A balance update in the BETA branch to keep you busy while you wait for the first round of enemy improvements and additions. With this update, we have switched to the new enemy "engine", so there may be some growing pains to iron out.

Don't worry! We've already made huge progress toward the enemy updates you've been waiting for.

Minor Features and Improvements

• Speedrun Mode has been added to the Settings menu! While this is toggled, you'll always see your game time and wave. Additionally, the game will display your splits for each boss you defeat
  
• Since we're supporting speedrunning, the game now uses "real time" instead of game time. As a result, your time at game end is accurate regardless of your hardware
  
• Comets now shatter on enemies they can't one shot, creating a spray of rock and ice. This helps make comets less swingy on boss fights and more interesting during encounters
  
• Added a unique FX and SFX for the player death! The higher your level when you die, the more spectacular it is (up to level 50). The SFX you hear will be a little different, each time, too
  
• Added a new setting: Auto deploy Turrets
  
• Added a new setting: Auto deploy Mines
  
• Added a new BGM Track: "Parallelism"
  
• Added a new BGM Track: "Parallelism Freed", the remix to Parallellism, that plays in Wild Metamorphosis
  
• BGM Tracks: Zeroed, Recursor, and NoGrav now play in both Wild Metamorphosis and standard as they have no remix
  
• Auto deploy will no longer behave differently for Architect. If you do not want architect to auto deploy, you can leave these settings off
  
• Constructs will now attempt to avoid impending blasts, such as Celestial bombs
  
• "Centering" enemies on screen now works better with various monitor aspect ratios
  
• Grenades, Grenade submunitions, and Salvo missiles are no longer removed from the game if you level up while they are present
  
• The player won't take damage from enemies or celestial hazards while touching a singularity until 3 seconds after they come out
  
• Reroll drops in the Wild Metamorphosis challenge mode are consistent with the reroll penalty at game start, which is 50% fewer rerolls. Previously this rate was reduced, but not consistently
  
• Improved the accuracy of measuring various shield radii

Balance and Mechanical Changes

• Super Mod: Singular Strike has been reworked. New rules: Your weapon behaves as though your projectile count is 1. Your projectile count beyond 1 is fused into your single projectile, strengthening it. Up to 25 projectiles can be fused. +15% damage, size, and blast radius. Each projectile fused adds an additional 50% of its damage to your projectile. Each projectile fused further increases the size and blast radius of your projectile, with diminishing returns. +.1-second rate of fire delay
  
• Warp Shield has been reworked, and given updated visuals. The warp destination no longer automatically rotates around you, and is instead forward facing. It has gained a new power: If your shield protects you when it breaks, you will be intangible for .75s while teleporting. In this state, you may steer the position of the destination point around your shield radius
  
• Salvo has been reworked. Salvo now stockpiles 4 missiles per .5 second interval. Modifiers to projectile count affect the number of missiles stockpiled per interval while modifiers to rate of fire affect the interval duration. It still has diminishing returns as the stockpile becomes larger. Salvo is considered a 4-base-projectile weapon
  
• As a result of the above changes, Salvo begins weaker, but scales much more powerfully from many weapon mods. Also, Salvo always fires 1 missile and ignores burst fire. However, for the purposes of barrage, it still behaves as it previously did
  
• Salvo seeking begins to decay after being in existence for too long (this is only noticeable with really, really slow projectiles)
  
• Salvo-Loaded Mines now calculate their projectile count based on a stockpile of one second
  
• Vortex has been reworked, with the goal of making it easier to use at low levels, and less out of control when pushed to the maximum. Vortex charges faster at small sizes, and has a lower base cost of self-damage. However, to compensate, the self-damage costs scale more exponentially with the size of the vortex. You may need to release your Vortex sooner at very high sizes!
  
