Star Vortex News

[p]Meaningful updates are going a bit slower at the moment, so apologies for that.[/p][p]A lot of my time has been spent recently trying to get Star Vortex reviewed as 'Fully Supported' on Steam Deck. You'll notice in this update that the UI scale can now be further increased to 140% and this has presented quite a few UI design challenges, but should hopefully satisfy text size requirements.[/p][p]Anyway, on to more interesting things...[/p][p][/p][h2]Storage Space[/h2][p]This got requested a while back. You now get 480 storage slots instead of 48. Split across several pages... plus a further 480 slots in your shared storage. If you want more than that, you'll need to break out the classic-ARPG mule saves.[/p][p][/p][p]The number of pages changes based on your UI scale/resolution so be aware that if you're changing these settings, your nicely organised system may get messed up.[/p][p][/p][h2]Comparison Tooltips[/h2][p]These have been changed to only compare to one equipped item at a time instead of all four. There are new key bindings if you want to cycle through what you're comparing.[/p][p][/p][p]This was changed because the tooltip simply did not fit on a higher UI scale.[/p][p]However, this was always going to be required later if you guys want to have more than 4 of a single slot type. That change is still some distance away due to the HUD ship bar and equipment panel also needing to support it... also, if you put 15 x Roach Drone Bays on your ship, your PC will absolutely set on fire. I'm working on it, hopefully I'll be able to allow it in the future.[/p][p][/p][h2]Part Limit Increase[/h2][p]With the release of our new Galactic Shipyard, it was pointed out that the ship part limit is a little restrictive. As such, rather than going 10, 20, 30 and 40 they now increase based on the square area of the shield radius, so 10, 25, 45 and 80. [/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Balance Changes[/h2][p]Enemies in Sector 2 and beyond get slightly increased stats to compensate for player synergy, slot unlocks and upgrades. The increase they receive to hull/shield values has been reduced, along with their speed. I've also halved the damage of all enemy PDL weapons to make missile/construct builds more viable at late game.[/p][p][/p][p]That's everything for now. All the other changes are mostly UI scale-related. Apart from the change to the Game Speed setting in Accessibility, which can now go up to 200%. I don't know why you guys want that, I'm scared what you're going to do with it, but it's there anyway. Enjoy![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]New Features / Content[/h3][p]• Increased storage from 48 slots up to 480 slots split into pages.[/p][p]• HUD and UI scale can now be increased up to 140% in settings.[/p][p]• Comparison tooltip now compares to 1 equipped item at a time.[/p][p]• Shortened some longer AI-translated strings in Russian.[/p][p][/p][h3]Balance Changes[/h3][p]• All enemies have had their PDL damage halved.[/p][p]• Reduced bonus hull/shield enemies receive in Sector 2 and Sector 3.[/p][p]• Reduced bonus speed enemies receive in Sector 2 and Sector 3.[/p][p][/p][h3]Quality of Life / Accessibility[/h3][p]• Parallel fire toggle in equipment panel is now an icon instead of tiny text.[/p][p]• Linking slots in the equipment panel is now an icon instead of tiny text.[/p][p]• Comparison tooltips now scale with UI scale.[/p][p]• Removed headers from Trade and Assembler panels to decrease wasted space.[/p][p]• Ship stats now change to a scrolling single-item list on higher UI scales.[/p][p]• Ship designer preview now shrinks down on higher UI scales.[/p][p]• Fixed summary display at the bottom of navigation to not break at higher UI scales.[/p][p]• Renamed Item Storage in Assembler to Local Vault.[/p][p]• Renamed Shared Storage in Assembler to Shared Vault.[/p][p]• Adjusted canvas scaler to work from a 16:10 resolution to avoid issues at 16:9.[/p][p]• Increased part limit of Destroyers from 20 to 25.[/p][p]• Increased part limit of Cruisers from 30 to 45.[/p][p]• Increased part limit of Battleships from 40 to 80.[/p][p]• Game speed can now be increased beyond 100% in accessibility settings.