The Riftbreaker News

It is time for us to let you get your hands on some of the changes we have been working on for the past couple of weeks. This Update brings in some much-needed quality of life fixes, changes that you have requested, as well as a massive makeover of the Cultivator technology branch.



[h2]FEATURES:[/h2]
[h3]AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION[/h3] - We have introduced pretty significant changes to the way Cultivators and Harvesters work. It quickly became clear that we missed the mark when balancing the cultivator chain. It was entirely possible to skip resource production entirely in the late game, as having several level 3 Cultivators and Harvesters supplied the base with everything you'd ever need. Additionally, the UI and UX of the system were not great. Well - it all changes today. We have introduced a massive number of changes and improvements when it comes to plant cultivation in The Riftbreaker:

• The number of drones for both Cultivators and Harvesters has been reduced which also results in improved performance in large base scenarios.
  
• The amount of resources that the Harvester drones can carry has been reduced.
  
• Drone speeds have been changed - Cultivator drones are faster and Harvester drones are slower.
  
• Drones now differ in size to make it easier to differentiate between the two types.
  
• Drone targeting algorithm has been altered: Harvester drones now prioritize plants at the highest growth level.
  
• Speaking of growth, the growth cycle has been fixed and upgraded. Saplings planted by the cultivators are always very small at first. However, they grow 3 times as fast as the same plants found in the wild.
  
• Harvesters now pull the plants out together with their roots - you will no longer see a mix of several plants growing next to one cultivator after changing a sapling.
  
• Amounts of resources that can be harvested from all plants have been changed.
  
• Saplings now have biome requirements - they can only be grown in their natural habitat.
  
• All biomes now have a separate 'default' sapling that gives you different resources.
  
• UI and UX have been drastically improved - the menus are much clearer and fewer clicks are required to get Cultivators working.
  
• Energy usage has been increased.
  

Out with the old (on the left, no selector indicator, no current sapling, overall mess) and in with the new (right, selected/equipped distinction, clearer resource display, information about requirements, and much fewer clicks to get there)!

All in all these changes result in much slower, but a lot more reasonable and stable flora cultivation. We hope you will enjoy tending to your gardens after these changes.
Added an option to manually turn off certain types of audio announcements. You can use them if you feel the game is nagging you to build more storage too often.

[h3]IN OTHER NEWS:[/h3]

• Added support for clearing key bindings on gamepads. 'Clear Binding' tooltip has been added to the 'Customize Controls' screen.
  
• Added support for adding custom research trees for all your modding needs and purposes. This will also allow us to create custom research trees for Survival Mode rebalance, which is coming soon.
  
• Added a config variable 'full_storage_announcement_limit' with 10000 as the default value. It stops announcements from playing if the storage limit is higher than 10000. We assume that if you have this much storage then you know what you’re doing and don’t need any more help with this aspect of economy management.
  The localizations are programmer art, don't judge.
• Custom Game button has been added to the main menu. You can launch new maps and scenarios created by the community through this option. It will later serve as a Hub for all modded content. In order for this menu to appear you need to have mods with
• .campaign files installed - otherwise, the menu is hidden. The next release of our modding tools will have a feature that will generate that file for you.
  
• Improved placing buildings in a straight line. If you build a series of small buildings, such as solar panels, one next to another, they will now have less of a tendency to snap out of line.
  
• Added a debug switch `r_show_vegetation_phase`.
  
• Added EntityService:CreateQuickSandSinkMovement(entity, float duration). Allows modders to make certain entities sink underground as if they were built on quicksand.
  
• Added Exor::Optional BuildingService:GetWorkingTime(Exor::Entity::Id building). This method gives you information on how long a given structure has been operational.
  
• Added Lua: expose ResourceManager:GetResource( type: string, name: string ) - to allow you to meddle with resources.
  
• Added methods: SetWeaponAllResistances and RemoveWeaponAllResistances - to change weapon resistances for entities on the fly.
  
• Added `cheat_disable_cultivator_biome_requirement` - to let you grow everything, everywhere.
  

[h2]CHANGES:[/h2]

• Loot can now always be picked up, even with full storage - experimental, to avoid clutter and chaos on screen. Please let us know what you think about this - it’s experimental.
  
• Introduced changes to creature Nests. We improved their materials, effects, and made sure that they always spawn eggs. Also - the eggs now have randomized sizes and rotation.
  They're even more disgusting now.
• After a Bomogan is killed, if it had a projectile ready on its back, it will no longer disappear immediately, but gradually phase out.
  
• Increased starting resources in survival mode on the jungle biome and disabled tutorial objectives. You can now immediately place the HQ and a couple additional buildings.
  
• Increased the amount of carbonium and ironium in starting resource patches in survival mode on the Jungle, Desert, and Acid biomes. The goal of this change is to make the early phase of survival somewhat easier, so that the difficulty ramps up in a more gradual way.
  
