It's now been one month since Early Access started!

This month has brought a ton of new features. As for the previous recap, most of these features are based on community suggestions. Please join discord if there is something you would like to see in Nienix - theres a good chance that it will happen.

First week

The first week added, among other things, a loot filter, a skill toggle, and two new loot pickup methods. This is covered by the previous post. The remainder of this post describes features introduced during week 2-4.

Hardcore mode

A Hardcore mode has been added. If a character playing on Hardcore dies in the campaign, it is moved to the Softcore campaign. Characters that play on Hardcore have their own shared Storage. Coop play is possible between Hardcore and Softcore. Playing on Hardcore enables unlocking a bunch of new achievements.

Giant stations

The game engine has been reworked to handle gigantic stations that can be easily traversed even with the largest Dreadnaughts. So far, a few new such stations have been added and some existing stations have been enlarged. Many more are in development!

Major revisions to the map

The map can now display sectors even when their content has been unloaded from memory! This works by caching sector map graphics, and in short means that discovered events can be viewed regardless of their distance from the player.

Quick-swapping ship

It is now possible to quick-swap the ship using a key. This is especially powerful in combination with the Axiom skill "Quick-Swap", that enables switching ship even when enemies are near.

Increased sensor range

The game can now handle even greater sensor range (~7300, up from ~4000). This should improve the experience when playing with Dreadnaught-class ships.

New skills

Three new skills have been added:
The Axiom skill "Heavy Plating" [1:4] increases Hull regeneration based on the size of the ship (at max level with a big ship, it gives a 800% boost). It should make life easier when playing with larger ship types.
The Founders skill "Reinforced Plating" [1:1] increases the total hull by 2% per level.
The Founders skill "Enhanced Damage" [2:3] increases damage by 2% per level.

In addition, the focused skill can now be toggled using a hotkey.

New Continuum Fragments

Three new Continuum Fragments have been added:
The Sp-1 Fragment provides a specific modification to a given auxiliary item.
The Sp-2 Fragment provides a specific modification to a given weapon or drone summoner auxiliary item.
The Sp-3 Fragment provides a specific modification to a given ship.

Misc other changes

The loot filter is now considered when sorting items.
A text input has been added to the loot filter.
Two new item-based recipes has been added to the Continuum Transmuter.
Continuum Fragments that provide item modifications now only re-rolls item properties if the item already has a modification.
The experience with large ships have been improved by various changes, such as increasing the damage output of their on-board turrets. Switching ship now also requires less surrounding space.
The second act has undergone major changes to make it a better experience.

Various bug fixes, polish (UI and sound effects) and balancing

Apart from fun new features, many minor issues have been improved based on community feedback.

Future updates

Progress is made on many things, both large and small! You can expect polish (e.g. regarding sound effects), new quality-of-life-features, more giant stations and various balance adjustments. Most importantly though, I am hard at work creating new content for the fourth act.

[ 2022-02-25 19:48:09 CET ] [Original Post]