Wrath and Retribution news & patch notes

This week's update 1.5 is here and again several aspects of the game get some nice tweaks and improvements - alongside some important fixes.

One of the highlights is the increased incentive to try out new gear, because occasionally you will find higher-level items instead of just items at the starting level 1. Also destroying turrets and other subsystems of a battleship now causes additional damage to the main ship up to a certain threshold - significantly reducing the time it takes to finish off those enemies after you've taken care of turrets. And a bad bug has been fixed which caused modules to be assigned to inaccessible slots - there are additional notes for this below.

As always: Enjoy and have fun!

Changelog 1.5

• Destruction of a subsystem like turrets now inflicts damage on the main enemy ship, significantly reducing the time it takes to destroy a battleship after you took care of turrets

• Added a probability to grant higher-level reward items based on your current equipment levels to incentivize additional build configurations

• Made all Merlin skills appear more often

• Made Reactor Overload appear in Mars hub only in “High” instead of even “Substantial” reward level missions

• Granting 10% resp. 20% more credits in the two later hubs

• Reduced Arcvolt shot audio

• Reduced Lightlance shot audio

• Increased likelihood of debris spawning in missions

• Increased likelihood of low and mid density debris

• Fixed an issue causing weapons and modules to disappear in unavailable slots after upgrading while having the Refabrication Kit equipped, becoming unmanageable

• Fixed enemy shields getting reactivated to full strength when systems recovered after EMP damage

• Fixed Drauger shields being reactivated after system EMP damage although shield generator was destroyed

• Fixed enemy systems not recovering after getting full EMP damage

• Fixed Saturn missions not taking place in relative location to the planet

• Fixed display of Shield Recharge Rate % value in Upgrade screen

• Fixed the Discord button in the main menu locking the menu navigation when using a gamepad

• Some fixing and cleanup behind the curtain

Additional note about the Refabrication Kit module slot fix:

This issue lead to modules being assigned to inaccessible slots (e.g. locked) when the Refabrication Kit was active - specifically if you have a level 1 module equipped, and get a level 3 upgrade as a reward. The level 3 item would potentially end up in an invalid slot. Weapons were unaffected, but the fix below cautiously treats them the same way.

The game automatically tries to fix the situation when loading the save game. The following rules apply in order:

Loadout Profiles

This time the new update brings some nice features that I have been cooking lately and - next to other stuff - deals with two primary wishes from the community:

Firstly, the EMP weapons and system received a huge upgrade which makes those weapons more powerful and versatile - they bring down shields like before, but they may also block shield recharging, a ship's engines, or a turret's targeting. They break any targeting lock now, and enemies have received more variants with EMP based weapons.

Secondly, you may now manually reload your weapons! That'll give you more control during battles and saves you from emptying the weapons just to be loaded up. The key for cycling weapons in their slots (default: "1" and "2") will now reload if pressed for a slightly longer time - next to the cycling behavior on tapping!

Apart from that there was some more stuff that I added. Below is the full changelog.

As usual: Have fun and enjoy!

Changelog 1.4

• EMP weapons now cause additional effects on enemies: Shield recharging blocked, engine failure, target acquisition blocked, depending on the damage to the “systems” (only affected by EMP). Systems damage is caused if shields are down and the enemy’s hull is hit with EMP damage.

• Target Lock is lost upon EMP damage (applies to enemies and player)

• New EMP variants of Hound, Grendel, Ogre and Drauger enemies added

• New codex entry for EMP damage added

• Possible enemies have been adjusted and reworked for each hub, primarily for new EMP variants

• Fixed Hound and Grendel inability to fire more than one missile per mission

• Added setting to toggle boost instead of keeping pressed (default: off)

• Added additional visual engine effect when boosting

• Increased screen shaking a bit when boosting

• Replaced Merlin Voice Overs

• Improved visuals of locations on Hub map to allow better distinction between visited, out of reach or normal

• Added ability to manually reload weapons

• Added 3 additional levels for shield and hull durability

• Fixed some turrets missing shield visuals

• Fixed sub system markers being barely visible

Howdy again!

