Update! Endgame fixes, save fix, improved new player experience, and other improvements
Important: Backup your save files before loading – the save system have been changed, there could be errors.
Changes and fixes:
Fixed: Game still mentions decompression modules.
Fixed: It's not possible to receive instance clearing rewards.
Fixed: Minor save issue.
Fixed: Restoration War: Starts at Deep Path even if it's secured.
Fixed: Restoration War: It's not possible to secure regions destroyed during mission 12.
Fixed: The Machines have less than 9 armor extensions in the endgame.
Fixed: Mission 12 and Restoration War dialogue glitches.
Fixed: The Machines are repeating their mission 14 dialogues.
Fixed: Item highlight hides spaceship during the mission.
Fixed: Shield abilities are not sharing cooldowns properly.
Fixed: Siege cannon collisions with the player
Fixed: Mission 1 carrier collisions with the player.
Fixed: Siege mission controller problem.
Fixed: Save files only work on the device that created it.
Fixed: Map legend clashes with instance information.
Fixed: Damage animation of the Machines is off.
Fixed: Concentrated Fire counter goes into negative.
Fixed: Apex's lasers disappear, when they collide with an obelisk.
Fixed: Wrong restock prices.
Item highlighting is now off as a default.
Objective hiding is now off as a default.
Legionvault and Arcane Arsenal relics now generate parts on all level regions.
The Core region now works the same as the other regions.
Improved instance boss mission objective reminder.
Made scions and other minions with similar AI easier to destroy.
Sell all button in shops is now locked until the player reaches level 5.
Rearranged region selection.
Added shop hint.
Made advanced access more difficult to enable accidentally.
Reduced ether costs of Era's End, Guardian of a Thousand Worlds, Awakening of Inner Power, and Piercing Laser abilities.
Reduced cooldowns of Piercing Laser, Shards of Chaos, and Rapid Fire Mode abilities.
Term changes:
"Jam" changed to "Stun"
"White wave" changed to "Stunning wave"
"Red wave" changed to "Damaging wave"
"Black wave" changed to "Shredding wave"
"Reflect" changed to "Deflect"
Old save update:
To fix Restoration War glitches, loading save files created in version 1.0.2, will change the contested region to Venerion and will generate new missions in all areas.
Update! More XP, mission 12 fix, and other improvements
Just fixing the recent problems:
Increased the amount of experience gained from mission experience reward.
Part upgrade chance and wave chances are now capped at 100%.
Fixed: Minor problems with mission experience rewards.
Fixed: Compressed nodes are not properly uninstalled.
Fixed: Can start a mission in the area destroyed during mission 12.
Fixed: Can move away from the Machine during beacon attachment.
Fixed: Ether gained by destroying seeker's pylons is not rounded up.
Fixed: Map update animation is above map tooltips.
Sector Six: Now out of Early Access!
After 3 years of development, 2 years of Early Access, hundreds of changes, fixes, reworks, and additions - Sector Six is finally complete!
Watch the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f1KipPu1fg
For those who don't know what Sector Six is:
Sector Six is a shooter with many RPG elements: Inventory, procedurally generated equipment, a leveling system, rewards, story missions, and so on!
Your goal - alongside stopping the Machine invasion - is to build the best spaceship ever.
Unlike arcade shooters, in Sector Six won't be fighting more than 5 enemies at once, but fights are more tactical and enemies can take more than one shot.
Most enemies have unique attacks or weak spots, which means that the more you play, the more skilled you'll become at fighting those enemies.
You will also get better at using your spaceship's abilities - there are 31 active combat abilities and 9 of them can be taken to battle.
The final and most important layer of your progression is spaceship building.
Destroying enemies will reward you with procedurally generated parts.
There are 7 rarity grades of parts, starting with generic parts, that are most common and only have one property and ending with relics, that are rare, have 7 properties, unique skins and effects.
There are also part sets, that unleash game-changing effects if you install 6 parts of the same set.
You can install up to 80 parts, up to 9 relics, and have one set effect active - and if you'll find a right way to combine them, your spaceship will become unstoppable!
The better you and your spaceship get, the more difficult missions you can complete and modular difficulty system allows you control almost every aspect of difficulty - even enemy swarm size and mission length!
