The Performance Update is here! If you haven't read the previous announcement, we really wanted to address the performance issues before fully committing to the new island. So hopefully COGs will become your biggest enemy again instead of fps drops.

Performance Improvements

These 3 came out as the top troublemakers when it came to performance: rendering, lighting, and enemies. So we tried to optimize the hell out of them. Then we looked into some other areas where we could squeeze out some more performance such as animations and audio. This, together with the switch from Unity Built-in Pipeline to Universal (that's one of the main reasons why the game has this new look to it) hopefully got a major performance boost for y'all.

Quest Changes

The quest line got tweaked a lot - everything from quest descriptions to their order. Some stayed untouched but most got reworked or replaced altogether with new ones. Main goal being: improving the learning curve for new players.

Side-Screens

Aside from changing the already existing quest line, we also added a new feature: side screens
They will pop up at different points during your gameplay, giving you useful info about a relevant feature and demonstrating it on a video. Don't worry veterans, you will be able to turn these off.

Side-Quest With Rewards

Not related to the learning curve but another new feature in this area is side-quests with rewards. As the name suggests, you will occasionally get a side quest that you can either complete or ignore without halting your progress.
If you choose to complete it, you will be rewarded for your efforts with new items. These quests come in 3 tiers (gold being the highest one) representing how hard the side-quest is going to be and the value of the reward. Rewards will be deposited in your inventories after you complete the side quest (unless your inventory is full, in that case, a crate will appear in front of you).

Quality of Life

Storage Views

You can now view your storage in the drillship two different ways. First view shows you all your items across all the different storage modules, drill, etc. aggregated together (just like you're used to). However, the new view will let you see which storage modules hold which items like this:
You can switch between the two types of views using these new buttons.

Segments and Upgrades

Two more quality of life improvements I would like to point out are: Being able to add new segments on the surface (you had to dive underground to do that before). And newly researched upgrades will be automatically installed.

COG MUG

Another performance boost (for you tho, not the game) will be coffee!
It only made sense that the main substance letting us do these updates in the first place would make it in the game at some point. Massive thanks goes to Maxis "Engie" Maximov Jr. from our Discord for the mug inspiration he shared a long time ago!
Since then it's been slowly appearing in many of the teasers (here, here, and most recently here) And today it's finally in the game! You can find it at the end of area 2, and once you do, you will be able to craft it from that point forward. And if you take a sip, not only will you get a nice jolt of energy, and be way less likely to kill your teammates when they do something stupid, but you will also get a temporary speed boost!

Achievements

Last but not least, we added 5 new achievements for all you completionists out there. [olist]

You horned your last honk - Destroy a tank by hitting its weak spot.

UNLIMITED POWER! - Hit 6 enemies with Tesla Cannon at the same time.

Whac A Mole! - Destroy an enemy mining drone.

"Aaah" - Take your first sip of coffee.

Serial Sipper - Get multiple back to back caffeine induced speed boosts. [/olist]

Full Patch Notes

Major Changes

• upgraded render pipeline from Built-in to Universal
• major rendering, lighting & enemy optimizations
• minor animation & audio optimizations
• added tutorial side-screen with short videos
• reworked quests, introduced quest rewards

Minor Features

• added new storage overview for drillship storage
• added 5 new achievements
• researched upgrades are automatically installed into drillship
• upgrades installed on the drillship are no longer visible in research
• drillship segments can be installed on the surface
• enemies can now drop down through floor hole
• small drones can now fly through floor hole (both up and down)
• removed obsolete narrow stations
• reworked main menu scene and added an intro before it

Gameplay Improvements

• player can no longer upgrade stations in enemy drillships
• skipping intro and outro now requires holding a key (prevents accidental skip)
• immobilized tanks will now self-destruct after some time
• fixed tesla shield not blocking tesla stun and tesla damage
• fixed enemies shooting through drillship walls at certain positions
• fixed mini-tesla shooting through walls
• fixed indestructible mini-tesla turrets and exterior lights
• fixed tesla drones losing track of target without line-of-sight
• fixed turrets not shooting
• fixed submarine periscope camera position
• fixed unreachable ore in mines
• fixed issues related to being run over by enemy drillship
• fixed issues related to being stuck in enemy drillship underground
• fixed issues caused by saving game while drillship is going underground

Visual Improvements

• improved textures on houses
• improved laser device explosions
• improved audio on drillship devices
• improved damage audio and effects of shelter and mine doors
• improved drillship explosion effects
• added get-hit animations to large drones
• fixed invisible tesla grenade
• fixed black smoke visibility through fog
• fixed visual issues of tesla weapons and turrets
• fixed weapon clipping issues during zoom
• fixed weapon zoom while using devices
• fixed tank tracks animation
• fixed drillship dust particles disappearing without fade
• fixed T4 drill distortion in fog
• fixed tank explosion effects playing again after load
• fixed missing loot effects for small drones
• fixed small drones shooting from random places instead of muzzle
• fixed logo orientation on the back of the drillship
• fixed decals on helper drone modules
• fixed large drone fly-up animation after spawn
• fixed missing weapon fire audio on multiplayer clients
• fixed wrong drillship energy values on multiplayer clients

If you got any questions, drop them below. And definitely let us know how the game is running for you now and what you think of the changes. Talk soon! - Rich PS: Volcanoids is 30% off right now wink wink https://store.steampowered.com/app/951440/Volcanoids/

[ 2024-03-09 18:10:44 CET ] [ Original post ]