- Mini balance patch - 15 May 2021
Hey, this is the last patch in the series of minor improvements and gameplay polish. I will go silent for a bit now preparing the new content updates. Balance changes No heat generation using normal acceleration, only dash increases heat. Player ship rotation rotate increased - this will allow players to tail and out-maneuver the enemy ships more easily. Enemies will be easier to lock on and hit in high speed scenarios especially fly-byes
- Nebula clouds + Many Improvements - 10 May 2021
Hey there, here's another batch of improvements. Thanks to the super useful feedback I'm getting from you lately the game is getting more and more polished, or rather less and less clunky and buggy :) Visuals The fog is no longer uniform, this finally gives the player the feeling of movement, when passing or dense patches of the nebula. Improved fog rendering. Added red light shafts coming out from the singularity, this adds a bit of color to the scenery. Added multi-colored skybox. Melter (green gun) glow has been greatly reduced . Balance Sentinel weapons (triangle potato guns) no longer drop, this weapon variant will be replaced later by a new one. Everyone found this weapon variant pretty useless. Hailgun heat cost has been reduced, projectile speed increased, rate of fire slightly increased. Gameplay More improvements to lock-on and auto-aim. Fuse has been reworked: It can combine…
- More auto-aim + gamepad improvements - 29 April 2021
Changes The ship slightly rotates to help auto-aim make a lock-on - this should deal with most of situations where the player felt they should be in a position to shoot but it often never happened Improved AI behaviour when engaged with wingman - their movement should be much less erratic making them easier to lock-on Wingman lock on priority has been greatly reduced It's no longer possible to lock camera on a wingman
- Gamepad & camera improvements - 28 April 2021
Changes Pressing right analog stick now locks the camera at the target, pressing it again removes the lock Same functionality on keyboard by pressing left shift key Added a game setting where auto camera lock during shooting when using gamepad can be turned on/off Camera locks strongly guide the camera, however right analog input isn't completely locked out, so you can aim ahead of the enemy ship while the camera follows the target. Bugfixes Fixed a critical bug where the game would get stuck in a loop creating and destroying encounters which caused a massive FPS drop and soon after it - a crash (and a handful of refunds *sob*)
- Skull Tokens - 21 April 2021
A new feature was added to make dying less punishing and I would dare say more interesting: New Feature Whenever you die and loose all your non stashed items you gain Skull Tokens. The skull token gain is equivalent to the worth of the loot you lost. Skull tokens are an auto-use resource. They are consumed when enemy drops an item on death and upgrade this item's rarity. So if a Rare weapon was dropped it will be upgraded to Epic. The tokens amount consumed is related to the rarity upgraded, higher tier upgrades cost more.
- Mines! - 18 April 2021
New feature: Mines Added mines to some of the encounters. Mines will approach any target (you/enemy/friendly) and detonate on proximity. Use full shield to save yourself from the blast. You can lure enemies into mine fields. This is the first of upcoming encounter modifiers, more coming soon. Improvements Added key binding listing in the game settings screen. At least one item - weapon or upgrade - will now always drop in every fight. Major bug fixes Fixed a rare bug where sometimes the enemy would use jump drive to jump into infinity, this trapped the player in the encounter forever. Fixed a bug where defeating the boss very far away from the it's starting scenery would sometimes reset the boss fight causing loss of progress. Fixed a bug where the music was interrupted by weapon fire and other SFX. Fixed stash expand tooltip showing not updating the expansion cost if the player kept th…
- New Gameplay Feature: Wingman ! - 30 March 2021
New Fabricator Ability: Spawn Wingman New ability has been added to fabricator, it needs at least one weapon and one ship upgrade to activate. The wingman will benefit from up to three ship upgrades, exactly as your ship. The better equipment is used for wingman creation the more powerful and resistant to damage it will get. Spawning first wingman cost depends on number of active wingman, the first one costs 10 rift dust, second 20, third 30 etc. Currently there's no limit of wingman you can have. The game might get overall easier if you use wingman, on the other hand helping them stay alive in a big fight might be a different kind of challenge. The wingman will follow you using their jump drive and keep formation unless dodging or heavily engaged in a dog fight. The wingman have AI similar to silver enemies, quite able in combat but they will still make some mistakes. UI/UX Improvement…
- SPL is back! Gameplay has been overhauled - 21 March 2021
Hi. It's been a while since last update. I had to recharge my creative batteries and take a few steps back to have a better look at the game. The idea was to make a final decision on the course SPL should take and then commit to it - for good. Looter shooter The attribute based progression has been removed from the game. You can now equip up to 4 weapons and 3 ship upgrades. Items drop randomly from enemies with random tiers ranging from Damaged to Legendary. Any weapon combination can drop from any enemy, if you like your Trident Deathray it may just drop from the first enemy. Higher tiers have greater number of item modifiers. Items also have a level: for weapons it's power level, for ship upgrades it's resilience level. The higher the resilience level the more resistant to damage you are. The higher the is the weapons power level, the higher is it's damage To determine the ships resi…
- For new players: Three new introduction encounters - 29 December 2020
Hi, Dear new players. I might be working on the roadmap for SPL for the next few months, but firstly I need to make the game more approachable for you. New intro encounters Created a new tier of enemy - crippled. They can't move, or use jump drive. Added three new introduction encounters where the new players can get used to the enemy types and do some target practice. Also it might be a good intermediate step between the tutorials and the real fight. Each intro encounter starts with 6 crippled enemies, once these are cleared a fully active bronze enemy appears, as a tutorial 'mini boss' - the real deal to fight. Each intro has some brief description about effective strats to use against the specific enemies, their strengths and weakness. UI Changes Wall of text popups now appear on the left side of the screen instead of center, should feel much less intrusive. Thanks and enjoy!
