Star Vortex News

I'm still working through all the feedback and bug reports that came from the influx of demo players Splattercat Gaming sent my way. I haven't even got on to the feedback Splattercat gave himself during the review video yet!

[h2]Assembler Improvement[/h2]
When you begin to modify an item all valid items that can be destroyed to improve it will now be highlighted in your cargo / storage to make them easier to see.



[h2]Parallax Changes[/h2]
The movement (or lack) of background objects has come up a few times in the comments recently. Last update I vastly increased the movement but some people didn't like it. As such the movement is now quite minimal but there is a setting under Accessibility if you wish to increase it.

[h2]Discord Rich Presence[/h2]
If you share your game activity on Discord then Star Vortex will now display to your friends when you're playing. It includes the sector you're in, difficulty and your current level when in game.



There are lots more requested changes and bug fixes below, be sure to check them out. Next update will be in a week or so. Have fun!



New Features / Content

• Gameplay details and activity can now sync to Discord when you're playing.
  

Balance Changes

• Reduced number of squadrons in the final wave of rescue encounters from 3 down to 2.
  
• Halved damage of the Arrow Launcher used by the Bull (Junker Elite).
  
• Increased delay between Railgun shots by +50% and increased damage by +50%.
  
• Doubled velocity and effective range of Fire Bolas / Shuriken Thrower / Boomerang.
  
• Disabled debuff now has diminishing returns on the player. Duration goes 2s, 1s 0.5s 0.25s to immune.
  
• Disabled debuff can no longer be triggered on the player more than once every 2 seconds.
  
• Doubled weapon range of roaming drones but engagement range remains the same.
  

Quality of Life / Accessibility

• Items in the Assembler are now dimmed if they're not valid for the current modification.
  
• Dialog on bosses / faction elites now only plays the first time the player arrives.
  
• Vastly increased scroll sensitivity when scrolling panels with the mouse wheel.
  
• Reverted change that increased parallax of background objects.
  
• New setting 'Increase Background Movement' added to accessibility that is off by default.
  
• Item version number now updates when it's level increases due to stats regenerating.
  
• Railguns now have a bigger projectile, explosion and new muzzle flash animation.
  
• Beacon weapons now require a 1 second key press to dismiss friendly ships.
  
• File paths are no longer stored in save data so it can be shared more safely.
  
• Auto Untarget Out Of Range setting is disabled by default again due to it causing issues.
  

Bug Fixes

• Increasing item levels at the Assembler no longer slightly inflates some stats.
  
• Background objects no longer move weirdly when zooming the camera in and out.
  
• Swapping storage tabs in Assembler with a controller now closes all overlays.
  
• Updated file browser addon used to import avatars that was causing some errors.
  
• Fixed spam in the player log about error reporting being enabled.
  
• Fixed horizontal navigation between items for sale when using a controller.
  
• Fixed incorrect colored muzzle flashes on PDL beams.
  
• Heat loss now has a 0.1s latency so rapidly clicking will no longer avoid heat build-up.
  
• Fixed bug where alternate designs were not unlocking, will apply retroactively.
  
• Friendly ships in the fleet now display their names for consistency.
  
• Fixed bug where faction unlocks were not displaying on HUD when achieved.
  
• Fixed bug where faction unlock notices were not translating faction names.
  
• Fixed errors when typing really big numbers into the developer console.
  
• Fixed null pointer in Thruster.PlayParticles().
  
• Fixed null pointer in Activatable.FixedUpdate().
  
• Fixed global modifiers not updating when replacing modifiers in the Assembler.
  
• Hitting cancel when regenerating a sector now correctly closes the confirmation.
  
• Fixed bindings displaying twice if a secondary keyboard binding is added for an action.
  
• Fixed max speed of hornet drones displaying incorrectly.
  
• Fixed Engineer Relios dialog popping up before he joins the fleet.
  

Wishlists are everything when you're an unreleased game on Steam. Without them, your game pretty much disappears into the void at launch. We’ve been doing well so far, with enough to get on Popular Upcoming, but progress has been slow.

Every day I log in and check the numbers. Wishlists, followers, demo downloads, etc. One day last week more people deleted Star Vortex from their wishlists than added it. It's hard not to be demotivated but that's all part of the journey.

Then, two days ago, a friend messaged me: "SplattercatGaming just posted a review of your game." Within a day I had over +1,500 wishlists, +200 followers and over 500 new players trying out the demo. Holy cow...

The last couple of days have been a whirlwind of feedback, bug reports and suggestions. This update is my first attempt to address some of them, more will follow. Thanks to Splattercat for the phenomenal review and to all the new players who saw it and are now here!

[h2]Parallax Changes[/h2]
Some people evidently don't like the slow parallax background artwork. I attempted to address this last update with my new dust layer in the clouds, to give a greater sense of movement. With this update I've also increased the movement speed of all the background elements. I'm hoping this will go some way to addressing the feeling that you're not in motion.

[h2]Sell Price Doubled[/h2]
Long ago players in Star Vortex had too many credits and nothing to spend them on. These days with the Assembler, players often find themselves running short. As such I've doubled the sell price of all items in the game. This means items now sell for 20% of their buy price instead of the old 10%. I'm hoping this gives a little more freedom to buy things and experiment.

[h2]Friendly Ships[/h2]
I designed the friendly ships, I picked their colors and gave them names. Yet still, I try to shoot them when they arrive in Warzones! Clearly, there is still an issue with identifying friendly targets that adding temporary [Friendly] tags did not address. All friendly ships now permanently show their names above in blue text that I'm hoping will stop me from trying to kill them on sight.



