It's time to give some brand new peeks at what's coming up for Nova Drift in 2021. The full details on everything can be found at Chimeric's Blog, but here's a pretty comprehensive review in case you want to keep your experience fully in-Steam...
One of the more common complaints about Nova Drift is dying to late-game confusion. Player feedback indicated that things were feeling cramped as waves get into the several hundreds the screen begins to fill and with bullets and explosions. Also, the more tactical enemy formations that we wanted to create required more room to work correctly. We needed a way to control the battlefield size. To mitigate these concerns we added camera zoom functionality allowing us to pan out and view a larger battlefield. In future versions, the game will gradually zoom out as waves advance, or zoom way out for certain big encounters. We also added shiny new parallaxing starfields.
[previewyoutube="niqH7JEbuxo;leftthumb"]
Boss Overhauls
In order to make the zoom changes super-noticeable we revamped Station Omega. It was made 70% larger, much bulkier, and more visually interesting. We also gave all of its visual effects a once-over and added some new ones. It's more or less the same fight, but now it is easier to access its vulnerable nodes. Most bosses will similarly receive a revision before we're done and a few will receive drastic overhauls.
New Enemies
Most bosses and many enemies will be overhauled over the course of the Enemies 2.0 updates. Additionally, many brand new enemies and alternate boss encounters will be introduced. Here's a preview of some of them:
Enemy Formations
The backbone of enemies 2.0, enemy formations allow us to assign enemies certain behaviors while their leader exists. Currently there are 6 formations:
Trail - Enemies follow their leader in a line
Orbit - Enemies orbit their leaders in an ellipse
Flank - Enemies flank their leaders at a certain angle
Rank and File - Enemies line up rank and file behind their leader
Support - Enemies focus on healing and supporting their leader instead of nearby allies
Protect - Enemies will place themselves between you and their leader
Discord Upgraded! Come Hang
We've got quite an active discord with a very chill and inclusive community. The dev team is also pretty active there. We recently upgraded the server to level 2 and opened some new channels like #ask-the-devs and #feedback. The latter allows you to submit feedback to a bot that lets players upvote or downvote the suggestion. I'm also quite proud of the #game-dev-help channel, which is a space for current and aspiring developers to learn and collaborate. So... come chat with us!
Finally, please consider leaving a review if you haven't yet - it always helps the game reach new players, which is nice!
Thanks for reading,
- MIles @ Pixeljam / Jeffrey @ Chimeric
SPEEDRUN CONTEST RESULTS
Thanks to everyone for their entries! Here are the official winners... please note that a single person can't win in multiple categories:
WILD META FIRST PLACE: FlashBPanther - 7.46.28 - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1013064284 NORMAL MODE FIRST PLACE: ngi_ery - 7.35.24 - https://youtu.be/RLCcTWqS7IY
SECOND PLACE (Wild meta): Batotsu El del Mostacho - 8.16.02 - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1009362772 THIRD PLACE (Wild meta): Idiotica - 9.21.22 - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1004714155
SECOND PLACE (Normal mode): Ge - 8.03.27 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSfnB7rq60Q&t=3s THIRD PLACE (Normal mode): Shadow Sovereign - 8.15.04 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdMU-bncF8k&ab_channel=BrandonBurnett
Special Mentions:
Massive Damage Award - Idiotica - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1004714155 iPhone 15 Award (aka tallest screen) - UDTakeover - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vle1ru431G0OOxRWkJEfxahOwWVrCZwI/view?usp=sharing Pacficist Award - Epileptix - https://youtu.be/pWk6bQcimXs
I'll DM everyone with their prizes. Ping me if you don't get yours...
SPEEDRUN CONTEST STARTS TODAY!
Hello everyone! While Jeffrey (Chimeric) decompresses from the incredible task of moving his entire life and family halfway across the planet, I will be helming the next major event, which will be described right after a brief message that Nova Drift is currently 40% off for the next 13 days, and the soundtrack is 50% off as well. This is a great time to get both things as a bundle for that buddy that enjoys both novas and drifting: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/12177/Nova_Drift_Game__Soundtrack/
Now onto the main event:
Nova Drift Speed Run Contest: SERAPH KILL
Duration: Submissions will be accepted between now and May 11th, 2021, 12:00 PM EST.
