Genome Guardian News

[h3]🆕 ENDLESS OVERHAUL[/h3]
One of the most consistent pieces of feedback I get is that Endless was, well, kinda bland. You had no means of getting stronger, and oftentimes it was simply a test of how long you could tolerate the slog while your brain enters auto-pilot mode.

Endless has been given a huge make-over: It's now much more challenging, interesting, and rewarding:
The above can be viewed in-game on the updated Endless GUIDE page.

That's right - once you enter Endless, you'll be able to replace weapon & turret mods with mods from the shop. This will give you the chance to further refine and improve upon your build, or undo mistakes you made during your journey to wave 30.

There are also 40 new mutations specific to the Endless experience which will seriously test you...


[h3]WHAT'S COMING NEXT?[/h3]
The next big update will be the introduction of turret and perk variants - many of these will need to be bought with Research. These two major updates will go hand-in-hand, since Endless will be the best means of acquiring Research - you can build up your stores of Research ahead of time by playing now!



[h3]⚖ BALANCE[/h3]

• (mutation) -50% microbes, Microbe Health +85%: Microbe Health +85% → +75%.
  
• (turret) Shuriken: Various changes.
  
• (weapon) CGT Splitzooka, CCGT Rail Splitshot: If these don't have Bounce or Pierce, the initial, un-split projectile won't deal Damage.
  

[h3]🔄 CHANGES[/h3]

• Various fixes & additions to the in-game GUIDE.
  
• Power-ups will now be triggered when they come into contact with your turret. (it reaching the bottom in Shmup Mode won't count)
  
• The bars/pips beside the Shield and Health icons during play will display at most 160 for Shield and at most 400 for Health. The values themselves will not be capped, just the bars/pips.
• (weapon) Bouncewave Repeater: Sprite has more green on it.
  
• The shake / screen-darkening you experience when hit is more noticeable now, and scales better with damage taken and remaining Health.
  

[h3]🔨 FIXES[/h3]

• (perk) Tape: Would cause any weapon with projectiles that slowly grow in size as they travel (such as flamethrowers) to always just be tiny. Those same projectiles will now always be at their final size once Sticky triggers, too.
  
• Sometimes the hover-over weapon stats card would still be showing after entering the ARSENAL or clicking a weapon's name to see the evolution menu.
  
• When using a gamepad, you'll no longer fire off a shot after clicking Ready in the shop, resuming from pause, etc.
  
• (turret) Boomerang: It could be unlocked by achieving victory at Depth 5 with a AGTT Bubble Blaster that doesn't have Pierce (not that Pierce would do anything on this anyways).
  
• (turret) Jester: I let many things slide when it comes to the Jester experience, but you'll longer face weird, softlockish consequences when your turret gets destroyed while in the shop but Defibrillator resurrects you.
  
• (turret) Crane, (perk) Shell: Increasing Health Max during a run is still possible/allowed with these, and works, but it wouldn't show your Health before.
  
• If you had saved a turret's cosmetics and then removed them, they would appear again after restarting the game.
  
• (perk) Hammer: Now affects child projectiles (split projectiles, explosions, areas, etc.).
  
• You may have noticed that some sprites for microbes and other things have weird inconsistencies such as gaps where they don't belong or unexplained asymmetry - this has been fixed (had to change a setting when saving .svg files).
  
• (perk) Mirror: Will no longer deactivate when hit while something else is protecting you from hits.
  
• (weapon) CGTT Bubble Burster: I broke it last update.
  
• Checking or starting a Turret Trial was removing the cosmetics you had set for that turret.
  
• (turret) Riptide: Will no longer drain Fuel during, uh… "cutscenes"…
  
• Things that hurt you when you overheat will only do so once while overheated (such as Helios' reaching full Charge).
  
• When the "Skip Shop" toggle first appears, it would sometimes not show the "Auto Heal" toggle when it's activated (of course, this will never occur in Classic Mode though).
  

[h3]Getting this update out since it fixes a critical exploit.[/h3]

[h3]🔫 WEAPON CHANGES[/h3]

• (weapon) GTT Molotov, GGTT Moloflak, GTTT Megatov: Speed stat modifications were changing how long the Area sticks around for (which was never intended).
  
• (weapon) CGT Splitzooka, CCGT Rail Splitshot: The un-split projectile can now damage microbes when these weapons have Pierce.
  
• (weapon) AATT Homing Mine Launcher: The shot initially fired from the turret can now deal damage when this weapon has Pierce or Bounce.
  
• Weapons with the Flak trait now produce flak pellets per pierce or bounce.
  
• (weapon) CGGT Splitter Spitter: Found a mistake in its Damage calculation. Its Damage (which is kinda misleading on the stat card anyways but this is moreso for comparison purposes) has changed from 93 → 62. I'm sure that sounds severe but, let's be real, this weapon is still going to absolutely destroy everything.
  

[h3]⚖ BALANCE[/h3]

• (turret) Guardian: If you've defeated you-know-who, Guardian gets a permanent +50% Damage bonus against his ethereal form.

