Sorry for the bloated patch size everyone! The assets and outdoor city level I'm working on (for a future update) take up a fair chunk of size. When it's complete I can whittle it down again.
For now I have more bug fixes and tweaks for you.
Fixed a bug stopping PayData from being removed from storage between levels.
Overwatch prepwork data will now disappear on level transition.
Re-arranged the Code Bit slider in Oracle to allow for more refined control.
Fixed a bug preventing players from manually transferring more than 10% of their account balance at a time.
Fixed a bug with the recover stolen funds operation. You are required to transfer the entire balance in one transaction, but it was limiting you to 10% of the balance.
Fixed an issue with laundering money (with old save games) where it would sometimes check the wrong account balance, and therefor not register that there was a balance in the laundry account, and not pay out funds properly.
Re-designed the function that purges burned account when the new day begins. Tested and works with a new game, should work with an older save file.
Added a check to prevent players from re-activating the couch while the resting animation is playing.
Made a few tweaks to Cobra's dialogue mechanics.
Fixed a bug that displayed incorrect Gateway speeds in the hardware upgrade menu.
FREELANCE Hotfix #2!
Change Log
Fixed a bug causing bank information to carry over to a new game.
Fixed a bug causing Storage upgrades to be free.
Lowered the initial size of files so early contracts can be completed without upgrading your Storage.
FREELANCE Hotfix!
As predicted, there were a few rough edges that needed polishing.
Change Log
Updated the story missions to use the new payment function (total oversight on my end).
Removed the graphic from the Hardware upgrade window. It was conflicting with the new version of Unreal.
Re-sized the video option and audio option screen.
Fixed the broken layout in the keybind option menu.
Fixed an error caused by a debug code I failed to remove. It was causing all systems to have a difficulty level of 10.
Security Sweeps only occur in systems level 5 or higher.
Adjusted Security Sweep timer to 60 second intervals, up from 30 second intervals.
Thanks for the feedback!
FREELANCE Update is here!
Hey everyone! This update was originally going to be a lot larger, but alas, it seemed to be taking forever. So instead I'll be breaking the major update I had planned into some smaller ones. I have "rolled back" some of the features that I've been working on, which aren't complete, and instead decided to release what I already have complete in today's update. Don't worry this is still a very substantial update. As always, there could be some bugs, or something I missed or messed up, so please report it in the bug reports and I'll tackle the issue as soon as I can.
Change Log
New Economic Infrastructure
Previously the player's money was a simple variable. When you spent money, this variable was decreased and the "money" never really went anywhere. When the player earned money, the Money variable was increased, but never came from anywhere. Now there are persistent bank accounts for the player, and every npc. Every exchange of funds is an actual transfer between these accounts. The player's "money" is now the balance of their active account.
Players have 1 primary account that can never been closed, hacked, or corrupted.
Freelancers can open additional accounts, for $500 each.
Added the "Virtuous Trust Home App" to the home desktop for players to manage their accounts.
Players can transfer funds freely between any owned accounts, that are secure.
Players can transfer funds from any un-owned account, into a non-primary account. Because Ravencore employees only have a primary account, this option is restricted to Freelancer and Company modes.
Players can only steal 10% of an accounts balance, before fraud detection shuts it down. This means no one account will be a huge payday without multiple transactions.
When stolen money is transferred into a player account, the account starts "burning". Money cannot be transferred from a burning account into the primary account. At midnight all burning accounts are "burnt" and the player loses them, along with any remaining balance. You can still spend money from a burning account without issue before it is burnt.
New Freelancer Gameplay Features
Steal money from bank accounts. Players can open a burner account for $500, dump all their stolen money into it, and try and spend the balance before midnight.
Money laundering. An alternative to straight up stealing funds. A new npc will give you a special account to dump stolen credits into. They will clean them slowly, and transfer legitimate funds into you active bank account... for a commission of course. You can invest money to increase the rate at which funds are cleaned.
PayData. Search datastore nodes for files that may be valuable, and sell them to a new npc. The higher level the node and HOST, the more valuable data than can be found. There is variation, so sometimes a valuable looking file may be worthless, or be worth a small fortune. Searching for PayData forces a HOST masking test, so it can be risky.