Increasing difficulty increases rewards, which will allow you complete even higher difficulty missions - so you can keep pushing yourself.
But you can also play the game just for the story.
Each story mission has something that other missions don't have, they vary in length and structure, have dialogues, cutscenes, bosses, special events, and enemies.
So, that's the game!
For those who know what Sector Six is, but didn't play version 0.9.9:
Version 0.9.9 has added the remaining story missions, endgame content, new bosses, relics, and more.
Weapons, ether, abilities, and reward systems have been improved as well.
Read more about what changed with version 0.9.9 >>
For those who played version 0.9.9, here's a list of changes:
Fixed: The apostrophe symbol is missing and a black box is displayed instead.
Fixed: It's impossible to choose Ourend's black option.
Fixed: Time Vortex description wording mistake.
Fixed: Aggression ability mentions "Maximum damage" instead of "Weapon damage".
Fixed: Shield destroys ruins even while inactive.
Fixed: Channel ability doesn't have a cooldown.
Fixed: Impossible to close the mission reward screen after reaching maximum level.
Fixed: Black Rain deals damage based on cooling rate instead of weapon damage.
Fixed: Crash caused by getting armor above maximum with armor generation.
Fixed: It's possible to access missions 11 and above from Sector Five.
Fixed: Upgrading and uninstalling ability uses the same controller button.
Made minor changes to Channel ability sounds and particle effects.
Improved Channel ability level scaling.
Made minions drop more units.
Improved main interface and settings page buttons.
Made beacon stop repairing after a repairing a certain amount of armor.
Reduced minion shield durations.
Returned "Gain XP" toggle button.
Added button to toggle mission objective hiding.
Made elimination mission objective show remaining minions again.
Improved killer's seeking missile attack.
Made new achievements flash when seen.
Changed Concentrated Fire to need reloading every 50 uses, instead of 25.
Compressed parts no longer drop: Instead, use compression modules to get them.
Replaced decompression modules with compression modules.
Made beacons spawn only in level 6+ regions.
Made parts give more part upgrade chance and removed "Part upgraded" message.
The future:
For a week or so, I'll be taking a break from development, while keeping an eye on discussions, comments, and reviews.
After that, I'll be working on weapon, cooling rate, and ether efficiency rework + shared stash.
After that is released, I'll be looking for your feedback to help me decide what the game needs most.
Have fun!
Sector Six version 0.9.9 is now available! Play now!
Important: Your saves will not be deleted from now on.
Version 0.9.9 highlights:
Full story
The story campaign is finished!
Will you stop the Machines?
Relics
The most powerful parts ever!
Each relic comes with unique skin and game-changing effects.
Weapon rework
Modify your ability ether costs and cooldowns by installing reworked nodes and pylons!
Includes new part properties.
Ability rework
Abilities now unlock with level and they are no longer bound to classes.
More possibilities and better progression!
Ether rework
Ether properties now scale with level!
Everything that relates to ether has improved.
Loot rework
Loot quality is now affected by minion strength and difficulty level!
Plus, tons of improvements to all sources of rewards.
Compressed part rework
Compressed parts are now obtainable from drops and region rewards!
Manual compression has been removed to make super compressed - 4 in 1! - parts possible.
Endgame: Infinity Instances
Fight in forever changing, procedurally generated instances of Broken Infinity!
Made for experienced players: Higher chance of rare mission types, harsher failure penalties, and a huge boost to loot quality!
Endgame: Restoration War
Secure every area in Sector Six to get Ultra Aegis, Ascension Catalyst!
Random regions get scaled to your level: Return to low-level regions with a high-level spaceship for the final battle against the Machine minions.
And more!
Avatar customization, Arcane Arsenal, new save system, improved side missions, evolved modification rework, 70 new achievements...
Sector Six will come out of Early Access on September 7th and I need your help to spot problems - more than ever!
I can't guarantee that there are no crashes/balancing issues left, but most of the content should work as intended.
Have fun!
Sector Six Release Countdown: 1!
About 3 years and 8 months ago, I have started working on Sector Six. And now it's finished.
When I started working on Sector Six, I thought that I'll complete it in 3 months. It was supposed to be a small sequel to Sector Seven. I wanted to make it just because I promised I'll have a sequel to Sector Seven.