• Vortex scaling has been made generally more sensible and consistent under the hood. Singular Strike now applies its size bonus during the charge rather than on release
  
• Vortex has been given new visuals that are less blinding and occlusive. Also, the Vortex is held slightly farther away from the player so you are less likely to collide with your target
  
• 18 -> 12 base projectile count for Flak. Flak has gained a new power: Doubles added projectiles gained from upgrades. Slightly reduced Flak spread and projectile size
  
• Made Grenade's cluster count less prolific at high size modifiers. Shouldn't affect much at low values
  
• Blade used to deal "area" damage if it was in contact with a target. Blade now does this all the time, making it more reliable and generally more destructive, especially at larger sizes. Its area hitbox has been made more accurate
  
• Blades have a new hidden ability: They now take -50% less total damage from all sources (except self-damage)
  
• 1.75s -> 1.5s Blade assembly time
  
• Blades no longer trigger so much player self-damage from mods that scale with your rate of fire
  
• Overseer will now only add additional blades from base construct count and added constructs, not from projectile mods
  
• 180 -> 220 base damage for Pulse
  
• Pulse projectiles now work with all projectile mods!
  
• 50% -> 35% Pulse base damage for Pulse shards
  
• Thermal Lance base beam damage has been increased by 15%
  
• Cloak rate for Spectre is now 1% faster per your level
  
• +200% -> +250% cloak max stealth bonus
  
• Shockwave shield small pulses have a 22% longer delay between pulses. Shockwave shield now only releases its large shockwave on shield reset if the shield has broken
  Orbital Shield now gains less magnitude based on how much magnitude it already has, resulting in a soft cap on size and damage. To compensate, the base magnitude gain from damage has been increased ~21%. (Orbital was reaching potentially screen-sized sizes, shutting down enemies completely)
  
• Firefly thruster size now also scales with sources of "total" thrust, such as Amp and Ataraxia
  
• 25% -> 15% Firefly self-damage resistance
  
• 25% -> 15% Firefly crash damage resistance (Firefly was already the whole package with no drawbacks on top of being capable of massive area burn damage)
  
• Body power multipliers now affect Battery projectile size modifier
  
• 600% -> 400% for Leviathan max crash damage bonus
  
• Banishing any Wild Mod using the Research body gear now costs 2 rerolls, however Research now gains its defensive buff for spending rerolls by banishing, not for the amount of mods banished. (Research has become a staple of truly busted Wild Metamorphosis builds to the point of becoming practically mandatory in the highest scoring builds. Something had to be done)
  
• Overseer has been reworked. It now provides +1 to advanced constructs instead of doubling them. It still doubles basic and standard construct assembly limits. Overseer's assembly speed buff has been increased 1% to 2% to match its thrust malus. (Overseer's explosive power when combined with Engineer was negatively impacting game balance. Without making this change, advanced constructs would need to be made weaker, which negatively impacts all other ship bodies). As a result of this change, some constructs have been adjusted to help compensate for the loss of power to Engineer via Overseer:
  
  
• 30 -> 25 second assembly time for Allies
  
• 35 -> 30 second assembly time for Turrets
  
• 125 -> 150 hull for Turrets
  
• 25 -> 30 damage for Drones
  
• .04% -> .05% assembly speed per your level for Elegant Construction
  
• -30% -> -40% drone rate of fire for Rocket Drones
  
• +25% -> +60% damage for Rocket Drones
  
• +30% -> +40% drone hull for Reinforced Drones
  
  
• Weapon movement and turn rate modifiers now apply to Interceptor Ally
  
• Interceptor Allies will not fire a number of Blade Drones exceeding your Blade assembly limit
  
• Barrage will now only scale additional projectiles for Blades from projectile modifiers, not construct assembly limit modifiers
  
• Splinter Shot projectile count has been made less prolific at very high size values
  
• Super Mod: Tempest Break now requires Deadly Wake and Flash Shielding instead of Streamline and Flash Shielding. (Shieldbreaker builds couldn't afford to be this fragile)
  
• +8 -> +10 base damage for Super Mod: Barrage, which now grants base damage instead of flat damage
  
• 25% -> 30% maximum hull or shields converted for Conversion
  
• Siege Weaponry now works with Charged Shot, Thermal Lance, and Vortex. This applies self-damage continuously while charging, and the rate of fire multiplier from Siege-Weaponry applies to the charge rate
  
• Siege Weaponry + Charged Shot now boosts Salvo stockpile rate while charging
  
• Siege Weaponry + Interceptor Ally now applies construct fire rate multiplier
  
• Weapon total thrust while firing malus are now multiplicative with each other. Base maluses of this type have been adjusted: Thermal Lance, Torrent, and Vortex -35% -> -30%
  
