Genome Guardian: Prologue News

[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]⚖ 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.
  
• (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 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]

• 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).
  
• 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.
  

[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.
  
• Hovering over the name of the first weapon during a run now shows the stats, just like hovering over other mounted weapon's names.
  
• 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).
  
• 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).
  
• 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.
  
• The lock buttons are now hidden while you have a shop item selected and are selecting a slot to place it in.
  
• (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.
  
• (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).
  

[h3]NEW STUFF:[/h3]

• ARSENAL: There are now filter buttons that let you toggle what weapons are shown in the Arsenal. The "1/2/3/4" buttons toggle weapons based on tier (DNA letter count, and the others should be self-explanatory. You can reset your filters with the grey button on the right.
  
• Click on a mounted weapon's name during a run (while the game is paused or the wave isn't actively occurring, so it's clickable while in the shop) to bring up a new evolution menu, which is essentially an abridged ARSENAL menu that shows you exactly which weapons it could potentially evolve into if you add more DNA letters. You can also use those ARSENAL filters on this menu! (NOTE: I needed to rush this update out to fix some critical bugs, so I didn't have time to add proper in-game explanation of this mechanic - that will be present in the next update. Honestly don't be surprised if there's bugs with this currently.)
• When you have a weapon DNA letter selected in the shop and hover it over a weapon with a slot, the weapon's name will temporarily change to indicate what the weapon would become if you add that DNA letter.
  

[h3]CHANGES:[/h3]

• You'll now receive +500 Research when you obtain an Award (this applies retroactively, so if you've completed 10 Awards, you'll start the game after this update with +5000 Research).
  
• Faded out weapon mods in the shop and in slots were being faded out in a way that made the black part of them almost disappear, making it nearly impossible to make out what the mod is visually, but this won't be a problem anymore.
  
• The "highest wave" value in RECORDS now reflects highest wave survived, not reached (and thus now matches what highest wave represents per turret).
  
• Wonky Heat Circle behaviour would occur if you had "Crosshair Heat Circle" toggled on in SETTINGS while using a gamepad.
  
• The "MOD WILL DO NOTHING" warning now mentions that you can still click to add the mod anyways (you always could - there's just a short delay, depending on certain conditions such as Beginner Tips still being enabled).
  

[h3]FIXES:[/h3]

• (weapon) AGGT Stardust Mortar: Now has the Flak icon.
  
• Fixed another bug with the highest wave (survived) being incorrect in RECORDS (anyone that's never proceeded past the VICTORY screen would have only saw 29).
  
• An item-locking bug would occur if you've discovered item locking but haven't gotten past wave 20.
  
• "NEW!" could appear twice above Mirror in the PERKS menu.
  
• The count of perks unlocked on the CHECKLIST was using the value for turrets unlocked instead!
  

[h2]GET THE FULL GAME HERE[/h2]

Wishlisters: This is the one.

There may never be a greater discount than this - even if there was, it would be after a base price increase from $11.99 USD → $15.99 USD (but when & if this occurs is unconfirmed).

[h3]CHANGES:[/h3]

• Hovering over a shop item currently highlights slots that it can fit into with a green outline - now that outline will be red if a weapon mod is selected and its colour doesn't match any of the weapon's DNA letters.
  
• Also, instead of outlining every slot, only the one slot that it would actually go into for each mount will be outlined.
  
• The "MOD WILL DO NOTHING" warning will be more attention-grabbing (and say something different) if you try to add an incompatible mod to a weapon that can't gain any more DNA letters (in other words, you can't add a DNA letter to make the mod compatible later on).
  

[h3]FIXES:[/h3]

• Things that increase Damage dealt to shots fired at 0% Heat now work properly.
  
• The heal button in SHOP would sometimes be enabled even when at full Health.
  