It was 2015 January or February when I have released an alpha version of Sector Six.
I didn't expect anything and I was surprised to get positive feedback.
It was enough for me to thinking about making Sector Six into a bigger game than I initially planned.
I said to myself: "People like this, and I can do much better so why not do it?"
So I started working harder.
Hundreds of times I decided to rework something because it wasn't as good as I could do, and I'm very glad I did.
Sector Six is not perfect, but it is about 10 times better than I imagined it in the beginning.
And it is like that because of feedback. Every "Great game, but X could be better" made Sector Six better.
I always wanted to be a game developer and make games like Sector Six and I'm incredibly happy and grateful that it happened.
I hope that this is not the end of Sector Six. I hope I'll be able to continue working on it and make it even better.
Sector Six was finished on 21st August. 22nd August was a bad day - I had problems with a monitor, so I had to spend an entire day fixing them.
This day I was testing Sector Six. I have already spent like 8 hours testing the game, and I have only completed half of the story.
Tomorrow I hope to finish testing and with luck, Sector Six version 0.9.9 will become available for everyone to play in the weekend.
Here's a full list of what changed since the last Sector Six update:
Completed:
New save system.
Compressed part rework: Parts received from drops, removed manual compression, added super compressed parts.
Added 70 new achievements.
Arcane Arsenal: Endgame activity.
Infinity Instances: Endgame activity.
Restoration War: Endgame activity.
Added mission 14.
The Machines.
Loot rework: Bigger enemies now drop better parts, difficulty level makes enemies drop better parts.
Ether rework: Ether properties now scale with level, ability ether costs increase with ability levels.
Weapon rework: Nodes now reduce ability ether costs and pylons reduce ability cooldowns.
Ability rework: Abilities now use same damage type and are unlocked as spaceship level increases.
Added 12 relics.
Added mission 13.
Rebalanced ability points: 1 ability point per level.
Added mission 12.
Added mission 11.
Completed – Minor changes and improvements:
Mission 6 boss fights now end earlier.
Improved controller support.
Added new particle settings: Now you can tone down particles, instead of turning them off completely.
Improved optimization: Game will now run better.
Moved tips to separate interface.
Added evolving minion tutorial.
Reworked evolving mechanic: Now minions evolve while attack abilities are not on cooldown.
It’s no longer possible to use weapon amplifiers on engines.
It’s no longer possible to sell items that have no value.
Now it’s possible to use anodes on compressed parts.
Rearranged achievements in the achievement interface.
Improved Ionize ability: Now adds extra 2 alloy per ionized enemy, glitch free.
Awakening of Inner Power ability now supports all mission types.
You can no longer install alloy containers if their level is higher than your spaceship level.
Now locked until spaceship level is higher than 4: Difficulty system, set interface, item management, new missions button.
Improved/replaced certain sound effects.
Secured region changes: Removed manual compression from secured region interface, added highlight toggle button.
Improved shield particles, sounds, and animations.
Shields now destroy ruins.
Spaceship collisions with certain objects are now better.
Improved cooldown and effect timer text: Now shows second fractions.
Improved number conversion.
Improved damage text.
Reduced amount of units dropped.
Improved region rewards: Now includes uncommon and rare rewards, such as five fractal parts, +200% experience, etc.
Replaced gauntlet missions with new retrieval missions.
Changed music system: Now tracks in side missions play regardless of area status.
Changed time vortex: Improved dialogue, can only reset story, made it more accessible.
Changed contribution system: No longer saved between missions, must be claimed immediately.
Improved region destruction.
Expanded dialogue box.
Improved cathodes.
Improved loot box: Up to 170 looted items visible, glitch free.
Updated boss mission.
Improved arena mission: Better loop, supports The Assault of the Modified and The Rain of Fire modifiers.
Improved siege mission: New blocks, minor graphical improvements.
Expanded credits.
Graphically improved loot.
Added region select screen and map key.
Improved mission overview interface.
Improved mission 1.
Improved mission 3.
Improved text input.
Reworked tutorial.
Reworked introduction.
Added avatar customization: Name your character and choose how it looks in dialogues.
Improved spaceship building interface.
