When you start a new game you always have to craft your favorite gear and to tidy your inventory. It's getting worse with higher starting levels. Now you can customize your inventory and save it. You can do this right after you left the carrier, but you have to stay within the custom inventory zone (watch the boundary). Craft your favorite gear, call the ingame menu and click on "save inventory". When choosing your starting level you will notice a new checkbox "use custom inventory" (tooltips included). If the checkbox is checked then you will get your current custom inventory, otherwise it's the known default inventory.
Menu state changing
Now the game supposes that you don't give up. Unless you press "Abort game".
After the player ship has been killed the game performs an auto-restart (if possible).
When choosing "Abort game" you get back to the main menu without further ado.
There is a new button in the ingame menu: Restart game.
Path plotting
Now you can see on the map where you have been already. It won't tell you wether you have seen all niches and spots, but it's a helpful assistance to your memory. (Please watch fullscreen and be patient until HD is enabled) [previewyoutube="ovJG2zONjT8;full"]
Explosives mainly
[previewyoutube="LoxZtJdSTMk;full"]
Sawgun
As you know the original single sawblade has been replaced by 3 sub-blades. Each of these sub-blades deals half the damage of the former single sawblade. This results in 3 x 0.5 = 1.5 times the original damage. But this was unnecessary. The sawgun should be a beginners panic weapon. Its main purpose is to keep the attackers at bay, nothing more. So I reset the damage according to the following equation: 3 x 0.33 = 1.0
Grenade launcher & shrapnel launcher
The particular role of these weapons should be to deal much damage in short time. It can be dangerous but you can get rid of drillers quite fast. Changes:
damage increased (x 3.33)
range of the explosion increased (x 1.6)
clip size reduced (from 20 to 12)
Flame shotgun
This weapon is suitable against groups or bigger enemies (driller, welder) but it lacks range (and power). Changes:
higher range (approx. x 2)
less spread in order to compensate the range
number of projectiles increased (from 9 to 11)
Barrelmine & heavy barrelmine
New single-use weapons. Once dropped the mines wait and beep. The explosion is triggerd by touch.
Shockwaves
How they work: Any explosion makes a shockwave. The shockwave consists of 32 radially fired projectiles. The projectiles grow over time in order to close ranks. Each object comming in contact with one or more projectile absorbes damage. The further away from the center the less the number of projectiles that traverse your ship. The issue: the projectiles are way too big. Even at the edge of the explosion your ship is hit by many projectiles which sabotages the attenuation. In addition the shockwave is hardly noticable. The repair:
size of the projectiles reduced (x 0.15)
damage of the projectiles doubled in order to compensate size
visibility increased (alpha value from 0.1 to 0.3)
Sawgun & Co.
Dear space scavengers,
I balanced some lower level weapons because the chiselgun was way too dominant. The chiselgun is ok but the other weapons don't have clear advantages or they are even dangerous to you.
Sawgun
I always wanted the sawgun to be a real beginner's weapon. Just spamming saw blades in order to keep all the attackers at distance, no skill needed.
- The fired saw blades don't drift endless any more. They loose their momentum quite fast. - Let's assume that the saw blades are fabricated three-layered. Now when firing, the sawgun splits the original saw blade into three sub-blades, the actual projectiles - Let's say that each sub-blade deals half the damage of the former saw ammo. This results in a new damage factor of 3 x 0.5 = 1.5 - The sawgun got a higher rate of fire allowing us to really spam saw ammo
This ratio of one saw blade to three projectiles only applies to the sawgun, but not to the saw mg ff and the ball-lightning gun. (Those advanced weapons rely on the three-layered structure, as you may know.)
Ball-lightning gun
This weapon was tricky and harmful. You always had to fiddle around with your speed and vector while launching the projectiles. Now, like the saw blades, the fired ball-ligtnings loose their momentum too. Just fire and retreat.
Grenade launcher & shrapnel launcher
- When holding the fire button pressed you damaged yourself this way: the shockwave of the predecessing grenade pushed the last grenade back to you. This is over now. The rate of fire has been reduced to a safe value. - The clip size got increased from 15 to 20
Chiselgun
The clip size got reduced from 50 to 40. This makes it slightly more likely to run out of ammo and to turn towards other weapons.
[previewyoutube="inCdrPuiIa0;full"]
Game update #3
Many item descriptions have been edited in order to turn them into helpful statements. This applies to weapons, devices, single-use items and consumables.
Also the class of the selected item (single use item, consumable etc.) is displayed in a separate line.
In addition the crafting warnings have been edited. Each craftable item which is tagged with an exclamation mark (!) displays a warning in a separate line.
