Expansion Core
Massive Tier Bots, New HUB Types, Quests and More! (Beta 0.7.0)
Major Features:[/p][p]- Added two new HUB types, the Mining and Trade HUBs. The Mining HUB slowly produces ores and deposits them into any nearby storages passively. The Trade HUB boosts all trades by 25% and increases the new Market cap for the associated Beacon.
- Trade Markets have been added. They are basically trade limits for each Beacon, where if you trade too much at one Beacon, you get diminished profits as the trades are exhausted.
- Added Massive Tier research, including the new High Tier Research bot. This will be the last tier of bots added to the game, and obviously they’re also the largest and most complex.
- Added the Hydraulic Bot; a massive, high damage bot in the new Massive tier. It’s the highest damage per single attack currently in the game.[/p][p]- Added a new mid-tier bot, the Bonepike; this bot is a good in-between for combat between the mid and high tiers due to its increased cost, but also increased damage. It can only be researched at corrupted beacons.[/p][p]- Added a new type of bot, the Core Keeper; this bot can hold up to 3 Cores as storage, for when you need to keep excess Cores around.[/p][p]- Added in a whole new Chronos quest line, centering around Jamie Conoly, the Chronos’ captain.[/p][p]- Added Aurora Wagner, the trader of the Chronos. For now you can sell the new Data Tablets to her for a good profit. Later on, she will sell unique blueprints and maybe other items.[/p][p]
[/p][p]Minor Features:[/p][p]- Added a new Biome Checker which controls a lot of the enemy spawning and difficulty for each region. The effects from this change will mostly be felt and not seen physically in game.[/p][p]- Added a new quest type; Bulk Trading. You basically collect all of the items needed and sell them using the Trade Pods, for some boosted income when fulfilled.[/p][p]- Added dialogue for much of the Chronos crew so you can get to know them after the initial quests are complete.[/p][p]- Adjusted Trade Pod difficulty to scale less harshly with the sale amount.[/p][p]- Added a health grace period for Trade Pods so that, if you stay above 80% health, you will receive the max trade amount.[/p][p]
[/p][p]Bug Fixes:[/p][p]- Fixed a huge bug that was causing low level Trade Pods to be impossible to complete.[/p][p]- Fixing issue with Neil Ramos quest line breaking in some cases.
- Fixing quest rewards for all quest types.
- Added in several dialogue skips in case things are done out of order.
- Fixed a bug where Miner bots were always the first to be targeted by enemies.[/p][p]- Fixed an issue where the mouse input sensitivity was doing nothing.[/p][p]- Fixed several lighting issues around the map.[/p][p]- Fixed several save/load issues with the Mobile Base and bots that rely on set-up states.[/p][p]- Fixed a lot of quest bugs, primarily with the Chronos quest line.[/p][p]
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Stability and QoL Improvements (Beta 0.6.5)
The general work that's been done has mostly impacted the item Transfer automation, since I really wanted to clean all of that up. I also added some much needed QoL improvements as well as some new enemies and clean up passes on many of the biomes.
Major Features:
- Scrapper bot: This new bot has the ability of scrapping items and automatically selling them! It's still much more cost effective to use trade pods, but you can now get rid of excess items for a bit of extra credits.
- Enemy teams: If you haven't noticed yet, enemies now attack each other in the wild! They now have their own groups of allies and enemies, so you may see a squad of spitters hunting a sprinter, who then aggros a group of beetles! Overall it's added a lot of liveliness to the environment.
- Fast Travel: You can now fast travel between any Beacons that you've activated! Simply just open the Beacon's menu and select the new fast travel button. Then click on the big sphere above the beacon you want to travel to. It will bring all of your followers with you as well!
- Added Cleaners: Cleaners are enemies that spawn at high corruption values. They will then attack everything around them, thus lowering the corruption of that area. Think of it as a natural immune system for the environment.
- Item Transfer update: The item transferring has gotten a few visual updates, as well as the ability to whitelist/blacklist items for transfers. You can now set an item to be able to be used as fuel! So now you can fully automate inputting items into furnaces, fueling the furnaces and transferring the items out!
Minor Features:
- Updated a lot of enemy item drop rates to be more balanced based on the biome they're in.
- Added a new enemy to the Toxic Runoff biome. The biome still isn't ready to have Beacons placed in it yet, but it's getting fleshed out nicely.
