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The Riftbreaker News

Frequently Asked Questions - Updated

Hello Riftbreakers!

It's been quite some time since our last FAQ update. As the time goes on, your questions change - we receive fewer and fewer questions about the basics of the game, and more about it's future and our plans. That's why we decided to release an entirely new FAQ to act as a supplement to the previous one. We won't be erasing the old FAQ from existence, as we feel the two documents support each other quite well. Instead of that, they will function together as an easy-access knowledge base of all things Riftbreaker.

The list of questions, of course, is non-exhaustive and subject to change. If you have any additional questions, please ask them in the comments - the most helpful ones might even get added to the FAQ.

Q: Will you add multiplayer support for The Riftbreaker? When?
A: Yes! Our current estimate is the end of the year 2022.

Q: Will there be cross-play?
A: Unfortunately, no. Cross-play is a Pandora’s Box that we do not want to open. We haven’t managed to close the previous one yet.

Q: Will the multiplayer portion of the game be available in co-op or PvP?
A: We are focusing on optimizing the game for co-op play. However, the road from co-op to PvP is not that long, so we’ll see what the future (or modders) brings.

Q: Are you going to expand the game's content in any way?
A: We are planning to release a couple of World Expansion updates, adding a lot of content to the game. New regions, new creatures, new technologies. The first one is scheduled to launch in Q2 2022. Right now it looks like about 25%-30% of the main campaign. A part of this is going to be released as a free update in the form of a new survival biome and new content accessible across the game. The story driven campaign portion of the World Expansion is going to be a paid DLC.

Q: Why isn’t there Steam Workshop support? Will you add it?
A: The Riftbreaker is available on many platforms. We don’t want to alienate any users and would like to offer equal access to easy modding for everyone. We are working on another solution for content distribution that’s going to be available to the broadest possible group of users (we can't guarantee mods on consoles)

Q: Where can I find mods at the moment?
A: You can check out The Riftbreaker section on Nexus Mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/theriftbreaker - there is a variety of mods available there. From simple tweaks, through packs of additional map tiles, to entirely new weapons - you will surely find something that you will enjoy. You can also visit the modding channel on our Discord: www.discord.gg/exorstudios - you can always find the latest mods in the pinned messages section.

Q: Are you planning any changes to the Survival mode?
A: We are planning a large rework of the Survival Mode structure, with separate tech trees and different starting load-outs for each biome. We want to make more gameplay strategies viable from the start. Additionally, we are planning to give you the ability to make use of the Cultivators and Harvesters in a more meaningful way. One other thing we would love to add is persistent unlocks and progress between runs, similar to a roguelike game. That’s still a distant future, though.

Q: We voted for new weapons and items in your competitions! When will those be added?
A: Those items will be introduced into the game with the release of the World Expansion Update.

Q: I'm struggling, where can I find help/strategies?
A: You can either come to our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios and ask the community for advice. You can also watch us play live during our Twitch streams at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios

Q: I’m getting an ‘Access Denied’ error when trying to save!
A: That is because Windows is preventing us from accessing your documents folder. We don’t know why that happens, but here’s a workaround:

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

1. Google windows mklink, pick instructions
2. Create a new "The Riftbreaker" folder in another directory like "D:\The Riftbreaker"
3. Find/Search for "CMD" in your windows search.
4. Right-click on "Command Prompt", right-click and select "Run as Administrator"
5. Go to the Documents folder and delete the old "Documents\The Riftbreaker" directory.
6. Run the command inside the Documents folder, "mklink /J C:\Users\Documents\The Riftbreaker" "D:\The Riftbreaker"

Q: My game opens on the wrong display!
A: Try using the configuration tool - open your Steam Library, select The Riftbreaker, press play, then choose the config tool. You can change your preferred display there.