Ravencore Changes
Instead of a random assortment of contracts, once you are rank 2 (so after 2 promotions), you will get 1 contract of your rank, 1 contract of 1 rank less, and 1 contract of 2 ranks less. This will ensure there is always contracts that can be worked, and a promotion won't cause a severe difficulty spike.
Reworked the way contract difficulty is calculated. Contracts now have a base difficulty of (1+(2*(Rank +1)). Basically the difficulty of contracts starts at 3, and increases by 2 for every rank past 0.
Players will earn 20% commission at every rank, instead of the commission increasing per rank.
Complete rebalancing of salary, quota, and promotion thresholds. Players should now be promoted to a new rank, after (roughly) earning enough money that they should be powerful enough to actually complete the contracts. The salary has increased in general to offset not only the increased thresholds, but to make it competitive with Freelance income (although still a fair bit less).
Daily quota has been reduced by 5%. Just some extra wiggle room to complete Operations, and accelerate promotions.
Hacking Changes
Accruing Tracking Tags equal to your Masking no longer causes you to crash instantly. Now a countdown will commence, similar to a system crash, but with a duration based on your Masking and Stealth vs the HOST level. When the countdown completes, the HOST has located and severed your connection to the system.
Introduced a new type of damage, called BURN. Burn damage reduces your attribute rating, and unlike TAGS, cannot be removed (until you log out).
Introduced a new masking test, a HOST test, that occurs when you perform overt, and obviously illegal actions within the system, such as scouring for PayData, or stealing money from bank accounts. HOST tests are 30% harder than normal to resist, and inflict Burn damage to your Masking Rating, instead of adding Tags.
Breach tags which previously "damaged" the Firewall, now use the term "BURNED", as they are functionally the same.
The Avatar Display now displays how many point of each attribtued are BURNED in addition to their Rating and Tag count.
Added Security Sweeps. Every 30 seconds in the system, the HOST will roll a test to try and detect you, making a HOST test.
Added an "Analyze %" display to the Analyze window. This will make it easier to know how many Analyze Tags are required.
Oracle Changes
Subroutines can be removed by clicking on them in the Program Suboutines window.
Replaced the Code Bits buttons with a slider to easily add and remove Code Bits.
Cleaned up several UI elements.
Misc. Changes
Migrated game to the latest Unreal Engine version.
Added Audio Control option to the pause menu, where you can adjust the Master, Music, and Sound Effects volumes.
Overhauled the music and sound systems. Replaced the program execution and IC sounds effects. Added more UI sound effects. Added walking and jumping sound effects. Added sound effects in Root Access when commands are entered.
New hardware: Storage. You can no longer hold infinite files. Instead each file has a size, which takes up room in your Data Storage. Upgrading your Storage, allows more data to be held. This will be important for a Freelancer trying to farm PayData.
Reworked and re-balanced transfer rates. Files now have varying sizes, and transfer speeds are directly proportionate to your Gateway speed. For example, with a 5GBps Gateway, it would take 4 seconds to transfer a 20 GB file.
Re-balanced Gateway speeds to give more value to higher level Gateways.
Polished the Avatar Status UI, it now looks much better.
Updated all dialogue UI, and added a camera focus for each npc while talking with them.
Nodes shells are now translucent, to give a better idea of what the node is at a distance.
Data files have a new, sleeker look, and now display their size in the title for easy reference.
Adjusted Bonus pay for employees down from $1000 per rank, to $100 per rank.
Bug Fixes
Fixed the tutorial line that said "run [logeditor]" to say "run [log_editor]".
Fixed a bug that was making the Analyze Tags not function properly.
Fixed a bug that was causing the number keys to play sound effects after running Passbreaker, even after it closes.
Thanks for your patience!
-Southwind
FREELANCE Update is coming along, but we aren't there yet...
It's been a little while since the last patch, and I just wanted to assure everyone the Freelancer Update is coming soon! This update will be adding a bunch of new features to the game, more content, and an overhaul of the System Generator!
Thanks for your patience!
-Southwind
Patch #42 is Live!
Change Log
Story missions no longer take up the only slot in the contract list.
