This update marks the longest gap we've had between updates since Star Vortex launched into Early Access, so I’ll start by apologizing for that.
The reason is a bit strange. I’ve made a lot of changes recently, and many of them are good / requested improvements, but none of them felt like big features on their own. Last weekend I held off pushing the update hoping to bundle it with something more exciting, but in the end this patch is really a collection of smaller improvements, bug fixes, and things I’ve wanted to address for a long time but never had the time to get to.
That said, this will be the final update before Sector 4 - Phase 1 launches so the next update is going to be a huge! Hopefully you’ll still find something in this patch that you were hoping for.
The game might be on v0.6.21, but the comparison tooltip is probably on version 1,000 at this point. It turns out building a good comparison tooltip in an ARPG is a bit of a fine art.
The new version now shows the full stats of the item you're comparing against alongside the stat differences. This should give you all the information you need at a glance... I hope!
Space is made of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff… or so I’m told. That idea is now reflected in faster-than-light travel within the game. Ships jumping in and out of systems now bend space around them slightly, creating a distortion ripple effect as they arrive or depart.
Alongside this, there are new particles and several visual tweaks to make jumping around the galaxy feel a bit more dramatic and visually satisfying.
This is probably one of the most frequently mentioned issues that was never actually reported, but often came up in passing. Previously, when an enemy was destroyed, all of its active projectiles were destroyed with it, which always felt a bit odd.
There were a few technical reasons why this happened, and fixing it required some fairly big changes under the hood, but that work is now done.
It’s important to me that each weapon in the game it's own identity and purpose. While the Railgun had the unique ability to pierce through enemies, it always ended up feeling a bit like a slow machine gun.
To address that, the Railgun has been reworked. Its damage has been increased significantly, its rate of fire reduced, and its range improved. The hope is that it will now feel like a heavy-hitting, long-range sniper weapon rather than a slower automatic gun.
This probably sums up this update quite well. The loading screens, menus, and splash screens have all received a fair amount of visual polish. It’s the sort of thing that makes the game feel nicer to use, but is hard to get anyone too excited about. Apart from me... because I like hexagons!
Mk IV Ghost Heavy Cruiser Ship Design by Absent Coffee (https://star-vortex.com/ships.php?view=146)
Loads of other changes below. Next update will be big, enjoy!
• Projectiles and pulses now finish their flight when the firing ship is destroyed.
• Ships now emit a spacetime distortion ripple on jump arrival and departure.
• Broodnest is now also equipped with Spore Drones.
• Railgun damage increased by 50% and fire rate reduced by 50%.
• Railgun projectile speed increased from 30 m/s to 45 m/s.
• Point Defense Laser range increased for both variants.
• Deflector Shield recharge delay increased from 1.5s to 2.0s.
• Aegis Shield now reaches minimum recharge delay at higher levels.
• Howitzer explosive radius increased from 80m to 90m.
• Aggressive enemies now chase 4x further before giving up.
• Equipment comparison now shows both items' stats side by side.
• Unique stats are interleaved naturally instead of grouped at the bottom.
• Increased size and variety of background nebulas.
• Added set backdrops for Novus Prime, Genesis and Eden.
• Added Ship Shadows graphics setting to toggle ship outlines.
• Loot filter now hides particles and glow on filtered items.
• Dodge blur now trails behind the ship instead of blurring both directions.
• Dodge blur direction updates in real-time when turning mid-dodge.
• Added Jump Distortion toggle in Graphics settings.
• Hex grid background from loading scene added to main menu.
• Mouse cursor now leaves a glowing trail on hex grids.
• Added glitch effect and sound to splash screen logo transitions.
• Added background blur effect to all menu popups and overlays.
• Added Menu Blur graphics setting to toggle the blur effect.
• Player saves now load one per frame instead of all at once.
• Reduced shader variants included in builds for a smaller install size.
• Improved physics collision accuracy for overlapping objects.
• Fixed FPS drops during heavy combat with status effects.
• Main menu now loads in the background during splash screen.
• Displacement effect no longer clones entire ship object.
• Improved damage trail cleanup efficiency.
• Improved projectile performance during large battles.
• Reduced ship spawning time for large squadron encounters.
• Selected right-click activatable no longer resets after jumping to a new star.
• Fixed weapon aim snapping not working when targeting enemies to the side or behind.
• Dodge blur and afterimages now match scene lighting.
• Fixed unlimited framerate setting still capping framerate sometimes.
• Fixed ship shadow outlines detaching from ships during movement.
• Fixed sprite transparency sorting to use the correct depth axis.
• Fixed comparison slot numbering not matching visual slot order.
• Fixed Phase Shift sometimes leaving ships permanently immune to damage.
• Fixed ship outlines trailing behind ships moving at high speed.
• Fixed warzones not completing after a Broodnest invasion if you died.
• Fixed combat music not reverting after clearing a Broodnest.
• Fixed elite boss music playing from the start on retry after death.
• Fixed ships potentially getting stuck with no collisions after warping in.
• Fixed skip tutorial option not appearing on new player screen.
• Fixed displacement dodge outline not aligning with ship position.
• Fixed hyperdrive jump animation sometimes not visible after loading.
• Camera zoom now works during hyperdrive jumps.
• Weapons now glow during hyperdrive jump instead of disappearing.
• Displacement dash now applies its effect to the whole ship.