Starlight: Eye of the Storm News

Fixed several issues all around the game. Some assets were improved slightly.

[h2]Changes[/h2]

1. Improved Enemy Laser Laser Bolt graphic
   
2. Balanced Microwave Burst damage across all 3 levels. Compensated with higher rate of fire and perpetual hits until it dissipates. Previously, the burst will terminate prematurely after 5-10 hits.
   
3. Balanced the speed of projectiles multiplied under HARD and EXPERT difficulty. This is to align with the vision that the slowest bullets should have a minimum speed and the fastest bullets should still be avoidable within human reaction time.
   
4. EXPERT difficulty now deals only 5x damage instead of 10x. It's slightly more forgiving now; just barely.
   
5. Improved the graphic for Plasma Cannon Level 1 in the weapons shop
   
6. Lowered the alpha of EMP Cannon impact. This is due to the fact that when each projectile lands multiple hits, it can cause the impact effect to saturate and paint the entire target white; blocking sight and therefore affecting gameplay.
   
7. Improved the in-game graphic for Disintegrator Blade 3 - so that it looks softer than a hard 2D sprite.
   
8. All Disintegrator Blades will have its reload cooldown HALVED. That means you can fire more frequently.
   
   • Level 1 will now have 12% chance of disintegration for enemies with lesser than 30% HP
     
   • Level 2 will now have 15% chance of disintegration for enemies with lesser than 40% HP
     
   • Level 3 will now have 18% chance of disintegration for enemies with lesser than 50% HP
     

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

1. Added a hard fix to Arcade Mission 8's healer ships. This is a very hard bug to reproduce and we hope this would have fixed it.
   
2. Corrected spelling mistakes in the Campaign mission description. Proof-read it once more to confirm that it's correct.
   
3. Fixed a regression bug with shaders that causes 3D planets and 3D asteroids to render incorrectly. This is a cosmetic fix and doesn't affect gameplay.
   

Come join us in our live stream!

As promised, the bugs were looked into and resolved.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

1. Campaign Tutorial achievement will no longer appear everytime the game launches. This was probably a state-confusion between the game, Steam and the game's anti-cheat algorithms.
   
2. Fixed a bug where if you've completed a Campaign, you can never start another game with Arcade, Boss Rush, Survival or even Duel PvP.
   

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]

We'll try to live stream some of the new features on Steam and/or Twitch. Stay tuned! The announcements will be made. Have fun!

We tested quite a few game modes...

1) Survival - Expert
2) Duel
3) Campaign - Normal, 2 missions only though

ENJOY the chaos!!

As promised, we've been working on fixing the game's reported bugs and some new ones that were discovered along the way.

This patch focuses on 3 things in general:

1) Major game breaking bugs fixed
2) 64-bits adopted
3) New adjustments to difficulty levels



None. Switching to 64-bits isn't a new feature but a necessary step for the future. For 32-bits players, it's still possible to play the old build via

Library -> Starlight: Eye of the Storm -> Properties -> Beta -> sl32 - Starlight 32-bits

Once selected, you should be able to persist with the current 32-bits build though the bugs in it aren't fixed.



[h3]64-bits[/h3]
With the game now in 64-bits only, there'll be additional memory required. The minimum memory requirements is still set at 4GB but recommended at 8GB.

[h3]Graphics[/h3]
For graphics, we now fully support 4K and with it, it means there'll be more VRAM used due to the additional render targets and frame buffers required to be in 4K resolution which takes 4x more memory than 1080p. Therefore, if you wish to play in 4K, the game may take up to 2GB of VRAM by virtue of the sheer amount of memory required for render targets.

[h3]Difficulty[/h3]
We've recognized that our intended game experience for our players is to be able to use natural skills and reaction time to play without the need to upgrade weapons though it's highly recommended that you do. Having the right fighter build is always essential to a satisfying gameplay experience.

As such, here're the changes:
1) HARD difficulty - enemy hp goes up by 25%, player dmg unchanged, enemy bullets travel up to 2x faster capped at speed of 40 units. Player takes 2.5x more damage.

