v0.54.4 — three new bosses a sniper rework & save-system fixes

Clearance Defence Playtest · published

Three new wave 10 bosses


The -gnome boss variants have been retired. Each night now ends with its own distinct boss:

  • Sergeant Sizzle — Night 1
  • Colour Sergeant Holebert — Night 2
  • Foreman Pudding — Night 3

Tower balance

  • Sniper Tower: +50% range on the branch upgrade. Snipers are now genuinely a long-range option compared to gatling and standard towers.
  • Boss fights tuned. Bosses no longer melt under sustained fire from a fully-upgraded loadout — they're a proper damage sponge again.
  • New visual indicator on Sniper Towers makes them easier to spot at a glance.
  • Projectile sizing tuned for clarity in the heat of a wave.

Critical fixes

  • Night 1 no longer ends instantly when the first enemy reaches the HQ — population now correctly accounts for HQ staff.
  • Truce phase no longer ambushes you. A spawn loop that was sending enemies at the HQ after the wave 10 victory has been disabled.
  • Reloading after a defeat no longer crashes — multiple consecutive load attempts are now safe.
  • Pre-boss dialogue cleaned up. A placeholder line that played before the wave 10 boss (silent, with a default avatar) has been removed.
  • A class of behaviour-tree race conditions during scene transitions has been resolved.

UI & polish

  • Save dialog: cursor is visible, hint text is no longer cut off.
  • Load dialog: clean row rendering, proper divider between Auto Snapshots and Manual Saves, no more text-colour flash on selection.

Save & Load — major upgrade

  • Mid-wave saves now work properly. Saving during a live wave preserves every enemy, projectile, mission and AI state. Reload and the wave picks up exactly where you left off.
  • Auto-save during waves. A snapshot is taken automatically as waves run, so a crash or quit no longer costs you progress.
  • Cross-level loads work cleanly. Loading a save from a different level than the one you're currently in resumes without dropping state.
  • Pre-placed level structures handled correctly. No more duplicate or missing scene-placed objects after a load.
  • Engineers resume cleanly — no more frozen workers stuck outside the FOB.
  • Tower upgrades persist correctly through saves — your fully-upgraded FOB stays fully upgraded.
  • Walls and structures dismantle cleanly during truce, even after a load.
  • Loading a Night 2 save now correctly takes you to Night 2.