Lessons learned and game understood a bit better from initial few days of the playtest.
NUMBERS
Last patch I mentioned that numbers would stop at naneinf. Well initial playtest proved that it indeed did stop at naneinf, however it was so easily achievable that it kind of soft locked some of the save files. Soo now we go past naneinf, into the area of BigNums, inspired by one of the Balatro mods that also does the same thing (that was brought to my attention by one of the community members).
Basically numbers should not realistically ever be an issue from this point forwards.
QUAKES
Ah Quakes, the most problematic skill since the launch of the demo. It has been reworked many times and this time it has just been nerfed very heavily as it was overshadowing every other damage source on the skill tree. Quakes are internally a bit complicated mechanically so for the high level, they will now be roughly 1/5 of the power they had before. Skill descriptions have been updated to properly reflect the changes.
STRIPS
Strips now only take damage once a slammer has actually landed on them. Quakes, Chain Lightning and splash damage can no longer chip away at a strip nobody has reached yet.
COREBREAK SINK
Added Select All button so now you can sink all of your ores at once much easily
Changed formula so that after certain point, each sink costs a bit more. Sink was never supposed to be something that replaces core cracking as a main source of gaining COREBREAKS, especially in the early/mid game. However this will still be monitored to make sure that the current increase wont blow out of proportion
PLANETS
Adjusted few scaling values for planets. Each value displayed is a scale per planet tier
Cytherea: HP growth 2x -> 1.5x, node 1.5x -> 1.45x, strip 1.4x -> 1.45x
55 Cancri e Janssen: HP growth 2.05x -> 1.8x, node 1.5x -> 1.55x, strip 1.4x -> 1.55x
Tiers 1-8 stay exactly the same, these only kick in from tier 9 onward.
SETTINGS
Added support for 21:9 ultrawide monitors. Certain UI elements have been adjusted/re-positioned to better support the wider canvas
Added more max FPS options: 90, 165, 180, 360
UI
Added PRESS KIT button in Main Menu
Play time in stats, save files and such places now shows seconds
Long skill descriptions on skill tree are now split into multi-row
Screen transitions sometimes would refuse to do a transition as a single transition counted till the entire "black shader" would not go away, while buttons were already visible. Fixed the behavior as it could've been annoying sometimes pressing a button in menus and it not responding
Adjusted certain behaviors with Flash Details, namely popups and map dragging are no longer counted as flashes, as it was causing incorrect behavior visually
Fixed clicking Tab while mining allowing you to switch view from mine to skill tree and such
PERFORMANCE
One more pass. Not as big as some others but, certain areas should feel much better.
SAVES
Save files used to have an artificial cap at 1MB size that would cause some late game save files to not be saved any longer. The cap has been lifted.
This section below will be covering specific changes done for the Playtest version of the game and certain changes made specifically in it. Just in case you might want to experience everything yourself.
THE FRACTURE
So before this point there used to be three main FRACTURES: at 10 COREBREAKS, at 35 COREBREAKS and at 99 COREBREAKS. The one at 10 and 35 introduced A LOT of game mechanics at the same time, whilst being very close to only having first two/three planets usually unlocked only.
In order to overall try to slow down the game as well as spread out content a bit more, FRACTURE structure has been changed:
THE FRACTURE: 10 COREBREAKS: the MIRROR and build loadouts (same as the demo basically).
THE FRACTURE+: 50 COREBREAKS: the BINDINGS tree, and through it the Outer Rim
THE FRACTURE++: 90 COREBREAKS + 10 SEALS: DIVINATION and VOIDFOG
THE FRACTURE#: 199 COREBREAKS + 60 SEALS + 30 SIGHT: the ending and unlocked limits
COREBREAK limit per skill: 1 -> 7 at THE FRACTURE -> 15 at THE FRACTURE++ (was 25) -> none after the ending. SEAL limit per socket: 3 with the BINDINGS -> 6 at DIVINATION (was 10) -> 10 once THE VOW is taken.
If your save already had THE FRACTURE open, it now counts as having both THE FRACTURE and THE FRACTURE+. Imported demo saves come in with THE FRACTURE taken and THE FRACTURE+ waiting.
PLANETS PART 2
From 2 Pallas onward, planets become more tougher. First few depths and tiers are more or less the same, however at certain point they become much harder to break.
Unlock requirements have also been updated so you wont be unlocking new planet in like 2-3 runs from a previous planet. While this can seem grindy from the POV of reading the patch notes, it honestly slows down the game properly and gives you more chances to breath and experiment without multiple planets and new ores being thrown into your face.
Re-cracked planets from 2 Pallas onward give a bit less extra ore: tier multiplier exponent 0.92 -> 0.85
From tier 6 onward, cores, rock and strips all grow slower per tier
SKILL TREE
Overall skills requiring Tellurium and later, more valuable ores became more expensive to unlock.