Right for the big Steam Summer Sale I have some very nice additions to the game - most importantly: All text is now available in German language too! I might add other languages in the future too.

There are also some additions, balancing changes and fixes included - overall a quite nice list this time around. Below is the full changelog.

Hope you enjoy! Have fun!

Changelog 1.3

New

• German language added (excl. voice overs)

• Added ability to change language in settings

• Showing range information for all weapons in details views

• Showing additional small out of range indicator in HUD

• Added additional shield damage threshold audio and visual warning

• Added a Discord link to the main menu

Changed

• Increased targeting range

• Decreased range of Shredder, Incinerator, Solflare, GFB, Scattershot, Hammer

• Reduced radar range of Hounds, Grendels and Ogres

• Reduced radar range of several turrets

• Slightly decreased max flight distance of Thunderstrike and Viper

• Renamed some modules to better fit the technical lore

• Added missing line to Saturn hub intro

• Some additional lore renaming

Fixed

• Moved top bar in hub map behind location briefing panel to not obstruct the latter

• Added more width to location briefing panel to better fit texts

• Fixed later hub intro and stat scene skybox

• Fixed issue that no new hub could be selected when a confirmation dialog was shown and cancelled right before

• Fixed some buttons on the hub (selection) map to change focus on controller movement

• Fixed item getting deselected in Codex when trying to hit scrollbar with mouse

• Fixed controller schema visuals in control settings

• Fixed Array marker visuals in later hub

Another update is here! Next to some nice fixes it also brings a new small feature that should help especially in later hubs and buy you some time when trying to protect the Intel Beacons.

Have fun, and don't forget to leave a review!

Changelog 1.2.5

• Added priority targets detection delay. Enemies may now take a while at mission start before they detect the target and engage it. Handy especially in protect missions with Intel Beacons. Applies to player’s likewise. Delay differs per hub. There’s also a chance of immediate detection of the player. Big structures like space stations are always detected immediately.

• Fixed railgun and missile warnings only showing in HUD when also leaving area

• Fixed hub reward modules getting assigned to slots immediately, which enabled additional slots

• Fixed some module stat comparison labels

• Fixed recharger modules improvements calculation being way too strong

• Decreased effectiveness of offensive and defensive efficiency upgrades and increased price

• Jammer module maximum amount of affected sub systems is now limited

• Fixed visual of later hub skybox

• Fixed Viper and GFB shots having a Doppler effect

This one fixes some long standing issues which finally got some treatment. Most importantly it takes care of missiles, their movement, and improves their targeting. The full changelog is below. And of course there is more to come.

As always: Have fun!

Changelog 1.2.4

• Securing items will also store your current equipment to your current loadout profile (toggle in settings)

• Fixed order of weapons in slots at mission start being different than equipped item order

• Improved missile's distance-based detonation detection

• Fixed missiles' start velocity and lead target point calculations to further prevent fly-off behavior when launched

• Fixed waypoints overlapping target indicator when radar range was upgraded

• Improved memory management to prevent stuttering during missions

• Improved ordering of items in inventory views

• Fixed Supply Anchor still causing stability decline

• Fixed Seeker weapon not using full capacity in case it was triggered during reload phase

• Increased Shift Discharge range

• Fixed typo in Lightlance description

• Reduced Behemoth hull strength

• Reduced Striga shield strength

• Fixed Striga being stuck in movement because of its own mines

• Increased Mine trigger and blast range

• Fixed late boss enemy (no spoilers!) formation not having enough spots for full-strength battlegroup

• Fixed Neptune and Saturn missions not using space position relative to the planet

• Fixed heat producing weapons always starting reload cycle when offloaded from active slot, even if cool

• Introduced a 10% threshold of the capacity within which weapons won’t start the full reload cycle when offloaded from the active slot

• Fixing Spy Beacon missions not being able to spawn anything

• Fixing pause menu being inaccessible in tutorial

• Making enemies take substantially more risk when trying to avoid obstacles after having spent too much time in obstacle avoidance
• Making enemy take more overall risk during obstacle avoidance
• Improved Basilisk and Chimera obstacle avoidance behavior specifically
• Improved spawning of enemies and debris to prevent objects from clipping into each other
• Making Basilisk and Chimera units spawn further apart
• Fixing Behemoth formation not having enough spots for all fighters
• Fixing some enemy ship names being shown as IDs rather than names
• Potential fix for being unable to leave Knowledge Archives
• Fixed A key not being bound to show Knowledge Archives
• Improved input navigation handling in Main Menu
• Using more simplified version for Drauger shield generator hit box
• Some fixes for game startup data setup

This update comes with one of the most requested features so far: Sub system targeting. You can now target individual turrets and other systems on capital ships, lock on your missiles and create deadly blind spots.

