Patch 0.55 Progress and Polish

It's time for a big patch, and it's all thanks to the wonderful feedback I've received here and on discord! Thanks so much to everyone for helping me make this game a better experience. As a solo dev, I just can't do this without you.

If you want to chat directly, give feedback, and see beta patch notes before they're on the main branch, I highly recommend the FromLefcourt Discord, here.

If you want to help support my Byte Size Games initiative, get sneak previews of upcoming features and new games, and be featured in the credits on full release, check out my Patreon, here.

And last, but, uh, most? Please leave a review on Steam if you are enjoying the game. 15 reviews and 100% positive, but I need a couple more from direct Steam purchases to get an official rating. It's a huge help. To all of you that have already done so, thanks so much! It really does mean everything to me.

What's next: Patch 0.65 will see the release of the Ker'plau, the third faction of evil invading aliens. I still have a few bug reports to address and plenty of audio/visual updates to release between now and then, but I don't think you'll be waiting too long for the new faction.

Now onto the notes! Let me know what you think in the comments.

Patch Notes for 0.55

Features

• 

• Added Saving/Loading. Because it's a roguelike there are some rules to how this works. If you try to quit during combat you will forfeit your run and your save will be lost. You may only save and resume from the shop phase. There are warnings and explanations built into the menus so you don't accidentally forget.

  

• You can now press 1-5 to quickly select a weapon slot when using mouse controls only. These can not currently be rebound, but you can use either set of numbers if your keyboard has a numpad. A tutorial tip has been added for this.

  

Polish

• QoL: The difficulty will default to your last played setting when you return to the main menu

• RemovedVisualValknari "Turtle" attacks now create a "Disabled" prompt over the weapons they disable with their barrier attacks.

• Visual: Cram Shell has a visual effect when triggered

• Visual

  Panic Shield has a visual effect when triggered.

  Note

  a persistent effect that lasts for the duration is planned for a future update

• Visual: Column Bomb has a unique mine sprite now

• Audio/Visual: Backup Battery has an audio and visual effect when triggered

• AddedTextAdded more flavor texts to augments that didn't yet have them (but not all of them)
• FixedTextBreakthrough: "Trickle Down" typos fixed
• AddedTextEnabled a tutorial tip that explains gold interest at the end of the first wave

• Text: Mouse controls have some unique tutorial tips that make more sense for how the interface is utilized.

• Text: The tutorial tip for collecting gold bars now explains that you can not collect gold while in shift mode

• AddedTextAdded missing text that explains "Bullet Buddy" can only have a maximum number of active drones.

Balance: This is the first big balance update based on what I'm seeing. Drones and Bombs got a little love this patch, but this is only the start for them. There are numerous Augments planned for the upgrade pool to help them further. The Valknari enemies also got some changes to help with their identity. They're supposed to be lumbering, bigger enemies, that are strong against small, direct attacks, but weaker against abilities that can get around shields, as well as slows and disables.

• Difficulty 2: Now scales 10% at start, then again on waves 5, 10, and 15 for a total of +40%. The 50% total increase seemed too punishing for difficulty level 2 for a lot of players. I may reduce this further depending on feedback. There are a lot of difficulty levels left to add, after all.

• Valknari: Some Valknari had a stat that wasn't officially implemented, giving them stealth damage reduction. Against things that did lots of super small instances of damage, like Sun Power and Slow Cooker, they were effectively invincible. This is no longer the case.

• Enemy: Sea Slug (basic Valknari) shield is now farther forward and a bit thicker. This should prevent odd collision issues where damage it should block could sneak through by a pixel and hit the ship itself.

• Enemy: Valknari Ram now charges from farther away, and bounces back farther on impact. +40 health, -50% base move speed.

• Enemy: Valknari Hammerheads have +30 health, but their shields have -20 health. They now get an extra layer of shield after wave 8 that blocks an additional 80 damage.