Q: I saw some new Patch Notes on Steam. Are all versions of the game up to date?
A: For PC releases - yes. We try to release our updates for Steam, GOG, and Epic simultaneously. Console and Windows Store (Game Pass) patches usually take 1 or 2 extra days.

Q: Is The Riftbreaker going to be Steam Deck Verified?
A: We are working on making the game fully playable on the Steam Deck and we hope we can get that sweet green checkmark soon.

Q: If Steam Deck is confirmed, does it mean the game will run on Linux?
A: Officially - no. We have done a lot of work to ensure compatibility with the latest Proton library, but we won’t be providing official support for the game on Linux.

Q: My game is running sloooooooooow. Is there anything I can do to increase my FPS?
A: Unless you are playing on an integrated GPU, your FPS is probably fine. The game slows down when the CPU can’t complete all the necessary game logic calculations in time. Rather than skip frames, which would result in visible chugging, we slow the game’s pace down, so that the logic can catch up to the rendered image. We know that it isn’t pleasant, but it’s the lesser evil. If you have a huge base, you can try to reduce the number of buildings - floors, energy connectors and pipes should be your focus. Meanwhile, we are introducing new optimizations - the game will run better with each update.

Q: Are you planning to add more achievements?
A: Yes - we want to add more achievements with the next World Expansion Update.

Q: My antivirus software has quarantined your game because of suspicious activity. What’s the deal?
A: We have an integrated crash reporter tool that opens when the game crashes. From that tool you may send us a log file to help us figure out what might have caused the game to crash. Some antivirus programs don’t like that the game wants to phone home and block it. You’re 100% safe, promise.

Q: Are you going to add the Sandbox Control Panel to consoles?
A: We are working on it, but it's quite complicated because it can't be as unlimited as on PC. It is very difficult to crash the game on PC because it can virtualize system memory. Console platforms are completely different in this regard and require MUCH more effort to keep the game stable at all times.

Q: Repairing/upgrading buildings one by one is tedious!
A: Yeah, we know that. We are working on upgraded tools that will allow you to do that more efficiently.

Q: I don’t know what is happening with my economy. Can you make it clearer?
A: Yes. We will add a new economy management screen that will show you exactly what’s going on with your resources and facilities.

As always, if you have any other questions or ceoncers, let us know in the comments!
EXOR Studios

Live on Twitch

After a short break from streaming caused by a bad case of man-flu (you know, mild headache, runny nose and 37 degrees - very serious stuff) we're back to work and back to streaming The Riftbreaker! Join us live at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios - no mods this time, just vanilla gameplay and chill chat.

Modding Update: Model Editor Added

Hello Riftbreakers!




We have released a substantial update for our Modding Tools. It is the result of weeks of work, both ours and the work of our community, who relentlessly hunted bugs and reported them to us. This update brings improvements, fixes, and features you requested, either on our Discord, Steam forum, or Github. We hope that thanks to these, we will see even more brilliant modifications for The Riftbreaker.

The single most significant addition in this patch is the Model Editor. It’s a tool that we did not include with the previous release. It had some problems that we needed to solve first. Now that we have brought it back to its former self, you can finally have a look at it. The Model Editor gives you access to the following tools:

You can open any .ent file in the game to view the model, its animations and any associated blueprints.

- The Attachment Editor - this tool allows you to create and edit attachments for in-game entities. You can then use those attachments to add effects to a unit. If you want to make Mr. Riggs into a Christmas Tree with hundreds of lights - this is the tool you're looking for.

If you are fascinated with watching looping animations over and over again, this is the tool for you.

- The Animation Viewer - allows you to preview what the animations look like for any given unit.

And if you like watching monsters get gibbed over and over again, this is the tool for you, as well!

- The Blueprint Viewer - lists all blueprints available in any given .ent file, along with their effects and destruction simulations.

This 'simple' tree makes all the in-game animations tick. Have fun figuring it out!

- The Animation Graph Editor - okay, we'll admit it, it's still totally broken and work-in-progress. It's a black magic tool for creating and editing animation graphs. No one knows how it works, though.