Submission Rules: - Time must taken using the built-in Speedrun Mode timer. - Submissions must be accompanied by video, with your time visible. - Videos must contain the loadout screen, the full gameplay, and the end game screen. High resolution is preferred, but not required. Feel free to compress the video in order to make upload and download speeds more reasonable. - Recording must have game sound and no substantial area of the screen blocked. - Time starts on the first frame the player is visible and stops when the wave 100 Seraph is destroyed. Your time selecting upgrades also counts! - No mods or game altering software may be used. - Links to your video may posted in the #contests-submissions channel on Discord (https://discord.gg/Zp2MkPJ) or in the newly created Contest Submission Steam discussion: . You can chat about the contest in #contests-chat on Discord.
Game Rules: -The wave 100 Seraph must be destroyed. -In the rare instance that the Seraph is damaged by a singularity or comet, the run will be considered invalid. -All Challenge Modes must be unlocked and turned on. Practice Game Mode must be disabled. -If you enable Wild Metamorphosis, your submission will be entered into the WILD META contest, else you will be entered into the NORMAL contest.
Prizes (for both contests): 5 Nova Drift and Nova Drift OST keys to give to your buddies, plus public recognition! And if you want it: The Pixeljam Complete game bundle (Itch.io key)
Other prizes will be given to second and third place, plus perhaps bonuses for extra creative speedrunning solutions :)
FAQ: Q) Loadout screen? A) The game over screen that shows all the mods that created your build.
Q) How to turn on the timer? A) In the game settings screen
Q) After I beat Seraph should I just kill my player? A) Probably, unless you want the video to be way longer :slight_smile:
Q) Can I upload the video to youtube or other similar platform? A) Sure, just send us the link to the youtube video. However you want to host and share the video with us is fine.
Q) Can I submit multiple videos as I do better and better? A) Yes!
Q) Will the timer keep going after I beat Seraph? A) Yes, but the sub-timers will show the final time to beat Seraph, and that's the time we'll use.
Good luck! Now get runnin'...
- Version 0.31.19: SYZYGY UPDATE Is Live -
Hello all,
We're excited to finally launch the latest major update to Nova Drift, titled SYZYGY, which we assure you is a real word.
[previewyoutube="1VhrGGDppw0;full"]
View the PATCH NOTES for the full details of the new features and changes, but here are the highlights:
Speedrun Mode has been added to the Settings menu. While this is toggled, you'll always see your game time and wave. Additionally, the game will display your splits for each boss you defeat and submit to the new leaderboard once Seraph is defeated (wave 100).
2 new music tracks have been added: Parallelism (in normal mode) and its remix Parallelism (Freed) (in Wild Meta mode)
Added a unique animation and sound effect for player death that scales in intensity as your level (for that run) increases. This is powered the shiny brand new Visual FX Engine that will be used in other parts of the game in future updates.
Major reworks for Singular Strike, Warp Shield, Salvo & Vortex.
Over 100 balance adjustments and bug fixes!
April 13 UPDATE: Hotfix V. 0.31.20 is now live, fixing several construct-related crashes.
This is also an update to keep you busy while you wait for the first round of enemy improvements and additions. With this update, we have switched to the new enemy "engine" in preparation for those changes, so there may be some growing pains to iron out. Let us know if anything is amiss in the bugs discussion or on Discord.
With this update complete, we are now prepared to focus fully on the Enemies 2.0 updates we discussed in previous posts. To be released over many small incremental updates, Enemies 2.0 will bring new enemies, fresh enemy behaviors and formations, enemy support roles, alternate bosses, new power ups, secrets, and reworks to existing enemy content, both mechanical and visual. Beyond raising the bar on enemies, the overhaul aims to improve Nova Drift's variety, scaling, and fairness, while emphasizing tactical gameplay, improving build versatility, and reducing general chaos and confusion. It's a Nova Drift renaissance!
Enjoy the update, and take care :)
-Miles @ Pixeljam
0.31.15 Syzygy Update in the Beta Branch
A balance update in the BETA branch to keep you busy while you wait for the first round of enemy improvements and additions. With this update, we have switched to the new enemy "engine", so there may be some growing pains to iron out.