• Enabled hedroner, phirian, kermon, baxmoth and krocoon species on the Jungle survival map.
  
• Delayed the possibility of Acidic Yeast Colony objective spawn in survival mode on the Jungle and Acid biomes on easy and normal difficulty settings. This creature was a bit too much for starting players.
  
• Decreased the opacity of objective/event radiuses on the minimap.
  
• Decreased the size of light effects on loot items to avoid clutter/chaos on-screen during and after big fights.
  Before, all loot elements used to be highlighted. Now, only the most important elements (specimens and mods) retain their strong highlight, while resources are much less prominent.
• Floors and power lines no longer cast shadows for performance purposes.
  
• Health bars have been added to all boss enemies.
  
• Item sorting in the inventory screen has been improved. New items receive a little (+) marker and always appear on top of the list.
  
• Loading and Saving popups now have a background behind the text label.
  
• Liquid-related buildings can now be built directly on pipes, overriding them, much like in the case of walls and gates.
  
• Cheat_free_build applies to building upgrades now as well.
  
• The ribbon trail for the hand grenade is now different from the ribbon trail of a projectile fired from a grenade launcher.
  
• Shorter lifetime for acid decals, to match their damage time.
  
• Proximity Mines will sink into quicksand.
  
• Buildings: remove ghost blueprints from drone buildings, they are now auto-generated. This is a game backend change that will make modding easier.
  
• Drones no longer work at full capacity when their home building doesn't. If there are resource shortages, only one drone spawns per building. It will also fly slower than usual.
  
• Added prologue finish hint text, directing the player to play the Story Campaign next.
  
• Tanzanite Concentration mission cultivator build conditions have been set to more 'relaxed'.
  
• Improved the "Mission Complete" display at the end of campaign missions to ensure the player that they have done everything they needed to do.
  
• Mission Complete objective status is no longer displayed after returning to a finished mission.
  
• Added a build menu highlight for the Orbital Scanner in the 'Build Orbital Scanner' mission.
  
• Added a build menu highlight for the Radar Station in the 'Find Titanium Samples' mission.
  
• Increased the uranium treasure volume in the 'Find Uranium' mission
  
• Improved the 'Acidic Plains Reconnaissance' mission flow. The first mission objective can be fulfilled by either destroying the Colony or by scanning it.
  
• The treasure marker in the 'Desert Find Uranium' mission now properly disappears after digging up the treasure.
  
• Improved the 'Acidic Plains Palladium Concentration' palladium vein marker flow.
  
• Reduced exploding mushroom density in the 'Acidic Plains Palladium Concentration' mission.
  
• Added a new custom desert tile for the Stregaros encounter mission and changed the aggro value for the stregaros spawner volume.
  
• Reworked the first Stregaros encounter in the 'Desert Scouting' mission to be more reliable.
  
• Increased specimen and mod mesh sizes by 50%.
  
• The ice crater decal has been modified to reduce noise on the screen.
  
• Floors can be overridden with other floor types - now you can easily create pathways and patterns in the base.
  If you try to replace a larger tile with a smaller one, the larger will be automatically broken up into smaller pieces.
• The floor removal tool has been upgraded to delete only the marked tiles.
  
• Increased Gnerot's resistances during sleep state to prevent players from killing it before it can do anything.
  
• Added a planetary quest reminder to nudge players towards checking out the planetary scanner screen if there are no other local objectives currently visible.
  
• Removed underground resource deposits other than palladium in the 'Find Palladium' mission.
  

[h2]FIXES:[/h2]

• Fixed decals disappearing too early on quicksand.
  
• Fixed missing effects on boss creatures after packing.
  
• The HUD now correctly displays 0% solar power efficiency at night.
  
• The Planetary Scanner screen does not count walls, pipes, energy connectors in the buildings count.
  
• Disabled DirectInput support to avoid problems with steering wheels/HOTAS systems.
  
• SoundPlugin: fixed crash on shutdown during startup.
  
• Building type "pipe" removed from the armory, advanced magnetic stabilizer, and tower ammunition factory. We don't know how it got there in the first place.
  
• Fixed plasma storage and production in Fusion Power Plant level 3.
  
• Fixed AI cost problems in custom difficulty while using the building cost multiplier.
  
• You can no longer perform a planetary jump if Headquarters is missing.
  
• The blood moon event is now correctly recognized as a 'night' event.
  
• Fixed too small collisions in small crystals to enable scanning.
  
• Fixed mech searchlight disappearing after jumping between maps.
  
• Fixed some desert tiles to avoid resources spawning on quicksand.
  
• Plants spawned by the cultivators are no longer scannable.
  
• Ghost buildings no longer cast shadows.
  
• Fixed portal addons not being built when the player is out on other missions.
  
