Hey Agents, this is a loooong overdue update featuring a big new mission! This post will also include a general update at the end talking about changes going forward, overall progress, and plans for the future. This update features some awesome artwork from @saspicious! Go check out their stuff on twitter here! If you wanna access this mission, all you gotta do is [spoiler]Pay 100k towards your debt. This means that finished save files can't currently access the mission. [/spoiler] I'm working on a way to make that happen tho. As always, Join the Discord! New Stuff

• Added Meepis
• Added the new secret Rewards Program Mission. Good little agents who pay their debts get rewards! This new mission features the song Fake Creative by THISBOYB who was kind enough to lend it to me. You can check out their stuff on soundcloud here!
• You can now zoom out a lot more on the network graph to 0.5x
• Added several new variants of hacking enemies. These only appear in the new mission currently, however I plan to make different types of hacking a bigger deal in DDS moving forward.
• Added tons of new computers, including the shutter stations, blood sucking toll booths, radar arrays, operators, punchclocks, fatnodes, and the atrocious symbol of disdain. These currently only appear in the new mission, but depending on reception I may incorporate them in existing levels later on as well!
• Added some new curved directional melee weapons, including the Khopesh, Sabre, and more!
• 5 new skeleton sprites!
• Added Scronkle

Tweaks and Fixes

• Easy Hack Menu no longer leaves remaining text
• Fixed a bug where brass knuckles were putting targets to sleep in addition to dealing damage, now they just deal damage.
• Camera alert range increased by 25% This had previously been nerfed but it was breaking some of the encounter designs so boosted it back up.
• Fixed several duplicate workstation names in the Rescue Mission
• Lots of small bug fixes involving AI.
• Fixed bug where ez hack panel would get very big if you changed size back to 1x
• Stabbing units used to have a universal pause period of half a second after attacking, this has been changed to 1/60th of a second.

Known Issues Introduced In this Update One of the mechanical rewards for completing this quest requires some big changes to work, so currently it is not available. Ill be adding that in at a later date. Red Bypass hackers can sometimes get locked into not attacking you if you attack them first. Ive had a really hard time figuring this out and I decided not to delay everything just to fix it. Currently, you can only access this mission by paying into your debt, meaning it isn't accessible from finished save files. I'm working on a quick alternate way of getting to this mission for agents who have beaten the game and don't wanna start a new character This mission has a lot of padding, in terms of the story stuff before hand. Some Thoughts Finally, I wanted to write some general thoughts on how the project is coming along. DDS was released in early access three months ago, meaning that there are supposed to be three months left in the early access period. Completing DDS by then will be basically impossible and Ill be updating the early access banner in the near future to reflect that >:| My life and work outside of gamedev has gotten busy and its been difficult to keep up. Im very sorry about this. I dont want to be one of those devs who keeps their project in early access forever, but this period will definitely need to be extended to finish the planned content. Next some thoughts on future content. This will contain some spoilers for the new mission. The new optional mission added in this update is frankly ridiculous in terms of difficulty and size. Its meant to serve as a final challenge and something to chew on while I finish up the next side quest. Ive added lots of options for getting around the huge map, so hopefully this does not end up being a failed experiment. Going forward, I want to focus on smaller shorter missions like those featured in the early to mid game that are challenging due to more interesting mechanics. Ive made a few of these for the new sidequest, and while theyre much harder to design, theyre easier to test and maintain. For those of you concerned that future DDS missions will continue ballooning out of control please be aware that Im working to avoid this. There are also a few mechanical rewards missing from this new sidequest that will appear in your apartment in a later update depending on your choices. For my own sanity I wanted to get this out and didnt wanna delay the entire update another week. For the next few weeks Im going to be shifting gears back towards fixing bugs, and fundamental issues in DDSs core codebase. Lots of issues have been reported over the last few weeks and I want to address those ASAP now that this update is out. Im also working on an overhaul to the randomly generated missions which, as a player mentioned, feel much more random than generated at the moment. This was needed anyway for the planned roguelike mode. Thats all for now, thank you everyone who picked up DDS and a special thanks to everyone who left a review!

[ 2023-01-11 20:45:46 CET ] [ Original post ]