Dev Log

So I’m pretty bad with version numbers, so I jumped this update to a version number I thought reflected better where I think I am from release.

A couple lame things about this update is the removal of voice chat (or whatever was left of it) and turning down the lighting engine.

Voice chat never really seemed to work, and I have no idea how to improve it. Maybe it’s Game Maker or maybe I’m just not smart enough. On top of that, the recent Game Maker update also broke microphones and I don’t know when they’ll fix it. So I’m just going to remove it for now. I may revisit it one day (i can toggle it on and off at will), but its FUBAR for now.

Secondly, the lighting. I have removed ‘meshes’ from the lighting set up, which would block headlights and stuff from bleeding over the walls. It’s hard to explain, so just look at the differences below in the screenshots:

Before

After

I did this for a few reasons:

• Helps the FPS. I should probably be looking out for my audience with lower end computers, and shadow meshing probably wasn’t helping their frames

• Compatibility. When I run the game in Linux or on a Mac, the meshes don’t even work. If I ever plan on releasing the game on these operating systems, I might as well keep the lighting consistent across all versions. Meshes also broke when I tried to import the game into Game Maker Studio 2, which I might do eventually.

• Doesn’t it.. look nicer? I don’t know, you can actually see the walls and the Pitch Black setting for the map editor doesn’t look like total crap anymore. Maybe I’m just bad at cinematic lighting.

I think all of those reasons justifies it pretty well to tone it back.

Also there are 15 campaign missions now! I’ll need a lot of help setting tough, but fair par times. So if these initial par times are too easy/hard, please let me know. I’m also done with the game’s final mission, but it will kept in the shadows until all campaign missions have been released.

Lastly, the next gather will be scheduled when Game Maker Studio has its memory leak fixed. They usually make a release once a month, and the last one was about a week ago. Once that’s fixed, then we can test if the servers come to a crawl again after an hour of high activity.

Change log

Added

• Added 10 more campaign missions (mamma mia)

• Added new logic event: Evac Refresh. Restarts the timer for evacuate events when activated by a logic gate. Can only be triggered once.

• Added new logic events: Explosion and Big Explosion. When these are activated by a logic gate, they will detonate into their respective explosions. Can only be triggered once.

• Added new logic event: Destroy Super CPU. When activated, this will instantly destroy ALL activated supercomputers. Can only be triggered once.

• Added new trigger area: Crate. When a crate enters this trigger area, it will activate all logic gates attached to it, then deactivating them if no crates are detected.

• Added new decor object: Large Jets

• Added new selection to the Modules option in level editor. This will let you disable cooldowns for modules

• Added new config option in the level editor, Infinite Ammo. Self-explanatory.

• Added new config option in the level editor, Afterburner. This will let you disable the afterburner in your level, or make it last infinitely.

• Added new config option in the level editor, Evacuate Timer. This will let you set how much time the player has to escape an evacuation event.

Balance

• Increased Laser Rifle damage
  — The laser rifle should have increased damage to match its slow projectile speed, it should also be pretty decent as a starter weapon

• Increased EMP missile count

• Increased EMP fire rate
  — I was nervous of EMP missile spam, but that doesn’t really seem to be a problem. These buffs should allow it to be used more often.

• Increased Grenade Rifle’s damage
  — Again, a slow fire rate should be matched with a decent amount of damage.

• Increased Tri Shot Cannon’s fire rate
  — The Tri-Shot has wildly fluctuating damage, but this should help it do more damage then not.

• Increased Spike Cannon’s damage
  — This should make the Spike Cannon more forgiving if you don’t get the double damage every shot.

• Increased Spread Blaster’s projectile count

• Decreased Spread Blaser’s spread
  — This should increase the spread blaster’s range and overall damage as it was spread too thin with a wide cone.

• Increased Flak Rifle’s fire rate
  — The Flak Rifle still needs work, so this won’t be the last buff you see from it. This should let you output more shield damage.

• Increased Dumb Missile’s damage
  — Dumb Missiles didn’t justify use over homing weapons, so a large damage boost should make it more enticing to use.

• Increased Gatling Gun’s damage
  — The Gatling Gun felt a little weak despite being a hitscan weapon, so this should allow you stand a chance in long range encounters, especially against the magnetic cannon.

• Reworked the Scanner module to be more useful
  — Possibly the most useless module up until this point. These changes will allow the player to see all enemies, cloaked or off screen. This should be useful in single player, and multiplayer.

• The Prairie Dog’s passive now supports infinite flares

• The Prairie Dog’s passive no longer carries “super flares”
  — The Prairie Dog will need a lot of work to justify using such a fragile ship. This will be the first buff, of possibly many. This will also make the ship a good counter against homing weapon spam.

• Flares now have a cooldown
  — A cooldown has been introduced to flares so the Prairie Dog isn’t ridiculously spamming with them.

• Increased the Rhino’s hull integrity
  — Somebody mentioned how the hull of the Rhino was the same as the Dragon, so it has been increased to accurately reflect what kind of ship its suppose to be.

• Increased the Sting Rays hull integrity

• Decreased the Sting Rays shields
  — This isn’t a change in total health, but a change that will allow the Sting Ray to pop its EMP passive more often.

Fixed

• Fixed needing to enter the server password again on a map change

• Fixed screamers not exploding after a certain amount of time (on dedicated servers)

• Fixed hitscan weapons not keeping the damage buff when they bounce

• Waves 25 and 50 will now increase the total amount of allowed enemies on the level at once

• Fixed after-projectiles not getting damage buffs from their originals

• Fixed the Gauntlet shieldless mutator not working

• Fixed shadows appearing on secret walls while shadow detailing was turned off

• Fixed enemies with explosive weapons blowing themselves up against walls

• Enemy AI will now begin their attacks at any distance when alerted

• Setting a levels light level to “Bright” will now essentially turn off the lighting engine for optimization

• Activated conveyor belts will now take depth-priority over deactivated ones (IE they will appear on top)

• Made improvements to the auto-map camera

• Disabled lighting shadow meshes

• Disabled voice chat… for now?