed +15%, changed some enemy spawns and added a few pickups.

Lava Labyrinth: Added some space to the starting area. Lava material and lights darkened to make enemies a bit easier to see and to make the level easier on the eyes. Also removed a few enemies to make the difficulty spike a bit smaller.

Cryptic: added space to green area

Hail: added space to blue and green areas. Added resource pickups. Other minor changes.

Chilly Chapel: minor changes to boss area and end area

Increased tech reward for worm and walker bosses.

Also updated some briefing texts

 

Loadout change restrictions

Loadout can no longer be freely changed during levels.

Levels may have "workbench" type locations which allow changing weapon loadout. (Currently only 2. level, Sandbox, and every boss level have one)

Upgrades can however only be changed in mission briefing, or while in the Sandbox level.

 

Weapons

Assault Laser (New weapon): Rapid-firing lasers with moderate accuracy. 4 damage per shot, 20 shots per second

Plasma weapons: Added force on kill. Most enemies now have a different death sequence when destroyed by Plasma

Plasma Gun: fire rate increased by 20%

Plasma Orb: move speed penalty starts at -30% instead of -60%, but decays over 0.6 seconds instead of 0.4 seconds.

Quadual Laser: move speed penalty reduced -30% -> -15%. Damage per shot increased 20% but fire rate reduced so dps remained same (to emphasize the *heavy* part a bit).

Missile Massacre: ammo cost reduced 40->32

Chain Dart: chaining distance reduced 20->14 (it's now 7 tile lengths)
Added force on kill.

Slayer Bolt: Increased force on kill, and now also attaches a trail effect on hit.

Chainsaw: Added left-direction force on kill.

Homing Missile: Removed randomness from launch direction, now fires directly forward. Also thinned hitbox so it hits walls less often. Updated effects.

Burst Laser: damage increased by +40% at very short range. Bonus fades gradually to +0% at 10 range (5 tiles). Bullet spread increased slightly. Also updated some effects.

Nova Bomb: Doubled force on explosion kill

Dual Laser: increased projectile hit radius

 

Upgrade changes

Ammo upgrades:

• renamed to "Ammo Boost"


• now give +20% gains/+20 max and +30% gains/+30 max.


• Stronger version mover later in tech tree.

Shield gains upgrade: now also gives +20 max shields

Upgrade naming convention changed, so their names no longer include the exact value (so they can get balance adjustments without changing their name in the future).

 

Enemy changes

Destroyer: Health increased 350->400 added glow decals to texture and minor other visual changes.

Laser Slicer: attack chargeup time increased 0.4s->0.5s. Fixed mistake where attack was weaker on hard/insane (Now it's slightly wider on hard+ difficulty compared to normal)

Plasma Bomber: Hard+ difficulty - now fires 2 bombs directly forward, instead of 3 in a very wide cone

Big Scout: ball size halved, added a 0.2s chargeup to attack. Hard+ difficulty: fires 2 balls directly, instead of 3 in cone pattern. Updated sfx. (Attacks with the previous huge balls will be likely used later with other enemies)

Rocket Propeller: attack is more precise on Hard+ difficulty

Big Scout & Rocket Propeller: material updated so the glow decals should be easier to see against orange/lava-ish background.

Ice Destroyer: reduced delayed ice attack times from 12->5 on Hard+ difficulty (so it actually has pauses between attacks)

Late-game enemy beefiness reduction (max health changes):

- Bouncer 150->120
- Ice Bomber 200->140
- Ice Scout 80->70
- Ice Dancer hp 200->160
- Wallbeam Dancer hp 200->160

 

Lighting

Added a bit of global lighting which only affects enemies, so they stand out a little better.

Pickups

Adjusted pickup drop rates so ammo pickups are more common and shields are less common (ratio changed from 50:50 to 60:40). Also reduced influence of player's current resource amounts on pickups. Total number of pickups from enemies unchanged.

Pickups from enemies are no longer picked up if at full resources (so they act same as the pickups already in level)
Changed sound for trying to loot pickup at full resources. Also added limit that the "x at full" message can be shown only once per second.

Added a little effect when enemies drop pickups.
Increased distance to re-allow playing the effect for trying to loot pickup at full resources, so it plays a bit less often when near pickups.

Shield box pickup value increased 5->8

 

Difficulty

Insane: enemy health bonus slightly reduced (+60% -> +50%)
Hard & Insane: slightly increased cooldown on dodge moves to give a bit longer windows to hit enemies (cooldown adjust on hard -20% -> -10%, insane: -50% -> -30%)

 

Misc UI updates

Mission briefing: Added "Return to Mission Select" button

The messages shown on right side of screen (e.g. "shields at max") are bit fancier. Also their location changed to be closer to center, so they aren't so far to the side.

"Weapon Select" menu title changed to "Loadout" for consistency

Shield & Ammo gain text effect modified

Ammo value now shows a decimal digit only if ammo cost is less than 1. (previously one decimal digit was shown if cost was 5 or less)

Adjusted some tips, and added new tip for Sandbox level.

Level transition: HUD is hidden instantly on reaching Exit console. Updated the transition on completing level.

 

Map scan

The sonar/scan now shows the edges of a hidden area when the ping starts inside it (won't reveal other hidden areas though)

The scan now also works with curved paths (although there are very few of those ingame)

When using the alternate mode, tapping map button now does a single ping instead of toggling repeating pings. The ping has a 2 second cooldown, and headlight is turned off during cooldown.

 

Bugfix

Fixed issue where enemy AI would be hesitant move around in cramped locations.

Enemies will no longer try to navigate through doors (hidden and otherwise)

Fixed issue where the projectile counted hitting dying enemies against the hit limit (i.e. enemies which were dying before the projectile even hit them).

Fixed issue with the projectile hitbox being too big so it could hit walls/corners when it really shouldn't.

 

Performance improvements

Some performance improvements to pathfinding and trail effects.

Fixed a performance issue with loading levels, which should improve level load time especially for some big levels.

 

Demo

Repurposed old "Early access end" mini-level to be demo end level, with a little hint towards $$$.