Hello Riftbreakers!

It's been quite some time since our last FAQ update. As the time goes on, your questions change - we receive fewer and fewer questions about the basics of the game, and more about it's future and our plans. That's why we decided to release an entirely new FAQ to act as a supplement to the previous one. We won't be erasing the old FAQ from existence, as we feel the two documents support each other quite well. Instead of that, they will function together as an easy-access knowledge base of all things Riftbreaker.

The list of questions, of course, is non-exhaustive and subject to change. If you have any additional questions, please ask them in the comments - the most helpful ones might even get added to the FAQ.

Q: Will you add multiplayer support for The Riftbreaker? When?
A: Yes! Our current estimate is the end of the year 2022.

Q: Will there be cross-play?
A: Unfortunately, no. Cross-play is a Pandora’s Box that we do not want to open. We haven’t managed to close the previous one yet.

Q: Will the multiplayer portion of the game be available in co-op or PvP?
A: We are focusing on optimizing the game for co-op play. However, the road from co-op to PvP is not that long, so we’ll see what the future (or modders) brings.

Q: Are you going to expand the game's content in any way?
A: We are planning to release a couple of World Expansion updates, adding a lot of content to the game. New regions, new creatures, new technologies. The first one is scheduled to launch in Q2 2022. Right now it looks like about 25%-30% of the main campaign. A part of this is going to be released as a free update in the form of a new survival biome and new content accessible across the game. The story driven campaign portion of the World Expansion is going to be a paid DLC.

Q: Why isn’t there Steam Workshop support? Will you add it?
A: The Riftbreaker is available on many platforms. We don’t want to alienate any users and would like to offer equal access to easy modding for everyone. We are working on another solution for content distribution that’s going to be available to the broadest possible group of users (we can't guarantee mods on consoles)

Q: Where can I find mods at the moment?
A: You can check out The Riftbreaker section on Nexus Mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/theriftbreaker - there is a variety of mods available there. From simple tweaks, through packs of additional map tiles, to entirely new weapons - you will surely find something that you will enjoy. You can also visit the modding channel on our Discord: www.discord.gg/exorstudios - you can always find the latest mods in the pinned messages section.

Q: Are you planning any changes to the Survival mode?
A: We are planning a large rework of the Survival Mode structure, with separate tech trees and different starting load-outs for each biome. We want to make more gameplay strategies viable from the start. Additionally, we are planning to give you the ability to make use of the Cultivators and Harvesters in a more meaningful way. One other thing we would love to add is persistent unlocks and progress between runs, similar to a roguelike game. That’s still a distant future, though.

Q: We voted for new weapons and items in your competitions! When will those be added?
A: Those items will be introduced into the game with the release of the World Expansion Update.

Q: I'm struggling, where can I find help/strategies?
A: You can either come to our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios and ask the community for advice. You can also watch us play live during our Twitch streams at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios

Q: I’m getting an ‘Access Denied’ error when trying to save!
A: That is because Windows is preventing us from accessing your documents folder. We don’t know why that happens, but here’s a workaround:

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

1. Google windows mklink, pick instructions
2. Create a new "The Riftbreaker" folder in another directory like "D:\The Riftbreaker"
3. Find/Search for "CMD" in your windows search.
4. Right-click on "Command Prompt", right-click and select "Run as Administrator"
5. Go to the Documents folder and delete the old "Documents\The Riftbreaker" directory.
6. Run the command inside the Documents folder, "mklink /J C:\Users<your username here>\Documents\The Riftbreaker" "D:\The Riftbreaker"

Q: My game opens on the wrong display!
A: Try using the configuration tool - open your Steam Library, select The Riftbreaker, press play, then choose the config tool. You can change your preferred display there.

Q: I saw some new Patch Notes on Steam. Are all versions of the game up to date?
A: For PC releases - yes. We try to release our updates for Steam, GOG, and Epic simultaneously. Console and Windows Store (Game Pass) patches usually take 1 or 2 extra days.

Q: Is The Riftbreaker going to be Steam Deck Verified?
A: We are working on making the game fully playable on the Steam Deck and we hope we can get that sweet green checkmark soon.

Q: If Steam Deck is confirmed, does it mean the game will run on Linux?
A: Officially - no. We have done a lot of work to ensure compatibility with the latest Proton library, but we won’t be providing official support for the game on Linux.

Q: My game is running sloooooooooow. Is there anything I can do to increase my FPS?
A: Unless you are playing on an integrated GPU, your FPS is probably fine. The game slows down when the CPU can’t complete all the necessary game logic calculations in time. Rather than skip frames, which would result in visible chugging, we slow the game’s pace down, so that the logic can catch up to the rendered image. We know that it isn’t pleasant, but it’s the lesser evil. If you have a huge base, you can try to reduce the number of buildings - floors, energy connectors and pipes should be your focus. Meanwhile, we are introducing new optimizations - the game will run better with each update.

Q: Are you planning to add more achievements?
A: Yes - we want to add more achievements with the next World Expansion Update.

Q: My antivirus software has quarantined your game because of suspicious activity. What’s the deal?
A: We have an integrated crash reporter tool that opens when the game crashes. From that tool you may send us a log file to help us figure out what might have caused the game to crash. Some antivirus programs don’t like that the game wants to phone home and block it. You’re 100% safe, promise.

Q: Are you going to add the Sandbox Control Panel to consoles?
A: We are working on it, but it's quite complicated because it can't be as unlimited as on PC. It is very difficult to crash the game on PC because it can virtualize system memory. Console platforms are completely different in this regard and require MUCH more effort to keep the game stable at all times.

Q: Repairing/upgrading buildings one by one is tedious!
A: Yeah, we know that. We are working on upgraded tools that will allow you to do that more efficiently.

