1.1 Hazard Squad just released, that is ---Red---Tether's--> first free content update! The titular Hazard Squad consists of 3 new midgame ships for you to unlock. The new ships revolve around elemental effects, being able to inflict them on both enemies and on themselves (which isn’t always as detrimental as it might seem.) Get ready to overheat your engines, conceal yourself with coolant or electrify your tethers! Beware though, you’ll need to reach somewhere between wave 10 and 30 in to unlock these ships and you’ll only be able to do so one at a time.
As with all previous ships, you can unlock their signature starting items by interception mode wins, adding the item to the loot pool for others to find, or to stack it on themselves on subsequent runs. 9 additional upgrades also made it into the loot mix, some as endless mode victory unlocks, some as zone discovery rewards and some unlocked by default.
Please let me know if you encounter any problems in 1.1 Hazard Squad. I’ll make room for a quick patch should the need arise. Further content updates for ---Red---Tether-→ are on the horizon, but I have no clear plans for when those will happen.
The next game of the hyperspace antology is coming along nicely, here’s a sneak peak on how the stealth mechanics for SwirlW@tch are shaping up.
You can get both ---Red---Tether--> and Hyperspace Dogfights at a discount during the current Going Rogue Sale. So if you haven’t tried one or the other, now is your best chance.
Cheers and stay tethered! Stefan – Sleeper Games
Red Tether Version 1.014 (Launch)
- Engine exhaust now helps thawing your ship: coolant effect wears off 100% faster when stabilizing but 50% slower when not boosting at all - Hit invincibility now also clears coolant effects - Cryo launch system missile speed, explosion size and coolant blob shot speed increased - Ultra auto-cannon explosion size and wave speed increased - Overall smallcraft lethality increased - Endless mode: You can now challenge the war factory earlier (starting wave 30) - Fixed some inconsistencies regarding where the endless boss fight takes place in relation to coordinate healt lvl - Fixed Minesweeper EDR not targeting missiles - Fixed Minesweeper EDR still targeting EMP mines (without effect) - Fixed a problem preventing final boss music from initializing - Fixed a problem causing some attack tells to attach badly to large bosses (?) - Fixed ending stabilize re-applying certain movement forces with incorrect dampening - Fixed hp bar not initializing correctly on boss attachments
Red Tether Version 1.009/10 (Launch)
Nearest Threat/Retreat Rework - Lowered the minimum time in a wave before the fleet will consider retreat (60s --> 30s) - Instead of specific ship types, any ships that no longer has weapons, upgrades or boss status can now retreat - This means you can make large sections of a wave retreat just by disarming ships (retreat still only happens once no combat ready enemies remain in a wave) - The threat direction indicator now only points towards combat-ready ships - If only non combat-ready ships are nearby, the threat direction indicator will now point you to the nearest combat-ready ship - The threat direction indicator will now point to stealthed ships as well, but it'll be less accurate
Balancing/Adjustments - Chainlinker now also grants +10% rip damage - Tethers now briefly stop flashing when hit by melee - Max tethers! message now gets displayed on ui overlay instead of inworld layer - Fuel spill ignite text now also telegraphs ignite source - The game now makes it more obvious how to extinguish ! CHEM BURN ! - Having Emission Mask now prevents your engine exhaust from igniting fuel spills - Coolant Asteroids are now immune to coolant :o - Heavy Railgun shield delay increased (3s --> 5s) - Tech Vault now comes with two militia classes on long range scouting duty that will eventually tac-jump back to defend the vault - Clarified some tooltips
Fixes - Moved collider closer to tether attach point on non-standard harpoon animations, hopefully counteracting situations in which tethers could not contract to zero correctly - Fixed steer right key not being rebindable - Fixed heart ui sometimes showing as empty when random ry shift triggers - Fixed potential target text load error when targeting an objects the same frame it jumped in as reinforcement - Fixed non-emp explosions being unable to ignite fuel spills (?) - Fixed Swordbreaker harpoons being able to parry a single melee strike multiple times - Fixed obsolete unlock trigger for ship 4 still taking effect - Fixed bad collider on one debris animation - Fixed a problem causing simultaneous fuel spill ignitions to sometimes cause one spill to become permanently unignited
1.010 (Launch) - Slightly increased lock-on distance for in-flight missiles to make doing cool stuff a bit easier - Reworked PDC attachments and all missile projectiles to be somewhat easier to spot and target - Added outlines to payload debris - Fixed loading a run multiple times not loading gear from earlier auto-saves correctly - Fixed health max gained from improvised armor not being included in auto-save - Fixed bad target text portion on ---saved---run--> ship - Fixed old wire explosion system still taking effect when ships with tethers in them get destroyed - Fixed some theoretic scenarios in which the game would calculate time in a wave incorrectly
