Update v0.3.1-beta.1 | Available on Experimental

A new experimental patch is now available for testing! You can access it on the experimental branch by following the instructions below if you wish to get access to the changes and fixes now.

How to opt into experimental:

1. Locate Vectorio in your Steam library

2. Right click and go to "properties"

3. Find the "betas" branch

4. Using the dropdown, select "Experimental"

Experimental Info:

• Testing Cycle: ~2 weeks

• RemovedExperimental SavesDisabled
• AddedBackwards CompatibleUp to v0.3.0 (however, STRONLY recommend starting a new save)

• Update Type: Experimental Patch

• Contains Spoilers: Yes

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Let me know below or on our Discord server:

https://discord.gg/vectorio

Tentative Changes

Some changes have yet to make it into this build, either due to known issues or because they are simply not finished yet. I am including them here for full transparency.

• New guardian, Revenant (found in The Abyss)

  • Excluded due to an issue with the turret targetting system that requires a slight refactor to support dynamic (moving) turrets. (you can test this yourself via "/spawn unit_revenant")

• New guardian, Synthara (found in The Abyss)

  • Excluded due to an issue with interactions between this guardian and the new status affliction system, mainly Stun. (you can test this yourself via "/spawn unit_synthara")

• 8 new quests to The Abyss

  • Excluded due to the above guardians being excluded. Quests heavily tie in with guardian fights, so without them these quests cannot be completed.

• New gamemode, Creative

  • Simply not finished yet. I have not had time to get this off the back-burner.

• New player progression system, Construct Shell

  • Partically completed, ultimately being excluded for the live release.

• Upgrade tiers for all buildings in the game

  • Again not finished, have not had time yet.

• 6 new achievements to the game

  • Excluded until the live release

• New engineering mod, Re-Target. (after hitting a unit, orients towards the next closest one - only useful if bullet has piercing)

  • Not finished

Patch Notes

The following is a list of changes pushed to the experimental branch. While changes are usually tested beforehand, please note that some may require further testing to validate.

NEW CONTENT:

• Added new "Discovery" and "Knowledgebase" system to help new & existing players understand game mechanics. Only configured up to research at the moment.

• Added new crafting building, Status Chamber (spawns units nearby while crafting)

• Added new crafting building, Compressor

• Added new turret, Lancer (fires exploding projectiles)

• Added new turret, Tesla (fires bolts of lightning, applying EMP status effect)

• Added new unit, Healer (heals nearby units being damaged)

• Added new unit, Shielder (deploys a shield which reflects bullets)

• Added new drone, Builder Drone (places ghost buildings from blueprints or shift-click)

• Added new drone, Fixer Drone (targets damaged buildings and heals them back to full health)

• Added enemy outposts that can spawn throughout the world (not found in ALTAR)

• Added enemy formations (will be used by RTS mechanics in the future)

• Added 5 upgrade tiers for Fixer Port

• Added 4 upgrade tiers for Lancer

ENGINEERING:

• Added new engineering mod, Rapidheal (fixer drones heal considerably faster)

• Added new engineering mod, Overheal (fixer drones can heal up to 10% over a buildings maximum health, works with rapidheal and areaheal mods)

• Added new engineering mod, Areaheal (fixer drones healing trickles onto nearby buildings)

• Added new engineering mod, Galvanized Rounds (inflicts the "Stun" status affliction)

GAMEPLAY:

• Reverted dynamic heat system back to level-based heat system, making it easier to fine tune heat levels & understand the difficulty increase of each heat level

• Changed how Armor works; now only breaks if hit by an explosion. Will be listening for feedback on this and making adjustments to the mechanic.

• Changed how Shields work; now only breaks if hit by an EMP

• Bullets now visually reflect off armor & shields

• Updated range preview visuals using a new analytic shader to scale nicely at varying sizes

• Enabled builder ports on the hub

OTHER CHANGES:

• Removed all resource techs from the game; all resources are now unlocked by default.

• Increased the maximum UI scale setting from 1.2x to 1.5x (note maxing this out may cause UI overlapping)

• Increased the maximum bloom value setting from 1x to 2x (note maxing this out may cause flickering)

• Changed default value for "Always Show Power Connections" and "Always Show Power Coverage" to enabled

• Updated menu credits & re-enabled credits button

QUALITY OF LIFE:

• Added a copy/cut/paste tool; activated via ctrl+c, ctrl+v, and ctrl+x shortcuts

• Added a new recipe tooltip to display recipe details

• Increased the text size for quests on the ALTAR OS interface

• Updated resource slot tooltip to still display when the slot is empty but has a filter

• Added the ability to traverse research trees with the movement keybind

BUG FIXES:

• Fixed multiple UI components not being affected by UI scaling

• Fixed incorrect description on empty tile design

• Fixed turret's and other entity trackers sometimes missing nearby targets based on proximity to the edge of a tracked chunk

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS:

• Various improvements to the entity tracking system on-top of the core tech improvements below

• Various improvements to the drone dispatching system, which should make large amounts of drones less taxing on lower-end hardware

CORE TECH:

• Refactored parts of the backend entity tracking system used by Turret's and Unit's to reduce GC and improve the time complexity of this system from O(n2) to O(n) - this should yield tremendous performance improvements on lower-mid end hardware.

• Added ID context and a context transitioning utility to support Outposts & Blueprints (copy/paste), allowing global snapshots to be transitioned to a local context and then back to a global context

• Added a new centralized achievement tracker for progressive/challenge achievements

• Added a new effect mask for entity models that auto-bakes based on the provided sprite layers

• Added a new formation tracker & "leader" status, supporting the ability for formations and the new follower unit state

• Updated quest manager to allow optional objectives that are not required to finish the quest

• Range stats are now uniformly authored in tiles, enforced via a new TileRange struct for all range accessors

• Centralized range preview logic into one handler (was split across DefaultTool/EntityBuildTool)

• Added the ability to lose regions by adding a "CanLoseRegion" flag on the data definition. This enables HUB vulnerability. Used for a new hidden region.

To stay up-to-date, I recommend joining our Discord!

https://discord.gg/vectorio