Q: I don’t know what is happening with my economy. Can you make it clearer?
A: Yes. We will add a new economy management screen that will show you exactly what’s going on with your resources and facilities.

As always, if you have any other questions or ceoncers, let us know in the comments!
EXOR Studios

We have released a substantial update for our Modding Tools. It is the result of weeks of work, both ours and the work of our community, who relentlessly hunted bugs and reported them to us. This update brings improvements, fixes, and features you requested, either on our Discord, Steam forum, or Github. We hope that thanks to these, we will see even more brilliant modifications for The Riftbreaker.

The single most significant addition in this patch is the Model Editor. It’s a tool that we did not include with the previous release. It had some problems that we needed to solve first. Now that we have brought it back to its former self, you can finally have a look at it. The Model Editor gives you access to the following tools:


You can open any .ent file in the game to view the model, its animations and any associated blueprints.

- The Attachment Editor - this tool allows you to create and edit attachments for in-game entities. You can then use those attachments to add effects to a unit. If you want to make Mr. Riggs into a Christmas Tree with hundreds of lights - this is the tool you're looking for.


If you are fascinated with watching looping animations over and over again, this is the tool for you.

- The Animation Viewer - allows you to preview what the animations look like for any given unit.


And if you like watching monsters get gibbed over and over again, this is the tool for you, as well!

- The Blueprint Viewer - lists all blueprints available in any given .ent file, along with their effects and destruction simulations.


This 'simple' tree makes all the in-game animations tick. Have fun figuring it out!

- The Animation Graph Editor - okay, we'll admit it, it's still totally broken and work-in-progress. It's a black magic tool for creating and editing animation graphs. No one knows how it works, though.

Please note that The “Model Editor” name might be a little misleading. It does not allow you to change the models themselves. We make them using a different set of tools (Zbrush for sculpting, Blender for further modeling, and Substance Painter for texturing, if you’re interested).

The Editing Tools are separated from The Riftbreaker main release version. To download them, go to your Steam library, check the 'Tools' checkbox in the list on top, then find and install The Riftbreaker Tools. If you are not a Steam user, the tools are also available on our official GitHub page, right here: https://github.com/exorstudios/riftbreaker-tools/releases/tag/0.1.4950

Apart from the Model Editor being added, there are a lot more changes in this release. Here is the full changelog, divided into sections for each tool.

• Unified the dialog windows backend for all editors.
  
• The editors should no longer crash when SegoeUI font is missing from the system.
  
• Unified the TextEdit controls in all editors with a colored border on focus.
  
• File > Exit menu option should work properly now
  
• The editor apps should throttle when they are run in the background to prevent them from wasting CPU cycles.
  
• The rendering framerate will no longer exceed the detected monitor's refresh rate to prevent your RTX 3090 from becoming a space heater.
  
• Added the 'About' section with all credits and legal information.
  
• The 'About' section will open all license text in a separate text file if clicked.
  
• Improved font legibility for users who had DPI scaling enabled in their display settings
  
• Added a 'clear' button for list/tree filter input fields.
  
• The 'undo' and 'redo' shortcuts now work across all editors.
  
• Launching any of the editors will no longer hijack your hardware RGB lighting schemes.
  
• Performance: The application update has been moved to the main thread
  
• Dialog Boxes are not forced to the foreground, so they are no longer lost behind the main window
  
• Added a native splash screen support that replaces the ugly black window during the editor initialization phase with a not-so-beautiful (programmer quality) splash image.
  
• ...and tons of backend changes for future updates :)

• Converted and cleaned up most dialog windows to shared backend.
  
• Fixed the time flow for particle simulations.
  
• Prevent camera zoom in/out on mouse wheel when a dialog window is open.
  
• validate tile name on tile creation/load ( )
  
• Creating a new biome from within the editor is now possible.
  
• You can now pin tiles as your favorites in the Open Tile dialog window.
  
• Purged invalid references in `File > Recent` menu entry.
  
• Improve 'Play Game' dialog window. You can now select mission/difficulty before launching the game (Custom difficulty customization in the future). Press the green 'play' button in the top right corner of the window, and you're in the game! This is a great solution for testing changes quickly, as it skips the main menu sequence entirely and doesn't require you to place any zip packs in the game's main folder.
  
• Improved 'New -> Mission tile' flow.
  
• When creating a new mission, the editor will automatically create a custom 'time of day' file for you, containing settings about lighting and weather effects that you can tweak to your liking.
  
• The newly created tiles will use the 'Jungle Survival' mission as a placeholder for their mission logic.
  
• Fixed a crash caused by `project_resave_tiles` action when running in non-development mode.
  
• Creating missions from .mapdump files is now easier. If you play The Riftbreaker and stumble upon a map you like, you can enter the console and type in: 'dump_map_layout. You can then open that file in the Level Editor. The Editor will automatically create all the necessary files for you
  
• Fixed an issue where the prefab list was empty after new tile creation
  
• Added an option that allows the editor to auto-load the last opened project on app start.
  
• The 'Open Level' option in the Level Editor has been renamed to 'Open Tile'.
  
• You can now edit the lighting settings and save custom presets directly in the Level Editor.

• Fix a crash when deleting selected nodes with external requirements.
  
• Research Tree now displays centering guidelines.
  
• The Research Editor on campaign tree save will no longer generate an additional tree for survival mode, as the trees for both campaign and survival have been separated now.
  
• Creating a new ResearchTree will mark it as `custom,` and when found, it will be auto-injected into the game research tree as a separate tab.
  
• Added support for displaying the DPS calculation in the Weapon Editor.
  
• Added LocalizationEditor to ease localization lookup/preview (we are missing glyphs for non-ASCII characters, so they are displayed as ???)
  