• Fixed an issue in the DamageSystem where weapon with different damage over time mods was not clearing hit effects on enemies.
  
• Fixed an issue in the TileablePrefab system where vegetation spawned from prefabs was not re-growing.
  
• Consumable Sentry Towers no longer play sounds when they are damaged or destroyed.
  
• Fixed a rare issue when a Baxmoth Drone could get stuck in a 'calm' state and fly around forever.
  
• Nerilians are no longer targeted by towers when they are hidden.
  
• Fixed turret jitter in idle state after losing the target.
  

[h2]SOUNDS:[/h2]

• Sound: added EQ filter SoundGraph node (SoundNodeEQBiquadFilter) with LPF
  
• Sound: added HPF to SoundNodeEQBiquadFilter
  
• Sound: SoundNode_ADSR uses SoundCurve as an amplitude envelope
  
• Sound: SoundCurve initial implementation
  
• Sound: SoundCurve prototype (SoundNode_ADSR test: attack + decay + sustain)
  
• Sound: XAudio2: flushing source buffers only during stopping procedure
  
• The floor removal tool now has sounds.
  

Let us know about any bugs and issues you find!
EXOR Studios

We are very happy that the previous Community Modding Spotlight article has been received so well. WirawanMYT’s Expanded Arsenal Mod received a lot of well-deserved attention and praise. Wirawan also plans to develop his mod further and has a major update lined up just around the corner. If you haven’t checked that mod out just yet, you can do so here.

Today we want to highlight another mod that has genuinely amazed us. This one is called ‘Jungle More Variation’ and it has been created by sublimecala13er. We think the name undersells what this mod really does. It is a pack of 12 brand-new tiles for the Jungle survival mode and the Jungle part of the Campaign, which does not ‘just’ give you more variation - it makes you feel like you’re playing an entirely different game!

Sublimecala13er created his map tiles using the World Editor component of The Riftbreaker Editor suite. The pack features a wide selection of tiles for the map generation algorithm. Apart from the classic, open tiles designed for base development, the mod offers some truly original and surprising ‘landmark’ tiles, which make use of our existing assets in new and exciting ways. Let’s take a look at some of them now!



This canyon tile looks quite simple - it’s just four holes in the ground and four passages with a larger, central hub. However, incorporating this tile into your base structure gives you the possibility of funneling and blocking the enemy hordes so that your defenses can actually keep up with the thousands of creatures trying to wipe out everything you have built. Neat! If you’re lucky enough to find resources on this tile, it is also quite easy to create a well-defended outpost. Double neat!



Another awesome thing sublimecala13er has done is using a couple of tiles stitched together to create a larger, more controlled environment. This 2x2 tile is a great place to build a compact, but complete base that is easily defensible and gives you a fighting chance even on brutal difficulty. Large amount of terrain obstacles and natural barriers also means you don’t have to sell your robot body parts to afford walls.



The thing that excited us the most, however, is the way sublimecala13er used the tools and props available to him to create this beauty - an asteroid ‘landing strip’. How cool is that?! This shows you just how creative you can get and what an effect a clever arrangement of simple props could have. 10/10 would visit again.

Sublimecala13er’s tiles are complete game pieces - they do not miss any elements that you could find on our original map tiles. If you want to refresh your next Jungle Survival or Campaign Mode playthrough this mod is for you. We highly recommend checking it out. We also highly recommend trying the editors on your own - sublimecala13er learned everything by watching our tutorial videos and reverse-engineering existing tiles. You can do it, too! And when you do, we will be there to show your work off.

As promised, we are working on a robust mod distribution system that will allow you to publish and download mods in-game. We want to make the content distribution as seamless and safe as possible, while also enabling users across all platforms to take part in the modding community. We will keep you updated on that as we progress, but rest assurred - we do want that to happen.

Looking forward to more mods!
EXOR Studios

Thank you for sending in all your ideas for the Skill Design contest. Just like in the case of the Weapons Contest we have read through all of them and created a shortlist of the best suggestions. Now it is time for you to decide which one we are going to implement in the game!

Here are the candidates that we have preselected. The descriptions are just to give you a general idea of what this skill/consumable could work like in the game. They do not represent the final design, as that is likely to change during development. Take these descriptions as an ‘artistic vision’, rather than actual descriptions. As always, please take them with a grain of salt - we might not be able to implement them in this (or any) form, but we will do our best!



[h3]Up first - Decoy - suggested by: Arun, Ravick, Space Jesus, Sage - Blindpsyco, frognik, Stephan Burczymucha[/h3]

This skill would allow Mr. Riggs to leave behind a device (a holographic projection, a cardboard cutout, you name it) that would take the enemy creatures’ attention away from The Riftbreaker and their base structures for a limited time. There is a lot of potential for upgrades here - we could make the decoy explode at the end of its lifecycle, or add a small tesla generator that would deal energy damage to creatures that get too close. The Decoy has the potential to unlock a lot of variety in combat, giving you the ability to divert groups of enemies.