1.010 (Launch) - Slightly increased lock-on distance for in-flight missiles to make doing cool stuff a bit easier - Reworked PDC attachments and all missile projectiles to be somewhat easier to spot and target - Added outlines to payload debris - Fixed loading a run multiple times not loading gear from earlier auto-saves correctly - Fixed health max gained from improvised armor not being included in auto-save - Fixed bad target text portion on ---saved---run--> ship - Fixed old wire explosion system still taking effect when ships with tethers in them get destroyed - Fixed some theoretic scenarios in which the game would calculate time in a wave incorrectly
1.011 (Launch) - Fixed a upgrade sequence load problem that happens after loading a run 3 or more times (?) - Silker Refit: Now does fixed stat changes instead of being unnecessarily complex - Nerfed all speed bonus upgrades - The game now autosaves when entering a new zone - Fixed Emperor Class Carrier playing PDC phase tell sfx even if no PDCs remain - Fixed Emperor Class Carrier not restocking squadrons in hangars when switching to next small craft phase - Fixed a certain ship you need to recover still being flagged as instacrash, making retrieval a bit difficult :( - Fixed adaption antenna immediately granting shield up when loading a saved run - Fixed Tech Scanner not correctly revealing tooltips for auto upgrade cache contents - Fixed Hammer Lance displaying 0 dmg text on targets without armor - Fixed enemy retreat flag not being set correctly
Launch Week Concluded, Future Plans
Launch week concluded it actually went a bit better than I would have though. My thanks goes to everyone who covered the game on youtube and twitch! That actually had a major impact in terms of people learning that the game exist at all. ---Red---Tether--> shipped 400+ copies so far, about what my previous game did in its first year. I also didn’t expect ---Red---Tether--> to be quite this well received and it makes me very happy that the core gameplay and stuff like the overall sound design really seems to work for people.
Also thanks to everyone who reviewed the game! That will be a major factor in how it’ll do in the future and getting to 10 reviews was a nice milestone. If you got something out of the game and haven’t reviewed it yet then please consider doing so at some point. Specifically reaching 50 reviews would be huge, since that opens up some more visibility on Steam to the best of my knowledge.
Another round of thanks goes out to everyone who reported bugs before and after launch. These reports where invaluable for identifying and fixing some issues I had missed. I hope that I got most major quirks ironed out now, but please bear with me and report if anything new pops up. (There is a feedback option in the pause menu if you need to contact me or just want to join the community.)
Future Plans: ---Red---Tether-->
Half way through development I started to seriously worry that the game would be perceived as too small and the later part of the dev cycle was spent counteracting that. I still had to cut stuff for time at the end, so at some point there will be at least one content patch that includes some of these unexplored ideas. More specifically these three RTP members might find their way into your unit: Internally they are titled the hazard squadron, since all three come with signature tech that can inflict elemental status effects, both on themselves and other ships. All three also come with additional effects somewhat related to their elemental alignment. You’ll have to progress to the mid-to late game in order to unlock them.
There are tons of other plans, but ideas are cheap so I’ll keep this short. If at all, these things will come as free content patches, way in the future. - Black boxes are nice but IMO the game could provide more context for what is going on. Working towards this I’ve already prototyped a comms system that lets ships captains talk during combat. Extended item descriptions, shown in the item databases, are also on the table. - More hazards like acid and radiation are planned, allowing for new interactions. These could also serve to better differentiate later zones. - Some challenges the game throws at you aren’t explored by bosses that much, the game is lacking a small-crafts-only boss for example. - This game has harpoons and lines, but not the obvious thing to use them on: cybernetic hyperspace-capable fish-things that are also upgrades you get on catch. 0/10. - Being able to unload weapons after you ripped them from enemies might be an interesting concept for a ship. - The game doesn't have enough saw blades.
Also (if you don’t mind spoilers and hasty, messy notes) you can even have a look at the games public dev board, that has most of my ongoing plans for the game listed.