Reworked Super Shield ability: Shield lasts 8 seconds and increases armor generated on kill while active.
Fixed inventory leak.
Adapted backgrounds to screen shaking.
Improved dialogue avatars.
Improved settings interface.
Added button that resets settings to default.
Added button that resets controls to default.
Modular difficulty system changes: Flow Stagnation maximum level changed to 1, rebalanced rewards, removed diodes.
Reworked Creation of Energy and Channel abilities.
Improved achievement interface.
Repositioned mission interface.
Fixed weapon amplifying.
Improved ability bar.
Made better ability icons.
Heavy Shield rework: Now called Power Shield, no longer slows down spaceship.
Improved ability and effect icons.
Improved Kithalia’s Blight set penalty
Improved barrager.
Toggle XP gain feature has been removed.
Improved Sector transition cutscene.
Improved pausing.
Improved HUD.
Improved ability level scaling.
Improved item management and filtering.
Repositioned item management buttons.
Stat page improvements.
Virtual and physical weapon clarification and stats.
New part properties.
Improved part names.
Higher grade parts are now more common.
Relic dismantling rewards.
Parts give less damage reduction and reflect chance.
Parts give fewer wave chances.
Improved item generator: Now produces more random items.
Item changes: Changed diode cost, changed certain item sprites, improved item use error messages, improved tooltips.
Fixed story mission X glitch.
Reworked phase break mechanic: Gain additional damage after taking a certain amount of damage.
Channel ability’s ether cost reducing effect now lasts 3 seconds, making Channel much easier to use.
Cataclysm ability has been replaced with passive anti-shield ability: Breach.
Renamed Phase to Phasse, to differentiate it from phase mechanic.
Improved Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity: More powerful, more interesting, and consistent with other abilities.
Decreased starter part limit to 6.
Decreased starter maximum ether to 50.
Starter engine now gives less maximum armor.
Increased starter ability points to 10.
While Guardian of a Thousand Worlds ability is active, Concentrated Fire recharges instantly.
Improved alloy containers: New property, increased sell and buy price, reduced city stock.
Removed filled alloy containers.
Corrected W. warning button tooltip.
Fixed engine glitch.
Improved missiles that appear when player's spaceship leaves the enemy range.
Guardian is now more mobile.
Potentially fixed Black Rain projectile problem.
Region update flashes are now brighter.
Veteran's and revenant factory’s ballistic attacks are now slower.
Improved dialogue system graphics.
Oesa's Radiance set effect changed, now base maximum armor is equal maximum ether.
Damage bonuses now are applied to damage while Lodeon's Ultimatum set is active.
Fixed and improved certain set descriptions.
Fixed many glitches.
Until the release!
Echo #104: End of Early Access, Pre-release beta, and Perfection Project
Here are my plans for the end of Early Access, pre-release beta, and post-release updates:
Release preparations
Testing, uploading new achievements, etc.
Pre-release beta
IMPORTANT: Saves will not be erased after pre-release beta.
IMPORTANT: In pre-release beta, the game is essentially complete. The beta is just in case, I expect Sector Six to be without any major flaws at this point.
During the beta, I'll ask everyone to play the game to find as many problems as possible!
There's a lot of new features and it's too much for me to test on my own.
During this period I'll also be making a new, final Sector Six trailer and updating the store page.
End of Early Access
The big release!
Post-release
During September, I'll be releasing updates to fix glitches and balance things, if needed.
After September, I'll either start working on a new game or continue developing Sector Six.
This depends on the number of sales.
If the game will sell much more copies than it sells now, on average, I'll continue working on Sector Six.
I doubt that it will happen, but it's not impossible.
If the game will not sell much more than during Early Access, I'll move on to the next game. I'll still update Sector Six annually to add the content that is currently missing.
Perfection Project updates
If the game will sell enough copies, some or most of this will be implemented:
- Full scaling support
- Maze mission
- Boss craft mission
- Boss siege mission
- Tomb capture mission
- Tomb purge mission
- Perfected time attack mission
- Perfected arena mission
- Two more bosses for boss missions.
- Improved armored colony seeker.
- Improved mission entering and leaving times.
- Massive parts.
- Intellect Encryption Template activity.
- Lost Regions activity.
- Level 30-90 content.
