The Riftbreaker News

As you’ve already seen in our numerous previews and live playthroughs on stream (Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3 PM CET at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios ), the Swamp biome is full of interesting creatures. Many of them are uniquely adapted to life in semi-aquatic conditions of their environment. Stickrids’ long legs, Fungors’ tentacles and Plutrodons’ tree climbing all provide mobility and survivability in the Swamp. However, none of these creatures are more at home here than the hero of today’s article - the Mudroner.

Mudroner in all of its swampy glory.

The Mudroner is a native species of the Galatean Swamp. These creatures can often be seen in small packs, roaming around the shallow waters. They bear quite a resemblance to Hedroners, which can be found in similar places around the surface of Galatea 37. However, these species are quite different from one another. Various types of Hedroners camouflage their bodies by taking on the appearance of liquids they live in. For example, in the Tropical zone, they look like mud, and in the Metallic Valley they disguise themselves as made of Morphium. However, Mudroners appear to be able to survive only in the Swamp biome and only in one form - ‘wearing’ greenish-brown mud outer layer.

No, Mr. Riggs, that's not how you document wildlife!

At first glance, Mudroners look like a much more dangerous evolution of a Hedroner. Their bodies are taller and more slender. Dozens of sharp teeth stick out of their giant, elongated maws. However, their most striking feature is a pair of eyes right above their mouths. The eyes emit an unnatural purple glow, attracting prey and sending a warning signal to anything that might pose a threat to the creature. That includes you.

Luckily, Mudroners hate fire, so you will find ways to deal with them relatively quickly.

Although they spend most of their time by liquid pools, Mudroners will happily leave the comfort of their homes to attack you and your base. Usually, they will try to keep their distance and throw heavy objects at Mr. Riggs, as their melee attacks are quite slow and easy to avoid. Since Mudroners move slowly, they usually won’t be able to escape once you’ve closed in on them. However, if a Mudroner feels it’s losing the fight, it can sink into the ground and materialize elsewhere. They use this technique to distance themselves from danger and continue fighting from afar.

They can catch you by surprise almost anywhere.

Fancy descriptions aside, Mudroners are a refreshed version of the Hedroners that you already know from the original game and its various biomes. However, while giving the creature a face-lift, we also came up with the idea of a neat visual feature. If you take a closer look at Mudroners, their texture has a slight animation to it, simulating the flow of a liquid. This is done via a custom shader. The shader takes information from a flow map - a texture that stores information about movement. By adjusting the flow map, we can simulate the flow of different types of liquids. We liked the result, so we applied this change to the original Hedroners as well.

A subtle change, but Hedroners look much better now that their 'mud' is not static.

This is not the only visual upgrade we’ve made in preparation for the launch of World Expansion III. Thanks to the introduction of Tiled Deferred Shading which we talked about before, we could finally use transparent objects in The Riftbreaker. That, in turn, allowed us to cook up liquid simulation, including waves and ripples on the surface. We will publish a longer article on that soon, so stay tuned!

Ultra versions look even more at home now in the Volcanic Zone.

Join us on Discord! We publish our internal developer changelogs daily, discuss upcoming changes and preview lots of cool things there. www.discord.gg/exorstudios Also remember to join us on streams, every Tuesday and Thursday, 3 PM CET at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios , where you can see the new content in a live, unedited environment. See you there!

EXOR Studios

Every time we visit a new biome on Galatea 37, we face new challenges regarding power production. The weather variations make our renewable energy sources less (or more) effective. We also might get access to some power generation resources that are not available anywhere else - like magma in the Volcanic Zone or Morphium in the Metallic Valley. The conditions differ from biome to biome, but one thing stays the same. As we access new biomes, our tech tree grows, and new energy technologies become available. The Swamp biome is no different. Today, we will look at the options available to us in World Expansion III.

The stars of today's show: Bio-Condenser and Gas Extractor.

