Hello everyone!
The Steam Next Fest is almost there and it's time for another demo update! It consists mostly of bug fixes and balancing changes. But also a few more important changes.
[h2]Learn the technology tree![/h2]
First, let's talk about the technology tree. The game offers random choices to the player so you may not realize it but there is actually an internal tree with dependencies between techs. When you pick something, it makes new choices available in the future. Until now, all of this was quite invisible. I receveid a great suggestion to make it visible in game and so here it is!
Journal entries now display the requirements and potential successors of all buildings, relics and weapons. So, if you really like a technology, you can now learn more easily which choices can lead to it. Technologies never picked yet are shown as "???" in successors, so it also helps your search if you are a completionist who wants to unlock every possible journal entry!
Teaser: yes, there will be a long-range bomber in the full game!
[h2]Neutronic balls decay over time[/h2]
Another major chance concern neutronic balls. I got feedback that they felt too easy because they can attack monoliths from any range. However, this is the second main offensive technology and I wanted it to be a bit more difficult than the first one (i.e. the neutronic bombers). It was not so I had to make a change. I decided to make the damage power of neutronic balls decay over time until a minimum cap. The summoners remain usable from any range, but they are a lot more efficient if you place them close to monoliths. Also, it incentivizes to keep their path clear, because enemies blocking the balls will waste travel time and thus damage power. Please give the demo a shot and tell me if you enjoy these changes!
Also, I fixed the pathfinding of the balls that was still a bit akward at times. In particular, balls will now try to change their path if you suddenly place a building on their way. They won't get stuck anymore. The piece of code to allow that has actually been there the whole time... but one line was missing to activate it, oops. At least it was really quick to fix once I realized it! I guess any programmer can relate to that
[h2]What is next?[/h2]
The Steam Next Fest, of course! It starts on Monday and will be a great event. Right now, I'm focused on promotion and reaching out to content creators to make sure the game gets as much visibility as possible during the festival. I hope many new players will give the demo a shot and share their feedback on the Steam forums. Also, I will be livestreaming the game on Steam on Saturday and Sunday.
See you very soon!
-Radiant Sloth
[h2]Full changelog (Demo v0.7h)[/h2]
Added
- Journal entries for buildings, relics and weapons now show their requirements and successors in the internal technology tree
Changed
- Neutronic balls (from Neutronic summoners) now lose some damage power over time, until a minimum cap. They remain usable from any distance but will be a lot less efficient when far from monoltihs
- Increased probability of technologies never seen yet (i.e. locked in the journal) to appear in the choices
- Replaced a building choice by a relic choice in the level-ups
- Changed stats of some relics (energy tanks, reinforced walls, etc) to be (hopefully) more balanced
- Reduced sightly the damage and health scaling of enemies
- Tweaked Lush Archipelago map generation to have more ore
- Increased the distance at which monoliths get discovered and showed on the minimap
Fixed
- Fixed building sight panel not updating the health immediately when repairing
- Fixed journal entries of many turrets showing the wrong target ("Monoliths" instead of "Minions")
- Fixed force field effect being always active instead of being triggered by a relic
- Fixed neutronic bomber not showing a warning message when no more monolith in range
- Fixed tech reroll button having no uses left when it should have
- Fixed neutronic balls pathfinding
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