Demo v0.14.2 patch notes - 9/14/2023

[courtney]

Reality Break Demo build v0.14.2 has gone live!

Courtney's dev notes: This update focuses on QoL updates and a few bug fixes. There are still a few issues outstanding that have to do with the previous update's Enemy Level changes and how they interact with Difficulty Level as well as Mission Challenge Level. Existing pilots that received high-item-level drops due to the previous setup may not see as many item upgrades as before, because enemies (and therefore the items they drop) don't scale to the player's level anymore. However, this overall setup is going to be improved and modified in the future, not least of which through an upgraded Difficulty system.

Stability

• Corrected an issue that occasionally caused the game to launch into a bad state, particularly prevalent on more powerful PCs, that prevented it from working correctly until restart.

Progression

• Pilots that go Into the Vortex are now required to Break before continuing to Play, as intended.

Quality of Life

• Implemented Inventory Sort Modes. There's a second button next to the Sort button that allows you to cycle through the following sort modes: Overall Upgrade (current default), Damage, Survival, Type, Rarity, and Scrap.
  
• The Area Scan now also shows dropped loot, fate pulses, and credits.
  
• Vortex Bombs fired by Caldos Bombers no longer have a collider, addressing a negative play experience when a player was close to the bomber when they were fired. (Courtney's note: All three bombs would immediately collide with the player, pull their ship violently into the bomber, and do a ton of collision damage.)
  
• Weapon and Drone tooltips now show their damage range and rate of fire. (Courtney's note: This info will eventually be on an Advanced Tooltips option toggle, but I wanted to get something in there sooner.)
  
• Added tooltips to Tech Specialist upgrades.
  
• Opening treasure crates is no longer interrupted when enemies aggro your ship.
  
• Added first pass at an Info Readout in the upper-right corner. It shows a variety of info, such as the current sector, map level, difficulty level, and actual time.
  
• Added a black background to speech bubble input instruction labels so that they are legible when the letterbox bars aren't in use.

Balance

• Raider Howitzers now have 60 health, down from 120. (Courtney's note: They often wind up being the last enemies destroyed and taking too long.)
  
• Disabled loot generation on enemies that are spawned via any mechanism that can enable an infinite loot farm, such as the Nexus fighters in Into the Nexus.
  
• Adjusted Transformer Drones dealing far too much damage with their onboard Turbolaser (Courtney's note: seriously, like, over twenty times as much damage as intended lol).

Bug fixes

• Substantially improved missile homing auto-acquisition of targets by fixing two related bugs.
  
• Fixed upper-left pilot HUD experience tooltip not always updating.
  
• Fixed Scatterguns sometimes popping off shots in the wrong direction.
  
• Fixed an issue with treasure crates not being upgraded to the map's level.
  
• Fixed a few systems that weren't using the recent mission enemy level redesign.
  
• Fixed side mission timer starting before jumping to the mission map.
  
• Fixed remaining Analysis time possibly going negative in tooltips.
  
• Fixed Z-fighting on Colossus Interior room corners.
  
• Fixed item AffixType being able to roll rewrites into affixes with a level requirement not yet met by the pilot.