Don't worry! We've already made huge progress toward the enemy updates you've been waiting for.
Minor Features and Improvements
Speedrun Mode has been added to the Settings menu! While this is toggled, you'll always see your game time and wave. Additionally, the game will display your splits for each boss you defeat
Since we're supporting speedrunning, the game now uses "real time" instead of game time. As a result, your time at game end is accurate regardless of your hardware
Comets now shatter on enemies they can't one shot, creating a spray of rock and ice. This helps make comets less swingy on boss fights and more interesting during encounters
Added a unique FX and SFX for the player death! The higher your level when you die, the more spectacular it is (up to level 50). The SFX you hear will be a little different, each time, too
Added a new setting: Auto deploy Turrets
Added a new setting: Auto deploy Mines
Added a new BGM Track: "Parallelism"
Added a new BGM Track: "Parallelism Freed", the remix to Parallellism, that plays in Wild Metamorphosis
BGM Tracks: Zeroed, Recursor, and NoGrav now play in both Wild Metamorphosis and standard as they have no remix
Auto deploy will no longer behave differently for Architect. If you do not want architect to auto deploy, you can leave these settings off
Constructs will now attempt to avoid impending blasts, such as Celestial bombs
"Centering" enemies on screen now works better with various monitor aspect ratios
Grenades, Grenade submunitions, and Salvo missiles are no longer removed from the game if you level up while they are present
The player won't take damage from enemies or celestial hazards while touching a singularity until 3 seconds after they come out
Reroll drops in the Wild Metamorphosis challenge mode are consistent with the reroll penalty at game start, which is 50% fewer rerolls. Previously this rate was reduced, but not consistently
Improved the accuracy of measuring various shield radii
Balance and Mechanical Changes
Super Mod: Singular Strike has been reworked. New rules: Your weapon behaves as though your projectile count is 1. Your projectile count beyond 1 is fused into your single projectile, strengthening it. Up to 25 projectiles can be fused. +15% damage, size, and blast radius. Each projectile fused adds an additional 50% of its damage to your projectile. Each projectile fused further increases the size and blast radius of your projectile, with diminishing returns. +.1-second rate of fire delay
Warp Shield has been reworked, and given updated visuals. The warp destination no longer automatically rotates around you, and is instead forward facing. It has gained a new power: If your shield protects you when it breaks, you will be intangible for .75s while teleporting. In this state, you may steer the position of the destination point around your shield radius
Salvo has been reworked. Salvo now stockpiles 4 missiles per .5 second interval. Modifiers to projectile count affect the number of missiles stockpiled per interval while modifiers to rate of fire affect the interval duration. It still has diminishing returns as the stockpile becomes larger. Salvo is considered a 4-base-projectile weapon
As a result of the above changes, Salvo begins weaker, but scales much more powerfully from many weapon mods. Also, Salvo always fires 1 missile and ignores burst fire. However, for the purposes of barrage, it still behaves as it previously did
Salvo seeking begins to decay after being in existence for too long (this is only noticeable with really, really slow projectiles)
Salvo-Loaded Mines now calculate their projectile count based on a stockpile of one second
Vortex has been reworked, with the goal of making it easier to use at low levels, and less out of control when pushed to the maximum. Vortex charges faster at small sizes, and has a lower base cost of self-damage. However, to compensate, the self-damage costs scale more exponentially with the size of the vortex. You may need to release your Vortex sooner at very high sizes!
Vortex scaling has been made generally more sensible and consistent under the hood. Singular Strike now applies its size bonus during the charge rather than on release
Vortex has been given new visuals that are less blinding and occlusive. Also, the Vortex is held slightly farther away from the player so you are less likely to collide with your target
18 -> 12 base projectile count for Flak. Flak has gained a new power: Doubles added projectiles gained from upgrades. Slightly reduced Flak spread and projectile size
Made Grenade's cluster count less prolific at high size modifiers. Shouldn't affect much at low values
Blade used to deal "area" damage if it was in contact with a target. Blade now does this all the time, making it more reliable and generally more destructive, especially at larger sizes. Its area hitbox has been made more accurate
Blades have a new hidden ability: They now take -50% less total damage from all sources (except self-damage)
1.75s -> 1.5s Blade assembly time
Blades no longer trigger so much player self-damage from mods that scale with your rate of fire
Overseer will now only add additional blades from base construct count and added constructs, not from projectile mods
180 -> 220 base damage for Pulse
Pulse projectiles now work with all projectile mods!
