Nebulas (v0.6.19)

[p]This update is here a little earlier than planned. Once the performance gains started stacking up and the visual upgrades came together, it felt wrong to delay it though.[/p][p][/p][h2]Nebulas[/h2][p]They’ve been on the roadmap for a long time and you'll now occasionally encounter them while exploring. They’re not common, but when you do find one, visibility drops hard hopefully giving a very different feel to combat. It may be tweaked in future updates but I want to see what you guys think first.[/p][p][/p][h2]Bloom + Gateways[/h2][p]I’ve upgraded the bloom system with proper tonemapping. Glows now keep their colour instead of blowing out into flat white. At the same time, Gateways have been reworked with proper portal shaders and new entry animations.[/p][p][/p][p]This ended up being a much bigger visual improvement than expected. In hindsight, I should have done it sooner but it's here now![/p][p][/p][h2]Brightness[/h2][p]The overall game brightness has been increased slightly. If you dislike this there's now a Brightness slider in the settings. Background Darkness is still adjustable separately under Accessibility.[/p][p][/p][p]To keep ships readable against brighter environments, they now have a subtle black shadow.[/p][p][/p][p]Fox-2 Ship Design by Yo (https://star-vortex.com/ships.php?view=152)[/p][p][/p][h2]Performance[/h2][p]This update includes a major performance pass across the entire game.[/p][p]Large fights with heavy projectile and drone counts should feel noticeably smoother. Drone weapon pools are now preloaded before combat, so you won’t get that initial stutter when a swarm fires for the first time.[/p][p]A lot of invisible per-frame allocations have been removed from targeting, clean-up, and patrol systems. That means fewer garbage collection spikes and fewer random hitches.[/p][p]Steam Deck performance in particular should now feel much more stable.[/p][p][/p][h2]Sector 4 - Phase 1 Progress[/h2][p]Work on Sector 4 continues behind the scenes. You'll start seeing new Species-XI enemies appearing in the next update, and boss development for this phase is about to begin.[/p][p][/p][p]Full details are listed below. Enjoy![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]New Features / Content[/h3][p]• Some encounters are now shrouded in thick nebula fog, limiting visibility.[/p][p][/p][h3]Balance Changes[/h3][p]• Smaller factions in sectors now have a minimum number of spawns.[/p][p]• Increased cooldown on Phantom Demon's invulnerability from 5s to 10s.[/p][p][/p][h3]Quality of Life / Accessibility[/h3][p]• New animated effects for gateway and sector portals.[/p][p]• Added brightness slider to graphics category in settings.[/p][p]• Improved bloom with smoother, more saturated highlights using Neutral tone mapping.[/p][p]• Added Split Toning option under Graphics for a subtle cinematic color grade.[/p][p]• Added Film Grain setting under Graphics for a subtle cinematic texture overlay.[/p][p]• Increased the default brightness of background artwork by 15%.[/p][p]• Ships now have a small shadow around them to improve visibility.[/p][p]• Added button to ship design that re-opens the tutorial if you missed it.[/p][p][/p][h3]Performance[/h3][p]• Removed normal maps for improved performance, as visual impact was minor.[/p][p]• Improved drone targeting performance, especially with multiple drone bays.[/p][p]• Reduced drone CPU overhead per frame.[/p][p]• Eliminated FPS drop when drones first enter combat.[/p][p]• Reduced per-shot overhead for all projectile weapons.[/p][p]• Improved performance for multi-shot weapons (e.g. Scatter Gun).[/p][p]• Faster projectile clean-up when projectiles expire or hit targets.[/p][p]• Reduced memory allocations from frequently running clean-up checks.[/p][p]• Improved generation speed for sectors.[/p][p]• Multiple improvements to player list loading when there are multiple saves.[/p][p]• Fixed excessive garbage collection in AI controller during battles.[/p][p][/p][h3]Bug Fixes[/h3][p]• Updated pop-up tutorial about linking slots with correct UI artwork.[/p][p]• Fixed bindings not correctly displaying in ship design for keyboards.[/p][p]• Fixed bug where Gunner upgrades were not correctly applied to missile weapons.[/p][p]• Fixed an error when a black hole dealt damage after its parent ship was destroyed.[/p][p]• Fixed key bindings not displaying when the ship designer first opens.[/p][p]• Fixed bug where some templates would display as level 999.[/p][p]• Fixed an error when using older beacons to summon friendly ships.[/p][p]• Fixed bug where enemy cooldowns were being incorrectly reduced.[/p]