Experimental Update - World Expansion I

Hello Riftbreakers!

We have just released a major experimental update for The Riftbreaker. It contains the entire free portion of the World Expansion that we originally planned to release on this day. It is the largest update since the launch of the game both in terms of new content and gameplay changes. Some of these new features have been in development for months and we can't wait to hear your feedback about them. Due to the size and complexity of the update, we decided that we have to run it through an "experimental" phase before rolling it out to everyone. Our recent decision to delay the open release of the expansion allowed us to keep all of the features that we originally planned to include, however, some of them are still in an unfinished state in this early experimental release.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1945600/The_Riftbreaker_Metal_Terror/

[h3]WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD!!![/h3]
We would also like to warn you that the new Metallic Valley biome content that is contained within this update contains some spoilers for the story that will be included in the Metal Terror DLC. This is especially true if you're a modder and want to browse through all of the content files that are included within.

After joining the experimental branch and updating the game, you will be able to play Survival Mode on the new biome - the Metallic Valley. It is an entirely new area of the planet that features new enemies, new plant species, and even a new resource type. You will also gain access to new weapons, technologies, and buildings to use in all your survival runs.

Additionally, this update introduces loads of changes when it comes to the Survival Mode itself. The starting load-outs for each biome are now better suited for the kinds of enemies that you will be facing. We also grant you more basic technologies at the beginning of the game to allow you to be more flexible with the technologies you choose for your Survival run, as you are going to have more time to do the research you actually want to use in the late game. Moreover, the research items from the Alien Research tab of the tech tree no longer require the Laboratory in Survival Mode. You can start downloading them as soon as you get your first Communications Hub.

The experimental branch might contain severe errors and bugs. It's possible that the game will crash and you will lose your progress. If you are not sure if you want to accept that risk, we recommend waiting until the patch is confirmed to be stable and until it arrives on the main branch.

[h3]How to join the experimental branch:[/h3]

create a backup copy of your save folder (Documents/The Riftbreaker)
disable Steam Cloud save backup
go to your Steam Library
right-click on The Riftbreaker
select 'Properties,’ then 'Betas,’ and use the following password: IknowWhatImDoing

After that, you will be able to choose 'experimental' from the drop-down menu. Download the update, play the game and let us know if you encounter any issues. We also have a channel on our Discord: #rb-experimental-feedback - we highly encourage you to join in and share your feedback.

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Saves that you create on the Experimental Branch WILL NOT be compatible with older versions of the game like the current, default branch of the game. They will be compatible with future versions of the game. Please manually backup your save files if you plan on reverting to the default branch of the game.

[h2]The Riftbreaker Experimental Update, May 30th, 2022 - Package #191, Binaries #457[/h2]

[h3]FEATURES:[/h3]

Welcome to the Metallic Valley! Enjoy playing Survival Mode in this new biome - learn all the new tricks, discover the new creatures, and harness the power of Morphium.
Speaking of Morphium - it is a brand-new liquid resource. It is found only in the Metallic Valley and can serve as a power source and a building block (of sorts).
Several new species of creatures have been added:
Wingmite - a deadly, lightning-quick flying creature that swarms the player and uses melee attacks.
Bradron - a slower flying unit, capable of attacking from a distance with a powerful laser beam. It can also disable some of Mr. Riggs' equipment with an EMP blast.
Octabit - battering ram in the form of a weird, creepy, self-replicating cube. Will explode on contact. It can split into smaller versions of itself if destroyed.
Flurian - an enormous creature with a plasma grenade launcher fused within its body. Will try to rip you apart in close quarters using its giant, metallic claws.
Idapian, Brabit, and Stonger - new neutral, ambient creatures. Real cuties.

Quality of Life update: we have added Mass Upgrade, Repair, and Deconstruction tools. We have devoted an entire article to them, so click the link to learn more.
A new tool has been added to the building menu: the Power Switch. It allows you to quickly power buildings on or off, a handy feature when dealing with a power grid that is under heavy load. As with the other tools, you can increase the size of the brush.