For now there are 3 possible warnings:
1. Device already present or included If you have a tactical scanner for example then you don't need another one. You don't even need a separate seismic scanner.
2. Weapon stack already full You can use maximally two sawguns at the same time for example. You will get this warning if you want to craft a third one.
3. Ammo not available (ingredients missing) If you want to craft a plasmoid launcher for example but you don't have the ingredients to craft appropriate ammo (plasmoids).
Game update #2
Crosshair camera
When playing fullscreen on a 16:9 monitor the view range circle extends the top and bottom boundaries of the screen. I suppose this issue somehow applies to all window dimensions. The view flipping mechanism (F key) is intended to compensate that in special situations.
Alternatively you can use now a dynamic camera. You have to turn it on under Settings > Other > Camera. The camera is attracted to the crosshair to some extend.
The effect gets stronger with increasing distance to the player ship which is meant to prevent dizziness. So you will hardly notice it when moving the crosshair within the wider middle of the screen.
Backward smoke
Fixed: The MGs of guards and turrets emitted smoke particles which in parts moved backwards. This only occured when vsync was turned off.
Loot with wrong image
Fixed: Some bigger enemies drop various loot when exploding (trucks, drillers etc.). Sometimes the image of the item was wrong.
Game update
Vsync issues
It's possible that the vsync option doesn't have any effect on your PC. When using a tool to detect your FPS you would see no difference between the 2 modes (on/off). Until now I ignored a third possible mode: adaptive vsync. This is involved now. So when turning vsync on the game tries to enable adaptive vsync first (which is available on some systems). If this fails then the game enables common vsync. And if this fails too then vsync remains switched off.
Hotkeys for inventory slots
Some of you struggle with the mouse wheel and require hotkeys. The 10 number keys (1-0) now select the corresponding inventory slot.
Scrolling boundaries
There is a new checkbox option which stops the cursor at the inventory's top and bottom entry.
Adjustable screenshake
Now there is a slider and you can adjust the screenshake effect.
Weaver webs more durable
In pre-release phase I modified the explosion damage. The smaller the enemy the more the damage got reduced. So now the weaver is only dangerous to you when it captures you for bolters, guards and so on. In order to compensate the gone explosion damage the web duration has been doubled.
Measures to support game atmosphere
Deleted the word "level" Deleted the dialog title "Starting level" Renamed "Knowledge" into "Database" Only showing "Esc = Abort" after a keypress
Savage Vessels is live and playable
Big thanks for your inspiration, feedback, suggestions, bug reports, questions, encouragement, excitement, rage, previews, demonstrations and so on!
That's one small step for any gamer, one giant leap for the dev. ;)
[previewyoutube="uZiTG9Y7cAY;full"]
Extended Intro, brightness control and optional screenshake
1. Intro
The second scene of the intro showed the wreck of your carrier and you could read the text: And every scavenger makes an unexpected find. This has been replaced by a longer scene which shows how your carrier is trapped by the void and when you discover the freak accident site.
2. Brightness
Now there is a slider for the brightness of your display (see settings > video). Please let me know if you encounter issues with this feature!
3. Screenshake
Now there is a checkbox for screenshake (see settings > other).
Loot and Rage
1. Loot
You may expect loot now dropped from killed opponents.
The bosses always drop flotsam (orange marked rubble) containing 2 or more items. You can pick it up later unless the void collapses on the spot.
The common attackers only drop loot rarely. Rule of thumb: The bigger the more often. If they drop anything then it's one drifting item. They drop it as soon as the ship starts to show signs of explosion. It's up to you to grab the item before the shockwave will push it away, perhaps into the void.
2. Rage
Some of your opponents (the original drones) are now able to express their rage. When spotting the player their AI light starts to flare and they emit a corresponding sound. You might be scared but it helps you to spot and classify the attacker.
3. Tactical scanner
The tactical scanner is a powerful tool which even has an impact on the game's feeling and atmosphere. If you want to craft it early then it should feel more painful. Therefore I changed the blueprint. Old blueprint: seismic scanner + AI unit New blueprint: seismic scanner + AI unit + probe + hollow shaft
Screen Shake and Punchy Sounds
Screen shake
a) Getting hit Note: screen shake affects zoom (z-coordinate) increased by factor: 3.3
b) Recoil, depending on weapon Note: screen shake effects position (x/y-coordinate) Increased by factor: 4.0
Sound adjustment
Ok, this is not an "ears bleeding update". I kept the overall soundscape and only edited carefully selected sound sources which felt weak. So I increased the volume of those sounds by various factors and also increased the range in rare cases.