- Full background overhaul.
- New modes.
- New enemies and ruins.
- 100+ relics.
Minimum Project updates
Otherwise, only this will be implemented:
- Tomb capture mission
- Tomb purge mission
- Perfected time attack mission
- Perfected arena mission
- Two more bosses for boss missions.
- Improved armored colony seeker.
- Improved mission entering and leaving times.
- 30+ relics.
IMPORTANT: Everything between minimum and perfection is possible =]
Like always, I will do everything based on feedback and analysis, so these lists will probably change.
Prepare for the beta!
Sector Six Release Countdown: 2!
Sector Six endgame content batch 1 is done!
I have added three endgame activities:
Infinity Instances Complete areas in procedurally generated regions that are in Broken Infinity to gain loot quality bonus.
Includes instance boss missions and increased chance of spawning uncommon mission types.
Restoration War In the endgame, random regions get scaled to your level, so you can complete missions in low-level regions and secure areas you haven't secured yet.
Securing all 144 areas in Sector Six will reward you with a very powerful relic.
Arcane Arsenal Obtain all relics in the game to get a special relic that will appear in all your saves.
If there will be a demand for more content, I'll add more endgame activities.
Now I will be working on new achievements, the new save system, a few minor things and...
Well, that is all!
The new ETA is 13 days.
I have added extra few days to ETA just in case =]
Normally I'd put task list and screenshots here, but that takes a lot of time and soon it will be possible to experience changes directly, so I won't bother this time =]
I am going to make another post about my plans for the future of Sector Six, pre-release beta, and out of Early Access release, so until then! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1471820178 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1471820169
Sector Six Release Countdown: 3!
Sector Six story is completed!
I admit that I wanted too much from it.
14 different missions, 8 bosses, choices, all those dialogues - it was too much for me to do it flawlessly.
But the most important thing for me was to make a story campaign that is more than just...
More than just a bunch of "go there" goals so that player would know what to do.
So I think I have accomplished that and I'm happy.
Other cool things that I did:
The story is now literally bigger because I increased dialogue font size!
Loot box now shows up to 170 items!
I have updated boss missions to use all minions, instead of just scions, sentinels, and gatherers.
It also supports Manifestations of Destruction and doesn't support The Decision modifiers now, so it's, well, better.
I have added more bulwark blocks for siege missions, now there are explosive blocks that destroy blocks diagonally when hit and blocks that contain loot!
Finally, the arena missions have been improved significantly.
Now they support The Assault of the Modified and The Rain of Fire modifiers, and you no longer need to keep going back to summon new minions.
And now I'm going to work on endgame content!
The current plan is to make the procedurally generated region with objectives and rising loot quality, war to secure all areas, new mission type, and more relics!
The new estimated time of arrival for Sector Six is 24 days:
Completed:
Mission XIV.
The Machines.
Loot rework: Bigger enemies now drop better parts, difficulty level makes enemies drop better parts.
Ether rework: Ether properties now scale with level, ability ether costs increase with ability levels.
Weapon rework: Nodes now reduce ability ether costs and pylons reduce ability cooldowns.
Ability rework: Abilities now use same damage type and are unlocked as spaceship level increases.
Relics.
Mission XIII.
Rebalanced ability points: 1 ability point per level.
Mission XII.
Mission XI.
Not completed:
Broken Infinity endgame activity.
Restoration War endgame activity.
New save system.
New achievements.
Compressed part rework.
Completed – Minor changes and improvements:
Expanded dialogue box.
Improved cathodes.
Improved loot box: Up to 170 looted items visible, glitch free.
Updated boss mission.
Improved arena mission: Better loop, supports The Assault of the Modified and The Rain of Fire modifiers.
Improved siege mission: New blocks, minor graphical improvements.
Expanded credits.
Graphically improved loot.
Added region select screen and map key.
Improved mission overview interface.
Improved mission I.
Improved mission III.
Improved text input.
Reworked tutorial.
Reworked introduction.
Added avatar customization: Name your character and choose how it looks in dialogues.
Improved spaceship building interface.
Reworked Super Shield ability: Shield lasts 8 seconds and increases armor generated on kill while active.
Fixed inventory leak.
Adapted backgrounds to screen shaking.