• -90% -> -80% total thrust while firing for Siege Weaponry. Siege Weaponry's ramping self damage has been made less severe
  
• Charged Shot minimum bonus value is now +0%, instead of +15%
  
• -80% -> -90% for Calibrate max spread reduction
  
• Splinter shot velocity now has a floor. This helps things like Blade bursts stay relevant when the projectile is at the apex of boomeranging
  
• Rare Wild Mod: Twin Strike spread reduction is now a "total" modifier to your spread
  
• -15% -> -10% for rare Wild Mod: Twin Strike total spread modifier
  
• -5% -> -7% for rare Wild Mod: Twin Strike cooldown and recovery
  
• +10% -> +7% weapon damage and projectile size for Heavy Caliber
  
• -10% -> -7% weapon velocity for Heavy Caliber
  
• Wild Mod: Maelstrom scaling has been adjusted similarly to how Orbital Shield was
  
• Wild Mod: Scorching Wake fireballs now offset more the more you have, causing them to be less clumped-up
  
• Wild Mod: Solar Heart has been made more impactful. It's bonuses have been doubled and it's malus has been more than doubled
  
• +50% -> +40% global damage for Hidden Power (This massive bonus was from an older time, where there were fewer ways to deal "secondary damage")
  
• Firing Array has been reworked. New Rules: +15% total projectile damage and blast radius for your central projectile. Other projectiles also receive adjustments to projectile damage and blast radius, incrementally decreasing to 0% for your outermost projectiles. +30% total projectile size for your central projectile. Your other projectiles also receive adjustments to projectile size, incrementally decreasing to -30% for your outermost projectiles
  
• Gemini Protocol now works for shielded constructs
  
• Rare Wild Mod: Obsession has been reworked. It now only applies the malus for recursive mods added by Obsession, not for your total Wild Mods owned. As a result, the malus has been increased from 1 % to 3% of your total hull and shields
  
• Wild Mod: Spontaneous Generation no longer self-destructs Architect's constructs.
  
• +3% -> +2% maximum hull and shields for Wild Mod: Rampage
  
• Hull threshold triggers have been reworked. This affects Retribution and Outrage Module. They now trigger based on the original damage dealt, and not the damage taken. Since this is more damage, the trigger threshold has been increased from 10% to 15% of your maximum hull (This change was primarily made so that "Minebreaker" builds could work again, now that Retribution has limitations)
  
• Armor stack quantity gained by taking damage has been reduced by 37.5%. To compensate, Rebuke damage has been increased 60%. (Adaptive Armor was insane value for one point, and pretty much a mandate for any very high scoring build. It still provides a lot of defense when needed, but it's now more in line with other defensive mods)
  
• Self damage "hits" no longer always give at least one armor stack, but Self-damage now generates armor stacks at a more favorable rate. 50% -> 75% efficiency
  
• 35 -> 40 base hull from Rapid Reconstruction
  
• +80% -> +100% regeneration from Rapid Reconstruction
  
• 25 -> 100 damage for Blink (This change was primarily made so that the Super Mod: Displacement deals more relevant damage
  
• Super Mod: Burnout Reactors + Gemini Protocol now behaves as you'd expect
  
• Each type of damage resistance is now additive with other sources of the same type instead of either additive or multiplicative. Fixed several inconsistencies with how damage resistance is calculated
  
• Stacking burn damage from enemy orbs, especially from Seraph, takes longer to ramp up to its full damage, starting from 0. This effect has been applied to enemy deadly wakes, as well. My hope is that these are less of a hard counter to Leviathan as a result, as well as making Seraph and Spitfire less of an "insta-kill" at very high waves
  
• Regeneration and shield cooldown no longer occurs if the player is invulnerable (except during Emergency Systems)
  
• Made knockback from the player less extreme at high values

Localization Changes

• For strings that were changed this update, and new strings moving forward, tool-tip numbers now reflect in-game variables. This means that changes which only affect numbers will not require re-translation
  
• Improved dozens of upgrade descriptions

Fixes and Under The Hood

• Removed the requirement that you first orb come from an enemy if you're skipping waves using the Danger Zone challenge mod
  