[/p][p][/p][h3]Bug Fixes[/h3][p]• Fixed weird translation mixup with Polish translations.[/p][p]• Fixed bug where dragged items would not snap to slots directly below.[/p][p]• Fixed item flickers when dragging items on some UI scales.[/p][p]• Fixed display of single-directional stick control bindings.[/p][p]• Sensor range of enemies now correctly increases when aggressive enemies set.[/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[p]Struggling to come up with ship designs, or want to share your designs with others?[/p][p]The Galactic Shipyard is now live! Players on Discord have already started filling it with designs, so there’s plenty to check out.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Link: https://star-vortex.com/ships.php[/p][p]In a future update, players will be able to upload designs and import others’ creations directly in-game. It's not on the roadmap yet, but one feature I'd love to add someday is special events where player-designed ships jump in to fight.[/p][p]Anyway, back to the game updates I go. Enjoy![/p]

[p]Apologies for the length of this news post. There are quite a large number of very unrelated changes in this one as I've been working through all the feedback I've been receiving.[/p][p][/p][h2]Ship Design Brightness[/h2][p]Probably the most requested feature is now in the ship designer. Each part can now have its brightness adjusted. This allows you to add details and the illusion of depth, as shown below.[/p][p]Ship designed by TzeroX, one of the Game Testers on our Discord.[/p][p][/p][h2]Warzones Rework[/h2][p]When playing through the game, my least favourite encounters were not Rescues, they were Warzones. The consecutive waves of enemies didn't add much over a normal Skirmish, and no matter how strong you are, they always took too long.[/p][p][/p][p]Waves have been removed entirely, and they now consist of more Conclave ships and multiple enemy factions, which will even fight each other in your absence. This has raised a few performance issues for some factions that I'll be reviewing for the next update.[/p][p][/p][h2]Final Sector Bosses[/h2][p]Trying to avoid spoilers, but in the final boss fight of each sector, you get joined by a friendly ship. This was supposed to be a cool event and not a rescue mission where you had to defend them, but that's what it turned into.[/p][p]As such, if your ally is getting low and about to be destroyed, it will now just jump away to safety and leave you to finish the fight. I don't know why I didn't think of this one sooner.[/p][p][/p][h2]Global Damage Changes[/h2][p]Firstly, all enemy damage has been reduced by 20% but consumable cooldowns have been increased from 10s up to 12.5s. This should make the game less punishing on normal difficulty.[/p][p]On top of this, the damage scale applied when fighting higher or lower level enemies has been greatly widened. The below panel is visible in-game by clicking the question mark in the top right of the Navigation if you want more details on how it works now. This used to only go up / down 5 levels and be much more punishing.[/p][p][/p][p]All enemy and encounter levels are colored using the above scale. You should now be able to fight much higher-level enemies without being as heavily punished, and also farm lower-level enemies without it being quite as easy as it used to be.[/p][p][/p][h2]Cryo Thruster[/h2][p]I don't usually like revealing Legendary items, but this one was added to accommodate a certain playstyle that some players prefer.[/p][p][/p][p]You'll need to find one to get access to the 'No Heat / Invulnerability' modifier, but once you find it, you can transfer it onto any thruster you like. The result is a thruster that does not generate heat, can still boost even when overheated, but does not grant boost invulnerability.[/p][p][/p][h2]Other Fixes[/h2][p]Vipers and other enemies built from multiple smaller ships now behave the same as others when it comes to their threat tables. This means if you hit any part of them, you should be able to pull their aggro off rescue targets.[/p][p]Speaking of rescue targets, they now live for a minimum of 15 seconds, increased from the previous 10 seconds.