- Started adding in Titanium mining locations. Again, it's still not fully in the game, but I suppose you could still mine it, cook it, and sell it for huge profits!
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed an issue where you could get the command wheel stuck on the screen
- Fixed some issues with repair visuals lingering when loading the world
- Fixed enemies to only drop items when hit by the player at least once
- Fixed some visual bugs with applied Cores
- Fixed a bug where static resources could not be picked up
- Fixed a lot of issues with setting up transfers
- Fixed saving and loading Storm locations
- Fixed a bug that would cause AI to freeze up
Part 1 of the Main Questline, A New Bot and Titanium (Beta 0.6.1)
- Added in the rest of Part 1 of the main quest line. I can’t say much about this without spoilers, I’m glad to say that the story up to the first Storm being dealt with is in the game. There will likely be more changes to come, but for now I’m happy with where things are going!
- Added a new Lantern Bot. It’s a relatively low tier bot that produces light and deals some decent damage. This also comes with the change where basic bots no longer have a gross looking point light randomly floating next to them. (I had to remove it because it looked bad, but also because that many overlapping point lights was causing a hit to performance at night…)
- Added in Titanium, as well as Titanium tools. Titanium can be created via blasting Fine Scrap metal and Refined Carbon. Expect to see more recipes in the near future that use this new material.
Minor Features:
- Did another pass on the enemy balance for some of the higher tier areas.
- Added in some of the missing crafter and compressor recipes.
- Balanced new Core’s base slots. You should now get more slots based on area difficulty.
- Another large balance pass on all bots stats in general.
- Changed how random Upgrades are generated, making them better as their rarity increases.
- Lowered the base amount of Corruption in fresh worlds, hopefully helping with the enemy scaling over time.
- Added some code that forces allies to follow you for a little bit when commanding them to follow. This will hopefully help in cases where you’re trying to run, but your bots refuse to listen because they’re so thirsty for blood.
- Updated the look of the Transfer Controller. It still needs work, but it’s better than a stick on a cube…
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed issues with the minimum spawn distance for random Encounters.
- Fixed major crash issue in the Scorched Desert.
- Fixed a bug that wasn’t allowing Drill bots to drill for basic stone/flint when not near a minable area.
- Fixed many issues related to set-up allies not loading properly.
- Fixed a bug that was causing recipes to be doubled for crafting and compressing
- Fixed many issues with the story progression hooks.
- Adjusted the position of ally and storage names so that they no longer cut off as bad.
- Corrected some of the enemy pathing code because it would error in certain cases.
Achievements, Corrupt Skeleton Boss, Talking with Storms, and More (Beta 0.5.5)
Major Features:
- Achievements: I've added a little over 30 achievements to the game to challenge those of you who try to platinum a game. There are three achievements included for defeating the three bosses that are now in the game. Good luck!
- Overcharged Skeleton Boss: The strongest boss to date. It spawns in the Frozen biome far past the Scorched desert. It focuses mainly on melee attacks that deal heavy damage to targets around it.
- Speaking to Storms: Later on in the story, you can now actually speak with the first Storm. I won't spoil any dialogue, but it does give a lot more lore and context to what's actually happening around the player.
- Balance Pass: I've heard some feedback for the difficulty of the game not feeling consistent. As a first step to resolving this issue, I've added in a system for calculating the player's overall power level, and am starting to use that to tune some of the encounters. For now, expect a bit of jank still, but less than before. Primarily, this update will change how the minibosses for events are selected.
Minor Features:
- Added a new Mantis Bot for you to build. It can only be purchased near a Corrupted beacon.
- I've added two new enemy types that can spawn rarely when you're near an active Storm. They are called the Thorn and Crunch. I'll let the curious among you discover what they do.
- Updated the drop rates for enemies in the starting Forest biome. I've lowered the Refined Energy drops and boosted the Energy Fragment drops. This will hopefully make early game easier, and encourage players to move to the other biomes earlier.
- Made the Right Click health checker look better.
- Added some new camera controls to lock onto a target.
- Added Core containers around the world. They act like any other pry-able storage, but drop a Core instead.
- Made Corrupting a beacon effect the spawns near the beacon, as well as add a new spawn right on top of the beacon, making it dangerous. This does come with the benefit of also increasing the amount of energy gained per energy fragment when powering the beacon. (+5 extra energy per item).
