This week's focus was to re-familiarise myself with the project, so I was mainly doing QoL
improvements in a few areas. Well, and a new turret.
- Greenfoot5
Changes
Energy Pickups
Previous enemies exploded with some energy and the shop buy button progress bar moved along.
Now instead energy pickups are dropped on the ground and can be collected by moving the mouse over them (or your finger).
Left alone, the particles are auto-collected after three waves.
The particles come in two shapes & sizes, there's the "Bit" (the square one) that's worth 1-2 energy, or the "Byte" (the hexagon one) worth 3-4 energy.
While testing this I did notice two inconsistencies with saving. One was related to spending/gaining of powercells that I haven't managed to identify.
Similarly sometimes the bits aren't cleared properly, I plan to have another look at when certain things are saved as it seems inconsistent.
If you can reproduce any weird saving where you have less or more of something then please let me know.
There is also now a new setting to disable this, found on the settings page.
This will not drop the energy particles and instead grant the energy straight away.
Choker
It’s time again for a brand new turret! This time it’s the Choker - a turret that fires similar to a shotgun, or grapeshot for you pirate speakers.
The Choker has a decent range, the same as Gunner & Shooter, and fires 7 parts (or bullets) at an enemy in an arc of 75°.
I’m really happy with the balance of this turret as it doesn’t feel super powerful nor underpowered, instead I feel I’m not quite using it right.
Let me know where you think the best place for the turret is on our Discord!
Shop Cost Scaling
Shop cost has been changed from a integer increment and initial value to utilising ExpressionEvaluator.Evaluate.
This means levels can now use a formula to have exponential costs.
For example, the formula for Upgrade is 0.17*x^2+19*x+41 where x is the powercells earnt so far.
Quality of Life Changes
These are some of the smaller changes that hopefully will make the game feel better to play.
- When you hover on a turret you can preview it’s modules. While it’s hard to see the module’s level, it should help making sure you select the turret you meant to.
- When placing a turret you now get a range preview to help better position your turrets.
- Instakill effect was modified to use the module’s icon in the effect.
- Fixed Android dev builds on Github.
- Added a visual effect when bullets have an explosion effect (looks similar to smasher’s effect)
- Shop button text changed to “Buy” to better clarify the action
- Can now have multiple initial selections in a level
- Stats now display with one fewer decimal places when less than 50
- Can now only have once choice of lives in the shop
Bug Fixes
- Smasher no longer plays the smash effect when placed
- Reduced the delay for rotation turrets when selecting new targets. Make sure to let me know if this is still happening as it’s pretty significant balance wise.
- Modules that apply effect to bullets are now actually applied to bullets (no idea how I missed this one originally)
- Turrets no longer have a slower fire rate than they should when it’s buffed
Balance Changes
A massive thanks to blank (@qartix) on Discord for all their help with testing my balance changes before this update.
Feedback on balance changes makes a massive difference as they're then not just based on my experiences/play style.
There's still more to do but balance shouldn't hold back new features too long!
The enemy scaling was significantly changed to better match how far players can progress at higher waves.
This does mean another reset of the leaderboards as I want to monitor these carefully to make sure it’s not too hard/easy.
I’ve also modified various enemy’s health and speed to add more variation to help define the turret’s roles better.
Upgrade’s boss is now also Splitter rather than Summoner.
Currently the website is not well setup to write the tables so I won’t be including specific stats, but if you’ve got any questions, ask us on Discord, the itch.io comments or try find the answer on Github!
Modules
Bombs - Rare (NEW)