Prevented players from going to a certain Unlisted system until after reading the Mirage email.
Fixed a bug with Oracle, where the function was resetting the variables, before the allocated code bits were set to 0. This was causing the next program to be created to be treated as if it had the same amount of code bits as the last program.
Fixed a bug when skipping the resting movie, where the effects of resting wouldn't trigger for 9 seconds (as if the Movie wasn't skipped).
Fixed a bug with that was preventing your Avatar from crashing when your Body tags were maxed out.
Fixed an inconsistency with the Patch update version of motherboards wich was lowering the Response by 2.
Fixed a bug with the Patch update function that was causing it to fire every time you reloaded the Home level. This causes the tutorials to reset every time.
Fixed a bug that was causing the interview dialogue to dissappear.
Combat Update 2.5
This update see some major updates to the combat 2.0 system, in addition to a dozen or so bug fixes and a bunch of misc. tweaks and adjustments. The goal of the update is to make combat more interactive, and make the player's actions have an immediate effect (instead of just swinging and missing most of the time). I think this is a great middle ground between the old system, and the 2.0 system.
Change Log
Breach programs now permanently reduce IC Firewall instead of adding Tags. Reductions to player Firewall is semi-permanent, being restored when you leave the system. This is akin to a crippling wound.
All programs now add a Breach Tag when they are blocked by the Firewall, effectively weakening, and wearing it down. This is akin to exhaustion.
The only IC with Breach subroutines are now Blaster and Maelstrom. They will weaken your Firewall until they have a 2-point advantage, and then shift to Disruption subroutines.
Breach Tags are removed when combat ends and your Firewall has a chance to recover.
During combat, you can use the Fortify action to remove up to 3 Breach Tags. This can be done on when your Avatar is off cooldown, and not executing a program. There is a button on the HUD to the left of the action bar, or you can use the Spacebar to Fortify. Most IC will also Fortify, with a 33% chance per Breach Tag they currently have.
Breach Tags are no longer automatically healed.
"Attack" success chance has been rebalanced from base 85% to 50%. This seems like a sharp decline, but now that "failing" an attack inflicts a Breach tag, follow-up attacks will have a greater chance of success. This also helps to enforce the importance of the Fortify action.
Player skill weight in attack tests has been capped at 1.5 times the program rating. Previously, for example, a rating 2 program with a skill of 6 would have an effective rating of 8. Now using the same numbers, the effective rating would be 5. This helps to maintain the viability of higher level programs and mitigates an issue where players could spam fast, low-level programs to wear down the IC Firewall and start dealing damage.
Player Disruption, Static, Daze, Spam, and Misdirection tags have a chance to "cascade", inflicting up to 2 additional tags. The chance is based on your Program rating and Virtual Combat vs the HOST level.
IC Disruption and Spam have a chance of cascading based on the HOST level. There is a 10% per rank of inflicting a second tag. If a second tag is inflicted, there is a ((10%
rank) -50%) to inflict a third tag. If a third tag is inflicted, there is a (10%
rank) -100%) to inflict a fourth tag. Using this formula, IC can currently inflict upwards to 6 tags per program execution at high level, with each extra tag adding an extra -50% to the odds.
Significantly increased the CORE rating of all IC.
Doubled the BODY cap on all motherboards.
Reduced the base cost of BODY upgrades from $25 to $15 (with a 30% increase per rank).
Changed program Element "Require-Disruption 3+" to "Require-Disruption 6+".
Reduced base movement speed by 25%.
Increased system crash time from 10 seconds to 13 seconds.
The intro-story scroll now auto-skips one second after the voice stops and no longer waits for the player to click.
Valentino's response to your name in the Interview phase now lasts 2 seconds instead of 1.
Adjusted the tutorial window size, and text-wrap settings to prevent the sentences from being cut off.
Fixed several spelling errors.
Fixed a bug with the Enter Net button that would sometimes cause it to not fire.
Fixed a bug with the Recover Stolen Data operation preventing it from displaying the proper system logs, and being completed.
Fixed a bug with Traps not applying tags properly.
Fixed a bug with the Ravencore rank progression causing promotions too early.
