Beta Testing Update

Overview

This week I tested all weapons in the endgame environment, to balance for general viability. I also adjusted them such that I hope they all provide an interesting choice, and nothing too obviously good (although I'm sure there will be outliers to tweak). :)

Overall, beta testing is going well. The campaign feels coherent, and there are a lot of options and possible playstyles. I'm liking the infinite stat shop offerings for mana (lets me buy progression with my excess mana).

Weapons

Sorted by intended base damage (as they stand now, changes are possible):

• Single-target firearms: the sniper rifle, rifle, and railgun. They all have magic damage abilities. The sniper rifle is ranged-only, and the highest damage. The rifle is a generalist all-range weapon, and the railgun is silent and can be used without breaking stealth.

• The missile launcher heavy weapon. It's ranged-only, with no magic conversion abilities, but each attack has three components that do damage (two physical, one fire). It also does indiscriminate destruction (so it can't be used if friendlies are present, and it destroys scavenge.)

• The flamethrower. It's AoE, melee-only, and has no magic conversion abilities (fire damage only).

• The shotgun. It's also melee-only AoE, but has magic conversion (so it can fire life AoE, ice AoE, etc, depending on how you progress its path).

• Melee weapons: the chainsword, hammer, and sickle. These have special physical AoE abilities granted by their paths and boosted by scavenging skills, Their magic abilities are single-target.

• The SMG and LMG firearms. Both are all-range, and have AoE options, but the LMG focuses more on ranged, and the SMG on melee. They use a lot of ammo. :)

• Energy weapons (the laser and plasma rifles). These don't use ammo, but rather charge, and so are more reliable. They are all-range, mostly single-target, but do have AoE abilities granted by their paths. The laser rifle's AoE is ranged-only, and the plasma rifle's AoE is melee-only.

• The emberbolt launcher. It's an all-range heavy weapon that always does AoE in three phases: fire, death, and physical. Unlike the missile launcher, it uses charge, not ammo, and it doesn't do indiscriminate destruction.

• Shields and rods. These are primarily for boosting stats on the character, but they do have basic weapon attacks.

• Heavy injector. This is a DoT weapon, mostly-single target, but has an ability that applies AoE DoT, and also has an AoE heal. It's silent, so it can be used without breaking stealth.

• Infinity cannon. This is a melee-only heavy weapon that does low-damage, high pierce AoE in three phases, light, dark, and physical, in order to inflict DoT. While it's the lowest direct damage weapon, it probably scales to the most damage overall.

New Items

I also added a couple new items: a stealth field amulet and an evasion field amulet. The stealth field works nicely with the Wanderer [Sneak] ability to allow uninterrupted exploration. :)