[h3]🔄 CHANGES[/h3]

• The turret you have selected on TURRETS will now be made clear with a green button (which won't react if you try to select your currently-selected turret).
  
• (turret) Jester: Fixed Jester's description.
  

[h3]🔨 FIXES[/h3]

• Fixed various mistakes in perk and mod descriptions for turrets that use Fuel.
  
• (perk) Blossom, Prism: The interaction between these is now how you'd expect.
  
• Actually fixed that Research-related bug I mentioned in last update now…
  

[h3]Still busy with other life stuff for a couple days but found some time to push out an update that's been in the works for a while.[/h3]

[h3]🆕 CONTENT[/h3]
8 new cosmetics - now all 81 cosmetics are available to be obtained!

Additionally...

• Your cosmetic selections are now saved to each turret! (Note that this required that I remove your currently-equipped cosmetics first)
  
• The TURRETS menu no longer instantly returns you to SETUP when you select a turret. This will mean an extra click, but it'll be easier to select a turret and then compare it to others, or select it for setting cosmetics. (it'll take some time to get used to 😅)
  
• Time for you to dress up all of your turrets!
  

[h3]⚖ BALANCE[/h3]

• (perk) Mushroom: Look, don't freak out - I think this is quite fair. I'm attaching "-25% Heat Max" to this for 3 reasons: (1) It's too safe of a pick currently considering the lack of downsides, (2) It's a must-pick in many people's builds even if they aren't particularily oriented around Mushroom, (3) there's an upside to this - you'll be able to trigger it on demand more easily if you have less Heat Max.
  
• (perk) Ferrofluid: Previously, if you had Ferrofluid and 4 Shield, you would lose all of that Shield and it wouldn't protect your Health when hit, so you'd also lose 4 Health. Now, the "lose all Shield when hit" behaviour occurs after your Shields absorb damage.
  

[h3]🔄 CHANGES[/h3]

• (turret) Jester: I have once again made Jester more Jestery. 🃏 Nothing that Jester does to your UI will be considered a bug.
• The evolution menu (the one you see when you click on a weapon's name during a run while paused or in the SHOP) will be formatted differently if the weapon can't receive any more DNA letters on the mount that it's installed on.
  
• The GUIDE has been split across 8 pages now, and there's a bunch of new information in it. The "Variants" page will be enabled once turret & perk variants get released.
  
• (turret) Fume: Its description now mentions that Offspring don't damage you when you come into contact with them (mentioning this in an update note so people are aware).
  
• Turrets that require 10 victories in a specific mode now tell you how many victories you've achieved in that mode in the unlock conditions.
  
• The "benign!" mutation now explicitly states that it does nothing (I severely overestimated how many people understand this term).
  
• (Turret Trial) Castle: Modifiers: Firerate -50% → Power-up Duration +100%.
  

[h3]🔨 FIXES[/h3]

• (Hopefully) fixed a bug where the starter weapons on the WEAPONS menu would show a bunch of 999 (placeholder) values.
  
• The "Skip Shop" and "Auto Heal" buttons will now move out of the way when you're selecting an item to Banish.
  
• Before this update, the game only ever saved your progress when the application properly closed - this doesn't occur if, for example, you get a power outage while playing. The game will now save your data when you return to SETUP as well.
  
• Changing stat style (via changing "Show Stat Icon & Name" in SETTINGS) now affects your currently selected turret's description.
  
• (perk) Turbine: Will no longer hurt you at the start of each wave when you skip the shop (via "Skip Shop" toggle or from when all slots are filled in Classic Mode).
  
• (turret) Fume, (perk) Extinguisher: Now works as intended - eliminating microbes triggers harvesting, and so does absorbing offspring.
  
• (mutation) Mucus Membrane: It would block the perk tooltip from showing for your 4th perk.
  
• The awards for having 3000 unspent Biomass and 10000 unspent Research used to only be checked while in the shop - this was a problem, since these checks wouldn't happen if you're skipping the shop. They'll now also occur at wave end.
  
• Perk descriptions wouldn't be adapted to your selected turret's heat type if your selected turret uses an alternative (like fuel or electricity) when you start the game.
  
• (weapon) GGT Flak Cannon, GGGT Flak Howitzer, GGTT Moloflak: Their pellets weren't getting as much from Homing as they should have been (it's been doubled).
  
• When using a gamepad in Shmup Mode, the speed that you'd move your turret side-to-side with the analog sticks would sometimes be inconsistent, but it's consistent now.
  
• (turret) Spyglass: Will no longer attempt to track microbes or power-ups that are out of bounds (too far to the left or right to be visible) in Shmup Mode.
  
• (turret) Fume: Fume's gas clouds can now damage all 8 of you-know-who's you-know-whats. P.S. I want you to consider right now how good Fume is against the big guy.
• Fixed a uh... Research exploit 😬
  
• Fixed getting trolled by Heart Pattern (it would just keep increasing in price without ever letting you buy it).
  