• Enemy: Valknari Turtles now attack 10% faster, and have +20 health.

• Breakthrough

  "Spare Parts" now only ever grants 1 extra level 1 of a weapon. At higher tech tier levels it used to grant 2 copies.

  Note

  While some breakthroughs get stronger by offering extra effects as your tech tier increases, some get stronger simply because they affect more powerful weapons. This falls more into the latter category, as getting extra copies of higher tier weapons is bonus enough.

• AdjustedWeaponBullet Buzz now has reduced attack range, and 13% longer cooldown

• Weapon

  Wing Mandroid now takes 10 damage and heals for 15, allowing it to heal a bit more, and making its own health more valuable.

  Note

  A number of weapons that once expended charges now expend health, making Wing Mandroid more valuable overall. This does not apply to drones, only weapons, but it could apply to the weapons that create the drones.

• AdjustedWeaponCluster Shock now launches 2 sets of 2 bombs, targeting grids 3 and 4 spaces away instead of targeting a single grid space. Damage per bomb has been increased by 4 at both levels.

• Weapon: Droidle now deals 12 damage per attack down from 16, but the drones have +2 attack charges at level 1. At level 2 they now gain +20% attack range, and +50% drone speed.

• Weapon: Bullet Buddy now has a maximum of 3 active drones at a time at level 2, up from 2.

• Weapon: Hot Spring now targets the farthest space with no mine in it, and instead of losing charges, loses health. It creates mines faster, and create more before being destroyed, but deals 30 damage in an area, down from 45.

• Weapon: Outfielder now recharges in 3 seconds once a bomb has been destroyed, down from 4. +5 damage at both levels.

• AdjustedWeaponThe "Light Touch" has had its range reduced to 4 from 6. It now gains +1 range at level 2. Now also has a 1.66 second cooldown up from 1 second, and a 1.5 second cooldown at level 2. Notes: This weapon was reaching too far by default given that it can also attack adjacent lanes, and was putting out way too much damage for a level 2 weapon. It's still one of the best weapons, but a little less perfect.

• Synergy: Utility now grants +15% cooldown reduction, up from 10%

• Synergy: Sniper now requires 3/5 units up from 2/4

• Synergy: Laser now gives 8/16/32% chance to deal 35% bonus damage, down from 10/20/35% to deal 50% bonus.

• Synergy: Drones now have a 20/40% chance to create a scrap drone, up from 15/35%.

• Synergy: Bombs now gain a 30/60% chance to apply plasmic burn instead of the 15/25% explosion radius (which did very little in effective damage).

• Synergy

  Bullet piercing now correctly reduces damage by 25% per target hit.

  Notes

  Technically a bug fix, but will impact balance considerably. I was previously planning to make a lot of adjustments to bullet weapons, as they're some of the strongest, but with this fix, I'm going to wait and see now.

Bugs

• FixedSynergyCorrected a number of incorrect synergy tags on some defense weapons
• FixedSynergyFixed a bug that was preventing the Defense synergy from triggering

• Synergy: Gravic and knockback effects should no longer be able to push enemies up (and off the screen)

• Power: Satellite Strike is now only targeting 1 space...for real this time.

• Mouse: The "Power" text on the UI now properly disappears at the end of a wave

• FixedMouseFixed a bug that would cause the difficulty menu to deselect when you tried clicking the arrows to change it
• FixedEnemyFixed a bug that wouldn't allow Valknari Turtle ships to disable weapons in the front most row.
• FixedWeaponFixed a bug that could cause the Wing Mandroid to stop healing
• FixedBreakthroughsFixed a bug causing incorrect text for certain breakthroughs depending on your tech tier

• Text: Tier 4 units now display the correct stats when upgraded

• UI: Tier 4 units now properly display the upgrade icon when upgraded

• UI: The Victory/Game Over screens will now display the correct Difficulty (the difficulty settings were being properly applied everywhere else)