Please note that The “Model Editor” name might be a little misleading. It does not allow you to change the models themselves. We make them using a different set of tools (Zbrush for sculpting, Blender for further modeling, and Substance Painter for texturing, if you’re interested).

The Editing Tools are separated from The Riftbreaker main release version. To download them, go to your Steam library, check the 'Tools' checkbox in the list on top, then find and install The Riftbreaker Tools. If you are not a Steam user, the tools are also available on our official GitHub page, right here: https://github.com/exorstudios/riftbreaker-tools/releases/tag/0.1.4950

Apart from the Model Editor being added, there are a lot more changes in this release. Here is the full changelog, divided into sections for each tool.

[h2]The Riftbreaker Editor Suite Update #2, March 4th, 2022. TC#4950 Changelog:[/h2]

[h3]Tools general:[/h3]
  • Unified the dialog windows backend for all editors.
  • The editors should no longer crash when SegoeUI font is missing from the system.
  • Unified the TextEdit controls in all editors with a colored border on focus.
  • File > Exit menu option should work properly now
  • The editor apps should throttle when they are run in the background to prevent them from wasting CPU cycles.
  • The rendering framerate will no longer exceed the detected monitor's refresh rate to prevent your RTX 3090 from becoming a space heater.
  • Added the 'About' section with all credits and legal information.
  • The 'About' section will open all license text in a separate text file if clicked.
  • Improved font legibility for users who had DPI scaling enabled in their display settings
  • Added a 'clear' button for list/tree filter input fields.
  • The 'undo' and 'redo' shortcuts now work across all editors.
  • Launching any of the editors will no longer hijack your hardware RGB lighting schemes.
  • Performance: The application update has been moved to the main thread
  • Dialog Boxes are not forced to the foreground, so they are no longer lost behind the main window
  • Added a native splash screen support that replaces the ugly black window during the editor initialization phase with a not-so-beautiful (programmer quality) splash image.
  • ...and tons of backend changes for future updates :)


[h3]Level Editor:[/h3]
  • Converted and cleaned up most dialog windows to shared backend.
  • Fixed the time flow for particle simulations.
  • Prevent camera zoom in/out on mouse wheel when a dialog window is open.
  • validate tile name on tile creation/load ( )
  • Creating a new biome from within the editor is now possible.
  • You can now pin tiles as your favorites in the Open Tile dialog window.
  • Purged invalid references in `File > Recent` menu entry.
  • Improve 'Play Game' dialog window. You can now select mission/difficulty before launching the game (Custom difficulty customization in the future). Press the green 'play' button in the top right corner of the window, and you're in the game! This is a great solution for testing changes quickly, as it skips the main menu sequence entirely and doesn't require you to place any zip packs in the game's main folder.
  • Improved 'New -> Mission tile' flow.
  • When creating a new mission, the editor will automatically create a custom 'time of day' file for you, containing settings about lighting and weather effects that you can tweak to your liking.
  • The newly created tiles will use the 'Jungle Survival' mission as a placeholder for their mission logic.
  • Fixed a crash caused by `project_resave_tiles` action when running in non-development mode.
  • Creating missions from .mapdump files is now easier. If you play The Riftbreaker and stumble upon a map you like, you can enter the console and type in: 'dump_map_layout. You can then open that file in the Level Editor. The Editor will automatically create all the necessary files for you
  • Fixed an issue where the prefab list was empty after new tile creation
  • Added an option that allows the editor to auto-load the last opened project on app start.
  • The 'Open Level' option in the Level Editor has been renamed to 'Open Tile'.
  • You can now edit the lighting settings and save custom presets directly in the Level Editor.


