Version 0.33.20: Enemies 2.0, Part 2

Updated September 8, 2022

Draft Mode, new alternate bosses, new powers, and a ton of balance changes.

New Features and Upgrades

• Challenge Mode: Draft has been added to the game! Jump into end-game (wave 120) with 35 upgrade points to spend. If Draft mode is enabled, it will use separate leaderboards for "Draft" and "Wild Metamorphosis Draft"
• Added three of the five alternate bosses that may be encountered instead of standard bosses if the NEMESIS Challenge Mode is enabled:

• A new alternate boss: Ceratotitan (wave 20)
• A new alternate boss: Crucible (wave 80)
• A new alternate boss: Glaucus (wave 100)

• Added new BGM & SFX for all new boss fights
• Ultra-Rare Wild Mod: Ricochet has been added to the game
• Ultra-Rare Wild Mod: Challenger has been added to the game
• New Super Mod: Charged Shields has been added to the game
• New Super Mod: Infuse has been added to the game
• New Super Mod: Strafing Strikes has been added to the game
• Added a new power-up to the game: Armor Fragment
• Steam Deck is now fully supported!
• You can now enable "Large Text" from the settings menu. This also compacts the upgrade layout, which is also useful for very low resolutions or window sizes. With Steam Deck, this will be enabled by default
• Spanish localization has been added

Drone Reworks

• The three Drone mod trees have been reworked with all new mods: Subsumption and Grace Protocol, replacing Rocket Drones and Reinforced Drones
• Drones can now access Assault Drones and Defense Drones mod trees immediately after choosing Drones
• Reworked the Assault Drones mod tree with new mods: Terminal Directive and Fleet Commander
• Drones now have natively larger blasts (to compensate for the loss of Rocket Drones)
• Assault Drones Formation: Pursuit now comes packaged with Assault Drones
• Assault Drones mod Formation: Battalion has been reworked, allowing your drones to fire high damage piercing beams
• Reworked the Defense Drones mod tree with all new mods: Arc Barrier and Reconstitution
• Defense Drones Formation: Rampart now comes packaged with Defense Drones
• Improved Drone cosmetic firing effects

Mine Rework & Balance

• Mines have been reworked to provide a low-investment, alternate option to Loaded Mines
• Mines now assemble twice as fast, 4s -> 2s (Loaded Mines now return this assembly time to the original value, and so is unchanged)
• Mines now spawn 6-9 bomblet explosions moments after detonation. Each bomblet deals 50% of the mine base damage
• Mine base damage 350 -> 250
• Minefield has a new rule: Your mines cause a chain reaction when they detonate, increasing total mine damage and total mine effect by 5% for each mine detonated
• Loaded Mines now removes the bomblet mine effect
• Mines deployed by Retribution now have +30% mine damage and mine effect

Construct Quality of Life

• Like Drones, Allies can now access their specialization trees, Guardian and Interceptor, from the first Ally mod instead of from the Evolution mod
• All player constructs avoid firing at a Bulwark Shield
• Bulwark won't fire a shield retaliation at a player construct, only the player
• Juggernauts will not charge at player constructs (These changes also prevent Decoy Guardians from being actively harmful in such cases)
• All roaming player constructs now regard the business-end of a Bulwark as a bad place to be
• Mortar now requires only the Mines mod, not the Loaded Mines mod

Super Mod: Ataraxia Rework

• Ataraxia now has threshold powers in addition to its original effect:
• +5% global damage and 1% total maximum hull, maximum shields, and thrust per unspent upgrade point
• While you have 5 or more unspent upgrade points, +30% body gear powers
• While you have 10 or more unspent upgrade points, all Ataraxia bonuses are increased by 50%
• While you have 20 or more unspent upgrade points, you continually have Hyperboost
• Ataraxia no longer increases the distance of orb and power-up attraction (Instead, now Last Stand does this)