The waters and the soil of the Galatean Swamp are full of organic remains. This gives life perfect conditions to grow and expand. New specimens can feed on the remains, grow, spread, and evolve. The rich fauna and flora of the biome are the best evidence for this - you won’t find a more varied ecosystem anywhere else on this planet. However, the fact that organic remains make up a large portion of the biomass has another advantage for Ashely and Mr. Riggs. As organic matter decomposes, it produces large amounts of flammable gases - an efficient power source.

Bio-Condensers are very easy to set up in the Swamp, despite having to be placed at a distance from one another.

Naturally, Riftbreakers are prepared to take advantage of such scenarios. Through research, Ashley will gain access to several buildings to make the most of the resources available in the Swamp. The first one is the Bio-Condenser. This facility must be placed directly on the surface of a mud pool. The Bio-Condenser filters the scattered organic remains from the mud and places them in a fermentation chamber. During the fermentation process, the biomass from the swamp turns into sludge, which can be further refined into flammable gas. Then, the gas can be transported through a pipeline and used for power generation. After all this, the mud is mixed and released into the ecosystem. It’s an inexpensive and reliable way to supply your base with gas power.


Since mud is virtually unlimited, you can even turn your Swamp outposts into gas-producing mega-factories, sending copious amounts of resources back to your HQ through compressors and decompressors.

A new type of resource deposit: Flammable Gas Vent. Hard to miss, really.

Some of the organic matter has been gathering beneath the surface of the Swamp biome for ages. Over time, natural pockets of Flammable Gas have appeared, with some of them bursting through the surface in a fiery fashion. Thanks to another new building, the Gas Extractor, Ashley and Mr. Riggs can safely use the gas beneath the ground. The Gas Extractor is built directly on top of a Gas Vent. Its airtight construction extinguishes the flames, allowing for controlled gas extraction by pipelines. While extracting the gas, the Extractor building also filters all the impurities, ensuring the fuel is suitable for immediate use. This means you can run a pipeline directly from an Extractor to a Power Plant with no steps in between. Gas Vents are relatively rare, but you should take advantage of them whenever possible.

You can even use the vent offensively!

Generating the electric energy necessary to run all the Riftbreaker facilities is an essential use of Flammable Gas. However, during your stay in the Swamp biome, you will also find out that the gas can be used offensively - as a fuel source for some truly devastating weaponry. (Especially given the fact that most creatures of this biome are very weak to fire damage). We won’t say much now, as the new tower types will get their own article, but you can expect some heavy-caliber machines of destruction, bigger than anything we’ve given you before.

If you would like to see these buildings in use, join our streams every Tuesday and Thursday at 3 PM CET. And if you would want to be the first to try them out once ready, join our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios - we will notify you when the first experimental versions of the World Expansion III update go live. You can also chat with us and influence what the biome looks like in the end!

See you there!
EXOR Studios

It is time for another co-op mode development progress update for The Riftbreaker. A lot of good things happened since the last time we shared the news with you, including some major developments and improvements. A lot of those upgrades happened thanks to the data you provided us with during the closed beta. We appreciate your help so far! .We even managed to complete a 3-person playthrough live on stream several times. Here’s a new VOD from one of those streams:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

As you can see, the game runs quite well, and even though the performance still leaves a lot to be desired, especially in the later stages of the game, we feel we are on the right track. Plus, we have a new, fancy 3-face cam setup and managed to convince some EXOR members to break their ‘stage’ fright! But you’re here because you want to learn more about our development process, not just to watch a video. Let’s take a look at what our brave programmers have been doing for these past couple of weeks.

[h2]A PROMISING START[/h2]

At the very beginning of the year, on January 2nd, one of our programmers, Starbugs, sent us a screenshot from his Survival run. It was a single mech, a Headquarters, and a ton of defensive towers - obviously running an infinite resources cheat. The screenshot was taken at the end of the run, and Startbugs told us that he managed to almost complete a run. It was an improvement since the game used to crash within 15 minutes in similar conditions. It was a positive message to start the year, but we were careful to share this enthusiasm.