50% -> 35% Pulse base damage for Pulse shards
Thermal Lance base beam damage has been increased by 15%
Cloak rate for Spectre is now 1% faster per your level
+200% -> +250% cloak max stealth bonus
Shockwave shield small pulses have a 22% longer delay between pulses. Shockwave shield now only releases its large shockwave on shield reset if the shield has broken Orbital Shield now gains less magnitude based on how much magnitude it already has, resulting in a soft cap on size and damage. To compensate, the base magnitude gain from damage has been increased ~21%. (Orbital was reaching potentially screen-sized sizes, shutting down enemies completely)
Firefly thruster size now also scales with sources of "total" thrust, such as Amp and Ataraxia
25% -> 15% Firefly self-damage resistance
25% -> 15% Firefly crash damage resistance (Firefly was already the whole package with no drawbacks on top of being capable of massive area burn damage)
Body power multipliers now affect Battery projectile size modifier
600% -> 400% for Leviathan max crash damage bonus
Banishing any Wild Mod using the Research body gear now costs 2 rerolls, however Research now gains its defensive buff for spending rerolls by banishing, not for the amount of mods banished. (Research has become a staple of truly busted Wild Metamorphosis builds to the point of becoming practically mandatory in the highest scoring builds. Something had to be done)
Overseer has been reworked. It now provides +1 to advanced constructs instead of doubling them. It still doubles basic and standard construct assembly limits. Overseer's assembly speed buff has been increased 1% to 2% to match its thrust malus. (Overseer's explosive power when combined with Engineer was negatively impacting game balance. Without making this change, advanced constructs would need to be made weaker, which negatively impacts all other ship bodies). As a result of this change, some constructs have been adjusted to help compensate for the loss of power to Engineer via Overseer:
30 -> 25 second assembly time for Allies
35 -> 30 second assembly time for Turrets
125 -> 150 hull for Turrets
25 -> 30 damage for Drones
.04% -> .05% assembly speed per your level for Elegant Construction
-30% -> -40% drone rate of fire for Rocket Drones
+25% -> +60% damage for Rocket Drones
+30% -> +40% drone hull for Reinforced Drones
Weapon movement and turn rate modifiers now apply to Interceptor Ally
Interceptor Allies will not fire a number of Blade Drones exceeding your Blade assembly limit
Barrage will now only scale additional projectiles for Blades from projectile modifiers, not construct assembly limit modifiers
Splinter Shot projectile count has been made less prolific at very high size values
Super Mod: Tempest Break now requires Deadly Wake and Flash Shielding instead of Streamline and Flash Shielding. (Shieldbreaker builds couldn't afford to be this fragile)
+8 -> +10 base damage for Super Mod: Barrage, which now grants base damage instead of flat damage
25% -> 30% maximum hull or shields converted for Conversion
Siege Weaponry now works with Charged Shot, Thermal Lance, and Vortex. This applies self-damage continuously while charging, and the rate of fire multiplier from Siege-Weaponry applies to the charge rate
Siege Weaponry + Charged Shot now boosts Salvo stockpile rate while charging
Siege Weaponry + Interceptor Ally now applies construct fire rate multiplier
Weapon total thrust while firing malus are now multiplicative with each other. Base maluses of this type have been adjusted: Thermal Lance, Torrent, and Vortex -35% -> -30%
-90% -> -80% total thrust while firing for Siege Weaponry. Siege Weaponry's ramping self damage has been made less severe
Charged Shot minimum bonus value is now +0%, instead of +15%
-80% -> -90% for Calibrate max spread reduction
Splinter shot velocity now has a floor. This helps things like Blade bursts stay relevant when the projectile is at the apex of boomeranging
Rare Wild Mod: Twin Strike spread reduction is now a "total" modifier to your spread
-15% -> -10% for rare Wild Mod: Twin Strike total spread modifier
-5% -> -7% for rare Wild Mod: Twin Strike cooldown and recovery
+10% -> +7% weapon damage and projectile size for Heavy Caliber
-10% -> -7% weapon velocity for Heavy Caliber
Wild Mod: Maelstrom scaling has been adjusted similarly to how Orbital Shield was
Wild Mod: Scorching Wake fireballs now offset more the more you have, causing them to be less clumped-up
Wild Mod: Solar Heart has been made more impactful. It's bonuses have been doubled and it's malus has been more than doubled
+50% -> +40% global damage for Hidden Power (This massive bonus was from an older time, where there were fewer ways to deal "secondary damage")
Firing Array has been reworked. New Rules: +15% total projectile damage and blast radius for your central projectile. Other projectiles also receive adjustments to projectile damage and blast radius, incrementally decreasing to 0% for your outermost projectiles. +30% total projectile size for your central projectile. Your other projectiles also receive adjustments to projectile size, incrementally decreasing to -30% for your outermost projectiles
Gemini Protocol now works for shielded constructs
Rare Wild Mod: Obsession has been reworked. It now only applies the malus for recursive mods added by Obsession, not for your total Wild Mods owned. As a result, the malus has been increased from 1 % to 3% of your total hull and shields
Wild Mod: Spontaneous Generation no longer self-destructs Architect's constructs.