[/p][p]Elite enemies now also get diminished returns on consecutive disables like bosses.[/p][p]Shield Battery consumables now prevent your shield from going on cooldown while active.[/p][p]And lots more listed in the full patch notes below![/p][p][/p][p]I've got a load more things to work through from feedback, so if your requested change isn't in yet I haven't forgotten about it. Enjoy![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]New Features / Content[/h3][p]• Friendly ships that join you for boss fights now flee before being destroyed.[/p][p]• Ship designer can now adjust the brightness of parts, including thruster.[/p][p]• All existing ship designs have been updated to utilize the new brightness option.[/p][p]• Warzone encounters no longer have waves and contain multiple factions.[/p][p]• Legendary Cryo Thruster added with a unique heat-related boost modifier.[/p][p]• Added AI-translated Portuguese as a placeholder for future human translation.[/p][p][/p][h3]Balance Changes[/h3][p]• Damage has been GLOBALLY reduced by 20% for all enemies.[/p][p]• Reduced the sell value and repair cost of legendary weapons by 25%.[/p][p]• Cooldown on all consumables has been increased from 10 to 12.5 seconds.[/p][p]• Damage bonuses/penalties for level difference have been vastly reduced.[/p][p]• Experience bonuses/penalties for level difference have been vastly reduced.[/p][p]• Rescue ships will now survive for 15s under heavy fire, increased from 10s.[/p][p]• Elite enemies now also get diminishing returns on being consecutively disabled.[/p][p]• Increased hull of all drones by 20% and maximum range by 50m.[/p][p]• Shield regeneration from consumables is no longer removed if your shield hits 0.[/p][p]• Shields will no longer go offline while regeneration is active.[/p][p]• PDL weapons will no longer switch between drones if some get closer than others.[/p][p]• Increased size of 'on kill' surges from weapons by +50%.[/p][p]• Further increased the sensor range of aggressive enemies on higher difficulties.[/p][p]• Heat generated from thrusters now increases like heat capacity with primary slots.[/p][p][/p][h3]Quality of Life / Accessibility[/h3][p]• Updated level difference colors with white being a good match for your level.[/p][p]• Reduced volume of tractor beams by 50% as much louder than other sound effects.[/p][p]• Vastly improved aiming and accuracy of player drones using projectiles.[/p][p][/p][h3]Performance[/h3][p]• Fixed memory leak from repeatedly attaching sound effect players to explosions.[/p][p]• Roach Drones no longer fire seeking projectiles, reducing need for target scans.[/p][p][/p][h3]Bug Fixes[/h3][p]• Vipers and other segmented ships now respond properly to player aggro.[/p][p]• Item drag and drop fixed properly after the previous fix was reverted.[/p][p]• Control binding panel now locks its ratio on wide-screen displays.[/p][p]• Black holes will no longer drop ships onto obstructions or debris.[/p][p]• Fixed bug where friendly ships hitting a black hole would warp the player.[/p][p]• Fixed bug where some enemy ships would not wrap when hitting black holes.[/p][p]• Black holes now render on top of obstructions instead of behind them.[/p][p]• Ships summoned by enemy beacons no longer grant experience.[/p][p]• Fixed bug where unlinked slots would sometimes activate other slots.[/p][p]• Thrusters can no longer be destroyed in the Assembler while in use.[/p][p]• Fixed bug that could eject Sector Keystones if cargo was full.[/p][p]• Chained tesla bolts will no longer persist after deactivation.[/p]

[p]Not the most exciting of updates this time but Valve had some things they wanted fixed for the Steam Deck so I've been mostly working through that.[/p][p][/p][p]As the owner of a Steam Deck I'd very much like the game to be listed as fully supported. These changes will also help if you're playing on a more distant display with a controller![/p][p][/p][h2]Steam Deck Changes[/h2][p]The majority of the Steam Deck changes are increases to text size. There was a lot of quite small text around the UI and HUD that has been moved about and enlarged. I've also done a quick pass over all the language so nothing should be getting cropped / cut off / overflowing anymore. If you find anything I missed please let me know![/p][p][/p][h2]Demo Updated[/h2][p]Shortly after this update is live I'll be updating and bringing our Steam demo back online. So if you're still on the fence about Early Access you'll get a chance to try out Sector 1 as it currently stands![/p][p][/p][h2]Next Update...[/h2][p]The next update will be the big one in terms of feedback. If all goes well it should have the following:[/p]

