Beta update #5

tl;dr: big update to save system, armor system rewritten, field scientist changed, minor ship improvement, bug fixes all around

Summary:

One of my players told me a few weeks ago that they were farming Thrax by killing him over and over, getting the upgrade points, then abandoning the run so they could go purchase upgrades... Well, that's not happening anymore, not on my watch (sorry). The save system now saves all major events (like killing Thrax) into the permanent save system, so you can only kill him once (for now). The save system also saves minor events like item purchases, that way if you quit the game mid-way through a run, you can come back to that shop item still purchased (no UI for this yet!.

The armor system now calculates damage more consistently with other modern games that utilize an armor system, and thus the robots in The Cortex are now a bit stronger... I've also given players a tool to deal with this.

In preparation for the new tutorial, I've updated the ship slightly, with a full rework coming soon. It' supposed to feel like home

Finally, the Field Scientist had some of their stats changed. The laser rifle primary fire deals less damage, but the magazine size was increased, and secondary fire range was buffed. The drone field ability now has a longer duration and a shorter cooldown. The goal is to make the Field Scientist feel almost like a support class, except their drone is the support.

Changes:

• Save system now saves major events to permanent data, and minor events per-run
• Armor system rewritten to feel more consistent across all enemy types
• Field Scientist weapon and ability stats changed
• New voices for NPCs in the ship
• Big improvements all around, including the camera, interactable objects, some enemies (both AI and QoL), performance, sound, and more
• New backgrounds in some sections of the world
• Lots and lots of bug fixes, some that have been in the game for ages

Known Issues:

• Still no dialogue for a lot of NPCs, that’s coming very soon
• Backgrounds bugging out in some areas, ez fix, will be hotfixed most likely
• Map sometimes doesn't render. Restarting fixes this

What's Next:

• Reworked Enemy AI for the Raiders
• The ability to sell items to the shopkeeper (+ new items!)
• Finished settings for both the main menu and pause menu, including editing controls for both gamepad and mouse & keyboard
• Actual dialogue for both the NPCs in both the ship and Grimridge
• Entirely new ship and tutorial
• Big change to permanent progression

Thanks, enjoy.
I look forward to everyone's feedback!