The Heated Update is HERE!

The Heated Update is here!

On Xbox too!

Updates to Networking and DirectX 12

We've rewritten our networking to fix disconnects and being kicked back to main menu, and switched to DirectX12 as the default renderer. DirectX 12 is supposed to be faster, but your mileage may vary and we have a startup option so you can still use DirectX 11 if you want.

If you have previously experienced frequent crashes or disconnects from multiplayer, please try the game again with this new update and let us know if your specific issues have been resolved or not. Confirmation from you would really help us out.

(Xbox should also have improved stability now that we have patched memory leaks)

Work on stability will continue through our whole Early Access period, but we hope we've solved the most infamous issues in this update. Some players had previously experienced a stutter every time they picked up or put down an item for example - that has now been fixed completely.

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Heat and Mission Structure

To make every mission feel fresh and promote meaningful player choices, we've added the Heat mechanic and broadened the Jump Map overall. We want to offer players more strategic choices and options to consider. Deciding where to jump next should always come with some pros/cons and feel engaging, and now you're less locked into "go forward on this narrow path" as with the previous map.

Heat represents how strong enemy forces are in the final sector of the mission, and high Heat will make enemies stronger and apply negative Events onto the finale if above a certain number.

Players will be encouraged to reduce the Heat by clearing sectors on the map, to make the Finale easier to clear. Bigger sectors like Fortifications will clear more Heat when completed, and smaller sectors will clear a smaller amount of heat.

New things on the Map to note:

• You can now jump to sectors further away on the map, by going past sectors you have already visited. This means you can go backwards or traverse the jump map however you like. Each sector jumped past will contribute to the expansion of the Lava Wall, as explained next.

• You can now leave a sector at any time (unless jammed), giving you the option to flee if you are low on resources and would rather skip an encounter. But you will miss your chance to clear the Heat from that sector!

Lava Wall

As you jump through the mission, a red wall will creep up behind you. Jumping to a sector inside the wall will make enemies more difficult. So you have to watch your back! We understand that these are very new additions, and we might not hit the sweet spot on balancing right away until a large number of players get to try it, so let us know how Heat and the Lava Wall feel in action!

Additionally, we've remade the initial Galaxy Map (as you can see in the image above.)

Missions now show as either Small or Large instead of duration-based, as the Heat system, wider Jump Map and player choices very much affect how long a mission takes to complete.

For now, Challenge Rating will be the main factor to consider when selecting a mission on the map. Expect further changes to the Galaxy Map in the future as we add more regions and new mission types that fill out the empty void of space.

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Points of Interest

In the new update, you might stumble across one specific sector with a bunch of side areas - Points of Interest if you will. While these are currently confined to this one specific sector, the plan is to soon populate every sector in the game with at least one random POI, to spice up every mission with random geometry, areas to explore and loot to find.

There's over 15 of these areas for now, and you might find locked door that require an Access Key, or a jumping puzzle. POIs are going to add so much when we can randomize them for every sector, as we know a lot of the community feels the sectors get stale and samey after a while.

We have more plans for combating this samey-ness in the future, but this is a good start. ːggxxacmayː

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Grenades and Football

Physics objects are in!

You can now play with the football in the hangar and score some goals with friends.

Grenades have also been added to the loot pool. You can find both frag grenades or a sticky variant, and they function just like a consumable with 5x stacks each.

(Grenades have a bit of fun synergy with other guns, try it out and see what you can find ːggxxacmayː)

Rebalanced Enemies and Difficulty

On top of adding a new enemy, the Rocket Drone, we've done some sweeping changes to ground enemies and by proxy, the difficulty.

Enemy types now have more distinct behaviour and attack patterns, tweaked damage, are better at targeting all players equally, among other improvements. Basically this will make enemies feel more alive and be more fun to fight - not just mere bullet sponges.

While the enemies themselves are more dangerous and shouldn't be ignored, we've balanced this by having longer pauses between spawn waves. So that encounters have more room to breathe and feel more fair.

With these changes, going up in mission difficulty should feel smoother and not like a drastic spike when going from Easy to Moderate for example. We hope every difficulty rank feels more accurate to their names now.

But Very Hard should feel Very Hard! ːsummercrab2023ː

We want to give ship combat the same treatment and will look at that in a future update.

Slide Movement and Hangar Power Grid

OK so while sliding doesn't look exactly like that... breakdance move above, it is real and in the game. Crouching while sprinting or hitting the ground with enough speed will cause you to slide on your knees.

Very useful for moving faster across areas or reposition during combat. It feels great to use and we can't wait to see what kind of movement tech you unlock with this.

Now the Power Grid exists in the hangar, next to your components so that you can configure your setup before starting a mission. Both of these have been common community requests and it feels dang good to finally deliver! Enjoy.

Bug Fixes

• Many, many fixes across the board that have been reported by the community.

• Lots of stability, visual, UI, QoL and unintended behavior has been fixed.

Miscellaneous Changes of Note

• Catamaran ship now also has an Airlock Hatch next to Disassembler for quick transport in and out.

• Dart ship now also has an Ammo Station onboard.

• Asteroid Shower now does less damage to player ships.

• Updated localization for various UI elements and dialogues.

• New fire damage VFX for players, now easier to see when engulfed in flames.

• Enabled both DX11 and DX12 as launch options on Steam (DX11 is the recommended default).

• Added screens on game startup regarding shaders warming up and warning if your GPU drivers are out-of-date.

• Ground enemies now drop ammo.

• Weapons/personal inventory are not lost when respawning onto the ship, or when failing a mission.

• Outline shader has been updated, looks slightly different but is more optimized.

Enjoy the new stuff, and don't miss that Jump Space is still 20% off until April 2nd!

We will now retreat back into our kitchen and get cooking on Update 4.

We want to get that out for early summer, and for it to be our BIGGEST content drop yet.

Something so good it'll blow your socks off, which may or may not include that new player ship you've been waiting for...

Until next time!

• The Keepsake Crew