Gameplay Changes

• Railgun now uses raycasting to make its hit position pixel-perfect. This allows for accurate strikes on enemy weak points and also removes the possibility of a very fast projectile "skipping" its target
• Singular Strike +15% damage, size, and blast modifiers are now multiplicative with the fusion modifiers
• Cargo Boxes can now additionally drop Armor Fragments and Medi-Charges
• Hyperboost power-up total regeneration multiplier +100% -> +33.33% (which is consistent with its increases to fire rate and thrust)
• Added support for scaling every enemy in the game by size, speed, and damage. This tech is used by Wild Mod: Challenger and will be used in curated waves and other encounters, such as uber bosses, in future updates
• Mods you have banished are now displayed, tiny-like, on the right side of the upgrade screen
• Experience orbs and power-ups are now very resistant to singularities. Rejoice!
• The EXP curve has been very slightly adjusted at very high levels, lowering the soft cap a bit closer to 50. This has no tangible effect on the vast majority of runs
• Mitigated several cases where player knockback could become unintentionally severe
• The pause menu now displays more data:

• Friction %
• Recovery %
• Body Gear Powers %
• Upgrades #
• Rerolls #
• Wild Mods Owned #
• Constant Self-Damage Taken
• The above percentile displays are only displayed if the value is not 100%

• Added score verification. This should combat users manipulating or spoofing score submission to the Steam leaderboards
• BGM originals and remixes now play in both standard and Wild Metamorphosis modes (what differs is which are played first)

Player Balance Changes

• Grenade base damage 85 -> 90
• Grenade base velocity 12 -> 13
• Grenade sprite size increased
• Genade minimum cluster blast size increased
• Grenade cluster travel range increased
• Slightly reduced Railgun's targeting
• Carrier no longer has a -10% rate of fire malus
• Carrier now has +10% shields
• Carrier's chance to spawn Elite or Champion Swarm Constructs now scales with modifiers to body powers
• Sentinel shield effect power +15% -> +10%
• Sentinel shield effect radius +15% -> +25%
• Architect mine effect +50% -> +30%
• Specter's rules have been rewritten to be more clear and to encourage active play rather than non-engagement

• Specter now instantly decloaks when you deploy a construct or use an active mobility power
• Increased the speed Specter can travel without beginning to decloak 6 -> 10 pixels per second
• Slowed the rate at which Specter loses cloak while firing or moving too fast 20 frames -> 40 frames (this is a buff)
• Increased Specters cloak rate bonus 1% -> 2.5% per level
• The above bonus now also applies to Specter's cloaked total weapon damage bonus
• Specter now does what it says: Decloaking is based actually on true speed and not contingent on thrusting

• Halo burn damage 180 -> 240
• Halo ignite damage 120 -> 180
• Temporal base shields 70 -> 75
• Temporal base radius 280 -> 310
• Reflect base shields 115 -> 120
• Reflect base radius 450 -> 500
• Reflect enemy weapon damage boost + 900% -> +1100%
• Reflected Tracer shots can now propagate their reflected properties to the Tracer shots spawned from a Tracer Orb, as well as the ensuing explosion
• Siege Weaponry, when used with Charged Shot, no longer shortens the weapon cooldown after releasing your weapon (as it's already doing very hard work to charge rate)
• Reworked Charged Shot mechanics. Charged Shot's power curve now looks more like an "S curve" (based on a logistic curve) compared to its previous steep, exponentially-decaying curve. As a result, you need to charge a bit longer to have large gains, but it can also reach a higher charge much faster as compensation. In short, its less front-loaded.

• This change was made because playing with Charged Shot optimally involved only charging briefly before each shot, and often still ending up with more damage than non-charged firing modes because of how front-loaded its power curve was. We want Charged Shot to feel really powerful, but to be such that you have to actually commit to an attack, which was the original intention of the mod.