• Previously, "flat" damage and "base" damage behaved inconsistently, scaling from some things they should not, in order of operations different than what you'd expect. This has been corrected. All instances of flat damage are now base damage, and base damage is simply added to the weapon base damage before modifiers. This affects: Wild Mod: Solar Heart, Super Mod: Antimatter Rounds, and Super Mod: Barrage
  
• Fixed some hitboxes that were slowly and invisibly rotating, causing some unintended behavior
  
• Fixed Corrosion's wildly inaccurate tool tip damage
  
• Rewrote Bastion code to try to be less of an error-prone special snowflake
  
• Windowed Mode: For window sizes that fit vertically but not horizontally, we now clamp the width to the maximum and allow it to be used
  
• Leviathan tries harder to keep its segments together
  
• Leviathan, at extreme sizes, now doesn't show its seams while wrapping
  
• Crates outside the edge of the screen are allowed to generate loot normally when destroyed
  
• Charged Mines now correctly reduces your mine assembly limit, as it claims it does
  
• Fixed Constructs using Siege Weaponry automatically having Saturation Fire
  
• Fixed reflected projectiles not getting handled properly in a few places
  
• Fixed recoil resistance not affecting player recoil from Heavy Caliber
  
• Fixed Calibrate applying in a few cases it shouldn't have
  
• Fixed some inconsistencies with Blade assembly limit being misreported
  
• Fixed Turret Specialist not reducing Turret self-damage
  
• Fixed the Construct Swarm rate of fire boost only applying to a single advanced Swarm Construct
  
• Fixed Venom Strike not scaling with body power multipliers
  
• Warp Strike now wraps wider, allowing the weapon to hit off-screen enemies more reliably
  
• Railgun and crash damage now can't reach quite such extreme values of screen shake and has a cap
  
• Fixed a silly bug where one half of Eclipse chassis had their rarity bonuses applied twice, and the other had none
  
• Fixed the possibility of Retribution occurring if you can't assemble and deploy constructs
  
• Fixed some strange scaling with some blast radii
  
• Fixed several cases where weird things could apply Essense Sap
  
• Fixed Hives being trapped off-screen
  
• Dart projectiles now disable wrapping and destroy-outside behavior while lodged in something
  
• Made the knockback modifier from Polar Inversion work on a case by case basis so things like enemy recoil and comets aren't affected
  
• Things that worked in a circular range have been made more accurate, using real pixel values
  
• Included some missing Simplified Chinese characters
  
• Wild Mod: Winnow can no longer banish THE VOID and does not grant rerolls or size reduction for them

See the build history at: https://blog.novadrift.io/patch-notes/

Hello all!

We're doing a developer stream TONIGHT, Wednesday, 9:30 PM EST at https://www.twitch.tv/pixeljamgames.

Come hang out with me (Miles), who is not the lead dev by any means, who will be video hosting Jeffrey, who by all means IS the lead dev.

Miles will be fiddling with the new Visual FX Generator, working with Jeffrey to find interesting and beautiful presets to plug into the game. Jeffrey will be answering all your questions, provided they are about the game and not random life advice, which Miles will answer because he has more bandwidth for that type of thing.



See you then?

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Hello all,

Work continues on the upcoming update. Here is what you can expect when it drops in a few weeks:

• Massive balance adjustments
  
• Gear & Mod reworks
  
• Improved visual effects (more on that below)
  
• A new music track & expanded pool of musical options for Wild Meta mode
  
• Speedrun Mode!

Reviews by existing players make the game more discoverable to new potential players, which results in wonderful outcomes for everyone involved! Here's a quick link if you are feeling like leaving one right now: https://store.steampowered.com/recommended/recommendgame/858210/


The OST is currently having its biggest discount ever (50% off), ending this Monday, March 15th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1156340/Nova_Drift_OST/


One of the big features of the next update is improved visual effects, aided by a nifty mini-program created by one of the coders at Pixeljam. One week from today, on Wednesday night, March 17 at 9:30 PM EST, we'll be doing a twitch stream showing off the capabilities of the FX generator and chatting with lead dev Jeffrey Neilson (Chimeric) as well! Stream will be at https://www.twitch.tv/pixeljamgames. We also have regular Music Production streams every Wednesday at 3 PM EST at that same URL.