- SPL - what's next? - 28 December 2020
Hi, Have some very good news and a little bit of bad news: Bad news - The first big patch will be delayed for some (finite and not very long) time. Very good news - The next patches will follow a complete plan towards a milestone that will make the game much better. I am working on a whole plan for the game, rather than trying figure out from update to update how to make the game incrementally better. Incremental changes are ok, but they're a bit like wandering in the dark. The whole plan for the game - sounds big doesn't it ? The idea is pretty simple, take the most fundamental flaws of SPL and get rid of them while adding more gameplay. Coming from the creator of the game: This is the biggest criticism and my motivations for the 'whole plan' SPL is predictable in the wrong way, monotonous instead of familiar. SPL is linear. Fight arenas, get upgrades, beat boss, repeat. Arena based ac…
- SPL is now rogue-like - 15 December 2020
Hi, the time-management mechanic didn't survive the test of time (haha), most importantly - it wasn't fun. It took away meaning from dying and put unnecessary pressure on the player. From now on SPL won't rush you. The perma-death is always on. So is the game just harder now ? What about other time related gameplay? Read below. Last Stand New ship ability, used via Left Ctrl or gamepad Y. Will heal you to maximum, knockback enemies and incoming projectiles - effectively saving your life Tied to new resource - Energy. It consumes 100% energy and requires 100% energy to use Energy Can be recover by flying through Irides Overheal decay recharges energy - if you are healed to 100% and you are overcharged, the disappearing extra health replenishes energy Purging tech progress recovers energy - 1 ship/terran/native/starborne point converts into 1% of energy Perma death Yep -it's always on. If…
- Gameplay update - 0.3.1 - 8 December 2020
Hi, A bit late with the patch notes today. So you said that the ship is unresponsive and overheat is not fun? Well I agree, it was! Gameplay changes You can recover significantly quicker if you press any key rapidly when overheated. C'mon, star... start working damn it! Hit that space! All ships have now twice the acceleration and maneuverability. Player ship has higher turning rate compared to AIs to allow easier flanking. In the light of new, crazy velocities the aim assist has been tuned up. Now the player has the same aim assist accuracy as the AI. Shooting was never really about aiming but timing and positing so it's all for the best. (Prototype) As a request from one of the players holding SHIFT now activates auto-look-at-lock-on camera. We'll see how it lands. On gamepad this is turned on via Right Thumbstick press. Intuitive gamepad mapping - to fly according to Left Analog stic…
- Patch 0.3.0 - 3 December 2020
Patch 0.3.0 Hi, so the first patch for the released game is here! Gameplay Enemy attack broadcasts are now much more visible Bronze Tier enemies and Bosses will no longer have perfect accuracy Explosions caused by death of enemies defeated by the player no longer harm the player Maximum enemy wave size reduced to 5, while the enemy wave size difficulty remained the same The game will restricts the number of enemies that can attack the player at one given moment. This means that it's less likely to encounter huge wave of very easy enemies. Silver and gold tier enemies should appear more often Reduced the time needed for the boss to appear each chapter Other Improved UX of the starting loadout screen
- New Content Update #6 - 1 December 2020
Hi, so the game got released to Early Access! It's been a while since the last update announcement. I was too busy bugfixing! New features Every object in game (asteroid, megastructure cube etc.) is now physical and many have angular velocity, which means they rotate. This is the first step to make the sceneries alive. Due to some mysterious presence all megastructures deteriorate while the game progresses Added two new megastructure sceneries Each weapon has been limited to 4 weapon mods. Mods don't stack anymore by default (see below) New weapon mod - Extension. If equipped the next slot has 3x capacity. So if you use it, in the next slot you can put 3x Accuracy mods instead of 1x Accuracy mod Added a new game settings: Invert Pitch and VSync options Improved death mechanic: After respawn if in presence of the nemesis te time is consumed quicker. So you need to kill the enemy that bes…
- New Gameplay Update #4 - 7 November 2020
Hi there, In this patch two new crowd control mechanics have been added: Kinetic blast Full shield has been improved with new functionality! When activated it charges with incoming bullet kinetic energy Once released it explodes with the stored energy knocking back everyone around The more massive the enemy the less affected they are, the fragile ones will be hit most hard Can be life saver if you find yourself overwhelmed by the enemy numbers Can be used to smash enemies into asteroids or other static objects The kinetic blast becomes weaker with distance, having no effect at 4km, with biggest kick at point blank Explosions Staggered ships (glowing in yellow) explode when destroyed When performing glory kill you are immune to this explosion The explosion strength is proportional to the ships health bar length Only regular stagger-able enemies explode, lesser minions and bosses do not A…