• Sanctuary's (insignificant) base shield recovery rate is slightly lower 3.6 hull / s -> 3 hull /s
• Sanctuary's maximum-shield-scaling shield recovery rate has been increased by ~20%
• Discharge base size is now a little larger, and it's scaling from ROF a little lower
• Discharge, and all other lightning attacks now apply damage per bolt chain instead of per bolt segment, making their damage much more consistent and removing the problem of increased shield radius sometimes resulting in lower damage
• Discharge scaling changed to be more weapon agnostic after the lightning damage changes (slow weapons deal similar dps compared to fast weapons)
• Mortar no longer has a malus to mine damage
• Mortar malus to mine effect -25% -> -15%
• Self Destruction base damage 50 -> 100
• Increased Self Destruction base and scaling blast radius
• Greatly increased Self Destruction hull-scaling damage
• Mine base damage 200 -> 250
• War Machine missiles have increased area of effect
• War Machine rate of fire and rotation scaling 3% -> 4% per your level
• Point Defense hull scaling 3% -> 4% per your level
• Counter Artillery can now degenerate Myrmidon bombs, resulting in less or no cluster explosions when they burst
• Shield Radius shield radius +20% -> +25%
• Radiant Shields shield radius +40% -> +50%
• Firing Array cascading damage modifier +15% -> +20%
• Homing Strike now handles twinned projectiles (Torrent and Blaster)
• Salvo now releases Homing Strikes every number of shots equal to its effective projectiles
• Celestial Surge base damage has been increased by 50%
• Celestial Surge attacks degenerate less quickly
• Blitz now works as long as the enemy hull is >= 95% and it hasn't been triggered yet
• Conversion now grants +5 to base hull and base shields before conversion
• Reduced the targeting constant on Railgun
• Common Wild Mod: Hypermetabolism regeneration +45% -> +60%
• Wild Mod: Defiance is now common instead of rare
• Ultra-Rare Wild Mod: Maelstrom now uses a simpler formula, and additionally gains less magnitude from taking damage and falls off more quickly (Maelstrom, when abused, was extremely dominant almost removing projectiles as an obstacle entirely)
• Super Mod: Last Stand death results in -75% -> -60% maximum hull and shields
• Super Mod: Last Stand now increases the distance of orb and power-up attraction
• Super Mod: Barrage damage modifier -50% - 0% -> -40% - +10%
• Super Mod: Warp Strike no longer has a malus to projectile velocity or size
• Super Mod: Warp Strike instead reduces targeting on projectiles by 50% after they have screen wrapped
• Charged Mines now add projectiles based on charge level with Split Shot, Torrent, or Flak, just like the player does
• Improved the way Phantom Strike interacts with Station Omega

Enemy Balance Changes

• Cherub base hull 500 -> 450
• Bulwark base hull 5500 -> 5000
• Scion base hull 20000 -> 22500
• Slightly reduced Celestial high-end spawn quantity
• Slightly reduced Spitfire high-end spawn quantity
• Slightly reduced Tracer high-end spawn quantity
• Changed the logic of repeating waves to make them less punishing (especially for Shredder Mines)
• Repeating waves no longer scale up as hard as enemy quantity does
• Shredder Mine waves repeat in smaller values
• Repeating waves no longer unintentionally use the same delay formula as "cascading" waves. More enemies spawned makes the repeated wave delay longer, not faster
• Very early bosses, Spitfire and Ceratotitan, now have +50% base hull when encountered later in the game
• Bosses now don't dynamically spawn until 30 waves after they've been defeated, up from 20
• Adds spawned by enemies grant slightly less experience orbs each time they spawn (many players did not like "farming" enemies to be incentivized)
• Hard Shields now protect more things that they visually appear to protect
• Hammerhead and Myrmidon bomb explosions scatter bursts more evenly within their area
• Hammerhead spawn types that result in very high quantities or being surrounded now cannot appear until after wave 30
• Reduced Tracer high end-quantity
• The curated wave, "Don't Talk To Me Or My Son Ever Again", now actually scales the power and size of the involved parties
• Bulwarks now do a better job of staying on-screen while not charging