The new Chimera, a smaller-size capital ship, poses a real but manageable threat and will make you familiar with turrets and sub system targeting as early as Neptune. But be aware that these ships come in quite some different configurations throughout the game!

Additionally, there is a full range of additional modules that you can get as mission rewards. The primary focus is engine tech, but the radar systems have gotten a deadly upgrade too.

Lastly, a couple of other fixes and additions made it into the release - the full changelog is below.

Let me know what you think about this release, come join the forums in case you like to share anything or need some help, but most importantly:

Enjoy and have fun!

PS: If you haven't done so, please consider leaving a review for the game.

Reviews do a lot for the Steam algorithm and mean great support for me especially as a solo dev, so if you want to share your thoughts about the game, now is a good time!

Changelog 1.2

New

• Sub system targeting - you can now target individual turrets or other systems and lock your weapons on it

• Adding Chimera enemy cruiser, appearing from Neptune high risk missions onwards

• New Module: Max Thruster Speed increase

• New Module: Max Booster Speed increase

• New Module: Max Booster Capacity

• New Module: Booster Refill Rate

• New Module: Shift cooldown

• New Module: Radar Range increase

• New Upgrade: Radar Range

• Showing control hints in HUD - can be toggled off in settings

• Showing an indicator on the reward selection screen if an item is completely new to the player (not yet secured for permanent use)

• Showing target line on hub map from player position to selected destination

• Enabling scrolling in codex entry details

Changes

• Shredder projectile speed increased

• Increased share of moderate, elevated and high risk missions in Neptune hub

• Reducing Basilisk hull strength

• Making Basilisk slightly larger

• Increasing size of Basilisk turrets

• Increased armor and shield strength of sub systems to balance new sub system targeting

• Increased Booster burn rate

• Increased Booster refill rate slightly

• Reduced upgrade effect of Shift cooldown

• Slightly increased range of Merlin skills

• Highlighting only the currently selected target instead of all sub systems

• Reworked codex entries for reward explanations

Fixes

• Fixing and enhancing the visuals of several of the hub mission’s skyboxes

• Fixing panel order in hub map

• Fixing Neptune array description being outside of screen bounds

• Fixing a default upgrade being shown in the ship upgrade screen for upgrade paths that are already at max level

Update 1.1 is here, and it’s a fairly big one! Since launch you shared a lot of feedback with me, and this update aims at tackling many of the pain points you had. Difficulty and learning curve as well as mission rewards should feel much smoother now. But as there are many different build combinations and play styles please keep the feedback coming! Of course I also haven't forgotten about the other wishes that didn’t make it into this update.

I hope you enjoy these changes and have fun with the game!

And if you have a moment, please consider leaving a review - Steam's algorithm loves reviews, it helps others to discover the game and means a lot to me!

Changed: Unlocking items

Keeping your run gear permanently unlocked was fairly hard and I understand the frustration. Securing items happened way too rarely or was too limited. These changes change the whole system and should make the system much fairer.

• Securing items for credits to unlock them has been removed

• Any Rescue mission ("Protect the XYZ") unlocks items upon successful completion

• Visiting a shipyard automatically unlocks items now

• Beating a hub still unlocks too

• New type of Rescue mission (Intel Beacon) has been added to later hubs

• Adding distinct rescue mission visuals to the hub map

• Codex explanation for unlocking has been updated

• Showing an indicator on the hub map if a location unlocks items

• Showing info popup on hub map when items have been permanently unlocked

• Showing item unlocking status in the loadout view in the hub map

Reworked: Reward generation

The rewarding mechanism was doing its job, but the result still felt somewhat chaotic at times and often unreliable, or could easily be exploited. There were also too many occasions when no item was granted. The system has been extensively adjusted now.