Yes, we use Skype. Yes, we know about other software. No, we won't switch. Yes, we are stubborn.

This is a screencap from our group chat on the 2nd of January 2024. It goes like this:

Starbugs: Some good news for the start of the year. 5 more minutes till I finish a survival run in multiplayer!
Angin3: But you’re cheating! Doesn’t count!
Starbugs: shut up
Prosatanos: That’s not a real base, still cool tho
Starbugs: Smartasses. I was trying to be positive here. It used to crash after 15 minutes. You ruined everything! I won’t tell you anything anymore!

Most of us were skeptical at this point, as the “base” Starbugs presented wasn’t representative of what you usually see in the game. There were no factories, no power generation setup, or basically anything else. That’s important because every structure you build increases the computational cost for the game. A setup consisting of an HQ and a couple dozen towers using an “unlimited money” cheat is far less resource-intensive. Our snarky comments about Starbugs’ (cheater) tactics did not manage to extinguish his inner flame. Both he and lukaasm braved on, playing through multiplayer run after multiplayer run, fixing numerous bugs on their way.

The benchmark results point out a continuous improvement in data transfer optimization. The reduction of bytes transferred is one of the most important things we can do to increase performance and ensure a comfortable play experience. At present, the transfer rate is acceptable for a fast internet connection. However, we still have much to improve.

Thanks to your active participation in the closed beta of the multiplayer mode and the data you provided, our team could deduce which components they should pay attention to. Some bugs the programmers encountered during gameplay were a direct result of some game systems being unoptimized for online play. Reworking these allowed our team to improve the game's performance significantly and eliminate many bugs in the process. As you can see in the screenshot above, the results are clearly reflected in our benchmark scores - the lower these lines go, the better the performance.

[h2]THREE-PLAYER SURVIVAL MODE RUN THROUGH THE STEAM NETWORK[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
When you play with others, you might actually have the time to build some more walls! Who would have thought?

After a couple of weeks of intense development and rapid improvements, The Run™ happened. We managed to complete a Survival Mode run, playing as a three-person team. We have done this before, but it was the first time the game felt truly stable, and the performance was acceptable (for this stage of development). We were ecstatic. Then, we repeated our feat a couple more times during our development streams at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios, gradually improving our streaming setup. At one point, one of us even connected from outside the office - and the experience was okay as well. Sure, the distance between the office and Paweł, who worked from home at that time, was more or less ten kilometers. Still - it was an outside network, the data was transferred through Steam’s datagram relay network, and we completed a full playthrough of the Survival mode. It was a success - no doubt.

[h2]CO-OP CAMPAIGN PROGRESS[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We all have to sacrifice something for the greater good in co-op. Even your own mech upgrades (I choose to completely ignore the fact that maintenance tools would have made buildings cheaper, which would benefit everyone).

The programmers were quite sure that they could pull off even more. They decided to try running an entire campaign in co-op mode. Given that no one has tried that before, it was a huge undertaking. They started by making sure that the save system was functional. It turned out that it needed a little bit of encouragement, but after some bugfixing, we are now able to save the state of the game on the server. It is currently stored on the server itself and can be loaded from the menu as usual. Once the game is running, the clients can join in, and if they participated in the game, they also receive all their equipment back. This is a very basic implementation - we are still unsure what it will look like in the final game. We have a couple of options to consider - keeping saves on the server, giving each player a copy of the save file, etc. However, we will make our final decisions closer to release - now, we are focused on getting the game running in the first place.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
If it's ugly, but works, is it really that ugly?

With a functional save system in place, it was time to start the playthrough. Since the guys playing were programmers, they were able to debug the game on the go and fix all the game-blocking issues they encountered. Naturally, there were a lot of crash bugs, things not working as expected, and other minor inconveniences. However, the bugs that are not obvious at first glance are always the hardest to spot and fix - and there were quite a lot of them.

