SWAPMEAT 0.16.0 – 2026-01-21
[h2]Gameplay[/h2]
- The inherent difficulty increase when playing Solar System 2 and Random has been removed in favor of the selectable difficulties (e.g. Casual, Standard, Nightmare).
- Updated Zorpjets to have more patterns to their projectile shots (a "bullet hell lite" test):
- All tiers now have a two-pattern shot that they alternate between. One is a horizontal spread of orbs, the other vertical.
- Tiers 2 and 3 will start using a "wild fire" spray-n-pray attack when at or below 30% health (with Tier 3's being more spraying and more praying).
- This is a simple execution to get more of a pattern into this enemy. Related to a discussion in discord with @cloudkracker. Thank you to our community for the feedback!
- Octo Swirl Ability now inherits some player movement velocity for a better feel.
- Boxface and Boombot have been updated to be a little more forgiving and fun to manage:
- Cooldowns between Boombot spawns is doubled.
- Boxfaces should spawn less often and spawn fewer at a time.
- Boombots get knocked back further when melee'd, so now even if the player doesn't move after whacking them, they don't get damaged by the explosion. Also makes it easier to kill enemies with them.
- Slime weapon revamp:
- The goal here was to make the experience of slime weapons feel a bit more distinct from the other weapons, specializing in applying slime status effects to clusters of enemies in an AoE. Many of the weapons now shoot projectiles that are no longer hitscan and on impact have an explosion radius that make hitting enemies in groups much easier.
- Slime Rifle – Now shoots 5 projectiles in a cone that apply a small AoE; individual projectiles deal less damage, in sum total the damage is greater.
- Slime SMG – Rapidly shoots a stream of projectiles with a quick gravity drop off.
- Slime Magnum – Shoots a fast traveling projectile that deals slightly less damage but has an explosion radius to make up for it.
- Slime Shotgun – Now shoots projectiles that have a small explosion radius for tight groups.
- Slime Grenade Launcher – The cluster of projectiles shot by the grenade launcher has been largely increased; this makes it a lot less effective at single target but allows for a better feel in AoE.
- Slime PlasmaGun – Projectiles for this are slower and larger with an increased damage radius.
- Removed Health Regeneration from Enemy Event Structures. That wasn't fun, I'm sorry.
[h2]Meta Progression[/h2]
We are reworking the pacing of meta-progression to ensure the player has multiple active quests, is receiving meaningful quests sooner that unlock gameplay systems, and increasing the amount of quests overall.
For example: In this update you'll unlock Trader Mike and Mining much sooner than previously, giving you access to these critical early meta-progression systems earlier in the game.
[h2]Animation[/h2]
- Animation support for new Zorpjet pattern attacks.
- Fixed a few hold interactions that weren't calling the animations.
- Octopus Head now has animation for its Octo Swirl Ability.
- New cutscenes for when you return to the ship mid-run, or continue run. Showing the ship arrive at the next planet, the bolt burgers rejoin the ship, and the employee getting dumped out into the ship. (Plays instead of a "birthday" if you didn't die, abandon or complete a system.)
- Warp jump has been updated to show the proper "next planet" out the front bay window in the ship, and some animation, VFX and lighting polish has been done to make it more obvious when the ship is traveling.
[h2]UI / UX[/h2]
- Co-op teammates will now show up in the compass at closer distances and it should be easier to find your team.
- The "Talk to Carl" event will no longer trigger for "unseen" quests, only for claimable quests.
- Updated art in the Employee Handbook.
- Banner for new players joining.
- New "health flash" effect when taking or dealing damage over time.
- Added ability to skip cinematics in multiplayer if all players decide to skip.
- Updated UI layout for the Bolt Burger. The submenus are coming soon.
[h2]Art[/h2]
- Added elemental VFX to beam abilities.
- Added a handful of historical Rangus media clippings and an old poster to the Ship lobby to help with world story.
- New models for second tier Alien enemies.
[h2]Audio[/h2]
- Octo Swirl Ability support.
- Aggro SFX should now only play for the targeted player.
- Vocal FX have been added to Carl and ROX-1 (Roxie). We're starting to explore their final sound now that we have the final recordings.
- Audio support on the new "return to ship" cutscenes.
[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
- Fixed some missing geometry bugs on Calypso map.
- Fixed being able to select level up upgrades in lobby, then again when warping to planet. Thanks for the report @Soulreaper!
- Fix for random mode planets having more enemy factions than expected.
- Fixed Carl sometimes not congratulating you after claiming quests. He is now more encouraging.
- Fixed some quests having incorrect icons.
- Fixed item drops not animating smoothly.
[h2]Known Issues[/h2]
- No significant performance tuning has been done yet. If you are graphics bound, you can try lowering the quality settings in the Esc menu via Options → Video, but systems with more constrained hardware may struggle.
- Not all input buttons and keys have icons in the UI yet. Text descriptions (e.g. "J", or "Button West") will show up for things that do not yet have an icon in the input glyph map.
- When observing other players, some UI bits such as the reload HUD don't show accurate information for the observed player.