I changed my mind from the last patch notes after the addition of Choker
Choker Stats | Part Explosion Radius | Part Count | Damage |
|---|
| T1 | +30% | ×0.8 | +20% |
|---|
| T2 | +45% | ×0.7 | +50% |
|---|
| T3 | +70% | ×0.6 | +130% |
|---|
| T4 | +120% | ×0.5 | +300% |
|---|
Gunner Stats | Pellet Explosion Radius | Damage |
|---|
| T1 | +15% | +30% |
|---|
| T2 | +30% | +70% |
|---|
| T3 | +40% | +160% |
|---|
| T4 | +75% | +350% |
|---|
Shooter Stats | Bullet Explosion Radius | Bullet Speed | Damage |
|---|
| T1 | +30% | +10% | +30% |
|---|
| T2 | +50% | +20% | +60% |
|---|
| T3 | +100% | +30% | +160% |
|---|
| T4 | +200% | +50% | +320% |
|---|
Smasher Stats | Damage | Range |
|---|
| T1 | +20% | +20% |
|---|
| T2 | +40% | +40% |
|---|
| T3 | +85% | +85% |
|---|
| T4 | +200% | +150% |
|---|
Instakill - Primary
Gunner, Lancer, Shooter & Smasher Stats | Chance |
|---|
| T1 | 1% 2% |
|---|
| T2 | 1% 4% |
|---|
| T3 | 1% 9% |
|---|
| T4 | 1% 20% |
|---|
Slow - Primary
Now reduces damage multiplicative
Choker, Gunner, Lancer, Shooter & Smasher Stats | Slow Percentage | Duration | Damage Change |
|---|
| T1 | -15% | 2s | ×0.95 |
|---|
| T2 | -25% | 3s | ×0.90 |
|---|
| T3 | -28% | 3.5s | ×0.80 |
|---|
| T4 | -33% | 4s | ×0.70 |
|---|
Sniper - Rare (NEW)
Choker Stats | Range | Damage | Fire Rate | Part Spread |
|---|
| T1 | +50% | +75% | -10% | ×0.8 |
|---|
| T2 | +100% | +175% | -20% | ×0.6 |
|---|
| T2 | +200% | +400% | -30% | ×0.3 |
|---|
Lancer Stats | Range | Damage | Fire Rate | Arrow Range | Arrow Speed | Arrow Knockback |
|---|
| T1 | +30% | +40% | -10% | +30% | +30% | +40% |
|---|
| T2 | +70% | +100% | -30% | +70% | +100% | +100% |
|---|
| T3 | +200% | +2500% | -50% | +150% | +100% | +200% |
|---|
Laser Stats | Range | Damage | Laser Duration |
|---|
| T1 | +50% | +75% | ×0.9 |
|---|
| T2 | +120% | +200% | ×0.8 |
|---|
| T3 | +300% | +500% | ×0.6 |
|---|
Shooter Stats | Range | Damage | Fire Rate | Bullet Speed | Bullet Knockback |
|---|
| T1 | +50% | +60% | -20% | +50% | +100% |
|---|
| T2 | +100% | +135% | -50% | +100% | +200% |
|---|
| T3 | +200% | +300% | -75% | +150% | +400% |
|---|
Surge - Rare (NEW)
Surge is back! Giving a big boost to fire rate and one other stat, however there is now a debuff when on cooldown (not surging).
All values are multiplicative so it’s applicable at any wave.
Any Stats | Duration | Cooldown | Cooldown Fire Rate | Cooldown Damage |
|---|
| T1 | 2s | 2s | ×0.8 | ×0.9 |
|---|
| T2 | 4s | 6s | ×0.7 | ×0.8 |
|---|
| T3 | 8s | 8s | ×0.6 | ×0.7 |
|---|
Choker Stats | Fire Rate | Part Count |
|---|
| T1 | ×1.5 | ×1.5 |
|---|
| T2 | ×2.0 | ×2.5 |
|---|
| T3 | ×3.0 | ×5.0 |
|---|
Lancer Stats | Fire Rate | Arrow Knockback |
|---|
| T1 | ×2.0 | ×1.2 |
|---|
| T2 | ×3.0 | ×1.5 |
|---|
| T3 | ×4.0 | ×2.0 |
|---|
Shooter Stats | Fire Rate | Damage |
|---|
| T1 | ×2.0 | ×1.5 |
|---|
| T2 | ×3.0 | ×2.0 |
|---|
| T3 | ×6.0 | ×8.0 |
|---|
Smasher Stats | Fire Rate | Range |
|---|
| T1 | ×1.5 | ×1.5 |
|---|
| T2 | ×2.0 | ×2.5 |
|---|
| T3 | ×3.0 | ×5.0 |
|---|
Tracker - Primary
Tracker 2 can no longer be obtained from the shop
Choker, Gunner, Lancer, Laser & Shooter Stats | Rotation Speed | Damage |
|---|
| T1 | +40% +20% | +10% +30% |
|---|
| T2 | +85% +40% | +25% +60% |
|---|
| T3 | +160% +90% | +50% +120% |
|---|
| T4 | +300% +200% | +100% +200% |
|---|
Turrets
Choker (NEW)
Choker Stats| Damage (per-part) | Range | Fire Rate | Rotation Speed | Part Spread Arc | Part Count |
|---|
| 45 | 3 | 1.5 | 90 | 75° | 7 |
Gunner
Spin Up & Spin Down are now additive, not multiplicative
Gunner Stats| Damage | Range | Fire Rate | Rotation Speed | Spin Up | Spin Down | Maximum Fire Rate |
|---|
| 45 80 | 2.5 3 | 1.5 1.2 | 85 140 | 1.03 0.3 | 1.02 0.2 | 7 7 |
Lancer
Lancer Stats| Damage | Range | Fire Rate | Arrow Range | Knockback | Arrow Speed |
|---|
| 135 160 | 1.5 2.5 | 0.4 0.35 | 3 3.5 | 3 | 7 |
Laser
Laser Stats| Damage (per second) | Range | Rotation Speed | Laser Duration | Laser Cooldown |
|---|
| 250 350 | 3.5 | 70 110 | 2 | 1 |
Shooter
Shooter Stats| Damage (per-part) | Range | Fire Rate | Rotation Speed |
|---|
| 500 650 | 3 | 0.65 0.7 | 70 115 |
Smasher
Smasher Stats| Damage | Range | Fire Rate |
|---|
| 120 105 | 1.5 1.65 | 0.8 |