• Added an experimental DARK theme (add `set editor/theme 0` to editor config for preview)

• Copying files to the workspace shouldn't corrupt files any longer.
  
• Editor reacts a little better to external workspace directory changes.
  
• More colored icons!
  
• Reveal in Explorer/Edit file action should be now a little more reliable.
  
• Fixed issues with starting external editors.
  
• Added an experimental DARK theme (add `set editor/theme 0` to editor config for preview).

• Removed deprecated actions from graph nodes.

We highly encourage you to leave bug reports and feature requests on our GitHub. https://github.com/exorstudios/riftbreaker-tools/releases/tag/0.1.4950 That way, we can track them easily and update you on the status of the issue. If you find GitHub hard to use, we also pay attention to the Steam Forum and the Modding section of our Discord: www.discord.gg/exorstudios. Discord is also a great place to share your mods and ask for help if you find any aspect of working with our tools troublesome. TL;DR join Discord. This is the way.

If you haven’t seen the results of our Community’s hard work yet, we highly encourage you to check out these great mods for The Riftbreaker:
https://www.nexusmods.com/theriftbreaker/mods/150
https://www.nexusmods.com/theriftbreaker/mods/122
https://discord.com/channels/423424585954754565/736688063362891860/947875706690482216

Issues closed during this milestone:
https://github.com/exorstudios/riftbreaker-tools/milestone/1?closed=1

Can't wait to see more mods!
EXOR Studios

A lot has changed in The Riftbreaker since its October release. Ever since that moment, you have been sharing your insights with us non-stop, showing your care and dedication. Thanks to them, we have improved on plenty of aspects of the game. However, our work is far from over. Today, we would like to share a bit of a perspective view on The Riftbreaker, how your voices shaped the game and what changes we are planning to implement over the course of the following months. It’s time for our first ever State Of The Game!




The Campaign Mode has been receiving improvements with almost every patch we release. You have informed us about many potential roadblocks and given hints on improving the flow. The difficulty spectrum has been greatly improved. The Easy difficulty was made more accessible, while the Hard and Brutal modes became slightly more challenging. This change allows more players to enjoy The Riftbreaker Campaign at a more suitable level. Additionally, we added the option to use Custom Difficulty settings to play the entirety of The Riftbreaker Campaign. This way, if you don’t find a setting that’s quite right for you, you can fine-tune almost all parameters that define how difficult the game is going to be.



At the same time, we have been doing internal playthroughs of the game. Each member of our team has completed the Campaign and then shared their feedback with the rest of us. What came out of all this is a medium-sized book of ‘to-dos’. Covering all of them would be impossible. Instead, we’re going to reveal the most significant upgrades that you can expect to arrive in the short-to-medium term.



The first one is an all-new economy management screen. With this feature, we aim to give you a new degree of control over what comes in and what goes out of your base at any given moment. The economy screen will show you what kind of resources your facilities are using, where your power comes from, and what consumes the majority of it. Best of all - we are working on giving you control over your buildings through that screen. For example, when an attack wave threatens your base, you will be able to disable all your Synthesizers or Comms Hubs with just a couple of clicks instead of frantically running around the base.



We are also working on expanding the endgame content. Without going into spoilers - we want to introduce new endgame goals and new ways of enjoying the campaign mode for a much longer time. That will include the ability to visit more planetary locations, discover all the flora and fauna species, and cultivate resources to form a self-sustaining base. The first step to that was the Agricultural Revolution from a couple of days ago. That point deserves its own paragraph (or even a couple).



The Cultivators have proved to be very powerful. With that technology, some players were able to even fast-track their way to opening the Rift Portal - which is excellent. Giving players more options, especially the less obvious ones, is a net positive for everyone. Unfortunately, their efficiency and versatility were so high compared to the cost that they could make all other resource production obsolete. Cultivators are intended to be a late or endgame mechanic. If they are available en masse too early, they become problematic. At launch, their costs were not reflective of the power behind them. We decided to tweak their upkeep costs, yields from particular saplings, and the number of drones that operate simultaneously. Additionally, to reflect the fact that Resource Cultivation is the ultimate, eco-friendly way of preparing Galatea 37 for human colonization, we limited certain saplings to their native biomes. That, in turn, requires you to set up several farms around the globe if you want to harvest all of the available resources



That reduced the overall yield you got from your existing setups. There are several reasons for this. First of all - the ratio of Harvesting Stations needed to fully operate one Cultivator has changed. Harvesters now have more drones at their disposal but a reduced operation radius. There is a chance that your current setup is still good, but now you have more room for optimizations. The resources you gain from individual saplings have changed too. If you have noticed that, for example, your previous tanzanite farm might not be producing tanzanite anymore, you might just have to choose a different plant. All resources are available from at least two different species, so we encourage you to experiment.



These changes have been made to make resource cultivation more predictable and controllable. They are more in line with the endgame content we have in mind, facilitating more than one viable strategy. We understand that this might have made some of your setups obsolete and might have generated extra work for you. We are sorry for that and hope that you will understand that we have to make these changes to make the game more enjoyable in the longer perspective. We know that the adjustment period might be a little bit of a shock, but please trust us - it’s all going to be worth it in the end.

As you can see, we have a lot of plans for the Campaign Mode. Its modular structure allows us to expand the game’s mechanisms as well as the world of Galatea 37 and whatever lies beyond…

P.S. We’re making ALT great again. The users from the experimental branch have already had a taste of the ALT key shortcut for building the maximum level building working as a toggle, but we are going one step further. We have designed a system that allows you to toggle the default building level per building. For example, you will be able to set it up so that you always build Solar Panels Level 3 and Wind Turbines Level 2.No more holding the ALT key. No more locked movement. Greatness!