[h3]Riftbreaker Editor:[/h3]
  • Fix a crash when deleting selected nodes with external requirements.
  • Research Tree now displays centering guidelines.
  • The Research Editor on campaign tree save will no longer generate an additional tree for survival mode, as the trees for both campaign and survival have been separated now.
  • Creating a new ResearchTree will mark it as `custom,` and when found, it will be auto-injected into the game research tree as a separate tab.
  • Added support for displaying the DPS calculation in the Weapon Editor.
  • Added LocalizationEditor to ease localization lookup/preview (we are missing glyphs for non-ASCII characters, so they are displayed as ???)
  • Added an experimental DARK theme (add `set editor/theme 0` to editor config for preview)


[h3]Workspace Editor:[/h3]
  • Copying files to the workspace shouldn't corrupt files any longer.
  • Editor reacts a little better to external workspace directory changes.
  • More colored icons!
  • Reveal in Explorer/Edit file action should be now a little more reliable.
  • Fixed issues with starting external editors.
  • Added an experimental DARK theme (add `set editor/theme 0` to editor config for preview).


[h3]Mission Editor:[/h3]
  • Removed deprecated actions from graph nodes.


We highly encourage you to leave bug reports and feature requests on our GitHub. https://github.com/exorstudios/riftbreaker-tools/releases/tag/0.1.4950 That way, we can track them easily and update you on the status of the issue. If you find GitHub hard to use, we also pay attention to the Steam Forum and the Modding section of our Discord: www.discord.gg/exorstudios. Discord is also a great place to share your mods and ask for help if you find any aspect of working with our tools troublesome. TL;DR join Discord. This is the way.

If you haven’t seen the results of our Community’s hard work yet, we highly encourage you to check out these great mods for The Riftbreaker:
https://www.nexusmods.com/theriftbreaker/mods/150
https://www.nexusmods.com/theriftbreaker/mods/122
https://discord.com/channels/423424585954754565/736688063362891860/947875706690482216

Issues closed during this milestone:
https://github.com/exorstudios/riftbreaker-tools/milestone/1?closed=1

Can't wait to see more mods!
EXOR Studios

State of the Game - Q1 2022



Hello Riftbreakers!


A lot has changed in The Riftbreaker since its October release. Ever since that moment, you have been sharing your insights with us non-stop, showing your care and dedication. Thanks to them, we have improved on plenty of aspects of the game. However, our work is far from over. Today, we would like to share a bit of a perspective view on The Riftbreaker, how your voices shaped the game and what changes we are planning to implement over the course of the following months. It’s time for our first ever State Of The Game!



[h3]THE CAMPAIGN MODE AND GENERAL GAMEPLAY[/h3]

The Campaign Mode has been receiving improvements with almost every patch we release. You have informed us about many potential roadblocks and given hints on improving the flow. The difficulty spectrum has been greatly improved. The Easy difficulty was made more accessible, while the Hard and Brutal modes became slightly more challenging. This change allows more players to enjoy The Riftbreaker Campaign at a more suitable level. Additionally, we added the option to use Custom Difficulty settings to play the entirety of The Riftbreaker Campaign. This way, if you don’t find a setting that’s quite right for you, you can fine-tune almost all parameters that define how difficult the game is going to be.



At the same time, we have been doing internal playthroughs of the game. Each member of our team has completed the Campaign and then shared their feedback with the rest of us. What came out of all this is a medium-sized book of ‘to-dos’. Covering all of them would be impossible. Instead, we’re going to reveal the most significant upgrades that you can expect to arrive in the short-to-medium term.



The first one is an all-new economy management screen. With this feature, we aim to give you a new degree of control over what comes in and what goes out of your base at any given moment. The economy screen will show you what kind of resources your facilities are using, where your power comes from, and what consumes the majority of it. Best of all - we are working on giving you control over your buildings through that screen. For example, when an attack wave threatens your base, you will be able to disable all your Synthesizers or Comms Hubs with just a couple of clicks instead of frantically running around the base.