Skills priced in Copper through Mythril have not changed at all
Many of the expensive late levels now also ask for some Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum or Diamond, so early planets stay worth a visit
Heliolite and Noctilith prices on the skill tree went up ~x25
Power and all of its variants went from +0.05 -> +0.005 power on run extraction's multiplier
Added new node to help with Orbital Strikes damage problems: Saturation+ - +40% orbital fire rate per level
ORBITAL STRIKES
As mentioned above, Orbital Strikes struggled with its damage output and was being out-shined by everything.
Base beam damage: 3 -> 50
Focused Beams: +1 -> +60 per level
Focused Beams+: +2 -> +200 per level
Beams now try spawning every 2 seconds instead of every 3
Beams now hit the strip as soon as it can with its full damage
Siege Beams: +75% -> +150% per level
Siege Beams+: +10% -> +150% per level
Focused Beams+: no longer costs Heliolite and Noctilith
Orbital Strikes+ (level 2): no longer costs Heliolite and Noctilith
Orbital milestones beam damage reward: +2 / +4 -> +120 / +240
BOMBERS
Bombers were struggling a bit as well, most of their damage relied on base slammer damage.
Base blast damage: 2 -> 60
Bigger Bombs: +8 -> +190 per level
Bigger Bombs+: +16 -> +560 per level
Attached Bombers: 80% -> 60% of slam damage per level
Attached Bombers+: 80% -> 60% of slam damage per level
Concussive Force: +50% -> +150% per level
Bomber milestone blast damage reward: +2 / +4 / +8 / +8 -> +45 / +95 / +190 / +190
A new bomber's first recharge is now randomized, so big bomber wings don't all blow up on the exact same frame anymore
OUTER RIM
Expeditions struggled with the same "explosive" progression as planets and ore numbers did before. There were few changes done to combat that, e.g. how relic and SEAL payouts are calculated, how payouts are provided. Most of these before were relying on the number of expeditioners proportionally. Now they still rely on them, but much, much less.
On top of this, the way SEAL cuts affected relics has been reworked as well so it would not explode bonuses that would then explode other things, like expeditioners(getting thousands of expeditioners with relative ease), or travel time (getting sub 10 seconds travel time on all destinations), etc.
There have also been few UI improvements:
In both Expedition Manager and per-destination info view, you can now type out expeditioner count manually or use available buttons.
Display of expeditioners both idling, ready to be collected or on an expedition have been updated from visual noise after certain number.
And of course, in spirit of slowing down, unlocking Outer Rim destinations now costs much more ore, although at the point when now Outer Rim gets unlocked, these bigger numbers would not be that as scarier as if it were to unlock at the same time as before.
THE BINDINGS
BINDINGS tree has been repriced as well. Each level now costs roughly what you would bring back from two visits to the Outer Rim at the point you would be buying it. First levels of the shipping nodes only need Heliolite, so you can start on them right from your first few Lumina Breach shipments.
Travel and cargo nodes used to cut a percentage off travel time and cargo cost, which is exactly how sub 10 second trips were happening. Now they add speed and efficiency instead, so they keep helping but never take things down to zero:
Swift Routes, Swift Routes+, Swift Routes#: -6% / -5% / -4% travel time -> +10% travel speed per level
The Manifest: -4% cargo cost -> +10% cargo efficiency per level
Lean Manifest, Lean Manifest+, Lean Manifest#: -10% / -8% / -6% cargo cost -> +20% / +20% / +15% cargo efficiency per level
And the rest of the changes:
Expeditioners+: +1 -> +4 per level
Expeditioners#: +1 -> +10 per level
The Seal: +0.4% SEAL chance -> +4% SEALS from every expedition per level
Sealwright, Sealwright+: +0.6% / +0.4% SEAL chance -> +6% / +5% SEALS from every expedition per level
Seal Hoard: +40% -> +7.5% per level, and it now adds up with the other SEAL nodes instead of multiplying on top of them
Relic Sight, Relic Sight+: same numbers, but it is now +% relics from every expedition instead of a chance
THE TEN RINGS: the relic it gives is now a regular common relic from Lumina Breach instead of a fixed 1% one
GIVE ME TIME now stays hidden until THE TEN RINGS is bound, since there are no sockets to meet its requirement before that anyway
Milestone rewards renamed to match: SEAL Chance -> SEAL Finds (0.4% / 0.6% / 1% -> 4% / 6% / 10%), Expedition Duration -> Travel Speed
RELICS
As mentioned in the Outer Rim part, SEAL cuts have been reworked. Before, every SEAL you put into a socket added +5% to its relic, forever. Now each SEAL adds a bit less than the one before it:
10 SEALS deep: x1.34
100 SEALS deep: x2.25
1000 SEALS deep: x3.42
Sockets and skill tree nodes now show at most 30 rings of SEALS and COREBREAKS. Very deep ones were basically painting the whole board over. The real count is still in the tooltip.
THE OFFERING
THE OFFERING has been toned down together with the rest of the Outer Rim: +0.5% -> +0.05% COREBREAK worth per offered SEAL.
PERFORMANCE
Same as above, just much, much more present and much more improvements here.
Closing thoughts: I hope this will bring the game towards much better version of what it can be. There is still plenty to be done so, yeah. See ya!