We have received a lot of feedback regarding the difficulty level of Survival Mode. As it stands now, significant difficulty spikes are an issue for many players. We also heard complaints about the feeling of lack of accomplishment after beating it, as it offers no real gameplay advantage. We have some plans on how to fix that.



Survival Mode will be getting a major balance overhaul. It is definitely true that this game mode could be improved by introducing more variety of enemy attacks. A more gradual increase of difficulty over time could also bring some good. That is why we are going to be reworking all survival difficulty levels from the ground up. We aim to make survival on all difficulty levels demanding but fair. At present, players are sometimes attacked by waves of creatures that they are ill-equipped to deal with early on. That is going to change. We will also give each biome its own specialized technology loadouts. That will make more strategies viable, thus increasing the variety of options available to you.



One of the major changes that are coming for the Survival Mode is the revamped Research Tree. At present, it is shared with the tree used in the Campaign. As a result, you sometimes are forced to spend precious minutes of research on unlocking tech that you will not benefit much from. To solve this, the Survival Mode will get an entirely new Research Tree, to allow you access to as many upgrades as we can, thus increasing the strategic potential. The less impactful technologies will be available from the start, and the ones that have no use in this game mode (like Magnetic Stabilizers or the Research Station) will be removed from the tech tree. We are also planning to make Alien Research much easier to attain.




We have seen a lot of great mods published for The Riftbreaker already. Ranging from tweaks to select buildings to complete overhauls of entire biomes and weapon systems - it’s fascinating to see how you put the tools we gave you to use. And our support has only just begun.



An integrated, in-game content distribution service is coming. We know it’s taking a bit long, but as we have said before: this is an important decision that will have its consequences for the entirety of the game’s lifetime. We want users of all platforms across the entire world to be able to use the same platform and interface to share and download custom content. There are a couple of solutions on the line, and we are doing our best to make the best-informed decision. That will, unfortunately, take some time.



What will not take so much time, on the other hand, is an update to our game editing tools. Ever since we published the first version, we have received a lot of feedback and feature requests. We’re happy to tell you that we managed to implement a lot of those changes, and a brand-new editor suite is on its way. We hope to see even more amazing creations from you, just like the ones we spotlighted before: Jungle Variation Pack and Expanded Armory.



As more mods are being created, the number of questions about copyrights increases. To keep a long story short - you are free to use any assets from within EXOR Studios games to create your mods within other EXOR Studios games, and you are free to share them with other players for free. We will publish our policy guidelines around the time the integrated mod support is implemented. We just want you to know that we’re fine with you reusing any existing assets from our games.

Content Creation is a major point for The Riftbreaker. The possibility of using custom tweaks, adding new maps, and even entirely new mechanics are all amazing ways to keep you engaged and give you more creative freedom. Rest assured, we will not abandon this.




We have a plan. We have a schedule. We have developers. We are working on it as we speak. Even though we don’t have much to share at the moment, we can tell you that we have already implemented the basic client-server architecture and are working on refactoring many game systems that would not work well in a network environment. A positive side effect of that is that we can optimize some systems while doing so, meaning there is even a chance that the single-player game performance is going to improve from that. Our vague ETA is the end of the year 2022.


The Riftbreaker’s journey has only just begun. While it might seem that we are working on several big things at once (and we are), the work is structured and divided evenly among our developers. You can expect small, regular updates increasing the stability and quality of life every couple of weeks, leading up to the next point on our roadmap - World Expansion I. It will be an absolute banger, so make sure to stay up to date with the news - we can’t wait to share it all with you.

As always, if you have any questions, thoughts, or general feedback, the comment section is yours. We also encourage you to join our Discord server at www.discord.gg/exorstudios to get insights and updates daily.

Cheers!
EXOR Studios

Hello Riftbreakers!

We have just released a small patch addressing some of the issues that you have reported with the latest update. Thank you for pointing out the issues and providing us with valuable feedback. The changelog today is not that long, so let’s get right to it.

• We heard your feedback regarding the ability to pick up loot while your storage is full. The majority of you dislike that change and dislike your resources going to waste. We’ve reverted this change.
  
• The raytraced light flickering issue that occurred during the Resource Comet flyby sequence has been fixed.
  
• We fixed a bug with the building override functionality. If you used a gamepad and tried to build a gate replacing existing wall tiles, the game would not sell those tiles and they would become stuck forever. The same occurred when trying to replace any two compatible buildings with each other. It is fixed now, and you can safely go back to building The Great Wall of Galatea with your gamepads. This issue did not affect mouse and keyboard controls.
  
• We made Cobalt nuggets more distinct by giving them a slightly brighter light, as they looked too similar to Carbonium.
  
• The lights on other lootable objects have also been slightly intensified to make them easier to spot on the battlefield.
  
• We’ve fixed several obscure crash bugs that were reported after the previous update.
  
  Thank you,
  EXOR Studios

Hello Riftbreakers!

We have just published a very small hotfix with an updated executable file for the game. You should see much-improved performance in the game. There are no other changes in this build.

EXOR Studios

It is time for us to let you get your hands on some of the changes we have been working on for the past couple of weeks. This Update brings in some much-needed quality of life fixes, changes that you have requested, as well as a massive makeover of the Cultivator technology branch.


- We have introduced pretty significant changes to the way Cultivators and Harvesters work. It quickly became clear that we missed the mark when balancing the cultivator chain. It was entirely possible to skip resource production entirely in the late game, as having several level 3 Cultivators and Harvesters supplied the base with everything you'd ever need. Additionally, the UI and UX of the system were not great. Well - it all changes today. We have introduced a massive number of changes and improvements when it comes to plant cultivation in The Riftbreaker:

• The number of drones for both Cultivators and Harvesters has been reduced which also results in improved performance in large base scenarios.
  