[h2]ERADICATING BUGS[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
You can take a guess whether the power plant survived or not.

One of the first such bugs was connected to the radar. As you know, the mech in The Riftbreaker has a short-range radar connected to it, revealing points of interest within a certain radius around the mech. That radar also reveals the fog of war, marking the map cells as ‘discovered.’ Those cells are quite small in our game, and a lot of them can fit into the 15-meter radius of the short-range radar. It turns out that the clients synchronized ALL those revealed cells with the server, each and every frame the game was running. The more players there were, the worse it got. Hundreds of kilobytes of precious data, up to 30 times a second. This bug has been fixed, and clients only send new information to the server.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Remeber to always communicate clearly.

Another bug our team discovered was connected to the objective system and the way we handle its updates. Whenever a player was given a new objective, finished their current one, or when an objective failed (it can happen!), we synchronized the state of the objective system between the client and the server. Sounds logical, right? We thought so, too, until we realized that the mission timer ticking down was an objective update, too. That meant the need to synchronize the system every second. Still doesn’t sound too bad. What made matters truly awful was the fact that we forgot about the mission log - the menu page where you can see the entire history of your campaign. All changes in your mission goals are stored there, including timers. Suddenly, we were facing an update with a massive amount of data every second. We made the decision to exclude timers from the synchronization process, which fixed that bug.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Our tests are usually carefully planned and conducted according to our internal rulesets. Usually. Sometimes we just jump in the deep end and see what happens.

In a similar fashion, the research also caused problems with an unnecessarily high number of updates, but for a different reason. When you add any technology item to the research queue, a timer is displayed, showing you how much longer it takes until it’s done. In reality, however, research is not time-based at all. Every tech item in The Riftbreaker costs a certain amount of download points. Communication Hubs produce those download points at the rate of 1 point per Hub per level. The amount of that resource is updated every frame, meaning it has to be synchronized every frame. Considering that download progress couldn’t have been updated without sending over information about the entire research tree, you get way too much data way too often. Decoupling the research progress and download values from the rest of the research system solved the issue.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Show me what you got.

By this point, you should see a pattern emerging - our systems often send more information than necessary. It was no different in the case of the energy graph system. Each building, power plant, and energy connector is a part of the energy grid in the game. They can get truly massive, as there is no limit to how many structures you can place. What if we told you that the first versions of the co-op build wanted a full synchronization every single frame? Sub-optimal is the mildest way to put it. Luckily, compartmentalization, packing, and reduction of the update frequency also fixed those issues.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Words to live by.

In multiplayer mode, The Riftbreaker relies upon constant communication between the server and its clients to keep the game world state in check. Problems occur when the syncing happens too often or too rarely, as you will learn from our next example. If one player started an HQ upgrade process while the other player was somewhere else on the map, it was possible to get an infinite loop. When the player who was away came back to the base during the construction time, their game would notice that fact… and start another HQ upgrade process underneath. Rinse and repeat, infinite level 2 upgrades, infinite level 2 waves. We decided that some events need to be broadcast globally and reach all players, regardless of their position on the map. That fixed the issue.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
You can set up some pretty powerful tactics while working with others.

Apart from fixing bugs, Starbugs and lukaasm ran a round of optimizations on every game component that looked suspiciously big or caused spikes in transfer. If you watched any of our co-op attempt streams, you might have noticed that whenever a player wanted to join the game, there was a huge stutter as they connected to the server. Turns out that the culprit was the MechComponent - a set of properties that every mech in our game has, giving the players the ability to move around and take game actions. The component was absolutely huge for multiplayer standards, generating up to 500 kilobytes of traffic per second per mech. After optimizing that data structure, the boys managed to reduce that rate to about 30 kilobytes a second. It's still too much, but it's a lot closer to the target.

