Hi everyone,
Major Update 1: Starfarer is out now! This post collates all the changes we’ve made. Firstly, a massive thank-you to everyone that tested the beta branch and provided feedback across Steam and Discord – we’ve been stomping on the bugs as they’ve been coming in and it was great to have your validation and extra testing muscle, particularly as the game has now significantly expanded.
Steam should auto-update to the new version, which will have 0.6.24473 or later in the bottom-right of the main menu. Your profile saves (i.e. equipment and slots) will carry over. If you’re in the middle of a run though, that won’t carry over. If the game detects you’re trying to load an older save, it’ll give a reminder message in case you want to finish the run on that old version.
The original version is available as a beta branch called “0.5.23844 - Launch Version”. Please bear in mind that if you unlock new ships and campaigns in the latest version, go back to the original and play that profile, and then come back to the new version again, those ship and campaign unlocks will be lost on that profile. I don’t expect many would choose to do that, but I thought I’d mention it just in case.
If you’d like to back up your profile saves for whatever reason, you can find your save folder here: C:\Users\\AppData\LocalLow\Fireblade Software\SENTRY\Saves\Steam
Housekeeping done, so on with the cool new stuff :)
[h3]New Campaigns and Vessels (aka the Launch Screen)![/h3]
This is most likely the biggest change to the game and as mentioned in previous Dev Transmissions is the foundation of the campaign going forward. Two of the most frequent issues people noted with the first Early Access release was the volume of content and the difficulty; this improves both.
You may remember we posted up some details on this screen before, which can be found here:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1252680/view/6232499459766436169
In short, when you launch a campaign you’ll be taken to this menu where you have a choice of vessels and campaigns:
Vessels are unlocked by satisfying certain requirements and provide modifiers on your run. This provides variety and if you’re struggling with the difficulty allows you to work towards ships that help you in specific ways. Running out of crew? Choose the Medical ship. Suffering from a lack of Materials? Choose the Mining vessel etc. The current four are just the start, in future updates we’ll add more vessels.
Campaigns provide different difficulties. In this update there are two, but more will be added in subsequent Major Updates. Starfarer is approximately the same difficulty as the original campaign, but across three sectors. Initiate is two sectors long, doesn’t have homing missiles and is easier than Starfarer. Note that I said easier, not easy :) SENTRY is meant to be challenging, evoking emotions of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat and limping over the finish line. But it shouldn’t be impossible for people who are struggling and Initiate is a campaign more suited to those people who can spend time learning to play and banking a selection of equipment before stepping up to harder campaigns.
Oh, and on that note – equipment is now split into two tiers: Common and Uncommon. On Initiate you can only acquire Common equipment, so if you want the bigger toys you’ll need to venture into Starfarer.
Difficulty has been an interesting problem on SENTRY. Some people found the game too easy, some too hard while others just right. One issue with a single campaign – and why we didn’t just rush out balancing tweaks – is that we couldn’t balance toward one side without alienating the opposite end of the scale. Having multiple campaigns allows us to tackle this in the right way. The trouble with a dynamic campaign is that we’re not only having to consider players varying skill levels, but what the game throws at you, when and where (both in terms of level location and where you may be on upgrade paths) – all can provide varying results. It’s partially why I described Starfarer as “approximately” the same as the original campaign difficulty – at points it may be easier, at other times harder depending on all those various factors and your personal experience. All these variables mean that’s why your constructive feedback is essential in helping us adjust these difficulties and create new ones along our Roadmap.
[h3]Other Difficulty-Related Changes![/h3]
We’ve made a lot of other changes that would impact difficulty, so I’ve collated them here.
Previously, breach locations would be random and we only had control over the number of breaches. This randomness could provide some very spiky random difficulty, so we’ve created a system that gives our designer Sean greater control. So in Initiate for example, the spawn locations won’t stretch your defense in the same way Starfarer would, and we can provide broader escalation.
The spawning system has also changed to accommodate the new difficulty tiers. Enemies are divided into Boarding Parties (i.e. the force that moves around your ship), which are comprised of waves, with each wave comprised of multiple squads. There’s been a lot of work at the Squads level to ensure that we have greater control over the difficulty but can also ensure enemies are introduced at the right points, because some of those enemy archetypes provide a spike in challenge, especially in combinations. Taking Initiate as an example, there’ll be more “Grunt” level enemies (i.e. the grey ones) and less Veterans/Elites (blue/red variants), along with lesser occurrences of the special enemy archetypes versus Starfarer. There’s lots more variety and granularity we can add in future here too.
The tutorial sector has been shortened and made easier. This is so we can get people into the proper game loop faster and for a tutorial, it was previously too hard and not a welcoming experience. You only play this once on a new profile, so this point is more for new players than existing ones – but an important change nonetheless.