[h3]Here's a big heap of changes - namely, balancing for a handful of weapons, improvements to Sticky, and a whole lot of bug fixes.[/h3]

[h3]BALANCE:[/h3]
Hitscan weapons could use a little help - they all have x0.75 Damage applied to them because they have Pierce, but Pierce is significantly more effective on wider shots, so this damage reduction will be reduced somewhat for thin Hitscan shots, and increased for wide projectiles with Pierce (including the non-Hitscan ones). Additionally, a property of "CCC" is now +12.5% Range, and "CCCC" has +25% Range. 100% Range represents the edge of the visible area, but this means that you can apply Range reductions to these weapons with less consequence now.

• (weapon) CCC Laser: Damage 50 → 54, Range 113% → 125%.
  
• (weapon) CCCC Ion Laser: Damage 80 → 87, Range 125% → 150%.
  
• (weapon) ACCC Laser Repeater: Damage 28 → 30, Range 113% → 125%.
  
• (weapon) CCCG Laser Shotgun: Damage 14 → 15, Range 113% → 125%.
  
• (weapon) CCCT Tracking Laser: Damage 50 → 46, Range 113% → 125%.
  
• (weapon) ACCG Broadbeam: Damage 2.9 → 2.7.
  
• (weapon) AACC Hyperbeam: Damage 1.4 → 1.5.
  
• (weapon) Flamethrower: Damage 5.6 → 5.2.
  
• (weapon) Frostthrower: Damage 6.3 → 5.8.
  
• (weapon) Plasmathrower: Damage 7.1 → 6.5.
  
• (weapon) ACC Beam: Damage 2.1 → 2.3.

The weapon below has roughly x5 Range instead of Sticky - the x5 was because Sticky normally lasts 5s so I figured this would be "fair", but it turned ACTT into WAY too much of a monster in some scenarios. I'll let it have x2.5 Range though, which will still be pretty amazing, trust me.

• (weapon) ACTT Anti-Air Torpedo: Range 400% → 219%

And here's some enemy balancing:

• (enemy) CTT Barreola: Firerate +33%, Offspring Health +100%.
  
• (enemy) CTTT Astereola: Firerate +33%, Offspring Health +100%.
  
• (enemy) CCTT Craystructor: Offspring Health +200%.
  
• (enemy) CGTT Freightslimer: Offspring Speed +100%, Offspring Health +100%.

[h3]CHANGES:[/h3]

• The Sticky mod is now applied to the "childmost" projectile (for example, Sticky on CGGT Splitter Spitter now applies Sticky to the smallest projectiles instead of the ones that are fired directly from the barrel). This will make Sticky behave more like how you'd expect, and will make it more useful for a number of weapons.
  
• You now see a count of how many times you've used each turret & the highest wave you've achieved with it on the TURRETS menu (NOTE: I've only just started tracking highest wave per turret as of this update).
  
• Hovering over perk icons during gameplay shows their name.
  
• Damage numbers are now slightly, randomly offset so that it's easier to tell how many damage numbers are appearing (it would often look like only one appeared when it could be like, 10 overlayed on top of each other).
  
• Collision detection occurs slightly more frequently more (extra for Maw) - there will be fewer cases of, for example, a microbe being so fast that it moves through you.
  
• Microbe & projectile movement is slightly smoother (you probably won't notice, but they were essentially capped to moving 50 times per second, but now they can move 60 times per second, which is once per frame since the game is locked to 60 FPS).
  

[h3]FIXES:[/h3]

• Weird things used to occur if you locked a free item, then picked a different free item to equip.
  
• Size changes to AGTT weren't abiding by the rule that Size modifiers on explosions and areas affect them half as much.
  
• (weapon) AAGT Heatseeker Swarm: I… regret to inform you… that the DPS was actually twice what it should have been (it was just being calculated wrong). Look: It's still a really great weapon, now it's just actually balanced.
  
• Some projectiles were fading out sooner than they actually dissappeared (namely Flak projectiles).
  
• (weapon) CCGT: The split projectiles themselves now also deal damage, not just the explosions they produce (without this change, it looks like a bug that they aren't dealing damage when the split projectile hits a microbe).
  
• When you have the "insane" mutation, microbes no longer leave the visible area once they enter it.