[h2]OUR GOAL AT THE MOMENT[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
This is one of the symptoms of replication bugs. Thay make the game really hard to play sometimes and might have game-breaking consequences.

The biggest problem we are facing right now is replication. Replication is the process of recreating gameplay state changes from client to server and vice versa. In order to save performance, we divided some processes into those that happen on the client side and those that happen on the server side. When combined, we should have the full picture of what events are happening in the game world - ‘should’ being the keyword here. At the moment, it is possible for the server to ‘think’ that it sent all the necessary data to the clients, but some of that information never reaches their PCs. As a result, we see some strange bugs. For example, if you build walls, some of them are not visible to other players. The buildings player A builds can’t be sold or upgraded by player B. Creatures that died during combat on one player’s screen show up as standing corpses for the other.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
After a while you get used to it, but you shouldn't have to get used to something like that. It's our focus at the moment.

There are many possible reasons for this behavior, and we are currently working through them to prevent this phenomenon from being a problem. The server is convinced that the data packets have been uploaded and sent to the client. However, they either never reach their destination or never get sent at all. It is also possible that the packets arrive out of order, and the data in them can no longer be applied to the game state. Either way - we have easy ways to reproduce these issues since they happen all the time. Data packet loss is something that can’t be prevented entirely. All that is left is to experiment, find all the problems that it’s causing, and work around them. It is definitely a complicated task, but we’re sure that we will have it fixed. As soon as we are able to finish a full campaign playthrough, we will begin the next round of the iteration process.

[h2]WHAT IT ALL MEANS FOR THE BETA[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We hope to let you gang up like this with your friends as soon as possible.

For the time being, unfortunately, not as much as you would expect. Despite the huge progress we’ve made, we’re still not ready to release the co-op mode to the beta testers. We have our hands full trying to fix the issues we have discovered ourselves. The list of known problems would probably grow by an order of magnitude once other people joined in. Their feedback would be lost or become irrelevant over time. Once again, we need to ask you for your patience. We will update the beta once we have a stable build and decide that we are ready for public scrutiny.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
I mean, how long can you play with yourself before you get bored?

Still, there is good news. The previous round of beta testing, which was focused solely on PVP and networking aspects of the game, was a major success for us. The data you gave us has led to major breakthroughs, and we are sure that it is going to repeat once we add co-op into the mix. No effort from a team of 15 people (not all of whom work on the multiplayer mode) can beat the collective power of the internet. For this reason, you can be sure that we will give you the chance to try out the co-op in closed beta conditions as soon as we are physically (and mentally) ready to take on the challenge.

[h2]CONCLUSION[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
A perfect summary of our progress. We are going in the right direction, but sometimes things go sideways!

The past few weeks of work have been very fruitful, leading the co-op mode for The Riftbreaker to reach the most promising state yet. It finally feels like a real game and a fun one to boot. While we’re not ready to release a coop beta build yet, we encourage you to sign up for the waiting list, as public testing is very important to us. We plan to start it as soon as we have all the elements in the right places. For the time being, join our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios, where we publish our daily changelogs and share even more information about what’s going on in the studios. Join our streams on Tuesdays and Thursdays at https://www.twitch.tv/exorstudios to have a chance to see our live playthroughs and chat with us. Things are good. Just let us cook a “bit” more.

[h2]To sign up for The Riftbreaker Multiplayer Beta please fill in the following form:[/h2]
We reserve the right to contact only select participants.



EXOR Studios

These plants have nothing to do with the rest of the article, but they are cute and funny and shy and awesome.

The Swamp biome that is coming to The Riftbreaker in World Expansion III is a beautiful place filled with all kinds of life. Plants, creatures, and fungi living here have perfect conditions to grow, multiply, and thrive - all thanks to the abundance of water and fertile soil, rich with minerals and nutrients. Given enough time, any form of life can reach a truly gigantic size in the Swamp. However, Galatea 37 likes to surprise us. Apart from towering, ancient trees that have been growing for the past few thousand years, you will encounter other unexpectedly large life forms. Life forms that grow quickly and claim all the land they can find. Let’s talk about Vine Walls today.