+3% -> +2% maximum hull and shields for Wild Mod: Rampage
Hull threshold triggers have been reworked. This affects Retribution and Outrage Module. They now trigger based on the original damage dealt, and not the damage taken. Since this is more damage, the trigger threshold has been increased from 10% to 15% of your maximum hull (This change was primarily made so that "Minebreaker" builds could work again, now that Retribution has limitations)
Armor stack quantity gained by taking damage has been reduced by 37.5%. To compensate, Rebuke damage has been increased 60%. (Adaptive Armor was insane value for one point, and pretty much a mandate for any very high scoring build. It still provides a lot of defense when needed, but it's now more in line with other defensive mods)
Self damage "hits" no longer always give at least one armor stack, but Self-damage now generates armor stacks at a more favorable rate. 50% -> 75% efficiency
35 -> 40 base hull from Rapid Reconstruction
+80% -> +100% regeneration from Rapid Reconstruction
25 -> 100 damage for Blink (This change was primarily made so that the Super Mod: Displacement deals more relevant damage
Super Mod: Burnout Reactors + Gemini Protocol now behaves as you'd expect
Each type of damage resistance is now additive with other sources of the same type instead of either additive or multiplicative. Fixed several inconsistencies with how damage resistance is calculated
Stacking burn damage from enemy orbs, especially from Seraph, takes longer to ramp up to its full damage, starting from 0. This effect has been applied to enemy deadly wakes, as well. My hope is that these are less of a hard counter to Leviathan as a result, as well as making Seraph and Spitfire less of an "insta-kill" at very high waves
Regeneration and shield cooldown no longer occurs if the player is invulnerable (except during Emergency Systems)
Made knockback from the player less extreme at high values
Localization Changes
For strings that were changed this update, and new strings moving forward, tool-tip numbers now reflect in-game variables. This means that changes which only affect numbers will not require re-translation
Improved dozens of upgrade descriptions
Fixes and Under The Hood
Removed the requirement that you first orb come from an enemy if you're skipping waves using the Danger Zone challenge mod
Previously, "flat" damage and "base" damage behaved inconsistently, scaling from some things they should not, in order of operations different than what you'd expect. This has been corrected. All instances of flat damage are now base damage, and base damage is simply added to the weapon base damage before modifiers. This affects: Wild Mod: Solar Heart, Super Mod: Antimatter Rounds, and Super Mod: Barrage
Fixed some hitboxes that were slowly and invisibly rotating, causing some unintended behavior
Fixed Corrosion's wildly inaccurate tool tip damage
Rewrote Bastion code to try to be less of an error-prone special snowflake
Windowed Mode: For window sizes that fit vertically but not horizontally, we now clamp the width to the maximum and allow it to be used
Leviathan tries harder to keep its segments together
Leviathan, at extreme sizes, now doesn't show its seams while wrapping
Crates outside the edge of the screen are allowed to generate loot normally when destroyed
Charged Mines now correctly reduces your mine assembly limit, as it claims it does
Fixed Constructs using Siege Weaponry automatically having Saturation Fire
Fixed reflected projectiles not getting handled properly in a few places
Fixed recoil resistance not affecting player recoil from Heavy Caliber
Fixed Calibrate applying in a few cases it shouldn't have
Fixed some inconsistencies with Blade assembly limit being misreported
Fixed Turret Specialist not reducing Turret self-damage
Fixed the Construct Swarm rate of fire boost only applying to a single advanced Swarm Construct
Fixed Venom Strike not scaling with body power multipliers
Warp Strike now wraps wider, allowing the weapon to hit off-screen enemies more reliably
