We have a new Waterfall map. This is a simple wave mode for now, with some nice new scenery for you to enjoy. It's much larger than it looks. We'll likely be adding some specific mechanics for this map as time goes on.
Added new chill mode; this is desert wave mode, but at a much lower pace and more relaxed play style. If you want to take it easy, or just experiment, this is the mode for you.
We've changed a ton of balance related stuff, and economy / research related stuff. You'll have to buy the new research buildings to unlock / upgrade tools. The drones are generally much stronger overall. Difficulty curves for waves and strategy 0.5 is smoother at the start but still ramps up well.
The strategy 0.5 mode now has a new enemy builder which flies around and builds (instead of buildings magically appearing). There are also now two building types - each one spawns different enemy types.
If you had any issues with previous balance, please try out the waves mode, waterfall or strategy 0.5 modes and let us know how you feel about the changes! (discord or steam forums)
IMPORTANT: a lot of people had a crash issue - we painstakingly built a repro case and unity managed to get the bug fixed. Thanks everyone who submitted reports, it's super helpful. Thanks to everyone in discord helping test out the builds as we experimented. <3
Changelist:
update to unity 5.5.1p1 (fixes recent crash)
added new waterfall map
added new chill mode
added new enemy building type
added new builder type enemy
added new ship menu icons
added new tool research building types
added audio for slingshot
added control lines between map teleporter nodes
added limit single research building per type
added mini ectoplant patch
added new icons / effects to minimap
added sfx for bomb
added particles when roller enemy hits something
added weak attack for worker drones
added tooltips to game mode selectors
fixed crash in friend bot audio playback
fixed crystal material render issue
fixed drone damage particles stuck on
fixed hit effects on roller enemy when invincible
fixed laser bot drag when pulled soemtimes
fixed various localization isues
fixed audio background loading bug
fixed bubble enemy not taking damage when popped
fixed crash when harvesting depleted crystal
fixed physics so physical collisions can damage
fixed roller enemy taking no damage from assault bot
fixed various leaderboard issues
fixed various map issues
optimized ectoplant area enormously
optimized fabricator particles
optimized world rendering
improved antibody movements / attacks
improved assault drone movement / attacks
improved assault drone orbiting tower
improved friend drone movement
improved drone movement between nodes
improved controller graphics when using minimap
improved death sequence placement / effects
improved plant pot effects in spaceship
improved structure placement check to be less strict
Lots of exciting changes and new stuff today. First off, we have the first pass of the Command Map in the game. Here you can quickly get an overview of the world, and command your bots from point to point. As the strategy maps expand to cover larger areas, this becomes super necessary.
Secondly, we added a new grenade item that you can use to make use of ectoplasm. This is sort of a panic / emergency item that you'll want to use when things are in trouble. It makes it worthwhile to keep control of ectoplasm resources.
Thirdly, we overhauled the game modes and shifted some of the strategy-like wip content into the wave modes. This means the wave/survival modes will have all the research buildings and upgrades, drone population caps, etc. The game modes right now are:
Tutorial: simple 10 wave introduction
Waves: survive as long as possible (leaderboards)
Strategy 0.5: simplified strategy mode - destroy all enemy buildings to win
Endless: constant stream of enemies
Strategy 1.0: still working on this
Wave mode now ramps up significantly faster, and the hard mode is removed. You should have a lot more tools to try different ways of approaching things now. Tutorial is now capped to 10 waves before returning to the menu. You'll have to build the research buildings to unlock various upgrades, and build drone populators to increase your drone cap.
Upcoming changes include ongoing balance tweaks and visual improvements, a new wave mode map (very different style!), the expanded strategy map (3x the current size), and more enemy RTS buildings.
We're still balancing all these new changes, so please write some feedback if you have some thoughts on the state of things!
Changelist:
upgraded to Unity 5.5.0p4
upgraded to steamvr plugin 1.2.0
added new grenade weapon
added new command map
added new return to menu
added new enemy building visual effects
added randomized spawn points
rework game modes (tutorial, waves, pods, endless)
Hope everyone had a good holiday break. We're all back from various places on the planet, and getting rolling again with work. Today's patch is some tweaks and balance fixes, and new Leaderboards for the wave mode players.
We're still trying to track down a rare unity crash, any info would be helpful. We're updating to a new version for this build - if you had the crash and it went away with this change, please let us know!
Work continues on the minimap, command mode and new extended stage. We are experimenting with a variety of ways to handle RTS style commands - trying to find something that feels natural for RTS, but in a native VR kind of way. We'll have some builds of that coming in the new year.