This place doesn't look inviting and the creatures don't want us there. Let's go inside before we see reason!

A large portion of the Swamp biome is covered with a sprawling growth of what we call Vine Walls. At first, they seem to be a very large formation of intertwining bushes that are impossible to cross for something larger than a Quelver. However, they are not just a field of shrubs. In fact, it is one giant organism, probably one of the largest ones on Galatea 37. Vine Walls spread like wildfire, taking over every piece of land they can. As the Vines spread, some of their branches get rooted into the ground, soaking up all the nutrients and water a plant needs to survive. Vines are very densely packed, blocking all the sunlight and leaving nothing for competing organisms. In the world of plants, they are as close to the top of the food chain as they can get.

You can carve a path into the vines to regenerate ammo, charge a shot, or simply run away from a creature. It's a nice little tactic.

Encountering a growth like this on your path to exploring the secrets of the Swamp biome is going to pose a challenge. While Vines are not a direct threat to Mr. Riggs, they will limit your movement options. They might seem a bit similar to Limestone Walls from the Crystal Caverns biome, but you will quickly realize that they are very different. Walls and Vines can both be cleared with Mr. Riggs’s drilling arm, and this is where the similarities end. While Limestone Walls stayed open after you drilled through them, Vine Walls will grow back just a couple of seconds after you initially cleared them. You will have to carve your path as you go, with your escape route closing all the time.

Given enough time, the vines will grow back and trap you within. Luckily, good old brute force helps.

Luckily, Vines are quite brittle, and most of your melee weapons will punch through them with ease. This is going to be especially helpful in combat - and there is going to be quite a lot of combat here! While the Vine Wall does not enjoy sharing space with most plants, it forms a symbiotic relationship with carnivorous plants, like Artigians and Carnicynths. The Vine allows these species to grow within its ‘body’ in isolated pockets. Carnivorous plants are supplied with food and shelter. In return, if something is trying to carve its path through the Vine growth, the plant will try to trap it in such a way that Artigians and Carnicynths can destroy the threat from a safe distance. Be careful not to fall into one of these traps.

Mr. Riggs knows he won't burn it all down, but it won't stop him from trying anyway.

Since Mr. Riggs is the biggest pyromaniac on Galatea 37 (this is an official title (edit. no, it’s not)), he quickly discovers that the branches of the Vine Walls can be easily cleared using the good old flamethrower. It is a plant, after all, and plants burn. However, the Vine’s defensive mechanism stops the flames from spreading by secreting a flame-resistant substance that covers the branches near the source of the fire. You can burn a path forward, but you will never get rid of the entire growth.

Fights taking place within the growth require you to find new strategies and look for the most efficient solutions.

It is unclear at this point if the Vine Wall colonies spread around the Swamp have a positive or a negative effect on the ecosystem. That will be left for you to discover. One thing is certain - you will either have to learn to live alongside them or use something other than brute force to destroy them. You will solve this and many other secrets in World Expansion III, which you can wishlist here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2506610/The_Riftbreaker_World_Expansion_III/

If you would like to see previews of World Expansion III even before the update goes to the experimental branch, join us on Tuesdays and Thursdays on www.twitch.tv/exorstudios - we stream both World Expansion III Survival runs and our brave first attempts at Co-Op sessions. We’d love to hang out with you and answer all the questions you might have. You can also catch us on our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios.

See you there!
EXOR Studios

P.S.