Railgun and crash damage now can't reach quite such extreme values of screen shake and has a cap
Fixed a silly bug where one half of Eclipse chassis had their rarity bonuses applied twice, and the other had none
Fixed the possibility of Retribution occurring if you can't assemble and deploy constructs
Fixed some strange scaling with some blast radii
Fixed several cases where weird things could apply Essense Sap
Fixed Hives being trapped off-screen
Dart projectiles now disable wrapping and destroy-outside behavior while lodged in something
Made the knockback modifier from Polar Inversion work on a case by case basis so things like enemy recoil and comets aren't affected
Things that worked in a circular range have been made more accurate, using real pixel values
Included some missing Simplified Chinese characters
Wild Mod: Winnow can no longer banish THE VOID and does not grant rerolls or size reduction for them
Come hang out with me (Miles), who is not the lead dev by any means, who will be video hosting Jeffrey, who by all means IS the lead dev.
Miles will be fiddling with the new Visual FX Generator, working with Jeffrey to find interesting and beautiful presets to plug into the game. Jeffrey will be answering all your questions, provided they are about the game and not random life advice, which Miles will answer because he has more bandwidth for that type of thing.
Work continues on the upcoming update. Here is what you can expect when it drops in a few weeks:
Massive balance adjustments
Gear & Mod reworks
Improved visual effects (more on that below)
A new music track & expanded pool of musical options for Wild Meta mode
Speedrun Mode!
Leave a Review
Reviews by existing players make the game more discoverable to new potential players, which results in wonderful outcomes for everyone involved! Here's a quick link if you are feeling like leaving one right now: https://store.steampowered.com/recommended/recommendgame/858210/
One of the big features of the next update is improved visual effects, aided by a nifty mini-program created by one of the coders at Pixeljam. One week from today, on Wednesday night, March 17 at 9:30 PM EST, we'll be doing a twitch stream showing off the capabilities of the FX generator and chatting with lead dev Jeffrey Neilson (Chimeric) as well! Stream will be at https://www.twitch.tv/pixeljamgames. We also have regular Music Production streams every Wednesday at 3 PM EST at that same URL.
That's all for now... thanks for the continued patience and support!
-Miles @ Pixeljam
- WHAT'S COMING UP FOR NOVA DRIFT IN 2021 -
Hello Drifters, new and old:
The last month has seen a lot of new players enter the arena, so we'd like to welcome you and make sure you know what's coming up:
ROADMAP
First, let's look at the big picture:
ENEMIES 2.0
This is a massive overhaul & update to the types of enemies that you encounter and how they behave. Nova Drift usually gets a significant content update every 2-3 months, but Enemies 2.0 is *so very big* that it may be a while before the final iteration is available to all players. We are still trying to figure out if it's possible to release Enemies 2.0 in multiple updates, or if it just needs to be one massive patch. More info on it can be found here, in the second half of this blog post.
Almost all of the new work being done on the game is Enemies 2.0, so expect more info about it soon!
Got a question about the game? It's probably answered in the #frequently-asked-questions channel of our Discord Server, which is the main community hub for the game outside of Steam.
SOUNDTRACK (DISCOUNT & STREAMING)
Did you know that the OST currently has 27 tracks and grows with every major content update? Check out the OST on Steam if you haven't yet, it's currently 45% off for the next 2 weeks. If you'd like to see how the music gets made, follow the Pixeljam Twitch Account to be notified when music production streams go live.
LOCALIZATION
If Nova Drift is not available in your native language yet, head on over to Localizor and see if you'd like to contribute. German and Korean seem to be the languages that might get implemented next.
