This update adds a couple of final features to Banshee Force including the new Lightning Tower.
The Lightning Tower
The Lightning tower when placed will lash out at ships and missiles that get too close and try to destroy them with a lightning bolt. But the real magic happens when you add more than 1 tower. Adding two towers starts a link between them where they will work together to hit missiles and ships nearby. Adding a third tower creates the initial lightning field, a shield that will prevent any missile from going through it as long as the lightning towers are standing. If you have lots of cash add more towers to grow your field to cover even more area.
Two Lightning Towers with an active link
Three Lightning Towers with an active energy field
Four and beyond Lightning Towers grows the active field
Fast Teleport
As people were playing the higher levels with more ships and multiple islands they noted that using the right stick/pad with a highlight arc of where you want to go to teleport is just too slow for some of them. This release adds a new option to the menu options called "Fast Teleport" which when the right pad/stick is pressed will jump to the island your right hand is closest pointing towards. This behavior is on by default but the old model of teleporting can always be selected from the menu options by turning this option off.
WIndows Mixed Reality Headsets
This release has been tested with Windows Mixed reality headsets using Steam VR and will now work correctly with those headsets as well.
We are now close other than some final cleanup and testing to migrating the game from early access to 1.0 release. Thanks to everyone who helped test the game while version 1.0 was being developed. Expect soon to see Banshee Force updated to version 1.0 and moved out of early access.
Update Details 0.9.5 - Stealth Enemies, 3 City Islands and More Upgrades
Hi Defenders,
Version 0.9.5 of Banshee Force just dropped with lots of cool changes. One of the first new features are 5 additional levels with 3 cities to defend at one time. Remember at any time you can select these levels from the menu screen and try defending all 3 cities at once. They appear as levels 16-20.
3 City Island View 1
3 City Island View 2
New Upgrades Added in this Update
More powerful upgrades were added to the list of upgrades.
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[tr][td][/td][td]Fire Power Increase
This upgrade will increase the power of each shot the tower shoots. Upgrade a tower with increased fire rate, multiple shots and this fire power upgrade and it will be quite amazing how fast it shoots the ships out of the sky. [/td][/tr]
[tr][td][/td][td]Shield Recharge Rate
This upgrade will make a shield on your tower recharge to full health much faster. In later levels when many ships decide to target your towers instead of your cities this will help those towers stay working longer. [/td][/tr][tr]
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[td]Target Stealth
This upgrade allows a tower to target missiles or ships that have stealth capabilities and periodically disappear from view. Without this upgrade in the higher levels the towers are ineffective when stealth fighters appear.[/td]
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Green Stealth Enemy
As you see in the upgrades there is a new green stealth enemy that will appear in some levels. Both the enemy and the missiles shot from the enemy will disappear. You can guess where the enemy might be hiding but your automated towers will not be able to target the stealth enemy or missiles if they don't have the target stealth upgrade.
Time Warp Field Tower
This release also has a new tower called the time warp field tower. This tower will create a field above it that will slow ships as they fly through the field. You can use this to your advantage to make ships easier to hit by hand shot missiles or automatically shot missiles from your towers. Your missiles are not slowed by this time warp effect.
New Tower
Time Warp Tower Field
Tower Upgrade Icon Indicators
The more upgrades that are added to the game the harder it is to know what you have upgraded on each tower. This release adds little upgrade indicators that match the graphics in each upgrade above a tower each time an upgrade is applied. It can help you remember which upgrades are applied to each tower as you are planning on how you want to spend all your earned money.
I hope you enjoy these updates as we are getting close to the 1.0 release of Banshee Force. The plan is to have more more feature update with some final cleanup of the game and then get it ready for 1.0 release.
Update Details 0.9.4 - Upgrades and the Banshee Fighter
Hi Defenders,
Version 0.9.4 just dropped of Banshee Force and lots of new features have been added. The big feature of this release is the "Banshee Fighter". A new tower has been added called the Banshee Hanger. Inside this hanger is a Banshee Fighter.
Once you build a Banshee Hanger you can summon your Banshee Fighter with a new command on your right controller that lights up. The Banshee Fighter will automatically fly out and teleport to your left hand. At this point you can move your left hand and fly the fighter and shoot for up to 60 seconds anything in the area. You can choose to land the fighter or after 60 seconds it will land itself automatically.
New Upgrades Added
A lot of upgrades were added to increase the power of your towers.
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[/td]
[td]Increase Shield Size
This upgrade allows you to increase the size of any of your shields including your city. It is super powerful with the low cost portable shield generator tower to add a layer of protection on towers or cities. Remember though you cannot shoot through it so add additional missile launch towers to be able to shoot around the shield.[/td]
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[td]Add Shield
This upgrade allows you to add a shield around towers you have built to protect them from attacks. Once the tower is built you can use existing repair upgrades to maintain the shield as it is hit with missile attacks. All guns and lasers can shoot through these shields.[/td]
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[td]Increase Fire Rate
This upgrade will make any tower shoot twice as fast as it currently does. It can take a 30 second cool down to 15 seconds with one upgrade. It can be stacked to make the tower even faster if your rolling in money.[/td]
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[td]Multiple Shot Upgrade
This may be my favorite upgrade as it makes any tower that shoots double its number of shots fired. The Anti-Ship towers that shoot 3 plasma balls will not shoot 6 with this upgrade. Add increased fire rate and this is quite a powerful tower.[/td]
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Game Localization
Initial location has been added to Banshee Force and the Achievements in all the Steam supported languages. If you switch to another language and find any issues with the translations, please let us know if you know the correct translation for the English text.