We are also working on expanding the endgame content. Without going into spoilers - we want to introduce new endgame goals and new ways of enjoying the campaign mode for a much longer time. That will include the ability to visit more planetary locations, discover all the flora and fauna species, and cultivate resources to form a self-sustaining base. The first step to that was the Agricultural Revolution from a couple of days ago. That point deserves its own paragraph (or even a couple).



The Cultivators have proved to be very powerful. With that technology, some players were able to even fast-track their way to opening the Rift Portal - which is excellent. Giving players more options, especially the less obvious ones, is a net positive for everyone. Unfortunately, their efficiency and versatility were so high compared to the cost that they could make all other resource production obsolete. Cultivators are intended to be a late or endgame mechanic. If they are available en masse too early, they become problematic. At launch, their costs were not reflective of the power behind them. We decided to tweak their upkeep costs, yields from particular saplings, and the number of drones that operate simultaneously. Additionally, to reflect the fact that Resource Cultivation is the ultimate, eco-friendly way of preparing Galatea 37 for human colonization, we limited certain saplings to their native biomes. That, in turn, requires you to set up several farms around the globe if you want to harvest all of the available resources



That reduced the overall yield you got from your existing setups. There are several reasons for this. First of all - the ratio of Harvesting Stations needed to fully operate one Cultivator has changed. Harvesters now have more drones at their disposal but a reduced operation radius. There is a chance that your current setup is still good, but now you have more room for optimizations. The resources you gain from individual saplings have changed too. If you have noticed that, for example, your previous tanzanite farm might not be producing tanzanite anymore, you might just have to choose a different plant. All resources are available from at least two different species, so we encourage you to experiment.



These changes have been made to make resource cultivation more predictable and controllable. They are more in line with the endgame content we have in mind, facilitating more than one viable strategy. We understand that this might have made some of your setups obsolete and might have generated extra work for you. We are sorry for that and hope that you will understand that we have to make these changes to make the game more enjoyable in the longer perspective. We know that the adjustment period might be a little bit of a shock, but please trust us - it’s all going to be worth it in the end.

As you can see, we have a lot of plans for the Campaign Mode. Its modular structure allows us to expand the game’s mechanisms as well as the world of Galatea 37 and whatever lies beyond…

P.S. We’re making ALT great again. The users from the experimental branch have already had a taste of the ALT key shortcut for building the maximum level building working as a toggle, but we are going one step further. We have designed a system that allows you to toggle the default building level per building. For example, you will be able to set it up so that you always build Solar Panels Level 3 and Wind Turbines Level 2.No more holding the ALT key. No more locked movement. Greatness!

[h3]THE SURVIVAL MODE[/h3]

We have received a lot of feedback regarding the difficulty level of Survival Mode. As it stands now, significant difficulty spikes are an issue for many players. We also heard complaints about the feeling of lack of accomplishment after beating it, as it offers no real gameplay advantage. We have some plans on how to fix that.



Survival Mode will be getting a major balance overhaul. It is definitely true that this game mode could be improved by introducing more variety of enemy attacks. A more gradual increase of difficulty over time could also bring some good. That is why we are going to be reworking all survival difficulty levels from the ground up. We aim to make survival on all difficulty levels demanding but fair. At present, players are sometimes attacked by waves of creatures that they are ill-equipped to deal with early on. That is going to change. We will also give each biome its own specialized technology loadouts. That will make more strategies viable, thus increasing the variety of options available to you.



One of the major changes that are coming for the Survival Mode is the revamped Research Tree. At present, it is shared with the tree used in the Campaign. As a result, you sometimes are forced to spend precious minutes of research on unlocking tech that you will not benefit much from. To solve this, the Survival Mode will get an entirely new Research Tree, to allow you access to as many upgrades as we can, thus increasing the strategic potential. The less impactful technologies will be available from the start, and the ones that have no use in this game mode (like Magnetic Stabilizers or the Research Station) will be removed from the tech tree. We are also planning to make Alien Research much easier to attain.