[h2]PDL Color[/h2]
It was mentioned briefly in a live stream that PDLs were hard to distinguish from incoming laser fire and I have to agree. There was no real reason for them to have colors as they're kinetic damage. Now they're white so they should be easier to distinguish.



[h2]Display Change[/h2]
I don't normally highlight bugs but this one was game-breaking. The game now defaults to Borderless Fullscreen (because it's safer) and if you change this in any way you'll get 10 seconds to accept the changes before they auto-revert. Some setups allow players to pick refresh rates that their monitors do not support and this can make the game unplayable.

Lots of other bug fixes and quality of life changes below. We finally tracked down the last of the assembler storage errors and your drones should no longer go whizzing away like easily distracted children.



If you missed the review by Splattercat Gaming you can find it here:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Enjoy! Another update should be out this weekend where I'll hopefully address some of Splattercat's feedback directly.



New Features / Content

• Resetting slots now includes your initial primary slot.
  

Balance Changes

• Doubled sell price of all items as items now sell for 20% of their cost to buy.
  
• Credits dropped by transports in intercept encounters have been doubled.
  
• Increased drone range by +10% as they still feel a bit short range.
  
• Infect waypoint mission is now correctly level 12.
  

Quality of Life / Accessibility

• Friendly ships now permanently have their names above them in bright blue text.
  
• Increased parallaxing of background objects to improve sense of movement.
  
• Background stars no longer remain static to improve sense of movement.
  
• PDLs are now white as it made no sense to give them damage-type colors when they're kinetic.
  
• Auto Untarget Out Of Range setting is now enabled by default.
  
• Moved auto target settings out of gameplay and into the controls category.
  
• Game now defaults to Fullscreen (Borderless) due to refresh rate issues on some devices.
  
• Display changes are now followed by a 10s reversion countdown incase it doesn't work.
  
• Rewrote some of the Admiral's dialog to make him ask more questions.
  
• Adjusted ESA's dialog to make its personality more consistent.
  
• Fixed random Dialog that called Echo 'she' instead of 'it'.
  
• Skip cutscene button should no longer accidentally be clicked when reading dialog.
  
• Added a pop-up tutorial to prompt new players about the navigation panel.
  
• Shorter loading screens that don't run a 3s animation no longer display tips.
  

Bug Fixes

• Friendly and enemy drones should no longer fly off in wild fast orbits.
  
• Fixed bug where closing assembler panel with shared storage open could cause errors.
  
• Fixed controller navigation issues inside upgrade tooltips.
  
• Fixed another issue where the global light would not reset in the Alpha Saxa.
  
• Fixed a null pointer as the upgrade panel opens.
  
• Fixed a null pointer in NavigationHighlight.Update().
  
• Fixed a null pointer in DialogOverlay.OnDestroy().
  
• Fixed bug where Phantom parts would not unlock at the end of Sector 2.
  
• Enemies will now target the player even when they have boost immunity.
  
• Fixed null pointer in NullSave.ReIconed.CompareIdentifierName().
  

Another small hotfix today to fix some bugs and issues.

What's with all these updates?
I'm glad you asked! We're currently doing some influencer outreach and a Keymailer campaign. This means some streamers are starting to play the game.

I should probably mention that I hate this. Watching people play the game always makes me nervous, even when they're clearly having a good time. It's a necessary evil though. Sometimes they notice issues, sometimes I notice issues, these hotfixes are me trying to fix them as quickly as possible.

[h2]Difficulty Locks[/h2]
Some players jump straight into Hardcore mode, a choice I personally wouldn't make, but to each their own. Then there are the truly insane ones who start on both Hardcore mode and Impossible difficulty. There is no way that’s ever going to be a positive experience.

From now if want to play on Formidable difficulty, you'll need to get a player to level 10 first. Impossible and Custom difficulties are locked until level 20.



[h2]Camera Motion[/h2]
There was a complaint on our Steam Community that sometimes the movement would feel like objects were coming towards you instead of you moving towards them. It's one of those that once someone points it out it's hard to unsee.

As such I've added a new dust layer to backgrounds that should make movement a little clearer. Failing this you can enable a movement grid under the Accessibility settings if you still dislike it.



[h2]Global Lighting[/h2]
If you noticed the game was really dark it's because there was a bug with the global lighting after watching the intro cinematic. This has now been fixed... but I kind of liked it, so global lighting has been reduced by 20% to make things a little darker than it used to be.

Enjoy, check our #coverage channel in Discord if you want to watch some of the Streams and reviews!



Quality of Life / Accessibility New Features / Content

• Formidable difficulty is now locked until you get a player to level 10.
  
• Impossible and Custom difficulty is now locked until you get a player to level 20.
  

Quality of Life / Accessibility

• Backgrounds now include a dust layer in an attempt to make movement clearer.
  
• New setting in Accessibility to Show Movement Grid if you still dislike the camera motion.
  
• Reduced global light by 20% because I kind of liked the low-light bug.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug where global light would be extremely dark after watching the intro cutscene.
  
• Fixed bug where some HUD elements would display despite HUD being disabled.
  
• Fixed null pointer if you manage to quit the game while a panel is open.
  
• Getting multiple levels at once no longer desyncs achievements from the actual level.
  

We've now added human translations for over 1,100 language entries in French, German, Japanese, and Polish!

This includes Attributes, Control Bindings, HUD elements, Names, Settings, Tutorials, and all User Interface elements, making the game much more accessible in these languages.



For content that is constantly evolving, like descriptive text and dialog, we're still using machine translation. In many cases, it actually does a good job since this type of text is usually written in full sentences.

We're still aiming to add Italian, Korean, and Simplified Chinese before our Early Access launch!