- Minor visual sway of the arms when rotating.
- Added some more structures around the Frozen biomes.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed swing sounds to play at the right time.
- Updated Large Drill bot visuals to hopefully not be broken anymore.
- Put in more changes to hopefully lower the chance of crashing. Though if you still are crashing, try updating your graphics drivers. If that still doesn't work, save the crash log and send it to me on Discord.
- Fixed some of the NPCs names to be lore accurate.
- Fixed a bug where the player could never drop below half health when being healed.
- Fixed a major bug where some loot containers would be empty when loading in the game.
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Desert Lord Boss, Quest Updates, Major Bug Fixes (Beta 0.5.0)
In terms of this patch, it's a lot of higher level content, as well as the hardest boss in the game! It's in the Scorched desert, in the Crater. It's not currently tied to the story, but since the mechanics are basically done, I decided to add it into the game for a bit of an optional challenge.
Major Features:
- Desert Lord: Located in the Crater, this dragon-like bot slumbers, waiting for it's next meal. It's got a lot of powerful AOE attacks, as well as a large health pool. If you're going to challenge it, make sure you have a lot of allies.
- Quest Update: I've added some more post-Golem quests linked to the Communication Tower structure. It leads you to the next major part of the story, which I wont spoil.
- Chronos Contact: You can now contact the Chronos directly through Beacons. There's currently only one quest associated, but there's a bunch of lore to read through.
Minor Features:
- Added a lot of sounds for allies and enemies that were missing. Combat should line up much better with the sound design.
- Added the Drone Control Backpack. It basically adds 5 more drones to your pool of transfer drones, making item transferring go much quicker.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a major bug that was causing some of the crashes. The cause was a couple incorrectly loaded assets causing issues with World Partition. Hopefully these will be resolved with this patch.
- Fixed a bug where Events wouldn't correctly start in some situations.
- Fixed a bug where allies would sometimes spawn underground when loading into the game.
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Small Stability Patch
....also it adds new movement paths for the Storms, EFrag minable rocks, refactors enemy spawning, some new encounters, adds the ability to hide the crosshair in settings, adds encrypted messages to some of the notes for extra lore, and boosts post processing effects...
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Transfer Bots, Higher Tiers, Meadows Biome, Enemies and More! (Beta 0.4.2)
Major Features:
New Allies:
- Transfer Bots: These are a new type of ally that are in the small and medium tier. They act as small transfer points that can transfer items between storages. They function off of the same network as the player's transfers, but can be set up anywhere. This makes it possible to set up bases anywhere and have automation (ie, a mining base where a miner mines resources, transfers them to a furnace, then stores the cooked bars).
- Large Drill Bot: It's like the other drill bots, but biiigg. Pretty self-explanatory, but it's a costly investment.
New Enemies:
- Thermal Charger: A unique spawn from Thermal Bunkers that have a powerful AOE attack. They drop much of the new items, as well as some other valuable loot.
- Lizard Wolf Bot: A new enemy type in the Meadows biome. Jumps around while clawing and biting anything in it's way.
- Crystal Beetle: A somewhat rare enemy in the Ice biome. Acts pretty much like any other beetle, but it's colder.
- Container Bots: A new enemy type that is passive, but holds a lot of drops, should you choose to kill them. Before you do, however, make sure you walk up to them and interact with them...
- Factory Drone: A floating shooter variant that spawns in the Factory biome.
- Corrupt Pustule: An enemy type that signifies when an area is really really really corrupt. Pretty tough to kill if you're weak, but also just kind of creepy.
Other:
- Meadows Biome: This is a new biome that I've recently fleshed out. It now has resource spawns, enemy spawns, beacons and structures for you to explore. It also comes with Bloodwood, a new resource, as well as some sweet visuals, inspired by Kenshi's Obedience.
- World Partitions: This, hopefully, doesn't have much effect on the gameplay. It's purely for optimization and will probably need tweaks in the future, but basically, the map is now split up into chunks that will hopefully make the game run better. I would have procrastinated more, but honestly without this, I was unable to save the map when making changes... so yeah.
- Encounters: In this update, I've added many more unique encounters that will spawn. I've also made it so that there's a rare chance that when an encounter is spawned, the enemies will try to find the player and attack them.
- HUB Updates: There's a lot more beacons to activate now (around 2x as many). I've also made it so that whenever you're successful at calling down a beacon, you gain another slot for a new ally.
