It's now been eight months since Early Access started! The major news is that Act 4 almost is completed! A closed alpha that includes both Act 4 and Continuum XL difficulty will begin in about a week and run for a month. If you wish to participate in the alpha, let me know on Discord! Apart from working on Act 4, tons of new features have been added during the three months since the last major news update. Most of these changes were made based on player feedback on Steam and Discord. Please let me know if there is anything that you would like to see changed! It has a good chance to make it into the game.

Sentinel ships

A completely new ship type has been added! This variant moves like the worm summons, and is called "Sentinel". It comes with on-board turrets and can be modded in the same fashion as other ships.

Loot recycler

A new "loot recycling" feature has been added. The loot filter in the main menu now reads/works as follows: The minimum item quality to display in world space. If using the Bulk or Collision loot pickup options, this is also the minimum quality that is picked up. Loot that is skipped due to the loot filter is recycled. Every 100 recycled items yields a new item. The quality of this item depend on the quality of the recycled items.

Dedicated server

A dedicated server that can be run in headless (console) mode has been added. It is available for all platforms, including the demo. It is an executable called "NienixDedicatedServer" in the game root directory. Apart from the obvious use-case when playing PvP, the dedicated server also enables playing the PvE campaign in a "persistent world" that is not reset (unless you kill the server).

New items

Five new Xinthu Frigate-class ships have been added to the loot table. They are between 100 and 350 meters in diameter. Most of these are unlocked in the loot table from Act 2 onwards. 11 Sentinel-type ships have been added to the loot table. Targeting System (RT): Sets the target of summons based on the position of the crosshair. Provides a bonus to resistance. Targeting System (DT): Sets the target of summons based on the position of the crosshair. Provides a bonus to damage.

New item modifications

Glass Cannon Edition: Increased attack speed at the cost of reduced resist all. Bruiser Edition: Increased damage and aura effectiveness at the cost of reduced attack speed.

New skills

Wormhole Mastery IV (Founders): When an active auxiliary item is activated, the cooldown of any equipped Warp Field Generator is reset. Crit Booster (Founders): Chance of critical hits is increased by X%. Crit damage is increased by Y%. This also applies to on-board turrets. Featherweight (Axiom): Reduces the total player weight. Defiant Shields (Imperius): Increases drone resistance to all elements. Robust Core (Xinthu): Increases drone hull. Tough Shell (Xinthu): Increases drone resistance to all elements.

Quality-of-life updates

It is now possible to enable highlighting (either red or white) to all enemies. This setting is available in the User interface section of the main menu options.
If the "Highlight Items" key is pressed (default binding: left alt), objects that currently can be interacted with (e.g., doors or station platforms) are now given an outline in world space.
You can now enable auto-cast for all relevant item slots (engine, active auxiliary items and weapons). See the check boxes in the inventory screen.
Modding and demodding items no longer rerolls their stats. All larger ships have now been given a default % bonus to hull regeneration (as it pretty much was a per-requisite to use bigger ships). It works similar to the Axiom skill "Heavy Plating", but with Sentinel-type ships getting a bonus based on the length of the tail. When playing COOP, the last known position of a player in a dungeon or open world space is now shown in the map and HUD. Various dungeons have been enlarged to enable being traversed with larger ships. It is now possible to lock the crosshair in front of the ship when using mouse + keyboard. This setting is called "Mouse aim" and located in the control scheme section of the main menu You can now set friendly fire to "None" (henceforth the default value). You can now change the color of the laser sight. This option is located in the user interface section of the main menu options. You can now disarm the alternative ship slot entirely, enabling builds that have the same ship but different auxiliary items. The speed of all summons has been increased. Thanks for supporting the development of Nienix! /Hannes