[h3]Fixed the mod bug! Also: I'll need to focus on some other life responsibilites from now until 8 July - pushed hard to get a bunch of important fixes and such out before I needed to do so.[/h3]

[h3]🆕 CONTENT[/h3]
8 new cosmetics (and the next 8 will be the final batch, which means you'll be able to unlock that center cosmetic soon!)



[h3]⚖ BALANCE[/h3]

• Let's face it, Sticky is insanely strong. Sticky will now last 4s instead of 5s, and the mod that increases Sticky Duration will follow suit. This will also mean that AATT Homing Mine Launcher and ACTT Anti-Air Torpedo weapons last roughly 80% as long as they used to.
  
• (perk) Radar: The Murky Fog mutation makes it so that microbes take a long time for their brightness to build up to full. Radar prevents this, but otherwise had no effect on Murky Fog itself, which meant that it still covered microbes just as much. Now, Radar will cut Murky Fog's opacity in half.
  
• (weapon) AAG Flamethrower, AACG Frostthrower, AAAG Plasmathrower: I noticed an error in how I was calculating their DPS. Their DPS, respectively, is now: 41/s→39/s, 46/s→45/s, 52/s→48/s.
  
• (microbe) ACC Warpistol, ACCC Telepanzer: These two make the "microbes charge straight towards you" mutation (especially in Brood Mode) significantly more difficult, so I've decided upon a way to balance them that I think is justified: Their Microbe Speed will get reduced by 87.5% once they're within 50% Range of your turret. I think this makes sense considering they're supposed to be warping in first, then (if they can) they start actually moving normally.
  

[h3]🔄 CHANGES[/h3]

• The text that appears when selecting an item to Banish now specifies that it won't reduce the chance that an item of the same type appears (ex. Banishing a weapon mod doesn't result in fewer weapon mods appearing in the SHOP), and that it Banishes all colours of a mod if you Banish a mod.
  

[h3]🔨 FIXES[/h3]

• (I think this is solved - at least, I found one way to reproduce it) The bug that would sometimes prevent you from adding a fully-compatible mod to an open slot has been fixed.
  
• Perk names that appear when hovering over perks during gameplay will now be properly aligned with the perks while playing Shmup Mode.
  
• Hovering over the name of the first weapon during a run now shows the stats, just like hovering over other mounted weapon's names.
  
• Hitscan Weapons: Remember when I increased the Range of all Hitscan weapons? Yeaaah… Their hitboxes never actually got longer to coincide with that. Fixed.
  
• The before→after values for Biomass when selecting a slot to place an item into would sometimes be inaccurate (they would occasionally reflect the cost of opening that slot instead, even though the slot is already open and you're not trying to open the slot).
  
• The before→after values for Biomass won't change while hovering over items in the shop to select one to Banish.
  
• The lock buttons are now hidden while you have a shop item selected and are selecting a slot to place it in.
  

[h3]You know how I said last patch that my top priority was that critical "can't equip mod" bug? Well… I've been trying to solve it… and I still can't figure it out. IF IT IS HAPPENING TO YOU, PLEASE, JOIN THE DISCORD AND LET ME KNOW. I really need some more people to show me what their run/build looks like (and answer some questions) for me to be able to solve this. Anyways though, did some other stuff:[/h3]


[h3]🆕CONTENT[/h3]

• Music: 2 new tracks from my friend "Dr. Face Doctor": Revenge of the Synth (wave 1-10) & Break and Return (menu).
  

[h3]🔄CHANGES[/h3]

• There's now a text bubble that appears in the SHOP telling you to try clicking on a weapon's name.
  
• The menu that appears when you click on a weapon name will return you to PAUSE if you opened it while paused.
  
• The background colour of that evolution menu has been changed so it's more clear that it's not just the ARSENAL menu.
  
• One of the ways I dynamically handle performance is by removing the oldest active projectiles based on your current framerate - this is often unsatisfying to players and I certainly wish I didn't have to do this, but I'm working with what I know. The change I'm making is that now it deletes every other oldest projectile, which will feel a lot better when it occurs. I can tell it's better because it took a very long time while testing this to even be able to notice it was working (for the build I was using at least).
  

[h3]🔨FIXES[/h3]

• If you've defeated The Abyss and haven't pushed to a wave further than that point, your highest wave in RECORDS will now be accurate.
• If you pick the Mucus Membrane mutation while using a turret that can move, you'll be moved to the center to prevent your turret from getting stuck inside Mucus Membrane.
  
• Stats in the WEAPON menu (where you pick your starting weapon) were being affected by Shmup Mode being selected.
  
• The old shop item icon fade style was still being used on shop items that were disabled because you've filled all slots of that item type (this is when shop item buttons have a faded red colour).
  
• Microbes can no longer be eliminated via Knockback by pulling them down (ie. with the Magnet perk) to the bottom of the screen rapidly in Shmup Mode.