Improved dialogue avatars.
Improved settings interface.
Added button that resets settings to default.
Added button that resets controls to default.
Modular difficulty system changes: Flow Stagnation maximum level changed to 1, rebalanced rewards, removed diodes.
Reworked Creation of Energy and Channel abilities.
Improved achievement interface.
Repositioned mission interface.
Fixed weapon amplifying.
Improved ability bar.
Made better ability icons.
Heavy Shield rework: Now called Power Shield, no longer slows down spaceship.
Improved ability and effect icons.
Improved Kithalia’s Blight set penalty
Improved barrager.
Toggle XP gain feature has been removed.
Improved Sector transition cutscene.
Improved pausing.
Improved HUD.
Improved ability level scaling.
Improved item management and filtering.
Repositioned item management buttons.
Stat page improvements.
Virtual and physical weapon clarification and stats.
New part properties.
Improved part names.
Higher grade parts are now more common.
Relic dismantling rewards.
Parts give less damage reduction and reflect chance.
Parts give fewer wave chances.
Improved item generator: Now produces more random items.
Item changes: Changed diode cost, changed certain item sprites, improved item use error messages, improved tooltips.
Fixed story mission X glitch.
Reworked phase break mechanic: Gain additional damage after taking a certain amount of damage.
Channel ability’s ether cost reducing effect now lasts 3 seconds, making Channel much easier to use.
Cataclysm ability has been replaced with passive anti-shield ability: Breach.
Renamed Phase to Phasse, to differentiate it from phase mechanic.
Improved Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity: More powerful, more interesting, and consistent with other abilities.
Decreased starter part limit to 6.
Decreased starter maximum ether to 50.
Starter engine now gives less maximum armor.
Increased starter ability points to 10.
While Guardian of a Thousand Worlds ability is active, Concentrated Fire recharges instantly.
Improved alloy containers: New property, increased sell and buy price, reduced city stock.
Removed filled alloy containers.
Corrected W. warning button tooltip.
Fixed engine glitch.
Improved missiles that appear when player's spaceship leaves the enemy range.
Guardian is now more mobile.
Potentially fixed Black Rain projectile problem.
Region update flashes are now brighter.
Veteran's and revenant factory’s ballistic attacks are now slower.
Improved dialogue system graphics.
Oesa's Radiance set effect changed, now base maximum armor is equal maximum ether.
Damage bonuses now are applied to damage while Lodeon's Ultimatum set is active.
Fixed and improved certain set descriptions.
Not completed – Minor changes and improvements:
Rework certain achievements.
Rearrange achievements in the achievement interface.
Lock advanced features if the player level is lower than 5.
Holding shift button to dismantle and sell just one item from the stack.
Improve Techamer's cell.
Improve shield particles and animations.
Intro logo skipping inconsistency.
Make Awakening of Inner Power support all missions.
Improve damage text.
Improve controller support.
Optimize.
Improve secured regions.
Rework evolving mechanic.
Replace gauntlet missions.
Improve collision system.
Add help pages.
Improve background system.
ETA:
24 days.
Progress:
80% of the tasks completed.
I’ll post again when the percentage will reach 90%.
Until then! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1449275471
Possible changes to compressed parts: Need your feedback!
Hi all,
I've been thinking about how to make compressed parts easier to get and make it possible to have super compressed parts.
I have an idea to remove the option to manually make compressed parts and instead make them drop from enemies.
Currently to get compressed parts you need to first get parts you want to compress, then go to the shop, then go to compress mode, then press X on the parts you want to compress and for 5 alloy they will be compressed.
It's overly complicated and causes a lot of problems:
1) It's a lot easier to build big ships than small ones - so players who like smaller hitbox for dodging projectiles are disadvantaged, which is not fair.
2) It costs alloy and currently, it's not possible to dismantle parts in shops, so players get punished for forgetting to bring alloy.
3) The whole compression system lacks tutorial. It means that new players have no idea about compression system and when they find out that it exists, they don't know how it works.
4) Manual compression creates very strange parts! For example, if the player selects generic part first when compressing it with a fractal part, the game will create a compressed generic part. Confusing, inconsistent, etc.