2) HARDEST difficulty (aka bullet hell) - enemy hp goes DOWN by 25%, player dmg unchanged, enemy bullets travel up to 3x faster capped at speed of 60 units. Players automatically regenerate special power bar when vulnerable. Player takes 10x more damage; almost all enemy bullets can kill you with a single shot.

[h3]Chessy Guard[/h3]
This has been an in-built feature to prevent enemy units except bosses, from firing right on top of you, killing you instantly. A slight change is made that this only works if you're VULNERABLE. That means if you're executing your special powers, enemy ships will continue to fire on top of you since that might be what you're after.

[h3]HP Adjustments[/h3]

- Voiceless Pirate Damaged Frigate now only has 2/3 of the original HP. This adjustment was made as a result of a feedback that the frigate is too spongey.

• Fixed a bug where the joystick cannot press any buttons assigned to Special Powers control.
  
• Fixed a bug where the joystick upon connection or disconnection will cause the game to crash.
  
• Fixed a bug where the player's controls displayed in the options menu isn't updated when you change a key/joystick bind.
  
• Fixed a bug where certain sprites may blink occasionally. This is not fully fixed though and further fixes may apply in the future.
  
• Fixed a bug where the player can fire even after death automatically.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Frigates in Arcade Stage 6 isn't moving properly
  
• Fixed a bug in Arcade Stage 6 where NSAU 3D ships do not display shield distortion despite getting hit.
  
• Fixed a bug where if the Shadow Map is too large, the GPU might thrash (not crash) when rendering it in 4K. Now there'll be a limit on how large the shadow map will be despite LOD settings. This is a prevention against causing the game to be unplayable.
  
• Fixed a bug when fighting the secret boss, after destroying it the players do not get invulnerable and get in fact, die and get a game over instead.
  
• Fixed a bug where some ships despawn without any reason
  
• Fixed a bug where ships spawned, especially the 1st ship, do not fire anything
  
• Fixed a bug in options menu where "Apply" and "Discard" doesn't work if it's opened under Campaign Overview Map.
  
• Fixed certain sequence in Campaign Mission 4 that isn't correct.
  
• Fixed a bug in the Weapons Shop that if you upgrade directly without going into the items, and then move your cursor up/down/left/right the upgrade widgets are left dangling.
  
• Fixed a bug where the game crashes/no longer starts after selecting Windows Mode ON and MSAA to anything but NONE. Yes, the game doesn't start even after -resetconfig is used.
  
• Fixed a bug in Weapon Shop during a weapon upgrade, the upgraded weapon will fire from the top-left tip of the screen once.
  
• Fixed a bug where the controls can remain frozen after completing Survival Mode.
  
• Fixed a bug where 4K players will boundaries representing 3D objects off alignment. It isn't an issue until that invisible boundary kills the player. Therefore it's now fixed.
  

We endeavour to give our players a FUNCTIONING game to play at the very least. Sure, the game may not appeal to everyone but for our customers, we'll always be there listening and fixing issues you've voiced out to ensure that your fun isn't interrupted.

The game will still have outstanding bugs to be fixed over time. Some bugs weren't discovered simply because we do NOT have the hardware for it.

[h2]What's next?[/h2]

We'll reflect the 64-bit changes on the Demo first. This is to ensure that Demo players have the correct impression of the game and get to play as bug free as possible.
[UPDATE] The demo is now in v1.06 64-bits executable.

Next, we'll be adding a few weapons , a few new canon fighters and at least 1-2 new special powers.

After that, we'll embark on the Boss Rush DLC (free) as promised.

[h2]In the end[/h2]

Your gaming experience is what really matters. If you wish to report a bug or suggestion, you're more than welcome to do so. You can also join our discord here: Join Starlight Discord to interact with us directly.


We'll now take a short break till next month (February 2023) due to Lunar New Year celebrations and will be back with a bang!

Till then, we hope you'll have fun with the new patch and its updated HARDEST difficulty and we'll be back to serve you needs!

Regards,
Jeremy