Alpha 2r3 - Steam Deck, Performance & Visual Improvements

This update is much more technical than the previous updates. It brings much improved performance to Cosmic Destroyer, particularly for low-end PCs that don't have dedicated GPUs. While we still recommend a dedicated GPU for the game, I feel its good to keep the game running as smoothly as possible on lower-spec systems.

There's a new parallax effect in this update which adds a 3D effect to the edge of environmental objects, including large asteroids and station interiors. It looks really cool and has been optimized to run well even on older hardware.

Also, last week's update brought the new Grappling Hook to the game, I didn't get a chance to mention it in the release announcement. But I'm still super excited about this feature so I'd like to mention it now!

Grabbing enemies has always been a favorite feature among all players, and now its been enhanced to allow grabbing enemies from further away. This also helps the player "test" whats grab-able and not. Use it to grab enemies, objects, and power-ups.

I can't wait to add more hidden power-ups, pickups, and other fun things to grab and play with.

Did you know?

Held enemies provide bonus synergies to your ship! Held popcorn enemies (Blue+Green, Purple Drones) will turret fire at nearby enemies. Interceptors like these in Shipyard 7 provide a big speed boost while held. There's also a shield synergy and some mechanics I'm playing with related to bomb/special behaviors while certain objects are held!

Steam Deck & Linux Performance

Steam Deck and Linux (Vulkan rendering) had some issues with texture formats not working for some effects, which has been corrected. Every bullet has a slight distortion trail effect and these should now render properly. Performance of these framebuffer effects has also been greatly improved.

Techy note: The performance impacts were largely due to Physics island and contact calculation overhead, which has been reduced by over 100x by measurement (a particularly busy scene was improved from 14ms on single frame scene down to 0.08 on older hardware).

Notable Changes & Improvements

• Ship speeds have been tweaked. VSpec Mk. I and Prototype L-1 have a speed of 6 (down from 7) and the E.M.A has a speed of 7.5. In the future speed and other stat values will be displayed on the ship selection screen

• Intro section on Grid 38 (Stage 1) has been extended. It should be noted that nothing other than the enemies is collidable here, it is purely intended as a fast-paced launch sequence intro.

• Deadzone Camera feature - a deadzone camera that only moves when player is near the edge of the screen. This can be turned on and off in the options menu, the Deadzone camera is now the default camera behavior based on player feedback - it feels much less "floaty".

• Dialogue in the Briefing no longer auto-advances. Players can move to the next dialogue line or skip the dialogue by holding Cancle/Bomb. This was requested by many players who did not have time to finish reading the dialogue. (This will only apply to non-arcade builds as no pausing will be allowed in true arcade setups)

• A new Parallax effect has been added to the game that creates a 3D effect to the edges of pixel art, and has been applied to environmental objects. This effect will be tweaked, improved and added to additional objects in the future. Still working on a secondary variant effect for distant objects.

• Stage Select screen visuals have been improved.

  • Background elements have been added to match the Briefing