• [p]Big friendly ship in final sector boss fights will hyperdrive jump away rather than get destroyed.[/p]
• [p]Level difference modifiers will be reduced, so fighting a few levels higher wont be so hard and fighting a few levels below wont be a cake walk.[/p]
• [p]All damage is going to be scaled back a bit, but to balance this consumable will be nerfed as well. This should go some way to stop the game being so punishing when you mess up in later sectors.[/p]
• [p]Storage space is going to be increased in the Assembler, vastly.[/p]
• [p]Brightness sliders are going to be added for ship parts so you can make darker ships if you want.[/p]

[p]There will also be a host of balance changes from feedback across all three sectors.[/p][p][/p][p]As for this update the rest is mostly bug fixes, full details below. Enjoy![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]New Features / Content[/h3][p]• Beams now hit immediately on contact before ticking as they did before.[/p][p]• Chinese human translations have been updated.[/p][p][/p][h3]Balance Changes[/h3][p]• Temporary effect weapons now share cooldowns with matching types.[/p][p]• Reduced ticking damage from impaled projectiles by 33%.[/p][p][/p][h3]Quality of Life / Accessibility[/h3][p]• Auto targeting will now retarget when a target ship phase shifts.[/p][p]• Removed stat breakdown from equipment panel as stats now have tooltips.[/p][p]• Comparison tooltips no longer scale with UI scale as they're already too big.[/p][p]• Slot selection no longer shows comparisons, as it was confusing.[/p][p]• Items are now limited to displaying a maximum of 12 item stats.[/p][p]• Increased text size of tooltips and setting names.[/p][p]• Increased text size of roadmap.[/p][p]• Increased text size of player details in player select.[/p][p]• Increased text size of ship select at player creation.[/p][p]• Increased text size of item comparison tooltips.[/p][p]• Increased text size of difficulty selection.[/p][p]• Increased text size of sector generation summary.[/p][p]• Increased text size of dialog overlay text.[/p][p]• Increased text size of tutorial HUD pop-ups.[/p][p]• Increased text size of some upgrade panel text.[/p][p]• Increased text size of mission descriptions.[/p][p]• Increased text size of stats panel text.[/p][p]• Increased text size of level on items.[/p][p]• Increased text size of ship stats in equipment panel.[/p][p]• Increased text size of various elements within item stats.[/p][p]• Increased text size of HUD sensor arrow distances.[/p][p]• Increased text size of HUD radar.[/p][p]• Increased text size of HUD encounter details.[/p][p]• Increased text size of HUD mission helper.[/p][p]• Increased text size of HUD player section.[/p][p]• Increased text size of HUD consumable counts.[/p][p]• Increased text size of HUD floating text.[/p][p]• Increased text size in various parts of the ship designer.[/p][p]• Decreased brightness of rare backgrounds to improve readability.[/p][p][/p][h3]Performance[/h3][p]• Launchers and pulses now pre-populate their pooled objects during load.[/p][p][/p][h3]Bug Fixes[/h3][p]• Enemy ships now also take 50% more damage from the damage type of debris they are in.[/p][p]• Static fleet ships no longer move when impacted by debris.[/p][p]• Indestructible modifier can now be transferred in the Assembler to any item.[/p][p]• Fixed some odd broken characters from AI translation of Spanish.[/p][p]• Debris can no longer be critically hit triggering on crit effects.[/p][p]• Controller navigation now works for credits panel.[/p][p]• Scan animation now correctly reveals the item stats.[/p][p]• Tooltips now display above items that are near the bottom of the screen.