That's all for now... thanks for the continued patience and support!

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Hello Drifters, new and old:

The last month has seen a lot of new players enter the arena, so we'd like to welcome you and make sure you know what's coming up:

First, let's look at the big picture:


This is a massive overhaul & update to the types of enemies that you encounter and how they behave.
Nova Drift usually gets a significant content update every 2-3 months, but Enemies 2.0 is *so very big* that it may be a while before the final iteration is available to all players. We are still trying to figure out if it's possible to release Enemies 2.0 in multiple updates, or if it just needs to be one massive patch. More info on it can be found here, in the second half of this blog post.

Almost all of the new work being done on the game is Enemies 2.0, so expect more info about it soon!

Please leave a review for the game, if you have a moment: https://store.steampowered.com/recommended/recommendgame/858210/. This helps new players discover the game as well.

Got a question about the game? It's probably answered in the #frequently-asked-questions channel of our Discord Server, which is the main community hub for the game outside of Steam.

Did you know that the OST currently has 27 tracks and grows with every major content update? Check out the OST on Steam if you haven't yet, it's currently 45% off for the next 2 weeks. If you'd like to see how the music gets made, follow the Pixeljam Twitch Account to be notified when music production streams go live.

If Nova Drift is not available in your native language yet, head on over to Localizor and see if you'd like to contribute. German and Korean seem to be the languages that might get implemented next.

Being able to track scores and share and import builds(!) across all platforms is something that has not been talked about much, but it's also in the works, and ties into the upcoming Draft Mode. More info on that as it develops :)

Thanks for reading... and here's to much more drifting in 2021!

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Every major set of new features usually requires a bit of tweaking after its release, and today we made live the latest tune-up to the Azimuth update:

FEATURES

• Outrage Module fires in the direction of the incoming hit!
  
• Evolutionary Niche & Bravado now scale Research's power-up duration bonus
  
• Upgrades and Rerolls numbers are blue once again for visibility
  
• Guardian Ally now wants to be further away from the player ship when it has Decoy Signal
  
• With Leviathan:
  - Deadly Wake emits from the tail body segment
  - 2/3 of Scorching Wake emits from random body segments

FIXES & UNDER THE HOOD

• Continued making Bastion and Blades less of "special snowflakes", removing some bugs in the process
  
• Fixed Bastion taking too little damage from Burnout Reactors
  
• Fixed a strange interaction between Bastion and Stealth
  
• Fixed Bastion triggering shield break effects when its down and you gain a level
  
• Fixed Volatile Shields from triggering too many times with Bastion and Shielded Constructs
  
• Homing Strike Blade projectiles now return to their launcher
  
• Fixed a typo that was preventing the custom banish keybinding from being saved
  
• Fixed many cases of upgrades not applying until your next upgrade
  
• Fixed the formatting of end-of-game unlock messages
  
• Fixed several problems with Interceptor Ally configurations
  
• Adjusted position and size of construct count numbers so they're more legible (especially double-digit counts)
  
• Reduced depth of player-related objects by 100 so they're less likely to get obscured
  
• Fixed the level up notification not appearing under certain conditions
  
• Hive continuously reduces emission rate as spawned count increases (This prevents the number of Hive Drones from growing as uncontrollably)
  
• Optimized Hive swarms
  
• Fixed Viper granting inconsistent damage reduction
  
• The pause menu now considers Viper's bonus to ignite duration
  
• Overseer now displays the Apex Machinery Supermod combo
  
• Retribution now displays Apex Machinery and Vital Bond Supermod combos
  
• Fixed an outdated appearance of the old interceptor icon
  
• Fixed a depth sorting error with Blade & Shield artwork
  
• Fixed Outrage Module not firing forward in cases where it should
  
• You no longer recoil with no weapon, if something makes you fire without one
  
• Small code optimizations
  
• Fixed a few minor text issues
  
• Improved translations: Japanese
  
• Improved translations: Brazilian Portuguese
  
• Improved translations: Simplified Chinese

Hello new and old players,


If you are enjoying the game, we'd like for you to consider nominating Nova Drift for the "Labor Of Love" award - we've been working on the game for the past 6 or 7 years, with many more to come! Make sure you actually click and highlight the "Labor Of Love" text when you nominate it, else you will see an error screen. Nominate it here if the link doesn't appear above: https://store.steampowered.com/app/858210/Nova_Drift/