For today's changelist we just have a few tweaks that should improve gameplay in the current modes. Wave mode now handles multiple bases, so it should be a little more challenging trying to keep multiple areas active. Swarm mode was much too easy, so it's been tuned to be much harder now.
The medic bot was expensive and not very effective at healing. It now should move around and heal much faster with less animation/movement delays, and the price is cheaper. This should help keep your unattended bots alive for multiple base management.
There's a rare crash right now in the physics system. We're trying to track it down - if you have any info please let us know!
Hi friends, we've made some fixes so the Oculus Touch controllers should Just Work™. We adjusted the controller model to feel more natural for oculus controller shape, and tweaked the object throw, and added a spin-rotate for the 180 tracking barriers.
For those with 360 setup, we have a config file tweak in GameSettings/Input_oculus.json (OptionFrontFacingMode180) if you want to disable the 180 vignette. We'll have an in-game option in the near future.
We'll post dev updates every two weeks. Our last update included a new game mode with a little more strategy than the wave mode, enjoy!
Let us know if you have any issues, we'll make sure it gets sorted out!
Early Access - Build 38
Today we have a new game-mode that will let us start tesgtin some of the features for the RTS mode. Swarm mode will start spawning enemy pods around the other areas of the map, which will expand and capture adjacent nodes. These pods will spawn enemies which will assault your base, and you'll have to dive in and pull off the ruin pieces to destroy them.
This is a simplified version of some of the mechanics we are experimenting with for RTS mode - we can use this to test moving out into capturing and expanding multiple areas, and have some feeling of fighting back an enemy base. We'll start adding some of the other enemy buildings over the next few builds to make it more interesting.
This mode also has a new set of research buildings which you use to unlock upgrades, and access to tools and weapons. This is still work in progress, feel free to drop some feedback. There is also a population cap increase building, which you'll need to build a lot of to get a large drone army.
We're also working on a map/minimap, which will give you a better overview of where the enemy is and what's going on. This will help for the new environment we are working on that is 3-4x larger than the current one. It's a while away but it will make things much more interesting!
Finally we have a bunch of fixes, tweaks and improvements. We reworked batching and occlusion culling for some good performance gains, which will be necessary on the new larger map. This let's unity handle some things more efficiently than how we were doing it before too.
We made some tweaks to friendbot so he will be a little less in your face -- especially when using the menu. This should help those who were having not a fun time with it.
Changelist:
add debug helper for broken vive controller touchpads
Roller enemy. A combination of ancient artifact stones and alien goop hive mind, this one is a large and dangerous enemy. Keep your shield handle to block it's large melee strikes and slams. It's still a work-in-progress so please give us some feedback. It should show up around wave 10 or so.
Another set of optimizations and fixes for this patch. We're making sure performance stays smooth from build to build, which is a challenge for VR.
Finally, we're working away on all the pieces and parts of strategy mode, and expanding the map to fit the new mechanics. Stay tuned!
Changelist:
add roller enemy
add secret hypercube
balance economy pass
fix achievement text localizations
fix assault bot going to wrong node sometimes
fix audio caching not working correctly
fix disc hit shaking buildings
fix disc not colliding with crystals
fix enemy egg spawn particles
fix fabricator crash when removing disk
fix handling vr headset sleep mode
fix turret disk slot by disable for now
fix turret not shooting if battery empty
fix vacuum effect when using tool
fix various achievement issues
fix various scene collisions
fix various slingshot bugs
fix worker drone carried item lagging behind
fix worker drones delivery to multiple compressors
The issue stopping build 36 from working on startup and not showing controllers should be resolved. Thanks everyone who reported so quickly!
Early Access - Bug Detected!
Hi friends, we found a bug that prevented the game launching properly in some cases. We're reverting the default branch to last week till we get a hotfix out. Stay tuned!
Early Access - Build 36
https://sketchfab.com/models/d0d1a329c5034678a0fb46697d07c840 Cosmic Trip - Scientific Research Vehicle - Sketchfab
Hello friends! Welcome to the Scientific Research Vehicle, Vibes. This will be your base of operations between missions, and hopefully a nice place to chill out in VR. We'll be adding bits and pieces to it over time (custom game settings, etc).
We have also done another pass at optimization to handle the expanding map area for ongoing strategy mode work. Keeping on top of VR performance is time consuming but super important for a smooth experience. We'll be continuing to focus on that so that the 1.0 release stays smooth.
Beyond that is a just a handful of minor fixes and tweaks. Ongoing work for strategy + research systems, plus some new enemy / building types. Stay tuned!
