Switchcars · published
It's update time! A lot of work was put into bug fixing, as well as some gameplay improvements.
- Fixed ending bug
As you may have seen, the update was postponed for a week after unsuccessful attempts to fix the ending bug. Eventually I dug in and during the last two weeks rewrote parts of the problematic code, which caused not only that one, but numerous other issues that have now been fixed, or at least reduced, including:
- Vehicle rebalancing
There have been various changes with the vehicles, mostly with somewhat beefing up the formerly useless ones, while nerfing the very useful ones. Don't worry though, the changes aren't too drastic, nor they make the vehicles too similar.
As an example, Speed Locomotive has been made a bit slower and rarer, so you will find yourself using Freight Locomotives or Electric Multiple Units more often when looking for a quick way out.
There have also been slight changes with how some physical properties behave, so for example going too fast in a tracked vehicle will produce extra friction, while steering with helicopters will be less agile.
Solar and Nuclear power sources now give more speed than before, and a lot more if stacked.
- Database sorting
Vehicles in database can now be sorted by category. This will be worked on more in the future, hopefully also including more sorting types, such as by production years, production range, speed, or other parameters.
- Street lane
By mistake this lane was never present in The Run game mode nor the database, despite being in the game otherwise. It's only a road with overhead wires, but a nice "addition" nevertheless.
- Many more changes, some more interesting being:
Full changelog:
Gameplay:
- Contextual powerups are no longer given if in the deck already
- Slightly reduced chance of getting a contextual powerup
- Helmet is more likely to be given in the first two stages
- Rebalanced many vehicles
- Changed availability and speeds of trains to make slower ones more useful
- Increased speed and/or acceleration of some slow vehicles
- Slightly reduced usefulness of too good vehicles
- Formerly 2034-2055 Spaceplane now spawns later
- Increased stall speed on Spaceplanes
- Sailboat and Iceboat are now equipped with Grappling Hooks
- Electric Bicycle now uses battery power source
- Supersonic Airliners consume more fuel
- Alien Magnet is now as easy to drive on as the Cobble Street
- Increased strength of Small Bush and Dry Bush to be able to grapple onto
- Increased friction when overspeeding with a tracked vehicle
- It's now harder to steer in vehicles steering with propellers (e.g. helicopters)
- Solar Panel no longer decreases speed of already slow vehicles
- Laser and hovercraft skirt no longer work with solar power source
- Swimming Belt no longer has mass limitation
- Helium Balloon no longer has mass limitation
- Traffic vehicle now reacts to alien attack as if it was crashed into
- Road AI now avoids much lighter objects too (changed from 12x to 20x lighter)
- Removed teleports from relatively flat alien terrains
- Improved underwater friction
Juiciness:
- Vehicles with skis will no longer dip into water if going fast enough
Interface:
- Added vehicle categories to vehicle database
- Added sorting by category to vehicle database
- Added pictures to lane database
- Slightly lifted world on 16:9 to make bottom lane more visible
- Player character in inventory is now shown wearing a helmet, when having one
Bugs:
- Fixed ending not working properly sometimes
- Reduced stage being repeated (still happens, but rarely)
- Fixed too short or non-existent safe zone
- Fixed safe zone gate wobbliness
- Safe zone gate and end of the stage are now synced
- Better minimap precision
- Fixed prevention of objects spawning out of reach
- Smoother vehicle entering
- Fixed Street lane never showing up in The Run and Database
- Fixed vehicles not spawning on Salt Flat in certain years
- Fixed Solar Panel or Nuclear Reactor stacking not speeding up the vehicle
- Fixed drill not going in the direction of orientation, but to the right only
- Fixed drill not working with a Nuclear Reactor
- Fixed flying vehicles getting stuck in moon sky lanes
- Fixed ending music playing when music is turned off in options
- Fixed crash caused by reaching end of the world in Free Roam
- Fixed Tracks powerup reducing braking on vehicles which aren't using tracks to brake
- Fixed installing Armor powerup also repairing a vehicle
- Fixed recharge battery vehicle slot alert sometimes not blinking
- Fixed minimap icons showing in tutorial, after having unlocked them
- Added missing description on Airless Tires
- Redesigned 1.004 Sports Car oldtimer to be smaller
- Fixed pixels of some 1.004 vehicles
- Fixed grapple stress sound being hearable in space
- A few more bugfixes and tweaks
Don't forget to post on the forum if you have any questions, comments or suggestions!