5) Manual compression allows players to create parts with 16 properties, and parts with 16 properties fill the screen with their giant tooltips! It's the main obstacle to making "super compressed" parts, which would allow players to create parts with 32 properties!
I could make improvements to this system - allow players to dismantle parts in shops, add a tutorial for compressing, improve compression interface, rework tooltip system to allow parts with two grades - a lot of work.
The other solution is to make compressed parts appear with the normal parts.
How would that work?
Instead of putting stats of two parts into one part, the game will use the item generator to create compressed parts as they are dropped by enemies.
First, the generator will create a normal, not compressed part.
Then, there will be a 50% chance to turn that part into a compressed part.
If the generator will choose to create a compressed part, the stats of the base part will be multiplied by 2.
Relay
Level 1 super compressed optimized weapon
0 / 4 amplifier slots
Uses 4 part slots
400 damage relay
Generates 4 ether on kill
That's right, if I want to, I can allow the generator to multiply part stats by 4, 5, 6, 32, creating ultra compressed parts, ultimate compressed parts, deluxe parts, deluxe enhanced parts, pro parts, and so on!
No limits.
Because base part cannot have more than a set amount of properties, having compressed etalon with 16 properties will become impossible and tooltips will be tamed.
Plus, I won't need to make a tutorial, the whole compress mode mess in shops would cease to exist, new players could instantly start building small ships, and the variety of parts dropped would increase, so it's great.
Obviously, this new system comes with its own problems.
1) Doubled the number of trash parts! If a player wants to build a big spaceship, all the compressed parts player will get from drops will be useless and current plans are to make 50% of parts compressed/super compressed.
2) Players would not be able to make compressed parts manually - goodbye to perfect compressed etalons with +80% damage.
3) The compressed parts would make the game more confusing for new players. With manual compression, new players would only get confused in shops. With all that compression mode mess.
And I think that is all.
I think that's a small price to pay.
Besides, I can implement relic or something that makes only compressed/only normal parts spawn, and don't spawn compressed parts for the new players, so it's just one problem.
I would implement it right away if it were just for me, but I admit that I have no clue what crazy things are you guys doing with the compression system, so before I do any changes, I want to hear what you think.
In other news:
I'm still working on story mission XIV, I'm expecting it to be done within this week. Hopefully, the Release Countdown: 3! is also near.
Sector Six Release Countdown: 4!
Since the last time I have posted, I have made a new introduction and tutorial, loot rework, region select screen, another MDS reward rework, character customization, and...
And something else probably.
The most important of those is, of course, loot rework!
It's very simple - making missions more difficult will make enemies drop more and better parts.
Additionally, drop quality is now influenced by minion power and whether it is modified or not.
For example, modified dreadnought will drop better parts than the normal dreadnought and normal dreadnought will drop better parts than a tank.
There are still a lot of random chances involved, so don't expect this to be true all the time.
Introduction cutscene has been removed, because it was too long and, well, not that good.
Instead of it, there are several dialogue boxes that appear before and after the tutorial.
The tutorial has been shortened as well, so it takes a lot less time to get to the real game.
Region select screen allows to quickly jump from one region to the other, without using arrow buttons.
This is useful to higher level players and it will be even more useful when the Restoration War activity will be added.
Finally, now it's possible to create a custom character for dialogues.
You can change character's name and dialogue appearance.
I'm really happy with the improvements, but not that happy with how fast I've been working.
Unfortunately, ETA has not moved forward much. Now it's at 45 days.
This is because there were several delays and because loot rework was not included in the previous ETA.
Two steps forward, one step back.
This weekend I won't be at home, so that's another delay, but when I'm back, I'll be working on the final story mission and the Machines.
My current estimate is that it'll take 3 weeks, but if I can do it faster, this will bring the release much closer.
Currently, story mission XIV and the Machines are the biggest tasks on the list.
Completed:
Loot rework: Bigger enemies now drop better parts, difficulty level makes enemies drop better parts.
Ether rework: Ether properties now scale with level, ability ether costs increase with ability levels.
Weapon rework: Nodes now reduce ability ether costs and pylons reduce ability cooldowns.
Ability rework: Abilities now use same damage type and are unlocked as spaceship level increases.
Relics.
Mission XIII.
Rebalanced ability points: 1 ability point per level.
