The graphics are finally getting to where I want them. For the first time I didn't need to create custom artwork for a news post... the header image is just a screenshot taken in-game with the new dynamic lighting effects. More on that below!
Making enemies tougher is one thing, but what about simply having more of them? Thanks to a series of performance improvements, there's now a new difficulty slider that lets you double (or halve) the number of enemy squadrons you encounter.
The difficulty presets have also been reworked. Higher difficulties now focus more on increasing enemy numbers while slightly reducing the damage multiplier.
Ships now support Vanity Thruster slots. These are purely cosmetic directional thrusters that can be placed anywhere on your hull. They automatically fire based on how your ship is moving, so if you strafe left, the thrusters on the right side ignite. It's a small detail, but it makes ships feel far more like real machines.
Since thrusters are positioned beneath the hull, the Ship Builder now displays a silhouette while placing them so you can actually see what you're doing. You can also cover your ship in backward facing thrusters and enjoy a silly number of boost trails.
All preset ships (Destroyer class and above) have been updated with vanity thrusters.
Flames, beams, explosions and engine trails now cast dynamic light onto nearby objects. Fly past an obstruction with your engines burning and you'll see it illuminated as you pass. Trigger a huge explosion and the entire area lights up for a brief moment.
A new Dynamic Glow graphics setting lets you control how far the light spreads, or disable the effect entirely by setting it to 0. A large part of this update's performance work went into making this effect as inexpensive as possible, so it shouldn't cost you many FPS.
When I buff or nerf items, I don't usually apply those changes retroactively. Instead, the new stats are applied the next time you increase the item's level. This makes it much easier to show what's changed instead of players wondering why their damage suddenly went up or down.
The downside is that if an item is already level 100 you couldn't receive the updated stats.
Now you can. If an item has pending balance changes, you can now Recalculate its stats from the Increase Level panel for free, without increasing its level.
As we approach the launch of Online Multiplayer, on August 27th, the trailer has finally been updated and now shows a much better picture of gameplay as it currently stands!
There's plenty more below, including a long list of performance improvements for large battles. Enjoy!
• New Enemies difficulty slider scales enemy squadron numbers from 50% to 200%.
• New Vanity Thruster slots add cosmetic directional thrusters to ship designs.
• New Repair Ray secondary weapon repairs friendly ships.
• Difficulty presets trade damage for tougher ships, more enemies, more salvage.
• Eels now move 20% slower.
• Level-capped items can Recalculate Stats for free to apply balance updates.
• Ice Fabricator ice now looks like tinted glass instead of pale, flat ice.
• Flames, beams, explosions and engines now cast light onto nearby objects.
• New Dynamic Glow graphics slider adjusts light spill; set to 0 to disable.
• Thrusters show a silhouette while placing slots as they hide under the hull.
• Physics now catches up at most 3 steps per frame to stop heavy-battle stutter.
• Ship stat lookups no longer rescan all equipment, speeding up big loadouts.
• Burning, Radioactive and Impaled damage ticks in batches to cut CPU load.
• Auto-weapons reuse their line-of-fire check briefly instead of every tick.
• Ship health bars and status icons are reused instead of rebuilt each time.
• Leech seeds now cap at 30 in flight per ship; extra leech heals instantly.
• Gravity wells scan for targets less often while still pulling every tick.
• Overlapping gravity wells now merge into a single well with stacked damage.
• Glow capture skips ship hulls, asteroids and containers, halving draw calls.
• Ship outline rendering reuses graphics state instead of resetting per part.
• All auto-weapons on a ship share one target search instead of one each.
• Beam shield checks and ship list upkeep no longer allocate memory each tick.
• Glossary max modifier values now reflect the higher Rare and Legendary caps.
• Radar and Navigation star maps no longer disagree on which stars hold loot.
• Fixed an error after a mind-controlled squadron leader was destroyed.
• Fixed Tornado missiles zigzagging at launch due to slow steering damping.
• Point Defense Lasers no longer target harmless missiles from departed allies.
• Undo after loading a template or import now restores your previous ship.
• The Ship Builder parts list no longer opens scrolled partway along.
• Controller selection no longer picks list items scrolled out of view.
• Gravity wells and black holes no longer send snake enemy segments flying.
• Snake enemy segments no longer drift apart when many ships are in the fight.
• Ship Builder thruster slot rings now show above the hull instead of under it.
• SceneGlowFeature.RegisterLine adds custom line emitters to the glow capture.
• New AIController.IsFormationSlaved and GravityWell.TryMerge public helpers.
• SceneGlowFeature.ExcludeRenderer opts LDR sprites out of the glow capture.