Here is what's still planned for the final launch and beyond:





If you are feeling adventurous, check out some brand new tweaks and features in the BETA branch:

Features
* Outrage Module fires in the direction of the incoming hit!
* Evolutionary Niche & Bravado now scale Research's power-up duration bonus
* Upgrades and Rerolls numbers are blue again for visibility
* Player Mines can now show damage floaters
* Guardian Ally now wants to be further away from the player ship when it has Decoy Signal
* With Leviathan:
- Deadly Wake emits from the tail body segment
- 2/3 of Scorching Wake emits from random body segments

Fixes
* Continued making Bastion and Blades less of "special snowflakes", hopefully removing some bugs in the process
* Fixed Bastion taking too little damage from Burnout Reactors
* Fixed a strange interaction between Bastion and Stealth
* Fixed Bastion triggering shield break effects when its down and you gain a level
* Fixed Volatile Shields from triggering too many times with Bastion and Shielded Constructs
* Homing Strike Blade projectiles return to their launcher
* Fixed a typo that was preventing the custom banish keybinding from being saved
* Fixed many cases of upgrades not applying until your next upgrade
* Fixed the formatting of end-of-game unlock messages
* Fixed several problems with Interceptor Ally configurations
* Adjusted position and size of construct count numbers so they're more legible (especially double-digit counts)
* Reduced depth of player-related objects by 100 so they're less likely to get obscured
* Improved translations: Brazilian Portuguese
* Improved translations: Simplified Chinese

Finally, please leave a review for the game if you have not yet - this helps us out a lot: https://store.steampowered.com/recommended/recommendgame/858210/

Many more updates and surprises await in 2021 and beyond. Thanks again for the support :)

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Hello Drifters!

We have another group of exciting updates to share with everyone, shortly after last month's update. Here is what just went live:

Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, and Polish languages are now supported.



Over the last few months, we've been working on the exciting tech needed for Enemies 2.0, which includes enemy behaviors and formations. While the tech is finished, we haven't had the time to implement it yet. This will be a big design challenge, and any change to enemies this large is certain to incur a lot of rebalance needs. Additionally, it'd be nice to have new enemies and bosses ready to take full advantage of the tech. For these reasons, this will be included in a later update. That said, there are plenty of improvements in this update that are ready for you!






Enemy Entrances
Certain enemies can now enter anywhere on the battlefield via emerging from the background or utilizing portal technology.


Enemy Overhaul: Celestials
These feared creatures now boast improved visuals and revamped attacks to match their ferocity!


Construct Improvements
Allies can now utilize Charged Shot and Siege Weaponry. Additionally, several constructs have refined movement.


BOOOOST!
Rainbow cycling improves everything, right? Added about a dozen new instances of rainbow cycling for the BOOST power up and improved existing effects.



For the full list of improvements and fixes, check out the development blog: https://blog.novadrift.io/patch-notes/


If you missed it, we made another major update just a month ago, including new gear and wild mods: https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/858210/view/2779241325218318720

Hello Drifters old and new,

We know it's been a while since the last new content, so we are extra excited to announce the OUROBOROS Update, live as of today!




Yes, that's the player in the middle of the screen













In the past, Steam Proton ran the game just fine, but for unknown reasons this is no longer the case. In light of that, we will be working on an official Linux port, that is planned to be ready by November. Linux users can play on the Proton branch for now, which contains the last major update (0.28.13) that worked.



Simplified Chinese and Russian are currently not 100% supported in this latest update, but will be soon. English phrases will appear where translations are not yet implemented. We are also working on adding Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and Polish by Mid-November.



A good deal of progress has been made for the first wave of Enemies 2.0, but it isn't ready yet. We expect this content to be available by Mid-November.


Something is coming...





Major Features

• Added a new Body Gear: Leviathan (Nova Drift's most requested feature!)
  
• Major rework: Helix Shield has been replaced with Orbital Shield, and has been given entirely new mechanics and visuals (Nova Drift's second most requested feature!)
  
