Oct 31

ERA ONE - Invi

Good evening Commanders, we just released Dev. Build 10. Thanks to everyone for the help in testing and trying out the new features on the preview branch.

As some of you may already know, this build not only introduces many new features but also marks an important milestone for our planned Multiplayer release.

Modules and Stations

- Mortar Turret. Long-range weapon that splits into multiple rockets when close to the target.

- Stable-pivot rotator. Rotator module with a rotating core that enables new designs

- Biominers. When a Bioforge is completed, a swarm of biominers will damage nearby structures and asteroids to generate resources. (WIP)

- 3-to-2 Extender. Converts a three-cube-wide platform into a two-cube-wide section.

- Reduced Crew cost across all armors by 50%.

- Engines now also provide a percentage of their power to all directions.

Maps & Scenery

- Debuted the Training Shipyard map for the new training experience.

- Softened nebula and dust cloud colors and refreshed dust and radiation cloud visualizers to improve battlefield readability.

Gameplay

- Introduced a Training game mode with very easy difficulty, and custom settings to ease new commanders into the controls.

- Increased ray weapons internal hit buffer to reduce cases of ion weapons not shooting through allied shields.

- Removed proximity warp disruptor fields from large asteroids.

- Fighters and corvettes now execute flyby attacks more reliably, including against derelicts, thanks to adjusted disengage behaviour.

- Wreck resources are retained after loading a save.

- When the "Wrecks Contain Research" setting is enabled, salvageable wrecks can contain the research required to construct that module or ship.

- New Starting Resources: "Insane" (starts with 4000 resources).

- Objectives that award resources now have a "Collect Reward" button instead of auto-collecting.

- Research is slightly faster at higher Game Speed settings.

- Concussion Missiles moved to Tier 2.

- Enemy Waves unlock upgrades faster, increasing difficulty especially at higher settings.

- Defense Shields recharge speed reduced by 30%.

- Challenges and wave modes tuned to match intended income and progression.

- Healer drones return to Repair Bay when it is powered off.

- Ray weapons no longer cause friendly fire.

- Hyperspace: more accurate blockage checks.

Units

- Pirate frigates equipped with Hull Rockets.

- Light ships attack behaviour tweaked for a higher hit chance.

Localization

- Added Portuguese, German, and French languages.

User Interface and Settings

- Auto-Save option added with a customizable interval.

- The overlay toggle now controls sensor and cloud range bubbles directly.

- Save and load flows provide clearer confirmation and error messaging, and returning to the main menu no longer resumes gameplay.

- Names and keybind display options cycle through four distinct states.

- Added secondary cargo bar in selection and deck panels.

- Wave counters now update after unit deaths.

- Auto-hide side panels (left/right) with hover-to-reveal; toggle available in UI settings.

- Added Idle Camera: subtle camera idle movement after a few seconds of inactivity.

- Info panel spacing and objective button layout improved; long texts now truncate correctly.

Graphics and Visual Effects

- Radiation status effect added with a new VFX.

- Nebulae and Dust Clouds are now shown on the Tactical Interface as spheres, to better highlight their size and position.

- The explosions have been upgraded, incorporating alternative effects tailored to armor systems.

Audio

- Added new unit responses for dust and radiation clouds, rally interactions, cargo deliveries, trade messages, and support calls.

- Music volume remains stable when leaving scenes, eliminating brief spikes.

Performance and Optimization

- Visibility system optimizations reduce CPU usage on idle units.

- Effects processing moved to a secondary background thread.

- Deferred Call Scheduler introduced to spread heavy tasks across ticks.

- Call-for-help has a smaller impact on combat performance by distributing calls over time.

- Reduced memory footprint across weapon, SFX, and VFX systems.

- Derelict explosions now use batched particles for steadier visuals.

Other Fixes

- Fixed rare save/load issues that could corrupt data or break compatibility with older saves.

- Fixed an issue that made it harder than intended to click on rotator commands.

- Fixed an issue that caused some asteroids to not be selectable.

- Fixed incorrect display of Fusion and Power module buff lines.

- Reduced audio spam by fixing excessive audio clips emitted by some projectiles.

- Proximity Fields no longer prevent warp from inside; destination orientation is always horizontal.

- Control groups stability improvements; fixed cases where units were sometimes lost from control groups.

Known Issues

- Enemy units may stop their attack behaviour while searching for a new target.

- The new Inline-Rotator module may initialize with a wrong initial rotation.

- Biominers are still work in progress, there may be some visual issues.

- When playing on "Locus", the Rally point may have an incorrect rotation.

Oct 31

DevBlog #64

The Isle - Punchpacket

Fred - 2D Artist

Since the start of the custom skin system, we had been using 1k textures for our creatures. Due to some troubleshooting during that process as we continued to update, I started making some of the skins in 2k in order for them to function as intended in-game. Since then, some are in 1k, some are in 2k. Now I’ve been tasked with giving everyone a 2k upgrade. During this resolution upgrade, I'm also combing through these skins and giving a few of them a subtle cleanup. Below are some examples. Hopefully the older skins will look on par with the more recent ones.

Director’s Commentary

I gave the team two months of reprieve from having to write in any of these and you can see why Fred is the GoodNoodle™ of the team. This officially makes my entry director’s commentary and I don’t have to write a saga.

We’re going to start strong with bugs. I’ve been partaking in bug hunts this month that make me want to put my head in a bag of holding and scream until I’m dead or I wake up God. It has not been fun and it’s not even visually interesting so there’s no heehaws to be found unless you count the allosaurus (again). Are you starting to notice a pattern? If an animal ever deserved to be resurrected just to go extinct again, it would be allosaurus. Why does its foot shake? Why does it slightly glow? The Gods remain ignorant or indifferent to our pleas.