• The amount of resources that the Harvester drones can carry has been reduced.
  
• Drone speeds have been changed - Cultivator drones are faster and Harvester drones are slower.
  
• Drones now differ in size to make it easier to differentiate between the two types.
  
• Drone targeting algorithm has been altered: Harvester drones now prioritize plants at the highest growth level.
  
• Speaking of growth, the growth cycle has been fixed and upgraded. Saplings planted by the cultivators are always very small at first. However, they grow 3 times as fast as the same plants found in the wild.
  
• Harvesters now pull the plants out together with their roots - you will no longer see a mix of several plants growing next to one cultivator after changing a sapling.
  
• Amounts of resources that can be harvested from all plants have been changed.
  
• Saplings now have biome requirements - they can only be grown in their natural habitat.
  
• All biomes now have a separate 'default' sapling that gives you different resources.
  
• UI and UX have been drastically improved - the menus are much clearer and fewer clicks are required to get Cultivators working.
  
• Energy usage has been increased.

Out with the old (on the left, no selector indicator, no current sapling, overall mess) and in with the new (right, selected/equipped distinction, clearer resource display, information about requirements, and much fewer clicks to get there)!

All in all these changes result in much slower, but a lot more reasonable and stable flora cultivation. We hope you will enjoy tending to your gardens after these changes.
Added an option to manually turn off certain types of audio announcements. You can use them if you feel the game is nagging you to build more storage too often.

• Added support for clearing key bindings on gamepads. 'Clear Binding' tooltip has been added to the 'Customize Controls' screen.
  
• Added support for adding custom research trees for all your modding needs and purposes. This will also allow us to create custom research trees for Survival Mode rebalance, which is coming soon.
  
• Added a config variable 'full_storage_announcement_limit' with 10000 as the default value. It stops announcements from playing if the storage limit is higher than 10000. We assume that if you have this much storage then you know what you’re doing and don’t need any more help with this aspect of economy management.
  
  The localizations are programmer art, don't judge.
  
• Custom Game button has been added to the main menu. You can launch new maps and scenarios created by the community through this option. It will later serve as a Hub for all modded content. In order for this menu to appear you need to have mods with *.campaign files installed - otherwise, the menu is hidden. The next release of our modding tools will have a feature that will generate that file for you.
  
  
  
• Improved placing buildings in a straight line. If you build a series of small buildings, such as solar panels, one next to another, they will now have less of a tendency to snap out of line.
  
• Added a debug switch `r_show_vegetation_phase`.
  
• Added EntityService:CreateQuickSandSinkMovement(entity, float duration). Allows modders to make certain entities sink underground as if they were built on quicksand.
  
• Added Exor::Optional<float> BuildingService:GetWorkingTime(Exor::Entity::Id building). This method gives you information on how long a given structure has been operational.
  
• Added Lua: expose ResourceManager:GetResource( type: string, name: string ) - to allow you to meddle with resources.
  
• Added methods: SetWeaponAllResistances and RemoveWeaponAllResistances - to change weapon resistances for entities on the fly.
  
• Added `cheat_disable_cultivator_biome_requirement` - to let you grow everything, everywhere.

• Loot can now always be picked up, even with full storage - experimental, to avoid clutter and chaos on screen. Please let us know what you think about this - it’s experimental.
  
• Introduced changes to creature Nests. We improved their materials, effects, and made sure that they always spawn eggs. Also - the eggs now have randomized sizes and rotation.
  
  They're even more disgusting now.
  
• After a Bomogan is killed, if it had a projectile ready on its back, it will no longer disappear immediately, but gradually phase out.
  
• Increased starting resources in survival mode on the jungle biome and disabled tutorial objectives. You can now immediately place the HQ and a couple additional buildings.
  
• Increased the amount of carbonium and ironium in starting resource patches in survival mode on the Jungle, Desert, and Acid biomes. The goal of this change is to make the early phase of survival somewhat easier, so that the difficulty ramps up in a more gradual way.
  
• Enabled hedroner, phirian, kermon, baxmoth and krocoon species on the Jungle survival map.
  
• Delayed the possibility of Acidic Yeast Colony objective spawn in survival mode on the Jungle and Acid biomes on easy and normal difficulty settings. This creature was a bit too much for starting players.
  
• Decreased the opacity of objective/event radiuses on the minimap.
  
• Decreased the size of light effects on loot items to avoid clutter/chaos on-screen during and after big fights.
  
  Before, all loot elements used to be highlighted.
  
  Now, only the most important elements (specimens and mods) retain their strong highlight, while resources are much less prominent.
  
• Floors and power lines no longer cast shadows for performance purposes.
  
• Health bars have been added to all boss enemies.
  
• Item sorting in the inventory screen has been improved. New items receive a little (+) marker and always appear on top of the list.
  
• Loading and Saving popups now have a background behind the text label.
  
• Liquid-related buildings can now be built directly on pipes, overriding them, much like in the case of walls and gates.
  
• Cheat_free_build applies to building upgrades now as well.
  
• The ribbon trail for the hand grenade is now different from the ribbon trail of a projectile fired from a grenade launcher.
  
• Shorter lifetime for acid decals, to match their damage time.
  
• Proximity Mines will sink into quicksand.
  
• Buildings: remove ghost blueprints from drone buildings, they are now auto-generated. This is a game backend change that will make modding easier.
  
• Drones no longer work at full capacity when their home building doesn't. If there are resource shortages, only one drone spawns per building. It will also fly slower than usual.
  
• Added prologue finish hint text, directing the player to play the Story Campaign next.
  