• New items from mission rewards will always start at Level 1

• Upgrades for items can now only be obtained for the immediate next level of the item

• The maximum item level rewarded from missions now differs per hub and reward level

• The Upgrade Bias for items in your inventory has an increased overall impact

• The Upgrade Bias is only applied to the immediate next level variant of an item

• The Upgrade Bias is fully applied when the item is equipped to an active slot, and half when the item is not currently equipped but only in cargo

• Upgrade Bias for Substantial and High reward levels has been increased

• A new Discovery Bias has been added, which will increase the odds of finding previously undiscovered items depending on the reward level of a mission (“undiscovered" defined as: item class not permanently unlocked yet)

• Discovery Bias is affected by the “Luck” upgrade (like the Upgrade Bias)

• Both the Upgrade and Discovery Bias impact are shown in the mission briefing in the hub map

• Increased the maximum reward item amount in high reward level missions to 4 (except for Saturn)

• Showing warnings on the mission briefing panel when no new items (cargo full case) and when no upgrades (location max item level < current items’ levels) can be obtained

• Adjusted overall reward item pool calculations

• Increased likeliness of rare items being rewarded for high reward level missions

• Added "Refabrication Kit" relic item (raises minimum item level found to 3) to support usage of newly discovered items when equipped

• Applying counter of missions without offered upgrade rewards across sessions to increase upgrade reward chances

• Showing item quality (= max level) and item variety (different types of weapons and modules) in hub selection screen per hub

• Preventing another level 1 variant of a weapon being rewarded when the highest owned variant also is level 1

New system: Encounter Opening Phase

The beginning of a mission always carried the risk of getting heavily damaged or destroyed right away if you did not evade or dodge. This was understandably disliked especially by new players und players unfamiliar with the genre. These changes significantly reduce the risk of first second obliteration and make mission feel much smoother.

• Missions have an opening phase (< 1 minute)

• During this phase, enemy accuracy, damage and aggressiveness is balanced differently

• Opening phase characteristics depend on the current hub and mission risk level

• Enemy strength will gradually increase towards the end of the opening phase to normal levels

New system: Combat Strength

The final encounter in each mission could be quite hard. At the same time, a mission’s risk level didn’t do much but define the difficulty. This new system solves both and incentivizes playing harder missions during your run - ultimately providing a better situation in the Array battle of each hub and enabling a smoother learning curve.

• The resistance in the final Array mission of a hub is now determined by the Remnant’s "Combat Strength"

• Combat strength falls in 4 categories, each getting applied when a threshold is crossed: Full, Impacted, Strained, Degraded

• Every mission you fly will reduce the enemy’s combat strength in the current run

• Combat strength decrease is determined by the risk level of a mission - the higher the risk, the bigger the impact

• Current strength is visible on the hub map

• A codex entry gives an overview of this mechanic

Other changes

• Limiting the maximum amount of enemy space fighters that can engage players simultaneously to introduce a better difficulty curve. Amount differs per hub and mission risk level and is unlimited in later hubs with high risk levels.

• Making Saturn hub grant more credits but have a smaller chance of finding undiscovered items and less items for substantial and high reward level missions

• Showing stability and combat strength directly at the Array on the hub map

• "In vain" missions now give up to one item reward

• Increased credit reward for "In vain" missions

• Removed unused "Ammo Refill" ship upgrade

• Capital ships will now show a slightly different and bigger target indicator

• Reduced the opacity of objective markers

• Showing module classification in loadout configuration at Hamilton Station ("Defensive", "Offensive", …)

• Added the ability to view the current loadout from the mission rewards selection screen

• Reduced enemy Shredder damage

• Reducing enemy turret tracking accuracy

• Removed lights from most fast-moving projectiles to improve performance - they were barely visible anyways

• Increasing stability penalty in all hubs to match Neptune

• Reducing obstacle avoidance sensitivity of capital ships

• Making most boss capital ships move slightly faster

• Slightly reducing amount of turrets on Baba Yaga

• Adjusted Behemoth turret placement

• Increased costs for “Better Prices” upgrade

• Increased costs for “Active Slot” upgrade

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where the hub map loadout view did not show the most recent changes, e.g. after mission rewards selection