Fixed a bug with Analyze subroutines not revealing hidden data caches.
Fixed a bug with the initial salary and quota being incorrect the first day.
Fixed a bug that was only penalizing the player $135 instead of $270 for a "demotion" at rank 1.
Fixed a bug that was preventing the story missions from appearing in the list.
Fixed a bug that could cause Ravencore Attributes to exceed 5.
Fixed a bug that allowed you to over-repay your loan.
Fixed a bug preventing "Efficient Design" from discounting your program properly.
Patch #41 is Live!
Major changes to combat, economy, and ease of gameplay with spattering of misc changes and bug fixes. The early game gets some love, with some effort to push most of the grind to the mid and late game.
Change Log
Drag and dropping a data file into the window it came from will no longer cause a transfer.
Jumping off of the edge and missing a lower platform will no longer teleport you to the System Access. You will now be transported to (roughly) where you jumped from.
The Status screen, Program Library, and Journal are now all held in a parent menu. Opening one will give you quick access to the others. This menu is also accessible from the home computer.
You can now skip the Rest movie, the Jack-In movie, and the Net Navigation movie by left clicking.
I have increased Ravencore's potential job offers. There is a 50% a second contract is offered, and then a 25% a third contract is offered. One of the only real upsides currently with Freelancer was the amount of contracts to choose from, and I wasn't comfortable taking that away. With the next major update (focusing on Freelancer gameplay) that will all change, so I'm comfortable now loosening up Ravencore's job offerings.
Double all base pay from salary and contracts.
Lowered the base pay of hardware from $40 to $25, but inceased the cost increase per rank from 5% to 30%. This makes the lower-end hardware more affordable relative to income, and pushes "the grind" onto the late-game characters.
Rebalanced Programming cost to be similar to hardware. It will be cheaper and more accessible early game, and more expensive late-game.
Increased the Processor Discount rates from $4.90 to $10 per 8THZ.
Radically increased movement speed in the Net. Celerity now increases move speed by an even greater degree.
Systems now crash 10 seconds after issuing the reboot command in the CPU.
Players now begin the game with the Onion mod, which adds 3 sheild tags at the beginning of combat.
Re-worked the way IC handles program execution. Previously they just ran the program, and the player made a test to resist. Now they make the same "attack" test as the player.
Reworked the attack tests. All combatants will have a greater chance of hitting higher level targets. An Avatar or Firewall with no Breach Tags gains a bonus, making it even harder to affect them. A single Breach tag will now have a significant effect, with additional Breach Tags further decreasing the effective Firewall rating.
During their activation phase, the Avatar and IC will remove 1 Breach tag. In order to
really* Breach an IC, you will need multiple Breach subroutines in one program, or slow their Activation with Spam in order to bog them down. This is happens before virus checks, so a Corrosion virus will always keep a Breach tag on the IC (until removed).
Skills no longer factor in to resisting IC attacks, but the ECHO bonus will.
If a program with a Breach subroutine gets blocked by the IC Firewall, each Breach subroutine will roll again to see if they can still apply a Breach Tag. This makes it much easier to "Breach" a higher level IC. IC do not have this bonus.
Purge subroutines will work 100% of the time, regardless of the IC Firewall.
Programs used outside of combat will always succeed, but are still subject to Masking tests. Literally reversed this change from the last patch after some more playtesting, Makes more sense thematically as well.
The Combat Log now clearly states when an IC inflicts a Tag on you.
The Combat Log lines have been color coordinated. White is a player action. Red is an IC action, or negative effect.
Increased the difficulty for Masking tests when passing through checkpoints.
Running a program forces a normal Masking test, and if you fail, you get a second chance with a penalty before a tag is inflicted. The previous version had less of a chance per test, and both tests were equal chances.
Fixed a bug that was not reseting contract variables after completing an Overwatch mission.
Fixed a bug with the Exodus IC trace time. It's now 10 seconds, plus (Masking-IC_Rating), with every Misdirection tag adding 3 seconds to the timer.
Fixed a bug with the Purge queue icons not being displayed.
Fixed a graphical bug with the Dead End IC.
Fixed a bug when upgrading Masking, where the cost wouldn't update.