• Tanzanite Concentration mission cultivator build conditions have been set to more 'relaxed'.
  
• Improved the "Mission Complete" display at the end of campaign missions to ensure the player that they have done everything they needed to do.
  
• Mission Complete objective status is no longer displayed after returning to a finished mission.
  
• Added a build menu highlight for the Orbital Scanner in the 'Build Orbital Scanner' mission.
  
• Added a build menu highlight for the Radar Station in the 'Find Titanium Samples' mission.
  
• Increased the uranium treasure volume in the 'Find Uranium' mission
  
• Improved the 'Acidic Plains Reconnaissance' mission flow. The first mission objective can be fulfilled by either destroying the Colony or by scanning it.
  
• The treasure marker in the 'Desert Find Uranium' mission now properly disappears after digging up the treasure.
  
• Improved the 'Acidic Plains Palladium Concentration' palladium vein marker flow.
  
• Reduced exploding mushroom density in the 'Acidic Plains Palladium Concentration' mission.
  
• Added a new custom desert tile for the Stregaros encounter mission and changed the aggro value for the stregaros spawner volume.
  
• Reworked the first Stregaros encounter in the 'Desert Scouting' mission to be more reliable.
  
• Increased specimen and mod mesh sizes by 50%.
  
• The ice crater decal has been modified to reduce noise on the screen.
  
• Floors can be overridden with other floor types - now you can easily create pathways and patterns in the base.
  
  If you try to replace a larger tile with a smaller one, the larger will be automatically broken up into smaller pieces.
  
• The floor removal tool has been upgraded to delete only the marked tiles.
  
• Increased Gnerot's resistances during sleep state to prevent players from killing it before it can do anything.
  
• Added a planetary quest reminder to nudge players towards checking out the planetary scanner screen if there are no other local objectives currently visible.
  
• Removed underground resource deposits other than palladium in the 'Find Palladium' mission.

• Fixed decals disappearing too early on quicksand.
  
• Fixed missing effects on boss creatures after packing.
  
• The HUD now correctly displays 0% solar power efficiency at night.
  
• The Planetary Scanner screen does not count walls, pipes, energy connectors in the buildings count.
  
• Disabled DirectInput support to avoid problems with steering wheels/HOTAS systems.
  
• SoundPlugin: fixed crash on shutdown during startup.
  
• Building type "pipe" removed from the armory, advanced magnetic stabilizer, and tower ammunition factory. We don't know how it got there in the first place.
  
• Fixed plasma storage and production in Fusion Power Plant level 3.
  
• Fixed AI cost problems in custom difficulty while using the building cost multiplier.
  
• You can no longer perform a planetary jump if Headquarters is missing.
  
• The blood moon event is now correctly recognized as a 'night' event.
  
• Fixed too small collisions in small crystals to enable scanning.
  
• Fixed mech searchlight disappearing after jumping between maps.
  
• Fixed some desert tiles to avoid resources spawning on quicksand.
  
• Plants spawned by the cultivators are no longer scannable.
  
• Ghost buildings no longer cast shadows.
  
• Fixed portal addons not being built when the player is out on other missions.
  
• Fixed an issue in the DamageSystem where weapon with different damage over time mods was not clearing hit effects on enemies.
  
• Fixed an issue in the TileablePrefab system where vegetation spawned from prefabs was not re-growing.
  
• Consumable Sentry Towers no longer play sounds when they are damaged or destroyed.
  
• Fixed a rare issue when a Baxmoth Drone could get stuck in a 'calm' state and fly around forever.
  
• Nerilians are no longer targeted by towers when they are hidden.
  
• Fixed turret jitter in idle state after losing the target.

• Sound: added EQ filter SoundGraph node (SoundNodeEQBiquadFilter) with LPF
  
• Sound: added HPF to SoundNodeEQBiquadFilter
  
• Sound: SoundNode_ADSR uses SoundCurve as an amplitude envelope
  
• Sound: SoundCurve initial implementation
  
• Sound: SoundCurve prototype (SoundNode_ADSR test: attack + decay + sustain)
  
• Sound: XAudio2: flushing source buffers only during stopping procedure
  
• The floor removal tool now has sounds.

Let us know about any bugs and issues you find!
EXOR Studios

We are very happy that the previous Community Modding Spotlight article has been received so well. WirawanMYT’s Expanded Arsenal Mod received a lot of well-deserved attention and praise. Wirawan also plans to develop his mod further and has a major update lined up just around the corner. If you haven’t checked that mod out just yet, you can do so here.

Today we want to highlight another mod that has genuinely amazed us. This one is called ‘Jungle More Variation’ and it has been created by sublimecala13er. We think the name undersells what this mod really does. It is a pack of 12 brand-new tiles for the Jungle survival mode and the Jungle part of the Campaign, which does not ‘just’ give you more variation - it makes you feel like you’re playing an entirely different game!

Sublimecala13er created his map tiles using the World Editor component of The Riftbreaker Editor suite. The pack features a wide selection of tiles for the map generation algorithm. Apart from the classic, open tiles designed for base development, the mod offers some truly original and surprising ‘landmark’ tiles, which make use of our existing assets in new and exciting ways. Let’s take a look at some of them now!



This canyon tile looks quite simple - it’s just four holes in the ground and four passages with a larger, central hub. However, incorporating this tile into your base structure gives you the possibility of funneling and blocking the enemy hordes so that your defenses can actually keep up with the thousands of creatures trying to wipe out everything you have built. Neat! If you’re lucky enough to find resources on this tile, it is also quite easy to create a well-defended outpost. Double neat!



Another awesome thing sublimecala13er has done is using a couple of tiles stitched together to create a larger, more controlled environment. This 2x2 tile is a great place to build a compact, but complete base that is easily defensible and gives you a fighting chance even on brutal difficulty. Large amount of terrain obstacles and natural barriers also means you don’t have to sell your robot body parts to afford walls.