We have a bundle going with our friends from Far From Home, allowing you to get The Riftbreaker and Forever Skies, an awesome, post-apo survival game that should be right up your alley. Forever Skies is on a 20% discount at the moment, and if you already own The Riftbreaker, you can get an additional 15% off using the bundle. Check it out!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/37896/FOREVER_SKIES_X_THE_RIFTBREAKER/

Last week, we presented the various plant species of the Swamp biome that will require you to stay sharp while exploring the area. By this point, you know that the new biome is not that welcoming despite its lively and colorful looks. However, it’s not all doom and gloom! You will find plenty of interesting and valuable things during your excursions into the fungal forest. One such addition coming to The Riftbreaker in World Expansion III is Power Wells - incredible artifacts that let you harness game-breakingly powerful skills for a short period. Let’s talk about them now.

GOTTA GO FAST

Power Wells are our take on a classic action RPG game mechanic. They are mysterious objects scattered across the entire map. Once activated, they grant you short-lasting but very powerful bonuses that have the potential to change the way you play the game for the time they are active. In today’s article, we will take a look at what kind of Power Wells you will be able to encounter in the game, starting with World Expansion III. Please remember that this feature is still being actively developed. The visual representation of the Wells and the duration and exact bonus values are all subject to change. That’s how we do things - prototype, iterate, and see what comes out of all this!

The Wells are large, alien-looking structures that radiate energy all around them. Mr. Riggs can walk up to any of those and interact with them to channel the energy into his systems to reap the rewards. Power Wells are for one-time use only and work for a short time. Activating one of these artifacts drains their power completely, so sometimes it is better to save them for later use - especially since the bonuses they grant are really diverse and helpful for various situations. Let’s look at the broad categories of Power Wells you can find.

[h3]OFFENSIVE[/h3]
The arsenal of weapons available in The Riftbreaker makes Mr. Riggs a force to be reckoned with. Sometimes, it is not enough, though, and you need a bit of extra firepower. Finding one of these power wells will help you boost your power level when you really need it.

High Fire Rate Power Well affects all weapons, melee included. It can lead to unexpected results at times!

Higher Fire Rate:
Sometimes, you don’t need to shoot more projectiles - you simply want to shoot more often. Using this buff, you can achieve ridiculous results, such as firing your Mini-Nuke Launchers almost at a machine-gun pace. We’re sure that the Schmetterling Engine can handle such firepower. We’re also sure that your enemies won’t.

fire rate + unlimited ammo = yes

Unlimited Ammo:
It's the most straightforward upgrade you could think of. Thanks to activating this Power Well, your weapons will not consume any ammunition while firing. Pack your most powerful, ammo-consuming mods into your favorite miniguns and go nuts! This round is on the house.

Quad Damage:
People sometimes say that a good offense is the best defense. This Power Well will quadruple your damage output from all weapons. With power like that, you don’t really need any survivability because no creature will ever manage to get close to you. Just be careful once it runs out - you don’t want to be caught in the middle of a horde without this buff.

[h3]DEFENSIVE[/h3]

Mr. Riggs is a very powerful machine when in the hands of a skilled pilot. Still, he is not indestructible. The most powerful foes among the Galatean creatures can easily overpower him, especially if Mr. Riggs is backed into a corner. These Power Wells will help you overcome your Mech’s weaknesses.

The regen speed matches the health increase, making you really difficult to beat.

Mega Health:
Activating this bonus grants your Mech a major HP boost (300% at the moment), making it able to withstand a lot more hits before having to reconstruct at the HQ. You also start regenerating health rapidly, helping you replenish your lost health. Hint: your repair kits work with percentages, not flat HP amounts - use them while the bonus is active to get the most out of them.

With this buff you can basically 'walk it off' when you take damage.

Mega Forcefield:
Similarly to Mega Health, this Power Well boosts your Mech’s forcefield beyond what is possible while using regular upgrade modules. Apart from increasing the number of hitpoints, the forcefield also gains the ability to replenish very quickly, allowing you to make use of your bonus hitpoints multiple times throughout the fight.

