Full Editor Integration

• Editor can now be launched from the main menu, standalone executable has been removed.
• Much improved user-experience for the editor.
• Walls can now be linked to spawn-circles via the editor.
• Minimum capture count for spawn-circles can be set in the editor.

New Maps

Horde

• The wave is no longer takes precedent over the score.
• Score per kill base value doubled to 4 points.
• Score per kill ramps up faster for kill-streaks, up to 50 points per kill in kill-streaks over 175 units.
• Level score thresholds increased by 350%.

Other Changes

• Fixed minimap capture state sometimes incorrectly showing in-progress capturing for other circles.
• Network games can now be properly forfeited without disconnecting the server ungracefully.
• Destroyed units now leave a glowing impact decal.
• Previews of custom maps now show up in the lobby.

Changes in this version:

• Horde high-scores are now visible before a game.
• Invites through Steam now work (only when the invitee has not yet started the game, for now.)

This patch finally delivers a much needed stability improvement for network games: previously, when the server was sending too much data for the network, clients would fall behind, eventually making their games very unresponsive. With this new update, the server will detect the issue and slow the game down, giving the clients a chance to catch up. Also, there are finally some balance changes, making other endgame builds, such as phase-bomb, more viable, and also forcing some more trade-offs, e.g. using either "Armament" or "Preloading" to get the full-damage "Ignition Point" later. With the kill streak bonuses you will, in general, have a lot more money available in horde. [olist]

Rolling out this patch early because it fixes a critical crash that could occur on some maps, e.g. oracle.

• Fixed network client camera scrolling being affected by slow-motion.
• Optimized net-code.
• Fixed a crash on the map "Oracle".

Horde

• Get bonus funds for each defeated wave.
• More evenly distribute power-ups amongst teams in coop horde.
• Fix "Select all circles" with shared circles in coop horde.

Some small changes:

• Horde waves will now time-out after all its units are spawned and no horde kills for a while, preventing infinite stalls.
• Fixed a performance hitch when a spawn-circle was being captured.

This latest patch is mainly about performance optimization. While it does not change a lot of the game-play, the game should run a lot smoother now, even with lots of units. Under the hood, this meant lots of changes, for example replacing the main acceleration-structure that the game uses to find nearby units and parts of the map geometry. Performance can still degrade with thousands of units on the battlefield, but it will be much more stable and degrade more smoothly. Here are the patch notes:

• Prevent units getting stuck behind walls, which caused stalls in horde.
• Lots of performance improvements in the game-logic with many units.
• Units now spawn anywhere within a spawn-circle.
• Better parking behavior, especially with many units.
• Prevent additional slow-down when the game is trying to catch up while it is already slowed-down.
• Horde units will now beeline for spawn-circle after a while, making it a lot harder to stall waves.

Another small bug-fix release, with an important one for Intel GPU users. Here's the list:

• Fixed display being much too dark on some GPUs because color conversion not being enabled properly.
• Fixed some corner-cases with the path-finding when targeting points close to walls.
• No longer show selection prediction when targeting power-ups.
• Horde: Units no longer try to synchronize their attacks as aggressively.
• Horde: "Advanced tower" charges are now shared.

Mostly a small bug-fix release, but at least one bug was pretty nasty, so here it goes:

• Fixed not being able to start network games with a human player in slot 5 or greater.
• Slightly improve heavy-load performance degradation.
• Fixed starting a network horde game.
• Can spawn with up to 900 units in horde mode.

This patch is mostly bug-fixes, balancing and quality of life improvements: General changes:

• Improved performance with many units, especially on horde.
• Can start horde in higher waves and with more units.
• Assault: Fixed "Decorated" challenge, increased score per completed stage.
• Avalanche: Increased power-up spawn frequency.
• Fixed spawn-circles sometimes getting stuck in "Assault".
• Roundabout: top and bottom spawn-circles are now the same size and have higher spawn-rate.
• Can now switch between smooth and linear scrolling.
• Can tune the strength of the screen-shake effect.
• Can set higher scroll speeds, up to 4x.
• Fixed key not showing up for the "Focus Bombardment" tool-tip.
• Fixed buff display not properly positioned for 2nd player.
• "Ignition Point" unit blast radius is now fixed to slightly smaller than half the default bombardment radius.
• Spawn-circle level upgrades limited to 2.
• Horde: Spawning horde units will now "telefrag" hostile units under them.
• Horde: Need to keep at least one spawn-circle to survive.
• Horde: Horde units will now use auto-phase in later waves.
• Horde: Horde units will now try to dodge bombardments in later waves.
• Horde: Horde units have a 2s immunity after spawning.
• Finale: Fixed a crash that could happen after finishing the map.
• Finale: West spawn-circle is now inaccessible before cyan opens the region. This was not working as intended.

• Fixed stats not being logged when exiting a game without finishing the mission.
• Only allow the first player to enter the menus when playing split-screen.
• SteamInput LEDs are now set to the player's team colors.
• Touch-mode for gamepads is now "sticky". Once activated, it needs to be manually disabled in the options menu. This helps with gamepads losing the setting.

It appears the horde had lost their edge, sometime around spring. With a year like this, it is only understandable. It appears that I introduced a bug that made horde a lot easier than intended, especially in the later waves. Ironically, the bug was introduced trying to fix another problem that made the later waves too easy. Since this change completely changes the score, I have reset the leader-board for horde. Sorry about that!