The thing that excited us the most, however, is the way sublimecala13er used the tools and props available to him to create this beauty - an asteroid ‘landing strip’. How cool is that?! This shows you just how creative you can get and what an effect a clever arrangement of simple props could have. 10/10 would visit again.

Sublimecala13er’s tiles are complete game pieces - they do not miss any elements that you could find on our original map tiles. If you want to refresh your next Jungle Survival or Campaign Mode playthrough this mod is for you. We highly recommend checking it out. We also highly recommend trying the editors on your own - sublimecala13er learned everything by watching our tutorial videos and reverse-engineering existing tiles. You can do it, too! And when you do, we will be there to show your work off.

As promised, we are working on a robust mod distribution system that will allow you to publish and download mods in-game. We want to make the content distribution as seamless and safe as possible, while also enabling users across all platforms to take part in the modding community. We will keep you updated on that as we progress, but rest assurred - we do want that to happen.

Looking forward to more mods!
EXOR Studios

Thank you for sending in all your ideas for the Skill Design contest. Just like in the case of the Weapons Contest we have read through all of them and created a shortlist of the best suggestions. Now it is time for you to decide which one we are going to implement in the game!

Here are the candidates that we have preselected. The descriptions are just to give you a general idea of what this skill/consumable could work like in the game. They do not represent the final design, as that is likely to change during development. Take these descriptions as an ‘artistic vision’, rather than actual descriptions. As always, please take them with a grain of salt - we might not be able to implement them in this (or any) form, but we will do our best!




This skill would allow Mr. Riggs to leave behind a device (a holographic projection, a cardboard cutout, you name it) that would take the enemy creatures’ attention away from The Riftbreaker and their base structures for a limited time. There is a lot of potential for upgrades here - we could make the decoy explode at the end of its lifecycle, or add a small tesla generator that would deal energy damage to creatures that get too close. The Decoy has the potential to unlock a lot of variety in combat, giving you the ability to divert groups of enemies.


Let’s say that you’re equipped with a Flamethrower and a Plasma gun. You’re peacefully exploring and researching a new area of Galatea 37. All of a sudden, the ground starts shaking and an enormous hostile alien emerges from underneath the ground. You start blasting, but alas - it turns out that the creature is resistant to fire and energy damage. The situation seems dire, but luckily, you have another trick up your sleeve! This new activated skill allows you to launch a directional attack imbued with the element of your choice, acid, for example. You press the button. KA-POW! It was super effective! The day is saved. Adding an easily controllable elemental attack that you could equip would help you prepare for creatures of varying resistances, making it an interesting choice.


POWER… OVERWHELMING… This skill would allow Mr. Riggs to boost his Fusion generator, sending his sophisticated circuitry to absolute overdrive, temporarily increasing some of the weapon stats, such as rate of fire and damage. This skill would have a lengthy cooldown but might give you an edge while facing a horde that turns out to be stronger than expected. Cool visuals included.


This one goes out to everyone whose first reaction to the incoming flood of alien creature horde was to stack sandbags and seek shelter. These consumables would allow you to set up sizeable barriers that no one could pass through, increasing the complexity of the battlefield and giving you more options to outsmart the attackers. For example, if you see a horde trying to get through a narrow passage, you could block them off with a couple of well-placed, temporarry barriers. Simple, but effective!


Exploring and gathering information is an important aspect of the mission for a lot of Riftbreakers. The necessity to drop all activities in order to go scanning the fauna and flora discourages a lot of more action-oriented pilots. These consumables are the solution to that problem. Just drop one of these devices in the field and it will automatically try to scan all the species within the radius of operation. This way, you can still gain research samples and the bonuses that come with them, while not giving up on other activities on Galatea 37. Win-win!

Thanks to your awesome feedback we have managed to track down and fix some bugs that have been troubling you in the latest build of the game. We also managed to improve some visual effects, which should result in better visuals and performance. We hope that this patch will improve your experience with The Riftbreaker. Keep your feedback coming! We're doing our best to correct as many mistakes as we can, and your help is invaluable to us.

• Seasonal popup now has an icon that represents the actual event.
  
• The G2 floor went missing last update. We found it and put it back in place.
  
• Fixed collisions in some small crystal models to allow easier scanning.
  
• The ribbon trail of the hand grenade is now different from the ones launched from the Grenade Launcher weapon.
  
• Acid decals now have a shorter lifespan to match the damage time.
  
• New sound for launching a hand grenade.
  
• New sound for the Research Station.
  
• New effects for the Research Station.
  
• Animations turned on in the Research Station.
  
• New sound for gates opening and closing - hydraulics changed to pneumatics.
  
• Carbonium and Cobalt deposits minimap colors changed, so that you can differentiate better between the two.
  
• Optimized (performance and visibility) effects for special dash types - smaller lights, smaller particles, less particles.
  
• Thunderstorm event - new sound, tweaked effects, stronger wind.
  
• Dust storm - better colors, reduced density.
  
• Reduced density and height of effects attached to big cryo decals
  
• Fixed some desert tiles to avoid resources spawning on quicksand
  
• Several fixes for minor errors and crash bugs.

Thank you,
EXOR Studios

We're super happy to present you with the first large update of The Riftbreaker in 2022! The Lunar New Year update brings, among many others, a new seasonal event, an all-new Statistics Screen, as well as many tweaks and optimizations to enhance your experience.


Let the festivities begin!