GLOBAL SCOREBOARD
Being able to track scores and share and import builds(!) across all platforms is something that has not been talked about much, but it's also in the works, and ties into the upcoming Draft Mode. More info on that as it develops :)
Thanks for reading... and here's to much more drifting in 2021!
-Miles @ Pixeljam
Version 0.30.8 Is Live: Azimuth Tune-Up
Every major set of new features usually requires a bit of tweaking after its release, and today we made live the latest tune-up to the Azimuth update:
FEATURES
Outrage Module fires in the direction of the incoming hit!
Evolutionary Niche & Bravado now scale Research's power-up duration bonus
Upgrades and Rerolls numbers are blue once again for visibility
Guardian Ally now wants to be further away from the player ship when it has Decoy Signal
With Leviathan: - Deadly Wake emits from the tail body segment - 2/3 of Scorching Wake emits from random body segments
FIXES & UNDER THE HOOD
Continued making Bastion and Blades less of "special snowflakes", removing some bugs in the process
Fixed Bastion taking too little damage from Burnout Reactors
Fixed a strange interaction between Bastion and Stealth
Fixed Bastion triggering shield break effects when its down and you gain a level
Fixed Volatile Shields from triggering too many times with Bastion and Shielded Constructs
Homing Strike Blade projectiles now return to their launcher
Fixed a typo that was preventing the custom banish keybinding from being saved
Fixed many cases of upgrades not applying until your next upgrade
Fixed the formatting of end-of-game unlock messages
Fixed several problems with Interceptor Ally configurations
Adjusted position and size of construct count numbers so they're more legible (especially double-digit counts)
Reduced depth of player-related objects by 100 so they're less likely to get obscured
Fixed the level up notification not appearing under certain conditions
Hive continuously reduces emission rate as spawned count increases (This prevents the number of Hive Drones from growing as uncontrollably)
The pause menu now considers Viper's bonus to ignite duration
Overseer now displays the Apex Machinery Supermod combo
Retribution now displays Apex Machinery and Vital Bond Supermod combos
Fixed an outdated appearance of the old interceptor icon
Fixed a depth sorting error with Blade & Shield artwork
Fixed Outrage Module not firing forward in cases where it should
You no longer recoil with no weapon, if something makes you fire without one
Small code optimizations
Fixed a few minor text issues
Improved translations: Japanese
Improved translations: Brazilian Portuguese
Improved translations: Simplified Chinese
Steam Award Consideration / Roadmap / New Beta!
Hello new and old players,
STEAM AWARDS
If you are enjoying the game, we'd like for you to consider nominating Nova Drift for the "Labor Of Love" award - we've been working on the game for the past 6 or 7 years, with many more to come! Make sure you actually click and highlight the "Labor Of Love" text when you nominate it, else you will see an error screen. Nominate it here if the link doesn't appear above: https://store.steampowered.com/app/858210/Nova_Drift/
ROADMAP
Here is what's still planned for the final launch and beyond:
NEW BETA
If you are feeling adventurous, check out some brand new tweaks and features in the BETA branch:
Features * Outrage Module fires in the direction of the incoming hit! * Evolutionary Niche & Bravado now scale Research's power-up duration bonus * Upgrades and Rerolls numbers are blue again for visibility * Player Mines can now show damage floaters * Guardian Ally now wants to be further away from the player ship when it has Decoy Signal * With Leviathan: - Deadly Wake emits from the tail body segment - 2/3 of Scorching Wake emits from random body segments
Fixes * Continued making Bastion and Blades less of "special snowflakes", hopefully removing some bugs in the process * Fixed Bastion taking too little damage from Burnout Reactors * Fixed a strange interaction between Bastion and Stealth * Fixed Bastion triggering shield break effects when its down and you gain a level * Fixed Volatile Shields from triggering too many times with Bastion and Shielded Constructs * Homing Strike Blade projectiles return to their launcher * Fixed a typo that was preventing the custom banish keybinding from being saved * Fixed many cases of upgrades not applying until your next upgrade * Fixed the formatting of end-of-game unlock messages * Fixed several problems with Interceptor Ally configurations * Adjusted position and size of construct count numbers so they're more legible (especially double-digit counts) * Reduced depth of player-related objects by 100 so they're less likely to get obscured * Improved translations: Brazilian Portuguese * Improved translations: Simplified Chinese