Bug Fixes

• Reduced excessive knockback from some collisions
• Fixed several explosion hitboxes that should have been circles but were squares (including Hammerhead explosions)
• Revised many inaccurate tags
• Revised a lot of inaccurate or misleading upgrade descriptions
• Architect construct size multiplier applies to Ally construct
• Firing Array now works properly with Salvo release
• The Scale of the Thermal Lance now adjusts dynamically with rate of fire
• Doubled the maximum length of enemy beams so that the ends aren't visible
• High scores now include base64-encoded names to allow double-quotes and other characters
• Blade projectile now shows damage floaters for accumulated self-damage
• Bastion shield now shows damage and healing floaters
• Shield damage and healing floaters now shown for shield recovery
• Swarm self-damage from Spontaneous Generation now applies Gemini Protocol shield split if shielded
• Tried to add a fail-safe for a rare bug where Turret stops firing
• Player Swarm Construct attacks no longer unintentionally contribute to Essence Sap
• Singularities should now no longer interrupt boss waves
• Fixed a case where Salvo release wouldn't result in a muzzle flash with Antimatter Rounds
• Fixed anomalous (but hilarious) acceleration of a dying Leviathan player
• Fixed Blade not always discharging on launch as it should
• Fixed a way Salvo accumulation could break or become unable to fire
• Fixed several rare crashes resulting from unset variables
• Fixed a visual hairline seam with Station Omega between body segments
• Fixed a glow artifact with the Warbringer boss
• Fixed comets silently "deleting" hard shields
• Fixed Bastion shield and Carrier body adding Priority Zero to the mod pool at the wrong account level
• Fixed the possibility of an infinite loop while toggling constructs with a gamepad
• Fixed Vortex gravity resulting in enemy "jittering"
• Fixed projectile velocity from Antimatter Rounds not contributing to Railgun damage
• Fixed cases where enemy blasts always pushed objects to the right (0 degrees)
• Fixed inaccurate pause screen readout for Barrage projectiles in edge cases
• Fixed Tracer projectile deadly wake emission rate being immune to Temporal slowdown
• Fixed cases where Ally would stop firing Thermal Lance when it shouldn't
• Fixed incorrect handling of Siege Weaponry self-damage by Interceptor Ally
• Fixed issues where destroying the head of a Cargo Train or Serpent would prevent the rest from being created
• Fixed a rare(?) error where the player target was somehow invalid
• Fixed the position offset of the Celestial's projectile explosion shockwave
• Fixed some things, like the high score screen and logos, so they fade out properly
• Fixed non-Pulse Loaded Mines with Minefield from increasing the gun count above one
• Fixed some minor cosmetic issues with various shielded constructs
• Fixed Overclock not doing what it said it was doing. Was: +66.67%. Said it was: +40%. It is now +50% as a compromise
• Fixed Myrmidon Bombs not exploding on contact with a Bastion
• Fixed some cases of sound loops not properly ending
• Fixed a crash relating to blast collisions occasionally getting called from a no-longer-valid object
• Fixed enemy weak-point bonus applying to EVERY damage type, not just projectiles and crash damage, as intended
• Fixed Minelayer shield not applying to a collision with Bastion and not caring about knockback resistance
• Fixed the weird hitbox on Railgun
• Fixed the POP that can be heard sometimes at the start of a boss track when music is muted
• Fixed weird behavior when using two separate fire buttons
• We now handle "pressed" and "released" using the previous fire state
• Fixed some cases where Siege Weaponry self-damage was being applied incorrectly:
• Innately charging weapons (Vortex and Thermal Lance) no longer apply it on firing a projectile
• Ally with Thermal Lance applies it continuously while firing
• Fixed some edge cases with Ally Integrated Weapon:
• Handled Vortex size properly with Burst Fire
• No longer try to fire until the weapon is ready to fire
• Twinned weapons (Blaster, Torrent) now create two projectiles instead of having the projectiles split themselves after a step:
• Fixes cases where projectiles could hit before splitting (such as when the player overlaps the target with Apotheosis)
• Splinter scatters projectiles more evenly (since the splintered projectiles aren't splitting themselves)
• Fixed some issues with dual-projectile Celestial Strike:
• Made the projectiles fully independent so that they can be reflected separately
• Orbit speed is now affected by Temporal Shield slowdown
• Fixed Charge Shot extra projectiles and Saturation Fire spread not updating during burst fire

OPTIMIZATIONS & COSMETIC

• Rupture now uses a less visually occlusive sprite
• Refactored a ton of code!