Red Elite Enemy
Also, rumors are true that in later levels a new very difficult red class elite enemy will appear. The enemy is much tougher than the blue class enemies and delivers a much bigger punch on your towers and cities. You have been warned.
Things we are considering to do in .5 are the following
Stealth enemies
Stealth enemy missiles
Tower upgrades to see stealth
A new 3 island challenge
Possibly upgraded graphics on shields
The next version might take a while as we update to deal with changes to Steam VR 2.0 and support more headsets also.
Note, we haven't seen anyone able to get past the first 8 levels at normal difficulty without starting at a later level.
Update Details 0.9.3 - Wait you want me to do what?
Hi defenders,
Sorry it has been so long since we have talked but we were adding a lot of features to Banshee Force. Today's update is packed with exciting new features and is bringing many new systems to the game. One of the biggest changes of the game is the inclusion of multi-island defending. With Multi-island defending you have to move between multiple cities and work to keep them all alive. To make this easier we have added to the game the ability to teleport with the right hand touchpad/stick.
In addition to the multiple island defending we have added 20 new achievements to the game. You can see the achievements here.
The beginning of the upgrade system is now live. With your left controller you can select cities and towers and once selected your build system will switch to an upgrade/repair system. The first two upgrades have been added to the game.
Repair Tower - Allows you to repair the health of a shield on a tower or city when damaged.
Add More Missiles - Allows you to add 20 more missiles to a missle tower or city to keep yourself in the fight longer.
In future updates we have lots of ideas of cool upgrades for the existing tower and city system.
The first 10 levels in the game are single island defend games that get harder fast. Starting at level 11 we have 5 new levels in the game that involve defending two cities at the same time. If you want to jump into the game right at the two city levels you can now use the starting level selector in options and start at level 11.
We have got feedback that for some people the levels are too hard and for some they wish they had more challenge. We have now added difficultly levels for all 15 levels in the game. The original difficulty level was named normal and we have added easy and hard. In easy you start with more money, earn it faster and have less and easier ships to deal with. In hard the opposite occurs as you start with less money, earn it slower and have more difficult ships to deal with when playing.
Lots of other little bug fixes and improvements were added.
Patch Notes:
Designed two island terrain with 2 cities to defend.
Added player teleport feature. Should allow seated or standing play as possible.
Added multi-city targeting where ships have AI goals to attack either a specific city or any city.
Rebalanced first 10 levels for difficulty.
Increased anti-ship projectile and targeting speed.
Added 3 difficulty levels - Easy, Normal, Hard.
Added 5 new levels of difficulty using the 2 city/2 island zone.
Added 20 new achievements to the game.
Added ability to upgrade/repair towers and cities.
Added Upgrade: Refill/Add Missiles
Added Upgrade: Repair Tower/City
Added Option: Select Starting Level
Bug fix: Missile lasers will not track and fire on same target.
Bug fix: Missile will not attempt to shoot through mountains and explode.
Bug fix: Level UI will center on player during level start (helps on bigger levels).
Patch 0.9.4 should take less time to get out than 0.9.3 did with all the new systems. Things we are considering to do in .4 are the following
Adding Bigger Enemies - Carriers
Adding Elite Class Ships
New Upgrades on Fire Rate, Shield Size, Additional Shields, Multi-shot
More levels with 3 city terrain
Initial localization into more languages than English.
Update Details 0.9.2 - Let there be laser beams!
Hi defenders,
Today's update adds some exciting new features to Banshee Force. A new tower has been added to the game named the "Auto Missile Laser". This tower will automatically target incoming missiles with its laser turret and blast them out of the sky. The tower has a 15 second cooldown and 800-meter range so it is pretty powerful for swatting down missiles when you are not paying attention. In the future when multiple cities are being attacked this might be the only thing standing between you and your cities.
In addition to the new tower we have tested Banshee Force with the Oculus Rift VR headset and touch controllers. The game plays well with either the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift through Steam VR. We are officially enabling support for the Oculus Rift in room scale with the touch controllers.
Lots of other little bug fixes and improvements were added including support for a missile counter on the right controller so you know how many missiles you have left in all towers and cities.
Patch Notes:
New Tower - Auto Missile Laser
Added Support - Oculus Rift w/ Touch Controllers
Total Missile Counter added to right controller HUD
Initial integration with steamworks (pre-requisite to achievements)
Upgrade to Unity 2017.3
Bug fix - Ship rotating forever on launch
Bug fix - Issues with Shaders
Bug fix - Accidental pause
The next version will introduce multiple city targeting, the initial ability for tower upgrades, and initial achievements.
[/td][td]Fire Power Increase
[/td][td]Shield Recharge Rate
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