• Rework: Assault Body has been granted new power: There is an 8% chance for weapons fired by you to be "empowered", greatly increasing the stats of the attack. As with all unique body powers, certain mods can scale this power
  
• Rework: Assault Body now resists mobility-reducing effects from weaponry by 15%
  
• You gain additional gear choices at account level 25 and 50, to a maximum of 7. This means that with 7 choices, it will never cost more than 1 reroll to get the gear you want
  
• Added the above "Empower" mechanic to a few Wild Mods: Outrage Module & Phantom Strike. More mods will gain this keyword later
  
• Added a new BGM, "Recursor", to both Standard and Wild Metamorphosis modes
  
• Added the game credits to the main menu. If I missed anyone, please don't hesitate to mention it

Wild Metamorphosis Adjusments

• Added a new Wild Mod: Evolutionary Niche
  
• Added a new Wild Mod: Grandeur
  
• Added a new Wild Mod: Maelstrom
  
• Added a new Wild Mod: Quantum Decoherence
  
• Added a new Wild Mod: Spontaneous Generation
  
• Rare Wild Mods are now slightly more common (1 in 4 -> 1 in 3.5)
  
• If Chaotic Ambition increases your maximum Wild Mods per level by more than 7 it will begin to increase your minimum Wild Mods per level instead
  
• Transmogrification now grants +1 level
  
• Obsession penalties -1.25% / level -> -1% / level
  
• Phantom Strike is now an empowered attack
  
• Outrage Module is now an empowered attack

Improvements & Balance

• Research hull 90 -> 85
  
• Research shields -10% -> -15%
  
• Research can no longer banish THE VOID (Void banishes you)
  
• Research must now pay 2 rerolls in order to banish a rare Wild Mod
  
• Rare Wild Mods now say "RARE" in their titles
  
• Added shake and sound feedback for failing a Banish
  
• 110 -> 115 shields for Reflect Shield
  
• There is now a hard level cap of 100. If you manage to somehow reach this, we've got a problem, please report it
  
• Homing projectiles now seek enemies and targets equally
  
• You can now toggle healing numbers in settings for you and your constructs, off by default
  
• You can now toggle self-damage numbers in settings for you and your constructs, off by default
  
• Drones now spread out their firing sequence evenly
  
• If you have an old corrupted save file, the game will attempt to fix it
  
• Experience orbs now scatter a bit from enemies
  
• Experience orb probabilities change as waves progress, resulting in less but more valuable orbs for the same value. This reduces visual clutter
  
• Increased base exp needed per level a touch. This only really impacts the first dozen waves or so
  
• Increasing your level by a mod no longer affects the EXP curve at all. You will be treated as though you are your base level
  
• Added a border and some breathing room to owned mod displays
  
• Retribution gained a new rule: If Retribution causes your mines to exceed your mine construct limit, an existing mine is detonated
  
• Charged Mines gained a new rule: -1 to mine construct limit
  
• Antimatter Rounds is now stronger but only affects weapons fired by you. This change was made because it enabled insane shenanigans with mines, especially when charged. Additionally, the game could use more incentives for self-firing builds
  
• Since it is now possible to achieve +50%, or even +100%, for unique body powers, Engineer's added construct limits now respects this modifier (rounded down)
  
• Courser & Battery now scale their added projectiles with modifiers to body unique powers (rounded down)
  
• Warp Strike total damage -35% -> -30%
  
• Homing Strike has been given a more informative description
  
• Homing Strike total projectile damage -80% -> -70%
  
• Homing Strike total blast, velocity & size modifiers -70% -> -60%
  
• Homing Strike grace degeneration time extended from .6667 -> 1 seconds
  
• Changed how targeting affects various weapons. Most notably, very fast projectiles are now better at targeting
  
• Modifiers to thrust now have a minimum value of 0%
  
• Rampage now scales with modifiers to thrust, and the text has been changed to "You gain constant added thrust power"
  
• The pause menu now reports your size modifier
  
• The pause menu now reports your plating

Construct Improvements:

• Interceptor allies with Salvo now build up stockpile count and fire a spray of missiles of at least 10
  
• Improved construct targeting behavior, especially for Guardian Allies:
  