- New Content Update #5 - 1 November 2020
New Content Update #5 Hi there, Native Nexus Third boss fight is available Native Nexus can be defeated in a direct fight, but without understanding it's behaviour it might be difficult. It's the most fragile but at the same time deadly Nexus from the three This boss excels at long range combat and summons deadly minions to help in the fight Narrative Added missing radio chatter for Natives and Starborne, now all species will talk to you during combat Different enemy tiers have something different to say Enemy chatter should give you a better idea on what's going on in SPL world, if you take a careful notice of what they're saying Upgrades Added new weapon keyword: Dooming - it will reduce heat cost of weapons by 50% or 100% if taken twice. The amount reduced will damage your ship. Balance changes to some of the weapon keywords Have fun!
- New Content Update #4 - 28 October 2020
New Content Update #4 Hi there, Narrative Added Journal accessible via Inventory screen or by pressing 'J' button. Some encounters will unlock journal entries. First three part mini story has been added. More will come, hopefully every week. Added radio chatter, the Terran enemies will communicate with you. Messages from Natives and Starborne coming up next. Balance As the game starts with a weapon choice and free upgrade, new tech levels are leveling up 50% slower. It was observed that you can very quickly get a crazy amount of upgrades in the first chapter. Enemies will prefer now to fight at a much shorter range. Sniping with hailgun shouldn't be the easy default tactic anymore. This also makes Terrans and Starborne much more deadly but Natives easier to kill. The enemies will get more deadly, the more of them are in your close proximity, their aggression and accuracy will increase.…
- New Gameplay Update #3 - 21 October 2020
Hi there, New death mechanic If you get defeated by another ship they will steal all your tech progress! The enemy that defeated you is marked with purple colour on hud and has purple electric discharge VFX You can get back your lost progress by defeating this enemy Progress will be retained if you crash in a collision with a static object or during boss fight. Consequence of death for will be specific to a given boss fight, starborn nexus will respawn one yellow shell and terran nexus will regenerate a large portion of it's armour Gameplay changes The AI director will now do a better job of scaling the AI difficult in larger fights. Decreased AI aggression and accuracy when fighting multiple enemies while retaining difficulty of smaller fights The enemies will defend - deflect or dodge more often Combat encounters with threat above 100% will become significantly more difficult Gold tie…
- New Content Update #3 - 15 October 2020
New Content Update #3 Hi there, Terran Nexus The second boss fight is available! The Terran Nexus is a slow turning, bulky but very powerful cruiser. It knows how to dodge, and use it's shield well enough to counter your shots. Unlike Starborn Nexus it can be defeated in a direct fight. The game will now finish after both fights have been complete. The icon next to the nexus arrival bar tells you which boss you are going to fight in the current chapter. At the moment the boss fights come in random order. If you want to specifically fight the new boss, just restart the game once or twice and make sure you see a Terran species icon. Boss fights now scale according to threat level. If you constantly pick very difficult fights, the nexus encounter will get more difficult but succeeding will yield much more fame. Nexus fights below threat 100% will be accordingly easier. Finishing the first…
- Patch 0.2.30 - 9 October 2020
Hi there, Changes As a test made targeting enemies more challenging with fix weapon variants (Trident, Auto, Scatter). Turret mounted weapon variants have been slightly improved Fixed a bug that weapons could scale VFX and SFX without limit, so for instance shooting a phasebolt in a large fight would make you blind and deaf. Balanced Starborne Nexus fight, the phasebolt doesn't guarantee a easy win anymore. The boss will use Starlance and Deathray weapons in different fight stages. Enemies will change acceleration and trajectory much smoother, this addresses the auto-aim jittering. Enemies that fly in formation (including Starborne nexus shells) will have much less erratic trajectory if the player aims at them. Balanced some of the new weapons Greatly increased Native's armour regeneration cooldown after hit, they were almost impossible to kill with slow shooting weak weapons. Fixed a c…
