Early Access Update #6 - Laying the foundation for bigger things to come.

Early Access Update #6 - Version 0.6.28

The changes and improvements keep on rolling in.
On top of the changes in the long list below we have done a lot more work behind the scenes to get a better picture of where we are in terms of difficulty and balancing. This will allow us to make very targeted changes in the coming updates and make the experience of playing through a run and fighting your way up the Ascensions more satisfying, with less arbitrary spikes.

No more unfun hunt for chests:

If the map contains something that would give you a persistent benefit for the rest of the run and not just for the level, then it will be revealed on level start. So there are no longer chests with coins, drops or start crystals. While these were fun, they also set an incentive to not end the battle and scout the map until you are certain nothing is left, which is really unfun.

Beta updates

If you want to get all the updates early and help us test out the new changes, you can switch your game to the Beta branch in your Steam library. Right click -> Properties -> Betas and select the beta from the dropdown menu.

See the full list of changes below.

GENERAL CHANGES:

• Changed text element in run result screen, so it should not break in languages with wide letters.
• fixed some texts being in the wrong language in the reward map tooltips.
• removed the chance of burning spawning a fire.
• second chances upgrade reworked to give a chance to ignore damage instead of temporary armor.
• Removed Chests that have run persistent effects, so there is never reason to delay a win to hunt down chests.
• Crashed PCX Transports will be revealed on level start.
• Introduced system word for pure damage and clarified core sniper skill with it.
• Rocket Marine Skill changed to location AoE, projectile hits faster to make up for the loss of tracking.
• Added Version Number to Main menu

BALANCE CHANGES:

• Callback Spire, cost and skill cost reduced and skill size increased.
• Robo Grenadier - range increase, AoE increase, cost reduced
• cf05 hp reduced
• pcx poker hp reduced
• Many changes to the Enemy Setups, to make difficulty curves more even.
• PCX Tunnelers start with empty MP
• PCX Siege Armor production duration raised to 180s
• Mantis mech: cap changed to 3.
• Mantis mech: temporary movement speed effect removed from skill.
• Mantis mech: slight attack speed increase

BUG FIXES:

• don't throw exception if trail of projectile vanishes before impact
• fixed: some languages showed a broken text on level start and objective.
• Sniper Racer passive no longer triggered by Crystals
• added shot audio to beam spirits
• incendiary hovercraft hover effect no longer wrong scale on card preview
• bomb bike and robo bomb correctly have the melee tag and will benefit from hacks and upgrades that are tied to melee.
• mantis mechs should no longer be able to all eat the same unit.
• Headhunter skill now also affects buildings.
• Landscaper upgrade: trees no longer count as friendly.
• AI is now more capable of clearing obstacles on paths they want to follow
• Don't let stealthed buildings be chosen as attack target by the ai
• Turret Drops on small plateaus spawn turrets outside the plateau if necessary.
• Mantis Mech: skill cannot be applied to Mantis Mechs, Spawns or Engineers.
• Robo Warlock attack could not hit obstacles.
• PCX Cocoons now correctly teleport to a random obstacle on spawn.
• AI can no longer attack its own buildings to clear up paths.
• Fixed possible critical exception error caused by the PCX Crashed Transport event.
• Rush Beacons can no longer trigger their charged state message, if they can not actually spawn another Extender.
• Fighting Rush Hack now works as expected
• Heavy Slow Hack effect more reliable
• Reworked several Hacks that rely on Status Effects to trigger dynamically to be more reliable.
• Passive effects, MP charge bot and Heavy MG Tank reworked to be more reliable.
• Spawn Crystal fields correctly on the map even if player start area is separated by obstacles.
• Fixed a lot of the upgrades that falsely could or could not be assigned to certain blueprints.