New buildings: Liquid Compressor and Liquid Decompressor. You can provide the Compressor with any liquid resource to, well, compress it. That will allow you to transport that liquid over a large distance without using any pipelines. All you need to do is to build a Decompressor wherever you want to use the liquid you provided to the Compressor. Best of all - this works between maps as well! Magma Power Plants in the Jungle? You bet!
New building: Morphium Power Plant. This building requires only morphium to operate. In return for supplying it with enough of that resource, it will reward you with a nice and steady stream of power. Great for setting up resource outposts.
New building: Energy Walls. These are slightly more expensive than the regular walls. However, they are pretty great against melee attackers, as they deal damage in retaliation to being hit.
New Defenisve Tower: Morphium Tower. Boost your defenses with alien technology from beyond time! The tower commands the influence area around itself to form massive spikes that shred the enemies to pieces. Additionally, it does not require any power or AI hubs to operate - you only need to supply it with Morphium. Oh, and it can be placed on liquids and it generates shields for buildings around itself, too.
New Defensive Tower: Lightning Tower. This energy-based weapon will be a shockingly good addition to your arsenal. Yeah, I know, I'll see myself out.
New weapon: Lightning Gun. You can now cosplay as Emperor Palpatine. Unlimited power.
New weapon: Heavy Plasma Cannon. Shoots powerful plasma projectiles with high splash damage potential. The alternative fire mode changes the weapon into a portable shield, protecting you from projectiles.
New melee weapon: Laser Sword. It deals a bit less damage than its regular counterpart but can attack at a much faster rate.
New melee weapon: Chainsaw. Rip and Tear until it is done.
New skills: Orbital Bombardment and Orbital Laser added. These are the winning design of one of our previous competitions.
New consumable: Bioscanner Turret - another winner of our design competition. This consumable item can be deployed anywhere you find something interesting. It will scan all objects of interest within its range for as long as its battery lasts.
New consumable: Mini Miner. This consumable item can be placed on any ore deposit. It will mine resources for a short amount of time and automatically transport them to your storage.

Flying units can now navigate across bodies of water, as well as canyons and small rock formations. You thought you were safe setting up that base between a lake and a canyon? Think again!
Added liquid splash effects. When a physical object drops into a liquid pool it will now result in a splash. Purely visual.
Introducing 'Alien Influence System' - Whenever you place any of the alien-tech-based buildings in your base, it is going to surround the ground around itself with metallic, self-replicating plates. This is only a visual effect.
For all you crazy modders out there: we have added support for the creation of non-square maps. This can help make your missions more special, giving them a completely different feel than a standard survival or campaign mission.
We have added several new options to the gameplay settings menu: you can now adjust the amount of debris, parts, decals, and other effects. Turning these down will reduce the overall 'chaos' on the screen during battles. It can also positively affect your performance.
Added a set of new, hi-tech decorative structures to give your bases a nice, futuristic look.

[h3]CHANGES:[/h3]
Major Survival Mode rebalance/rework:

In order to give ourselves the flexibility necessary to introduce meaningful changes, the research trees for Survival and Campaign are now completely separate.
The player is now awarded more completed research items at the beginning of a Survival run: Liquid Resources Handling Level 1, Tower Ammunition Handling Level 1, Alien Research, all resource handling tech, and the entire tier one of Mech Upgrade Tree. Previously, after getting access to Communication Hubs, you would have to churn through some basic research options that you had no real use for (looking at you, cobalt handling) in order to gain access to technologies further down the line.
Each Survival Mode Biome now has a slightly different starting loadout for the Mech. We wanted to give you early access to weapons and tech that will give you a fighting chance against those biomes' enemies.
The Alien Research tech tree no longer requires a Laboratory to be built in Survival Mode. This means that you can start researching those technologies right away, giving you access to more tech to fit your strategy and playstyle. Yay nukes!
Volcanic Biome Survival maps have been tweaked to feature a little bit more of open spaces to reduce the 'tightness' of the map.
Volcanic Biome: big Magnetic Boulders now have a reduced amount of hitpoints for easier removal. Cryo Stations building time decreased.
Geoscanner and Bioscanner are now available in Survival from the start.
Changed most of the map tiles - increased the number of resource spawn points, player spawn points, and objective spawn points, plus some tweaks to prefabs and unit spawn points.

We introduced some changes to how building repairs work. Instead of being instant, a repair job will now take up to 10 seconds, depending on the amount of missing hit points. You pay the cost of the repair upfront, all at once. If a building takes damage while it is being repaired, the process is stopped. These changes were introduced to offset the ability to mass repair buildings in combat situations. It also opens up the road to adding a “repair all” button in the future.

We have introduced several significant balance changes based on the data available to us:
Plasma Towers damage has been reduced across all levels. Its splash damage has also been reduced.
Railgun Tower now has less damage per shot on higher levels but also a slightly higher fire rate to maintain the DPS level.
Minigun Tower damage has been reduced across all levels.
In order to eliminate energy spikes during combat situations, we have eliminated the energy cost per shot in energy-based towers. Instead, they consume a constant amount of power each second. Make sure to revise your existing power grids.
We rebalanced the ammo production rate of Armory and Tower Ammo Factories to be more reasonable. The previous increase rate was a tad too low.
Melee weapons have been rebalanced slightly. The spear’s effectiveness has been reduced by making the hitbox a bit more narrow (but just a little), and higher levels of melee weapons increase in scale much more than they used to.
Plasma Gun damage, fire rate, and splash damage have all been reduced.
Grenade Launcher ammo cost has been increased to avoid the 'infinite ammo' scenario that would happen at lower levels if a player built six Ammo Storage buildings. Shooting only one Grenade Launcher would consume less ammo than the Armory would produce.
Pipelines’ hitpoints increased.