Fixed a bug with the Extractor subroutine, not having a proper icon (which was causing other issues).
Fixed a bug where an IC with an effective Firewall of 0 (due to tags) was able to resist most programs.
Patch #40 is Live!
I have updated the screenshots to the most recent version of the game! The trailer is on the works. In the mean time I have yet another patch full of bug-fixes, balancing, etc ect. Full change log below.
Change Log
Updated the Retrieve Account Statement contract to require the player to crack open the target account, and download a summary within, instead of downloading the entire account file.
The game now checks for Stealth skill increase after every Masking test.
Updated the tutorial to also explaint the Power attribute when breaking down the IC attributes. This won;t appear in existing games.
Fixed a bug when turning in Operations, where the objective_complete wouldn't be set to False, allowing the player to spam the turn in button for multiple rewards.
Fixed a spelling error in the Exodus IC logic, which was preventing it from running the Trace subroutine.
Completing regular contracts no longer removes available Operations.
Updated the description for the level 4+ Support that referenced a Gauntlet. It now references the training program. The gauntlet will be added in the future.
Changed the function of the level 5 Support power "Interference" to wipe all the player's tracking tags once per week.
Updated the job descriptions for Crash System contracts to reflect the command migration to Root Access,
Fixed a bug with Purge programs that was causing the to fire less than 50% of the time. Also updated the description to clarify that the program still has to be executed successfully as well.
Fixed a bug with Breach tags not working properly.
Fixed a bug with IC that would cause them to get stuck in an infinite loop if they have no valid programs to run when they activate. They will now skip their turn, and check again during their next activation.
Reworked Repulsion Field IC. It has significantly weaker Firewall, and a lower Core rating. It now has a Repair program to remove Core and Link tags. The key to defeating this IC is now out-racing it's regeneration, or suppressing it's program with your Firewall.
Rebuilt the way Oracle handles increasing/decreasing program CPU Load. It's now much more smooth, and prevents a bug where a rating 1 program with the lowest Heat and CPU Load woyuld have a complexity of 0.
Fixed a bug where running a program outside was always successful. Programs run outside of combat can still fail, using the HOST level instead of the IC Firewall as difficulty.
Failed programs in Combat will not force the usual Masking test, but programs ran outside of combat will always run a Masking test.
Fixed a bug with the Extraction subroutine preventing it from adding Datamine tags.
Patch #39 is Live!
Change Log
Re-Balanced Overwatch to pay approximately 25% more than what a full day of pulling regular contracts would pay.
Account Statements can no longer be downloaded.
Re-worked the Motherboards to have proper Response ratings.
Fixed a bug where Analyze and Datamine subroutines used outside of combat would apply to the next IC you encountered.
Fixed a bug with the "Harvest 100 Code Bits" quest. It should be working properly now.
Fixed a bug where a Tutorial button would pop-up multiple times for some tutorials, if the tutoirals trigger was activated mutiple times.
Fixed a bug where the Ravencore Operations button would appear when there were no valid Operations.
Fixed a bug in Oracle where the Program would take much longer to build, than the time displayed.
Tweaked the build time in Oracle to be in 1 minute incriments instead of 5.
Fixed a bug with Oracle that was requiring the add/remove buttons to be clicked once before they could be shift-clicked.
Rebuilt the function for adding/removing Code Bits in Oracle, that now prevents players from gaining a bunch of free bits.
IC now checks at the top of it's turn whether it should be dead based on it's tags. Previously it only checked after the player ran a program. This was stopping viruses from delivering the killing blow.
Fixed a bug with the Clamp subroutine where it wasn't applying it's effect, forcing Exodus IC into an endless loop. They should now clamp and trace.
Built a function to remove the Target File for Operations from your storage when they are turned in.
Added two "secret" commands to the Root Access that can only every be used once. One gives the player $2500, and the other gives the player $8000. They are a way for me to assist players who may have been negatively affected by patches. The codes will change over time. If you would like a code feel free to message me! If the codes leak, they will be changed.
Fixed a Tutorial bug that was causing it to display the wrong info. This was actually a bug with the engine, which sort of threw me.