Mission XII.
Mission XI.
Not completed:
Mission XIV.
Broken Infinity endgame activity.
Restoration War endgame activity.
Shared stash in Deep Path to transfer items between player characters.
The Machines.
New save system.
49 new achievements.
Completed – Minor changes and improvements:
Graphically improved loot.
Added region select screen and map key.
Improved mission overview interface.
Improved mission I.
Improved mission III.
Improved text input.
Reworked tutorial.
Reworked introduction.
Added avatar customization: Name your character and choose how it looks in dialogues.
Improved spaceship building interface.
Reworked Super Shield ability: Shield lasts 8 seconds and increases armor generated on kill while active.
Fixed inventory leak.
Adapted backgrounds to screen shaking.
Improved dialogue avatars.
Improved settings interface.
Added button that resets settings to default.
Added button that resets controls to default.
Modular difficulty system changes: Flow Stagnation maximum level changed to 1, rebalanced rewards, removed diodes.
Reworked Creation of Energy and Channel abilities.
Improved achievement interface.
Repositioned mission interface.
Fixed weapon amplifying.
Improved ability bar.
Made better ability icons.
Heavy Shield rework: Now called Power Shield, no longer slows down spaceship.
Improved ability and effect icons.
Improved Kithalia’s Blight set penalty
Improved barrager.
Toggle XP gain feature has been removed.
Improved Sector transition cutscene.
Improved pausing.
Improved HUD.
Improved ability level scaling.
Improved item management and filtering.
Repositioned item management buttons.
Stat page improvements.
Virtual and physical weapon clarification and stats.
New part properties.
Improved part names.
Higher grade parts are now more common.
Relic dismantling rewards.
Parts give less damage reduction and reflect chance.
Parts give fewer wave chances.
Improved item generator: Now produces more random items.
Item changes: Changed diode cost, changed certain item sprites, improved item use error messages, improved tooltips.
Fixed story mission X glitch.
Reworked phase break mechanic: Gain additional damage after taking a certain amount of damage.
Channel ability’s ether cost reducing effect now lasts 3 seconds, making Channel much easier to use.
Cataclysm ability has been replaced with passive anti-shield ability: Breach.
Renamed Phase to Phasse, to differentiate it from phase mechanic.
Improved Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity: More powerful, more interesting, and consistent with other abilities.
Decreased starter part limit to 6.
Decreased starter maximum ether to 50.
Starter engine now gives less maximum armor.
Increased starter ability points to 10.
While Guardian of a Thousand Worlds ability is active, Concentrated Fire recharges instantly.
Improved alloy containers: New property, increased sell and buy price, reduced city stock.
Removed filled alloy containers.
Corrected W. warning button tooltip.
Ability to decrease the level of MDS modifiers even while they are disabled.
Fixed engine glitch.
Improved missiles that appear when player's spaceship leaves the enemy range.
Guardian is now more mobile.
Potentially fixed Black Rain projectile problem.
Region update flashes are now brighter.
Veteran's ballistic attack is now slower.
Improved dialogue system graphics.
Oesa's Radiance set effect changed, now base maximum armor is equal maximum ether.
Damage bonuses now are applied to damage while Lodeon's Ultimatum set is active.
Fixed and improved certain set descriptions.
Not completed – Minor changes and improvements:
Improve the implemented Machines.
Rework certain achievements.
Rearrange achievements in the achievement interface.
Better default controls.
Fix stack buying glitch.
Lock modular difficulty system if the player level is lower than 3.
Holding shift button to dismantle and sell just one item from the stack.
Improve Techamer's cell.
Rework loot box.
Fix loot box stackable item glitch.
Improve siege mission.
Improve arena mission.
Fix dialogue clash with HUD glitch.
Expand dialogue box.
Improve shield particles and animations.
Intro logo skipping inconsistency.
Make Awakening of Inner Power support all missions.
Rework contribution system.
Improve damage text.
Cathode rework.
Improve controller support.
Optimize.
Improve secured regions.
Rework evolving mechanic.
Replace gauntlet missions.
Improve collision system.
Add help pages.
ETA:
45 days.
Progress:
70% of the tasks completed.
I’ll post again when the percentage will reach 80%.