[h3]CUSTOM GAME CONTENT & MODDING SUPPORT[/h3]

We have seen a lot of great mods published for The Riftbreaker already. Ranging from tweaks to select buildings to complete overhauls of entire biomes and weapon systems - it’s fascinating to see how you put the tools we gave you to use. And our support has only just begun.



An integrated, in-game content distribution service is coming. We know it’s taking a bit long, but as we have said before: this is an important decision that will have its consequences for the entirety of the game’s lifetime. We want users of all platforms across the entire world to be able to use the same platform and interface to share and download custom content. There are a couple of solutions on the line, and we are doing our best to make the best-informed decision. That will, unfortunately, take some time.



What will not take so much time, on the other hand, is an update to our game editing tools. Ever since we published the first version, we have received a lot of feedback and feature requests. We’re happy to tell you that we managed to implement a lot of those changes, and a brand-new editor suite is on its way. We hope to see even more amazing creations from you, just like the ones we spotlighted before: Jungle Variation Pack and Expanded Armory.



As more mods are being created, the number of questions about copyrights increases. To keep a long story short - you are free to use any assets from within EXOR Studios games to create your mods within other EXOR Studios games, and you are free to share them with other players for free. We will publish our policy guidelines around the time the integrated mod support is implemented. We just want you to know that we’re fine with you reusing any existing assets from our games.

Content Creation is a major point for The Riftbreaker. The possibility of using custom tweaks, adding new maps, and even entirely new mechanics are all amazing ways to keep you engaged and give you more creative freedom. Rest assured, we will not abandon this.

[h3]MULTIPLAYER[/h3]



We have a plan. We have a schedule. We have developers. We are working on it as we speak. Even though we don’t have much to share at the moment, we can tell you that we have already implemented the basic client-server architecture and are working on refactoring many game systems that would not work well in a network environment. A positive side effect of that is that we can optimize some systems while doing so, meaning there is even a chance that the single-player game performance is going to improve from that. Our vague ETA is the end of the year 2022.

[h3]CONCLUSION[/h3]

The Riftbreaker’s journey has only just begun. While it might seem that we are working on several big things at once (and we are), the work is structured and divided evenly among our developers. You can expect small, regular updates increasing the stability and quality of life every couple of weeks, leading up to the next point on our roadmap - World Expansion I. It will be an absolute banger, so make sure to stay up to date with the news - we can’t wait to share it all with you.

As always, if you have any questions, thoughts, or general feedback, the comment section is yours. We also encourage you to join our Discord server at www.discord.gg/exorstudios to get insights and updates daily.

Cheers!
EXOR Studios

The Riftbreaker Hotfix, February 22nd, 2022.

Hello Riftbreakers!

We have just released a small patch addressing some of the issues that you have reported with the latest update. Thank you for pointing out the issues and providing us with valuable feedback. The changelog today is not that long, so let’s get right to it.

[h2]The Riftbreaker Hotfix Changelog, Package #121, Binaries #510:[/h2]
We heard your feedback regarding the ability to pick up loot while your storage is full. The majority of you dislike that change and dislike your resources going to waste. We’ve reverted this change.
The raytraced light flickering issue that occurred during the Resource Comet flyby sequence has been fixed.
We fixed a bug with the building override functionality. If you used a gamepad and tried to build a gate replacing existing wall tiles, the game would not sell those tiles and they would become stuck forever. The same occurred when trying to replace any two compatible buildings with each other. It is fixed now, and you can safely go back to building The Great Wall of Galatea with your gamepads. This issue did not affect mouse and keyboard controls.
We made Cobalt nuggets more distinct by giving them a slightly brighter light, as they looked too similar to Carbonium.
The lights on other lootable objects have also been slightly intensified to make them easier to spot on the battlefield.
We’ve fixed several obscure crash bugs that were reported after the previous update.

Thank you,
EXOR Studios