• Guardian targets the objects closest to the player
  
• Guardian tries to stay between the player and its combat target
  
• Turret with Counter-Artillery tries to shoot down projectiles heading toward the player
  
• Construct aiming rotation now has more damping so they don't overshoot
  
• Swarm Constructs now deal 6 -> 7 damage
  
• Swarm Constructs cap their firing range at 240 units so they don't fire out of range
  
• Swarm Construct attack scaling based on their target's distance is now more likely to hit
  
• Swarm Constructs consider the average of sprite width and height for the purpose of range, instead of the larger
  
• Swarm Constructs are allowed to clump up a bit closer
  
• Swarm Construct target range is now slightly shorter

Enemy Changes

• Triangle mines, from Pulsars, now spray projectiles 3 at a time with wider spacing (Because triangles)
  
• Enemy serpents use degrees for sinusoidal movement and reduce sinusoidal movement when near a screen edge to avoid leaving the screen. If they do leave the screen, they now wrap
  
• Bolt-Throwers linger a bit longer after firing
  
• Interceptor Champion charge speed ramps up more slowly, and they spend more time "charging". They drop mines less frequently for longer. As a result, mines are dropped farther apart, and you have more time to react to the charge
  
• Saucers now require wave 10 to be elite and wave 15 to be champion
  
• Saucers now screen-wrap more tightly
  
• Spitfire grants you an extra half-second to react to its arrival and deal with other waves before charging its orb
  
• Saucers give +25% orbs

Fixes

• Fixed a silly bug where enemy knockback would apply twice from collisions, resulting in about +25% more effective knockback from all crashes than intended (I'm so sorry)
  
• Interceptor Ally aim now takes firing direction modifier from Propulsive Munitions into account
  
• Fixed a crash with Ally
  
• Overseer's movement penalty now works properly
  
• Blades created by allies can no longer take blast or beam damage to their non-existent shields
  
• Made global damage calculations more sensible
  
• Fixed a bug where Scion wouldn't drop its rewards
  
• Fixed a bug where Settings would become stuck if you tried to go to the online leaderboards, but they aren't available on that game version
  
• Having both Overseer, a construct that can use your weapon, and Rapid Reconstruction no longer results in no Weapon Gear being offered
  
• Removed an exploit where you could enable Mayhem mode and disable the other modes by editing your save file
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause certain effects and objects to be deleted if you pause while the player is in a black hole
  
• Various performance optimizations

Jeffrey has created a large and detailed blog post about major upcoming changes and additions to Nova Drift, and you can read it here. Highlights include Enemies 2.0, the new Serpent Body Gear, the Bestiary and thoughts on the upcoming narrative / story.




We're incredibly close to finalizing Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, and German. While we have 100% of these strings translated, we need more eyeballs on them to have full confidence in their quality, consistency, and correct use of game terminology. Please visit https://www.localizor.com/nova-drift if you can help with these languages!




If you didn't know, Nova Drift is created using Gamemaker Studio 2.0 and we've recently found out that we're one of the top 5 finalists for their Game Of The Year Award! Voting has opened up today so please help us out by {LINK REMOVED}CLICKING RIGHT HERE TO VOTE!

{LINK REMOVED}


Jeffrey, the lead developer, is going to become a new father any day now! If you don't see him around the Discord Server or as active on the forums, just know that he is probably attending to the baby drifter who just entered the world or catching up on sleep :)


Thanks for the continued support!

-Miles @ Pixeljam

Hello Drifters,

Today we launch 0.28.12, which includes many interface and quality of life improvements as well as full support for French, Russian, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese!

View the full patch notes here: https://blog.novadrift.io/patch-notes/

Also, we just launched a 35% discount for the next week - this is a great time to get your friends on board! :)

Our upcoming major update, Enemies 2.0, includes a sweeping overhaul to the wave system and existing foes, many new bosses and enemies, all new game modes, and a new array of powers. We're excited to share with you what's in the works, so please join the Discord group to hang out with the Nova Drift community and to see previews from the developers: https://discord.gg/Zp2MkPJ

Finally, please leave a review for the game if you have not yet! This really helps the game reach new players.

Thanks,

-Miles @ Pixeljam