[/p][p]• Flamethrower-style weapons now correctly render their effect on top of ships.[/p][p]• Fixed numerous tooltips that were not correctly being translated.[/p][p]• Fixed issue where comparison tooltip could pop up on top of other activities.[/p][p]• Enemies should no longer spawn on top of obstructions, causing low FPS.[/p][p]• Comparison tooltip now closes when a ship is selected during player creation.[/p][p]• Fixed issue where some beam weapons would hit regardless of target immunity.[/p][p]• Repair cost of an item can no longer go below zero.[/p][p]• Shift-clicking to move items to and from storage will now attempt to stack them.[/p][p]• Reduced excessive camera shake from debris on lower FPS.[/p][p]• Avatar select now closes when create new player is clicked.[/p][p]• Phase shift, shield ward and displacement boost will now remove impaled objects.[/p][p]• Fixed null reference in Pilot.AddXp().[/p][p]• Fixed null reference in KeyboardCanvas.OnCancel().[/p][p]• Fixed string input errors in ShipBuilderFocus.ManualEntryChanged().[/p]

[p]I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. But I will find you, and I will find out what you want...[/p][p][/p][p]Seriously though, I read everything. Whether it's on random YouTube videos, foreign media websites, I even read some comments on a forum where people ask for cheats for games. It all gets thrown in to my task board for review and sorting.[/p][p][/p][p]This update is the first step towards working through my massive backlog. I've tried to focus on both quick fixes and issues that have been mentioned multiple times in multiple places. I hope this goes some way towards fixing some of the most common complaints, if I missed out your request it's probably still on my task list. Don't worry.[/p][p][/p][h2]Rescue Encounters[/h2][p]I hate rescue encounters. Not like you guys do. I don't hate playing them... I hate trying to balance them. This should be the final fix, I'm done trying to tweak numbers, this is a hard fix for the issue.[/p][p]Friendly rescue ships now take no more than 10% of their max hull in damage per second, even if everything is shooting them they will live for 10 seconds. If they get hit by every AOE attack under the sun ...and then the sun itself crashes in to them... they still only take 10% damage. If they die now it's on you guys, stop letting stuff shoot them![/p][p]This fix also applies to the friendly ship that shows up for the final boss fight, only for that one it's 2.5% max hull damage per second... so 40 seconds. It can still get destroyed though so do try to be quick. Oh, they're all immune to debuffs and impale damage![/p][p][/p][h2]Boost Invulnerability[/h2][p]Playing on harder difficulties was considerably less fun than it's supposed to be. This was due to the fact the 'Aggressive' enemies were literally programmed to abuse boost invulnerability when inside your weapon range to avoid damage. This wasn't fun and has been entirely removed, now aggressive just means they aggro you from further away.[/p][p]So you can now kite them like this without them going boost invulnerable all the time. In addition to this their cooldown on boosting has been increased and they have to boost for 0.5 seconds before the invulnerability kicks in.[/p][p]Boosting for the player now generates heat (you get about 4s in a frigate and 7s in a battleship without upgrades). Keep an eye on your heat. If you overheat, escaping gets harder.[/p][p][/p][h2]Dodge Change[/h2][p]A perk of the Displacement Thruster used to be that it made you immune for 0.25 seconds when dodging. This perk has been removed and now all thrusters do this and for 0.5 seconds.[/p][p][/p][p]This should allow you to more effectively dodge enemy attacks as projectiles and lasers will pass through you when you're performing a dodge.[/p][p][/p][h2]Mission Experience + Credits[/h2][p]Both experience and credit rewards have been increased. Missions will now always give you about 25% experience for the level they're set to and the credits are now slightly more exponential at higher levels. Don't worry if you've already collected them this will be retro-actively added to your player save when you next load in.