[h3]New Enemies![/h3]
Enemy reinforcements have arrived! The Flamejack and Bilejack inflict burn and poison damage on the player. A charging enemy adds chaos to combat as it bashes into you, enemies and props alike. Our heavier bipedal enemy now has additional tier variants and some come with a shield and flak pistol, requiring a step-change in your approach.
Last but not least, you’ll see our grub enemies now come in a different colour. I’ve no doubt the green ones will make a return in future with some different behaviour.
[h3]New Equipment![/h3]
The SENTRY Defense Program isn’t blind to your plight and has made additional equipment available.
The Peacekeeper and Flame Shot are three-slot weapons, giving some much-needed variety to sit alongside the SMG tier:
Two old friends from the demo have returned; the Exploding Barrel and Landmine:
An Extractor deployable is useful against flying enemies and is joined by the Stun Grenade to complete the new roster:
I won’t go into detail here, half the fun is getting to try them yourself :)
[h3]Supply Beacons and Duplicate Blueprints[/h3]
In the Navigator, derelicts have been replaced with Supply Beacons that denote their level (Common or Uncommon).
Derelicts may make a return in some other form later in Early Access.
Also, when receiving a blueprint that you already have, it’ll be at a random upgrade level.
[h3]New Level and level updates![/h3]
There is a new sub system on the Roughneck, which is called The Crossing. The main area is a large room with plenty of places to throw enemies into the abyss.
You’ll also notice that the levels on the Ship Overview are now randomised (except if you’re playing the Tutorial sector) which provides greater variety on subsequent escapes.
While we’ve done lots of tweaks to existing levels like adding more places for deployables and other fixes, Mess Hall has had an overhaul. It’s a similar layout, but the exit has swapped places with one of the other spawn locations, meaning that the level is no longer all about that single corridor. There are still spawns that utilise that corridor so there’s plentiful venting opportunities.
About half the comments on Mess Hall were negative, the rest positive. But the positive comments frequently alluded to using that level as a crutch to handle difficulty – which is not ideal. This, combined with a more balanced overall game means that Mess Hall is actually fun now.
[h3]And other stuff![/h3]
There’s a whole heap of miscellaneous bug fixes, polish and improvements that we’ve done too. In no particular order:
- Poison and Burn status effects impact the player
- Barrels on the back of the Tank enemy now show damage and we've improved the hit impacts on this enemy in general
- Explosions now don’t destroy barrels, but set them on fire
- Explosions will tend to throw enemies further than before
- Rivet Grid now restocks in preparation phases
- Deployables reload bars are now desaturated until they are fully recharged, at which point the bars colour is shown making it easier to identify between states
- Increased speed of enemy boarding parties moving in the Overview
- Optimisations on visual effects, enemies and levels – there’s still lots more work to do on this throughout Early Access, we are by no means done – the guidelines on this performance post are still accurate
- Forcefields change colour when all enemies have left the forcefield area
- Sound now plays to denote the final wave banner
- Player and enemy now play burning audio if affected by the burn status
- Suit VO for when there is only one SENTRY left and they arrive in a level
- Removed delays on loudspeaker audio so the warnings are more prompt
- Enemy grenades now have a different sound effect when exploding
- After Action Report, Equipment, Navigator and Overview menus are functional with gamepad (note these are functional, they are not polished or anything that we deem to be “full controller support” - that is in the pipeline)
- Balancing tweaks to most equipment (DMR, Boltgun, Railgun, all pistols, AR44 and its secondary to name but a few)
- Various balancing tweaks to Deployables and Gear
- Various enemy balancing tweaks
- Fixed an issue with soldier enemies getting stuck in Central Processing because they couldn’t find an attacking point on a damaged Core
- Made some tutorial messaging clearer
- Enemies no longer get stuck on the lip round the edge of The Pit
- Fixed pulse pad, conveyor and vortex grid not starting fully charged when placed during a preparation phase
- Fixed some holes where you could see out of the level in various places
- Removed HUD opacity setting from the game as it was buggy and there are already options to turn the HUD on or off
- Fixed shutters in Mainframe and Fuel Exchange so you can now build on them
- Soldier enemies no longer throw grenades if the player is too far above them
- Removed floating player health bar that could appear in certain situations
- And finally, fixed the vending machine stock error so the Strawberry and Mint flavours are no longer mismatched:
Actually, maybe that last one was the most important update of all…
We hope you like the latest updates for Major Update 1. We’re waiting on translations, so will patch those in as soon as we have them all. We’ll also be keeping an eye on our various channels to pick up any feedback or thoughts on the latest additions and will fix anything important that crops up, so please continue telling us your thoughts.
Remember this is just the first Major Update, there’s more to come and we have a huge list of all your feedback that we’re working through alongside the
Roadmap.
Once you’ve checked out the latest changes, don’t forget to leave a Steam review!
Aside from any patches that require our attention, work will commence on Major Update 2: which will be focused around co-op.
Thanks for the support!
The Fireblade Crew