The maximum number of Outposts you can control during one Campaign Mode run has been increased to 10.
Added the Super Moon event to both Campaign and Survival modes. It can allow your solar panels to work at night.
Various Campaign Mode difficulty tweaks.
The lights on all plasma projectiles have been slightly increased.
Localized events, such as tornadoes, can now affect only part of the map when it comes to wind speed. That means only the wind turbines within a certain radius from a localized event will be affected by it.
Lesigian is now able to travel across liquid pools and rock formations.
Aiming priorities changed for Sentry Guns. They will no longer try to shoot down air units.
We added a little effect that spawns at the end of the laser beam to mark its maximum range. Previously, beams would just end abruptly. Now they’ve got a nice little flare at the end.
Bioanomalies now have a bigger chance of containing something useful. Skins appear more often, too.
Changed the attack wave spawned when Bioanomalies are opened. It's a big one. Really. You have been warned. We want to make opening a Bioanomaly a conscious decision you have to prepare for. This change is currently implemented only in the Metallic Valley biome.
The Power Jump flight pattern has been changed to make it feel a lot more powerful.

Additional tweaks to underground mushroom detection. It should now feel more reliable and less based on luck.
The Geoscanner now reveals underground mushrooms more effectively.
Drilling animation begins faster and is quicker itself, resulting in a shorter time needed to defuse an underground fungal death trap.

We have completely reworked our audio system. Previously, it had the tendency to get a bit overwhelmed when there were a lot of things happening at once. Some sounds would get cut in half, and others wouldn't start playing back at all. All sounds should playback properly and stick to their limits with the new system.

[h3]FIXES[/h3]
The amount of fixes and smaller changes within this build is too long to list. We have fixed a number of obscure crash bugs, power grid problems, gameplay glitches, and UI bugs. However, this update is sure to introduce new problems in its experimental form. We encourage you to report everything that you notice and we’ll work hard to ensure a polished final release for this update.

[h3]KNOWN ISSUES & WORK IN PROGRESS[/h3]

Morphium Shader - the current look of the Morphium liquid is temporary, we are working on a nicer visual effect, but it wasn’t ready to be included in this build yet
Morphium Tower - the current visual effects for this tower are unfinished. Attack animation is disabled and the spikes themselves are a placeholder model.
Compressor/Decompressor - the visual effects for these buildings are unfinished. We’d also love to hear your feedback in regards to the economy balance of this building in Campaign Mode. It is one of the most significant new gameplay mechanics and we’re sure it will need additional polish and bug hunting in complex scenarios.
Chainsaw - this weapon is currently not functional and can only be unlocked using cheats. It is work in progress both in terms of visuals and functioning.
Laser sword - the visual effects and balancing for this weapon is still work in progress
Lightning Tower and Lightning Gun - the balancing for this weapon is not finished, however, feedback is welcome at this point.
Metallic Valley Bioanomalies - some of the destruction models are missing and their animation isn’t final. Their attack wave strength is also not fully balanced yet.
Metallic Valley Biofactories - their destruction levels aren’t finalized yet.
Morphium Power Plant - visual effects for this building are still work in progress
Liquid splash effects - there is still a number of bugs in regards to this feature. We’re working on it.
Weather event lighting - some of the weather events may temporarily change the biome lighting
Flying unit navigation - this is a huge new feature and may still contain some bugs. This should be very rare but if you encounter some units stuck on the map - it would be great if you could send us a screenshot of that exact spot.
Survival Mode balancing - the changes that we’ve introduced have changed this mode dramatically. We’d love to hear your feedback about the game’s pacing and difficulty in this mode.
Online Multiplayer mode refactoring - while it is not possible to play the game in multiplayer yet, we’ve already refactored large portions of the game code to enable this in the future. We may have introduced unknown and obscure bugs in the process. This also highlights the need to test this update on the experimental branch before an “official” release.
All of the new in-game text hasn’t been translated into languages other than English.
Only Standard sized maps currently work in Survival in Custom Game - choosing a different size will cause the game to crash.

We hope that you will check out this Experimental Update, as we would like to hear your feedback on the changes we made. We plan to make this update public along with the release of the Metal Terror Expansion, so there is plenty of time to fix all the issues you find. We also expect to publish some additional updates in the meantime, containing some of the most requested QoL features.

Visit us on Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios and share your thoughts!

EXOR Studios