[/p][p]If you've completed every single mission in the game expect to receive 12,000,000 experience and 47,000 credits in compensation[/p][p][/p][h2]Shield Buff[/h2][p]All shields have had their shield values doubled. Internal shields have had their hull bonus doubled. This should make them a little more effective in combat as previously they were dropping way too quickly under heavy fire.[/p][p][/p][h2]Pathfinding[/h2][p]This one is a bit more boring but enemy ships now engage pathfinding logic when they can't get to you. Don't worry I'm not adding mazes this picture is just to demonstrate. [/p][p]I'm not going to say they'll never get stuck on obstructions again, but they should be much better at finding their way around and getting unstuck. Everything moves and slides about it's like trying to make pathfinding for ice skaters but this should be a functional fix for enemy ships getting stuck places.[/p][p][/p][p]That's most of the highlights, obviously lots more hidden in the patch notes below. I nerfed all the snakes so Vipers, Carrion and the Basilisk should be less over-powered now. Oh and the community items are now live so you should start getting trading cards, badges, backgrounds and emoticons![/p][p][/p][p]ːsv_esaːːsv_gideonːːsv_reliosːːsv_shipːːsv_zorgː[/p][p][/p][p]Enjoy, next update shouldn't be too far away. I know you guys want more storage space... but I didn’t want to cram in too many changes and risk breaking everything.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]New Features / Content[/h3][p]• Enemy ships now use pathfinding and should get stuck on obstructions less.[/p][p]• New players can now play on harder difficulties, but they shouldn't.[/p][p][/p][h3]Balance Changes[/h3][p]• Boosting now generates heat and overheating prevents boosting.[/p][p]• Damage per second cap added to rescue targets and mothership.[/p][p]• Rescue targets and mothership are now immune to debuffs and impale damage.[/p][p]• Aggressive enemies no longer boost at super short range.[/p][p]• Enemies must now wait 0.5s for their boost invulnerability to trigger.[/p][p]• Cooldown between enemies boost usage increased by +50%.[/p][p]• Dodging now grants 0.5s of immunity to damage.[/p][p]• Weapon disable when dodging has been extended from 0.25s up to 0.5s.[/p][p]• Reduced the cost of increasing item levels and replacing modifiers by 25%.[/p][p]• Vastly increased experience and credits earned from missions.[/p][p]• Doubled shield values in all shields.[/p][p]• Reduced damage of Skeran Vipers and Shadow Carrion by 25%.[/p][p]• Reduced damage of Burning debuff ticks by 20%.[/p][p]• Reduced missile damage from Basilisk (Skeran) boss by 33%.[/p][p][/p][h3]Quality of Life / Accessibility[/h3][p]• PDL weapons will now abandon asteroids to shoot projectiles and drones.[/p][p]• PDL weapons can now shoot through obstructions.[/p][p]• Increased size of Roach (Drone) weapons by +75% so they're easier to see.[/p][p]• Assembler upgrade button moved to the left so items aren't accidentally discarded.[/p][p]• Increased size of floating text (damage, crits, etc) by 50%.[/p][p][/p][h3]Bug Fixes[/h3][p]• Consumables used will now correctly apply friendly ships during boss fights.[/p][p]• Hunter (Skeran) trap now despawns when it dies, regardless of other enemies.[/p][p]• Enemies set to be aggressive will no longer boost at close range.[/p][p]• Chain modifiers will no longer spawn on or transfer to Vortex Arrays.[/p][p]• Dragging items you can't afford from a trader will no longer remove them entirely.[/p][p]• Fixed null reference when using developer tools to watch sector generation.[/p][p]• Fixed null reference in Thruster.Boost().[/p][p]• Fixed null reference error in Collider2D.OverlapPoint().[/p][p]• Potential fix for ArgumentException in sector generation.[/p][p]• Fixed object pool errors when switching languages on the menu.[/p][p]• Fixed issue where some Asian player names would not display in player select.[/p][p]• Changes to HUD scale are now immediately applied.[/p][p]• Hull leech buff is now pink like hull leech weapons.[/p][p]• Improved error handling when trying to load custom avatars.[/p]