Minor Features:
- Thermal Bunkers: A new structure type that, when opened, is empty, save for a group of unique enemies that drop some valuable goods.
- Power Station Homes: Another new structure, mainly in the Meadows biome that are just another place to find more loot. Just be careful because they're packed with enemies.
- Water Collectors: Another structure, this time in the Scorched Desert. You can commonly find Scorched Wood growing around these structures.
- Fine Scrap Metal: A new type of scrap metal that drops from tough mechanical enemies. Can be regularly smelted into steel.
- New Arm Animations: I reanimated the attack animations for the player to look slightly better at the cost of removing the hit animations which were making the attacks look clunky.
- Sky Improvements: I fixed the night sky... again... it looks like it got reverted at some point. Along with this, I've also made it so the sky changes colors depending on your biome.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a bug with Shard Slingers where they couldn't attack in certain cases.
- Fixed enemy aggro and wandering because of course I broke it in the last update...
- Fixed an issue where Allies sent to do a task wouldn't return home once they were done.
New NPCs, Unique Spawns, Items, and Crafter Recipes! (Beta 0.4.0)
Major Features:
- Recipe Browser: Accessed through the new Recipe Bot. You can now see any non-standard craft (aka cooking, blasting, refining etc.) recipe that you’ve made. You can also see unknown recipes that you can try out.
- New NPCs: I’ve added a group of four (yes four!) new NPCs in the Scrapper village in the forest biome. There, you can tackle a couple quests and fight a pretty hard mini-boss. I recommend you check it out. There’s also a semi-secret fifth NPC that’s somewhere else on the map. They’re not too hard to find, but they have some fun dialogue!
Minor Features:
- Allowed Item UI: Along with the Recipe browser, I’ve also added the ability to see what kinds of items can go in each slot on Crafters. This will hopefully help with usability as well.
- Steel Armor: I’ve added another tier of armor. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but it’s also really strong.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a bug that caused some Credit consoles to give the player 0 credits.
- Fixed a bug causing Dialogue trees to not save and load properly.
- Fixed an issue with how crafters were getting their required items.
New Structures, Lootables, and Experimental Features! (Beta 0.3.8)
Major Features:
- Map Updates: I've added some repeated structures throughout the world that should be recognizable from a distance. They're just little things to draw your eye and reward you for exploring. More will come! (It just takes forever to manually place stuff, then populate the chests...)
- First Pass of Direct Control: This has been requested multiple times and I've finally locked down how I want it to feel. Basically, you transfer your control over to an allies body, and you can control any ally, which acts as a protective shell for the player. You still are effected by Integrity, but the ally absorbs the damage that comes in. This feature still isn't final (mostly because you can't control allies while inside of one, due to some technical limitations that I have to work around).
Minor Features:
- Started work on the next biome, the Meadows. You can already see some of the main features, but the region still lacks the basic resources at the moment. This will likely be tackled in the next patch, or the one after.
- Added a new item, the Beetle Helm. It's just like a normal helmet, but better!
- Occasionally, when prying open an area, some enemies may spawn. Good luck with that.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed some bugs related to the Turret AI. They should now switch targets more reliably.
- Fixed some issues causing gaining credits to not show up in some cases.
- Deleted some old lingering code that was unused. Lots and lots of clean up.
- Minor text changes because I'm bad at spelling.
New Year, New Mobile Base!
Major Features:
- New Mobile Base Upgrade: The Tier 3 Mobile Base is the largest (obviously) so far. It can hold up to 8 modules (6 Tier 2 and 2 Tier 3), which should be absolutely insane in game!
- New Ally! Flamer: The Flamer, as it says on the tin, uses fuel as ammo and shoots out jets of flame at enemies. This new bot is at the highest tier, so you'll have to get some of the new resources made to build them.
Minor Features:
- Added in Repair Kits! There has been a long-standing issue with early-game progression due to the lack of an easy way to repair your allies if they get knocked down. As such, I've added a new item that can get your allies back on their feet (though they will still be heavily damaged)!
- Added in grass! This has always been a pain point for me because I've been trying to make this game as performant as I can, but I think I've found a good way to do foliage within my own set limits. Hopefully it looks good, but I'm sure I'll do more beauty passes in the future.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a bug where repairing allies always gave them at least half of their health back.