As soon as you launch the game after this update, you will be greeted with a message that will inform you about the Lunar New Year event. Similar to the Christmas celebration that we held just a month ago, this is a purely cosmetic event to spice up the Galatean atmosphere a little bit. Some of the basic structures in your base will be replaced with special, seasonal versions. Enjoy the premium wooden floors, designed by the best carpenters in the galaxy. Frighten your enemies with your new Sentinel Towers, which now have golden tiger heads instead of their regular turrets. Let the light of the paper lanterns warn up the night.



If this seasonal event is not your jam, you can turn it off in the options menu at any moment. You won't miss any content because of this.

Additionally, we have added two entirely new skins for Mr. Riggs! You can get them by redeeming the codes TIGER and SPRING in the options menu.


The code SPRING will unlock this skin for you. Gold and red really work well together for some reason.


The code TIGER will unlock this skin for you. Just look how happy Mr. Riggs appears with that... massive predator painted on his windscreen!

Another addition to this update is the Statistics Screen. You can access this screen at any point during gameplay and also after a finished Survival run. The stats will give you all the useful data we could think of about Mr. Riggs, your buildings, and the enemy creatures. This will allow you to analyze your tactics on a much more factual basis, showing you exactly what works and what doesn't. As always, if you have any requests or see any areas we could improve when it comes to this screen, please let us know.



The update also comes with numerous tweaks and fixes for many of the problems that you let us know about, including the ability to switch back from Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) to Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA). Some players disliked the overly smoothed-out look of TAA and the ghosting that it could cause. If you experienced these problems, please try using FXAA and see if it works better for you.


Check out this great video to learn more about Anti-Aliasing techniques!

Changes in this build are not limited to technicalities only. After receiving tons of feedback regarding the energy system in The Riftbreaker, especially in case of a power shortage, we have done a lot of work on it. The energy priorities are much more logical and predictable now. For example, the energy network will prioritize AI hubs instead of defensive towers, as towers can't work at all if AI hubs are inactive. This should result in a much more natural experience and save you some trouble in those tight situations.

These are, of course, just a couple of changes that we made to the game over the past few weeks. You can check out the full changelog at the end of this news article. We are waiting for your feedback and reports.

Now, back to work on the World Expansion and online co-op...
EXOR Studios

• The Spring Festival is here! A new seasonal event has arrived in Galatea 37. Celebrate with two new Mr. Riggs skins (unlock them with codes TIGER and SPRING), new lamp models, new floor patterns, new Sentinel Towers, and even a custom weather event! Just like the previous winter seasonal event, this is purely cosmetic and entirely optional.
  
• The mouse cursors implementation has been completely reworked. It is now much more responsive and faster, reducing lagging and any other potentially unwanted behavior.
  
• The Statistics Screen has been reworked and added to the in-game menu and the end game screen.
  
• The full version of the game and the Prologue now feature different main menu backgrounds to differentiate more easily between the two.

• We re-enabled the option to change the anti-aliasing method from TAA to FXAA. Use it if you dislike the minor TAA ghosting artifacts. Enabling FXAA will prevent you from using FidelityFX Super Resolution as it requires TAA.
  
• The energy priority system has been dramatically improved. Previously, in the case of an energy shortage, the buildings would come on- and offline semi-randomly in case of an energy shortage. Now, it’s more granular and predictable, with AI hubs taking priority over defensive towers.
  
• Changed the radius of the objective marker in the Tanzanite Concentration mission from 100 to 10 meters.
  
• Adjusted the minimum number of spawned Cryogenic plants in the Magma Find Samples mission.
  
• Deployable Sentry Guns are more visible now, thanks to tweaked visual effects.
  
• Temporary (green) Rift Portals are now light emitters.
  
• Adjusted fade-in and fade-out timings for dynamic decals - blood splats, explosions, and similar.
  
• Reduced the amount of hitpoints for large Magnetic Rocks, making them easier to deal with.
  
• Menu screens have been adjusted to fill the screen space better on non- 16:9 aspect ratio displays.
  
• Ammo research requirements added to the Corrosive Gun, the Cryogenic Atomizer, the Nuclear Launcher, and Swarm Missiles. This is to prevent a rare scenario where you could develop a weapon but have no means of producing the ammunition required.
  
• Loot from Acidic Yeast should be more visible now.
  
• Planetary Screen is now hidden in Survival Mode and the Prologue.
  
• Bigger chance for "something useful" in Bioanomalies (skills, skins, etc.), instead of random resource caches.
  
• Additional Bioanomalies spawn in on bigger maps.
  
• Requirements are now visible for a couple more items in the Alien Technology research tree.
  
• The Acidic Yeast can now destroy any non-acid-resistant floor.
  
• When the player tried to upgrade the Headquarters building without the necessary resources to do so, they would get the warning pop-up, just as if they could afford the upgrade. This is no longer the case.

• Fixed an error that caused some meteors to spawn double decals.
  
• Fixed collision of multiple small vegetation pieces to improve scanning with the Bioscanner.
  
• Fixed AI core cost errors that happened while using cost-reducing gear, like Maintenance Tools.
  
• The Cryo Station no longer takes damage shortly after being built on the Magma floor.
  
• Fixed an error that happened when deleting saves through the main menu.
  
• Nurglax Drones are no longer selectable.
  
• Fixed the Uranium Ore icon in research.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused problems with the Build Menu focus after using a hotkey while building.
  
• Floors no longer cast shadows, which should result in performance improvements.
  
• Fixed multiple issues related to minimap zooming.
  
• The buttons on the Journal screen now correctly display their corresponding tooltips.
  
• 'Remove from the research queue' button has been fixed.
  
• Fixed a large number of minor errors and crash bugs.

• New sound added for gates opening and closing.
  
• The sound framework has been reworked entirely, eliminating many issues and crashes that happened before. Please let us know if you notice any strange behavior regarding sound.