Asteroids ++ 1.3.1 - Speed Utility Refactor and Player Weight Removal
Asteroids ++ · published · build 19460810
Overhauled the speed utility:
Speed utility is now available in casual difficulty, previously it was locked down due to the weight system
BUT speed no longer affects player speed, it now affects player bullets
What does that mean? Some weapons rely on player speed to deal even more damage, for instance, rockets, fireworks and mini rock pods deal damage the larger the impact is. Other bullets get other benefits, like the shotgun being able to reach further down the line.
With this change, the power star utility will be much more useful since you wont go spinning around in places and it is easier to memorize player movement and controls without dynamically changing.
This change also removes player weight functionality entirely from the game. It was annoying that you would never know what kind of player weight you had when you put a certain weapon, and it was getting increasingly harder to balance with more items, so it is removed!
Dash ability and strafing now get a speed buff depending on speed utility, which was supposed to be a thing in the first place.
Performance issues
There was an performance issue where if many asteroids were to be on top of each other, a blend effect would kick in and it was possible for hundreds of asteroids to blend colors which would cause huge lag spikes, especially for yellow asteroids. With this change I hope to reduce lags so you can destroy even more asteroids at smooth framerates.
Let me know if this change has improved the performance
Other changes
Speed utility is now significantly cheaper
Shift no longer activates abilities, as that is now for player strafing
Repair kit shotgun boost nerfed by 33%, other weapons unchanged
Also in the following updates I will continue to refactor some parts of the game to make the development a bit easier. Since the beginning I've got some bad code written down which does stagger development a bit, but even if it's not as bad I will try to improve some areas where I think the game can benefit.