• Fixing one of the Jupiter shipyards not decreasing stability correctly

• Fixing reloading indicator on HUD cursor being stuck after first reload

• Fixing objectives text width in missions to prevent line breaking

• Fixing text width in mission results panel when no items were found

• Fixing “Exit” and “Restart journey” on death screen both going to hub selection

• Fixing “Heavy Materials” experimental item showing speed impact twice

• Fixing shot audio being replayed when cycled into the active slot again

• Fixed a double-click issue on the hub selection map

• Fixed an issue where the hub selection got stuck when trying to start a new run after completing another

Changelog 1.0.8

• Making weapons reload / release heat when cycled off from active weapon slot
• Showing weapon reloading indicator in HUD and cursor when active weapon is reloaded / releasing heat
• Added “Archives”, a knowledge base section to provide help, insights and lore. Accessible from hub selection and hub map

• Improved visualization of accessible area on Star Map when stability degrades
• Improved lead target aiming of enemy turrets
• Slightly improving full-screen damage indicator visuals
• Reduced enemy mission start aggressiveness in Neptune hub
• Low risk missions won’t make enemies aggressively approach the player anymore. High risk will make enemies always aggressively approach. Other risk levels use randomness.
• Removing damage spill-over from turrets to main capital ships to fix damage being applied multiple times, especially with area effect weapons
• Turning off aim assist on Colossus
• Outline effect being applied to all enemy ships
• Making player Ravager missile destructible
• Made “Continue Run” and “Tutorial” button on hub selection map more prominent
• Enabling tutorial again when game progress is cleared from settings menu
• Reducing Baba Yaga health

• Improved result handling on mission reward selection screen
• Fixed an error that could let players pick missions that are out of stability reach
• Fixing loadout item selection at Hamilton Station being cut off with many items visible
• Fixing Colossus shot cooldown not getting applied
• Showing Colossus cooldown in weapon details
• Fixing new run being created when playing the tutorial
• Fixing shipyard not being accessible if stability is below critical threshold although it is the last location visited
• Fixed duplicate audio cue at the beginning of the tutorial mission

• Improvements to memory management to further reduce hiccups
• Outline effect only shown on targeted enemy
• Drastically reducing performance impact of highlight and outline effects
• Reducing enemy ship and turret target update interval (0.5s & 1s) to fix significant performance hit with large battlegroups
• Culling turret visuals after 2000m distance to improve performance
• Culling shield visuals of fighter enemies after 1500m to improve performance
• Reducing turret and shield generator hitboxes complexity to improve physics performance

• Rebalanced enemy weapons
• Made enemies approach the player more aggressively
• Reward level “low” missions will only give one item now
• When player cargo is full, it happens more often that no reward item will be given, but …
• The higher the reward level of a mission, the better the chances to get upgrades for items
• Increased the probability of an upgrade to be rewarded when no upgrade was provided for too many consecutive successful missions
• Added the possibility to not select any item from the available rewards
• Tweaked generated missions' difficulty distribution
• The Grendel heavy fighter now has a correct hitbox
• Also fixed an issue with a hitbox on a boss enemy (no spoilers)
• Some balance changes to enemy health
• Increased GFB damage
• The maximum possible amount of reward items of a mission is shown on the location selection screen
• Removed confusing difficulty multiplier display from hub selection
• Made some skyboxes slightly emissive to not leave the planet’s far side completely dark
• Fixing an edge case in which enemy hulls could be damaged before shields were gone

• Fixed an issue where missiles were unable to chase targets when the weapon has previosuly been cycled out of an active slot.
• Thunderstrike missile shot sound is not played automatically anymore when weapon is cycled into an active slot during a mission.
• Playing the next music track after the current ended should not result in stuttering anymore.
• Railgun warning is now correctly deactivated when you leave the range of the railgun.
• The threat level of hubs (=difficulty) is now shown on the hub selection map.
• Hub difficulty has been slightly lowered overall.