Reflect Damage:
It is a perfect power for those Riftbreakers who love to jump head-first into battle. Whenever you take damage from an enemy, a portion of that damage will be returned to the sender. It’s an incredibly powerful ability, especially against the large, heavy-hitting creatures like Krocoons, who attack once every couple of seconds. Don’t get too brave, though - you’re not indestructible!

Resist All:
A much more indirect form of help with survivability. This Power Well gives you a 50% resistance to all forms of incoming damage. While it won’t make you impervious, it will give you the ability to stay in the fight for a longer time. It will also help during accidental dives into pools of acidic sludge or molten lava.

Apart from a Well that grants you resistance to all types of damage, you may also find those that grant you a more powerful buff against only one type of damage. Those variants will be found in appropriate biomes.

[h3]UTILITY[/h3]

Sometimes, you do not need extra firepower or survivability - you just want to do things more efficiently or cheaper. This group of Power Wells will grant you bonuses that can be useful outside of combat, too.

Reduced Cooldowns:
After activating this Power Well, you can use all the items in your consumable slots without much delay. It might seem like a typical offensive ability, letting you bombard your foes from the orbit, shoot flame waves at them, as well as disintegrate them with antigravity balls. However, many items can benefit from shorter cooldowns outside of combat, too, such as various landmines. Activate the boost before the wave, set up a minefield, and watch the world burn from the comfort of your base.

Increased Radar Range:
This buff does exactly what it says on the tin. For a short time, the range of Mr. Riggs’ radar becomes much greater than usual, allowing you to quickly discover everything that the surrounding area has to offer. You will know where to look for resources and where the creature nests lie.

You'd better get some storage ready for all these treasures you're about to collect.

Increased Loot Chance:
This is a perfect find if you lack the resources to craft that sweet, extreme-quality weapon you couldn’t afford earlier. After activating this Power Well, all creatures, plants, and anything else you can destroy will reward you with a fountain of resources and weapon mods (and possibly more; read about our loot system rework here). You can maximize this boost by activating it just before an attack wave arrives at your base. Remember the 5-second rule and collect everything quickly - we don’t want anything to go to waste.

Beautiful automated chaos.

Drone Swarm:
After you activate this Power Well, Mr. Riggs will gain control of a couple of additional drones - a mixture of all available types. They will repair your structures, attack the enemies, and intercept projectiles. Moreover, this buff can be activated even if you already have the maximum number of drones in your build. Become the swarm.

Building Speed Power Well, aka instant base upgrade

Building Speed and Cost Reduction:
Imagine you just completed research for Defensive Buildings - Level 3 but have little to no carbonium left to upgrade your walls. This Power Well will fix that problem for you. It greatly reduces prices for all buildings and slashes building times to a fraction of the original. There are two ways to maximize this power: upgrade many smaller elements around your base or build something massive, like a Fusion Power Plant, at a great discount. This might be the most potent Power Well of the bunch. Note: if you build something at a reduced price, you will also sell and repair it for that cost. No infinite money glitches - at least not because of this.

We are likely to add even more types of Power Wells you will be able to find in the wilderness of Galatea 37 - not only in the Swamp biome. As we said before, the gameplay details are yet to be determined. We don’t know how often you’ll find these, how long they will last, or what precise numbers you can expect from their boosts. However, we will make sure that they are both fun and impactful and that they are always an exciting find. We will likely beta-test this feature with our Discord community - join us at www.discord.gg/exorstudios. Our experimental branch updates are free for everyone to join. We can use all the feedback we get once we’re ready to test!

Also, remember to join our streams on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3 PM CET on www.twitch.tv/exorstudios. We have recently completed full co-op playthroughs of three different Survival Maps. Last Tuesday, we even ran a session when one of us connected outside our local network, and nothing exploded! It’s wild, but it seems we’re getting closer and closer… Sign up for the multiplayer beta here: https://bit.ly/rb-multi-beta.

See you next time!
EXOR Studios