Specialists (v0.7.2)

Another pretty large update for the class system this time. I've posted this as a regular update though, as I don't want to become one of those games that thinks everything is a major update.

The Science Vessel has joined the fleet, and the grapple guns have finally received their long-awaited overhaul. More details on both are below. I also finally managed to fix the Steam Deck framerate issues.

New Secondary Classes

The Science Vessel is now a permanent part of the fleet, and it's where you now go to buy secondary classes. All existing secondary classes now start locked and must be purchased using an Infected Seed from Species-XI. If you had already spent points in one from a previous save, you'll unlock it for free.

I've added five new secondary classes, each focused on a damage type: Arsonist (thermal), Cryonic (cold), Juggernaut (kinetic), Vitriolic (corrosive), and Contaminator (radioactive). I've also reworked Tempest (electric) so it follows the same pattern.

In addition, there's the Catalyst secondary class, which improves debuffs across the board and makes reactions and surges bigger and better. If you don't like a class, you can sell it and get your Infected Seed back, so there are no permanent choices here.

Railgun & Howitzer No Longer Pierce

These two weapons used to pierce by default, but with the new Juggernaut (kinetic) class adding the ability to make all kinetic weapons pierce, I didn't want that moment to feel underwhelming when you finally unlock it.

Their base damage has been increased to compensate for the loss of piercing.

Pulse Piercing Rework

Pulses received a similar treatment. Only Radioactive and Electromagnetic Pulses now pierce through enemies and debris.

The rest stop on the first thing they hit, but to compensate, their damage has been increased by 25%. This works both ways, meaning you can now hide behind debris to avoid enemy pulses.

Multi-Grapple Madness

I'm not sure if I'll ever make grapples the best choice for utility slots, but this update aims to make them at least fun. They now use proper rope physics, and firing one a second time shoots out the other end of the grapple.

This allows you to link enemies together or tie them to debris. The grapple transfers damage between connected enemies and slowly winches them together. Each grapple can now have multiple active connections at once, allowing you to create a tangled mess of webbing.

Steam post image Sabertooth by BoSonic (https://star-vortex.com/ships.php?view=223)

Steam Deck Performance

I've finally managed to track down what was hurting performance on Steam Deck. It used to sit at around 30 FPS during gameplay, but it now runs happily at 60 FPS in all but the most intense fights.

For those curious, the CPU was spending most of its time sitting idle waiting for the GPU to render frames. The game is now allowed to pre-render one frame ahead, which prevents the CPU and GPU from constantly waiting on each other. On lower-end devices, this can nearly double the framerate.

Full patch notes below. Enjoy!

Patch Notes

New Features / Content

• Science Vessel is now part of the fleet selling secondary classes.

• Added Catalyst as a new secondary class, focusing on debuffs, reactions and surges.

• Added Arsonist as a new secondary class, focusing on thermal weapons.

• Added Contaminator as a new secondary class, focusing on radioactive weapons.

• Added Cryonic as new secondary class, focusing on cold weapons.

• Added Juggernaut as new secondary class, focusing on kinetic weapons.

• Added Vitriolic as a new secondary class, focusing on corrosive weapons.

• Reworked Tempest secondary class slightly to match new damage type classes.

• Guardian upgrades now boost grapple guns, not just PDLs.

• Grapple gun's second activation now fires its free end at a new target.

• You can now keep several grapples active at once.

Balance Changes

• Dynamically spawning ships now ignore a star's difficulty modifiers.

• Species-XI elites and the Leviathan boss now each drop an Infected Seed.

• Increased damage transfer of attached grapples between enemies.

• Only Radioactive and Electromagnetic Pulses now pierce through enemies and debris.

• Non-piercing pulses damage increased by 25% as compensation.

• Howitzer and Railgun no longer pierce by default due to new upgrades.

Quality of Life / Accessibility

• Beam weapons now show their tick rate in their stats.

• Improved translation accuracy across all 10 supported languages.

• Fixed mistranslated weapon, item, and ability names plus typos.

• Standardised key game terms to stay consistent within each language.

• Class panels now sort active classes first, then alphabetically.

• Ship sensor arrows now scale with distance, so closer threats look larger.

Performance

• Ships now batch when drawn, reducing CPU load during large battles.

• Maximum pre-rendered frames now defaults to 2, increasing frame rate.

• Status effect visuals spawn from a pool on demand, not on every ship.

• Stacked damage effects no longer create garbage per hit.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a rare error when destroyed ships broke apart into debris.

• Fixed Bolt Chain Count upgrade not working in real time.

• Fixed ships not being hidden by nebula fog on some graphics cards.

• Fixed an error previewing an upgrade where leveling adds or drops a stat.

Modders

• IDamageable gains a single-entry Damage(type, damage, dps, ...) overload.