The UI is nearing completion with only a few screens and pop-ups remaining. After that, there may be a few additional tweaks to allow a bit more of a personal customization for the display but the theme is largely there with a secret or two already buried in it. After that comes all the additional information like hints and tutorials.

As testing builds have gone on this month, a lot of animal colorization options have been temporarily reset before being drastically reduced. The reduced color options are so that we can expand dinosaur patterns to have varying palettes. This will allow us an overall greater freedom for color choice that stays within an intended artistic vision without letting players run around as giant rainbow monsters.

(There is an option intended for player servers to allow all palette colors \[or possibly a color wheel] so you can visually do whatever you want. If I can’t see it, it can’t hurt me.)

Pteranodon flight stats were drastically changed this month as well with all the aerial stamina requirements lowered across the board. Pteranodon carries its momentum exceptionally longer in flight than it did previously as well. There’s one more turn functionality for its flight to keep it nimble, but otherwise flight is done and it's time to give it some terrestrial enhancements. Don’t forget, when we’re done with it this animal is going to have a violent ground game.

The animation team has leaned fully into the camarasaurus. This sentence is just to pad the paragraph since I’ll let the attached media for the sauropod speak for itself. Bryan is putting the finishing touches on the quetzalcoatlus rig, which now has dimorphism in the crest for females and an additional edit to the juvenile. After that, he’s on to oviraptor locomotion so it can be plugged up alongside baryonyx, kentrosaurus, and austroraptor. The animation team will remain with our sauropod until its complete, barring an occasional switch over to any austroraptor cleanup that may be needed during its testing.

That being said, austroraptor, kentrosaurus, and baryonyx have had their basic functionality, locomotion, and lifecycles put in. I know some of the images are already floating around the community, but I’ll get some more out there in Phase Three this week. The three of these animals have needlessly cute juvenile morphs that may make a player stay their hand for a moment before trying to kill them, so use this to your advantage when the time comes.

Since last month the sound team has burned through the austroraptor, with only a few juvenile calls left before its time for kentrosaurus. The kentrosaurus’s core vocalizations have been done, so this is just like the austroraptor from last month where they can smoothly move from one dinosaur to the next that has a core vocal palette prepared. In the interim, Will is tackling some foley audio for the large animals before we can change the way footstep audio is handled (Nothing too crazy here. Just having footstep audio dynamically change based on weight).

A myriad of other balance/bug changes have found their way in. In no particular order, just going to throw out some mentionables:

Tyrannosaurus changes went well with only one particular spot in the early juvenile life stage that was allowing tyrannosaurus to hit a little harder than intended. There’s a little more to shore up on making his crush initiate a spar, but he can no longer just pin and kill things in its own weight class (and paleo calls work).

Maiasaura thirst decay has been reduced. This animal will be receiving a bit more attention for CC on its attacks and how easily it can stagger/knockdown an enemy when defending itself, including a small grace amount on the standing shove. Maia also has a small hidden passive most everyone doesn’t know about that will also be getting a minor boost in performance to make sure this is truly known as the good mother lizard.

Omniraptor’s latch decay has been reduced to more effectively hang on larger creatures for longer.

Beipiaosaurus and herrerasaurus oxygen decay has been greatly reduced.

More of the larger animals have received growth curve updates so they have more overlap with animals of smaller sizes instead of linearly outpacing them almost immediately. As stated in the last blog, the times for growth have been slightly shortened as well and put on the end of these animal’s lives so that they spend more time in the elder phase.

Jace has been hard at work on Gateway, expanding the outposts with the new buildings I spoke about last month. Gabriel has been supplying him with shells of locations you’ve seen in the GUTS locales, including some that will be too large for the outposts you’ve seen. You can also expect a new sanctuary near the highlands soon.

I leave you with media, good tithings, and an update to the HordeTesting branch. See you on the servers and Happy Halloween ya filthy animals.

Oct 31

Legends of Azamar Demo 0.0.6

Legends of Azamar - Gronkins

Hello everyone, Gronkins here with patch 0.0.6 for the demo of Legends of Azamar! This patch focuses on reworking the Core abilities so they feel more impactful and have a better flow without adjusting the balance of the game

Abilities

Core abilities have received a rework. Core abilities now interrupt Basic abilities and put Basic abilities on cooldown when used. Such as, Core and Basic abilities can no longer stack or hit in quick succession. To compensate for these changes, all Core Abilities have been heavily buffed:

Rend

Base Damage: 30% -> 65%

Damage per level: 3% -> 6.5%

Cleave

Base Damage: 40% -> 90%

Damage per level: 4% -> 9%

Bash

Base Damage: 50% -> 110%

Damage per level: 5% -> 11%

These changes are experimental, so please feel free to provide feedback on how the new system feels and if it has negatively impacted balance

Items

A new ring base type, known as Azurite Rings, can now drop, starting at level 6. They roll with an implicit 10-15 Maximum Mana
Emitting Glyphs can now roll Mana on Hit modifiers

Bosses

Potion threshold for bosses has been improved. You no longer gain Potion charges when a boss reaches 75%, 50% and 25% Health. You now gain Potion charges when a boss reaches 80%, 60%, 40% and 20% Health. This change should improve Potion sustain against bosses

Dungeon

Added three new dungeon rooms that can appear in Act 1
Replaced an older room with a new variant for more variety

Continued to incrementally improve the UI of the game

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug that caused some objects to not display on the area map
Fixed a bug that prevented the “Area Complete” text from appearing

Closing Words

As always, thank you to everyone who has played the demo so far, and a big thank you to everyone who has left feedback! Please check out the new Core abilities and let me know what you think! These changes are experimental, and there may be future changes and reworks to Core abilities