Enter the Chronosphere - version 0.138.9

Our first content update for EA is here. The centerpiece of today's update are our new "biome eras". We've also added 18 new enemies, 23 new weapons and 21 missions to the game.

Allow me to expound...

Biome eras

Each biome now offers an unlockable second "era". This comes as an extention to its existing biome missions, and offers a permanent difficulty increase along with new enemies and weapons.

Spoilers ahead!

Lillypilly pinned between a Wheely Big and two menacing Dire Clockworkers

A showdown between Urtar and a Bushwacker and his two roughnecks companions (one deceased)

Marcia pinned down hard by a squad of Warmonkeys shock troops

Lillypilly runs into a rowdy group of mole revolutionaries!

Lillypilly tries and fails to slip away from the reprehensible Dronenest and some hovering False Eggs

Bellusect weapons

In addition to the new unlockable rare weapons, Bellusect's starting weapon pool has been expanded with an additional 8 weapons.

Behold the "Dismembered Claw":

Bullet readability

A major area of focus for us is general clarity or "readability" of the game. There are so many little things to tune to remove those frustrating moments of "what the hell hit me?" and "why did I take damage?"

An obvious place to start is making the bullets bigger. We've done a pass on the basic "bullet" type projectiles, bringing them up so that the scarier bullets take up much more screen space. Size is now better correlated with damage.

Note that while the bullets appear bigger, they are functionally the same size—their physics size has not changed, and they are no harder to dodge.

This may be a bit of a shock at first, but we got used to it pretty quick.

Dodge this!

First level

We've made a few tweaks to make the first level less bland and give it a bit more meaning to your run.

We've added a chest that will give you a secondary weapon right off the bat. This chest contains mostly basic weapons and means you can start quickdrawin' earlier.

The space has been opened up a bit so you can get out of there quicker too.

_A typical first level._

Community bugfixes

Shout out to everyone who's out there reporting bugs (via Discord or Steam). As per our tradition we will shout you out if you drop a bug in our Discord. We're keeping en eye on Steam Discussion too, not to mention in in-game bug reporter.

If you reported it, we read it. So keep them coming, thank you! 🙏

• Reworked the distortion Filth Zone to prevent many overlapping poison pools. It now no longer creates poison pools, but applies more poison to projectiles it buffs. (Reported by @iced_lemon)
• The unlock requirement for Lillypilly has been reduced from 60 to 45 floors. (Reported by @nicodemous52, @kindlymorg)
• Replaced all uses of 999 damage to kill player/minions/enemies. (Reported by @juh9870, @keyonchi)
• Fixed an issue causing the Chaining mod to not perform correctly on weapons like Porber. (Reported by @sir.jesus)
• Added a potential fix for a softlock caused by the Masochistic mutation healing enemies at 0 health or less. (Reported by @xgit)
• Ensure Toxic Shot and other similar effects apply to all weapon attacks as appropriate (eg. Shotgun Attachment). (Reported by @darloth)
• Fixed an issue causing Mr Stim's needle shots to apply buffs to hazards (eg. barrels) on hit. (Reported by @pentaberry)
• Flipped the lunge direction of the Starshard to match the quickdraw text description. (Reported by @darloth)
• Fixed kill attribution for Smoko so you can have more Molio. (Reported by @juh9870)
• Fixed Personal Touch being completable by any characters. (Reported by @keyonchi, @.sylverone, @pp3480, @_volby).
• Weapon chests will no longer offer a given weapon if you're already holding 2 copies of it. (Reported by @catastrophy427)
• Fixed a bug where a hidden status (poisoned by player) was appearing in UI when it shouldn't. (Reported by @wifflez)
• Fixed the gamepad inspect cursor line persisting on screen. (Reported by @vershokk)
• Missions are now shown in order based on their thread. (Reported by @seasonsb)
• Mod stations are no longer always consumed when closed. (Reported by @elzheiz)
• Fixed a typo in the weapon mastery objective text for the first 2nd mod. (Reported by @mike239x)
• Fixed volume options being unselectable without mouse when muted. (Reported by @keyonchi)
• Fixed used stations retaining the name of the equipment they contained. (Reported by @.swoopie)

What's next

We've talked about these a bit on the roadmap, in Discord and in Steam Discussions. But here's a quick overview of what we're working on.

Steam Deck verifications

We don't have the Steam Deck "verified" stamp. This should be coming soon, the main blocker is UI scaling. Currently text is a bit small and not readable enough on the Deck.

Gamepad support

Steam have given us the "full controller support" rating, but we're working on ergonomics. Currently it can be a bit fiddly to walk onto a transporter or aim a thrown grenade, something we are keen to improve.

We're also going to add proper PlayStation and Xbox glyphs based on the kind of gamepad you have plugged in.

Please let us know if there's anything else gamepad-related you'd like to see.

Hunters

As seen on our Roadmap. The hunters are very close to ready. These enemies will appear and hunt you down.

Minor biomes

More biomes? Yes. Some lesser biomes that can show up in small pockets in a sphere. Quite excited about this one.

Performance

Many reports of crappy performance or crashes. Yep, it sucks, we're doing our best. We're chipping away at performance issues. If you do find an area that performs poorly, use the "Report an Issue" button in the pause menu so we can take a look. Often it's just one little thing that we've overlooked.

If you're experiecing generally bad performance—we're doing our best to smooth it out.

Final words

Alright! That's all for now. Thanks for reading. Thanks to everyone who's reported an issue, left a review, or simply enjoyed the game. Loving the feedback and we hope you enjoy the update.

You can read the full changelog here.

Get in touch via Discord or Steam Discussions.