Future Plans: Sleeper Games
Committing to a full release of ---Red---Tether--> was meant as trial run for making smaller, faster, better games, to stand a better chance on Steam through getting launch visibility more often. I think that ultimately worked out and I want to keep this momentum up in 2022. And the way ahead is already planned out. In fact, ---Red---Tether--> was intended as the first part of trilogy of games from the get go. Lets call it the Hyperspace Trilogy for now. These games will all feature top-down 2d space gameplay in a similar art style to tie them together. But they will explore vastly different mechanics and genres. And the second game is already planned out. In fact it even has a prototype, made before ---Red---Tether--> in 2021 as part of another game jam: [previewyoutube="-n4dPjHf2_0;full"] Swirl W@tch will be a ship-to-ship stealth action game that takes place deep inside the pressure hell of resource-rich gas giants. It’ll enter pre-production next week and will hopefully get released in 2022 still. The current prototype is pretty action oriented and has a defense based objective, but I want to move towards more stealth-focused core gameplay and infiltration missions. The final game might play quite differently than what is shown here. But again, ideas are cheap, so I’ll get back to you with a full steam page once I have something tangible to present. Till then, I hope you enjoy exploring everything the first part of the Hyperspace Trilogy has to offer.
Cheers and stay tethered! Stefan – Sleeper Games
Red Tether Version 1.006/7 (Launch)
Adjustments/Balancing - Picking up health while at max now grants improvised armor that acts like regular health, but is lost on zone transit - Reaching 3 hearts of improvised armor converts them into a single filled heart container - Ship 3 unlock now requires filled heart containers instead of just increasing your max - Increased damage ticks enemies receive from burning (3 --> 4) - Buffer Tanks: now grants a filled heart container (instead of empty one) - Punishment System: max shield bonus increased (20% --> 25%) - Silker Refit: shield penalty per sacrifice reduced (20% --> 15%) - Background color option now also affects color change during heart damage invincibility - Slightly increased collider size on most debris - Increased health drop rate (in terms of how health drop chance gets reduced after health is droped, -100% --> -50%) - Ripping upgrades now delays wave spawns and picking up upgrades resets the delay, reducing situations in which you would get pressured before picking up your tech - Elite Destroyers: Increased delay between jump position marking and actual tac-jump (1.5s --> 2s) - Elite Destroyers: Brawler Custom now carries hardlight horn instead of shock spire; also has more specific target text now - Elite Destroyers: Brawler Custom melee projectors go on cooldown when jumping - Elite Destroyers: Arbalest Custom A now carries regular PDC instead of ultra variant - Planet Killer Asteroid now calls in the big guns if you manage to use up all asteroid ammo without destroying the big rock itself - Advai has a couple new tips in store
Fixes - Removed pitch change from reel sfx (potential crash cause on a small portion of systems) - Fixed float text from harpoon impact effects not being displayed at harpoon position - Added some safeguards to revert endless target text glitching (source yet unknown) - Added fallback for situations when the game fails to spawn a boss in wave 20 (cause yet unknown) - Fixed top speed limit taking effect even when boosting counter-directional to your inertia, leading to occasional uncontrollable drift - Fixed screenshake option not taking effect - Fixed player still having collision and taking damage after ship destruction (?) - Fixed optical flare from datasheets sometimes remaining in scene after transit (?) - Fixed some potential problems when multiple reinforcement marks exist simultaneously
Known issues: -Turns out some controller models use axis combinations not currently supported by the game. To accommodate this, I'll be switching to a system that lets you bind left/right and up/down axis separately, hopefully with the next patch. -Chainlinker sometimes doesn’t work after loading from a save (?) -Items sometimes don't show up on the pause screen (circumstances yet unknown) -Fuel spills rarely don't get removed after burning, or never ignite (cause yet unknown) -Pause rarely has the game continue in the background until paused again (cause yet unknown)
1.007 (Launch) - Controller: Left/Right Axis is now bound separately from Up/Down for both axis option, allowing use of controller models that don't group their stick axises as XY/RZ/UV - Damage resist sfx now needs higher resistances to start playing (no longer enabled on everything by Armored Shields) - Added minor vfx for Foam Nozzle fire suppression rate taking effect - Fixed ry-shifting text still happening on non-transparent target text, leading to something akin to text doubling - Fixed missing sound on windows when acquiring improvised armor - Minor changes to how small craft destruction and squadron objects are handled when small craft are destroyed - Silker Refit: Now also grants 10% harpoon shot speed per sacrifice - Unknown Ship Prototype: Health increased