[h3]Next idea - Directional Shockwaves - suggested by: Arun, Diminutive Jerrymson, Bonegrinder, Sage - Blindpsyco, Kaldo[/h3]

Let’s say that you’re equipped with a Flamethrower and a Plasma gun. You’re peacefully exploring and researching a new area of Galatea 37. All of a sudden, the ground starts shaking and an enormous hostile alien emerges from underneath the ground. You start blasting, but alas - it turns out that the creature is resistant to fire and energy damage. The situation seems dire, but luckily, you have another trick up your sleeve! This new activated skill allows you to launch a directional attack imbued with the element of your choice, acid, for example. You press the button. KA-POW! It was super effective! The day is saved. Adding an easily controllable elemental attack that you could equip would help you prepare for creatures of varying resistances, making it an interesting choice.

[h3]The third one - Core Overcharge - suggested by: SenorRagequit, Beta_Krogoth, adder007usa, Denizan11, frognik[/h3]

POWER… OVERWHELMING… This skill would allow Mr. Riggs to boost his Fusion generator, sending his sophisticated circuitry to absolute overdrive, temporarily increasing some of the weapon stats, such as rate of fire and damage. This skill would have a lengthy cooldown but might give you an edge while facing a horde that turns out to be stronger than expected. Cool visuals included.

[h3]Up next - Temporary Barriers - suggested by: Mirado, hebeach89, Darklight[/h3]

This one goes out to everyone whose first reaction to the incoming flood of alien creature horde was to stack sandbags and seek shelter. These consumables would allow you to set up sizeable barriers that no one could pass through, increasing the complexity of the battlefield and giving you more options to outsmart the attackers. For example, if you see a horde trying to get through a narrow passage, you could block them off with a couple of well-placed, temporarry barriers. Simple, but effective!

[h3]The last one - Bioscanner Turret/Drone (TBD) - suggested by: Ravick, YamiryuuZero, Oddux, SenorRagequit[/h3]

Exploring and gathering information is an important aspect of the mission for a lot of Riftbreakers. The necessity to drop all activities in order to go scanning the fauna and flora discourages a lot of more action-oriented pilots. These consumables are the solution to that problem. Just drop one of these devices in the field and it will automatically try to scan all the species within the radius of operation. This way, you can still gain research samples and the bonuses that come with them, while not giving up on other activities on Galatea 37. Win-win!

[h2]Which skill/consumable would you like to see implemented in the World Expansion 1? Vote here: https://forms.gle/PTf6ungtoAgeEwWg9

Voting ends on Monday at 11 AM CET.



We hope that everyone will find something interesting in this selection. We believe that all of these would benefit the game greatly, so everybody wins regardless of which skill gets chosen. Plus, we are planning a lot more skills and consumables of our own, so stay tuned for more information on that!

Cheers,
EXOR Studios

Thanks to your awesome feedback we have managed to track down and fix some bugs that have been troubling you in the latest build of the game. We also managed to improve some visual effects, which should result in better visuals and performance. We hope that this patch will improve your experience with The Riftbreaker. Keep your feedback coming! We're doing our best to correct as many mistakes as we can, and your help is invaluable to us.

[h2]The Riftbreaker Maintenance Patch, January 31st, 2022. Binaries #501, Package #501. Changelog:[/h2]

• Seasonal popup now has an icon that represents the actual event.
  
• The G2 floor went missing last update. We found it and put it back in place.
  
• Fixed collisions in some small crystal models to allow easier scanning.
  
• The ribbon trail of the hand grenade is now different from the ones launched from the Grenade Launcher weapon.
  
• Acid decals now have a shorter lifespan to match the damage time.
  
• New sound for launching a hand grenade.
  
• New sound for the Research Station.
  
• New effects for the Research Station.
  
• Animations turned on in the Research Station.
  
• New sound for gates opening and closing - hydraulics changed to pneumatics.
  
• Carbonium and Cobalt deposits minimap colors changed, so that you can differentiate better between the two.
  
• Optimized (performance and visibility) effects for special dash types - smaller lights, smaller particles, less particles.
  
• Thunderstorm event - new sound, tweaked effects, stronger wind.
  
• Dust storm - better colors, reduced density.
  
• Reduced density and height of effects attached to big cryo decals
  
• Fixed some desert tiles to avoid resources spawning on quicksand
  
• Several fixes for minor errors and crash bugs.
  

Thank you,
EXOR Studios

We're super happy to present you with the first large update of The Riftbreaker in 2022! The Lunar New Year update brings, among many others, a new seasonal event, an all-new Statistics Screen, as well as many tweaks and optimizations to enhance your experience.

Let the festivities begin!

As soon as you launch the game after this update, you will be greeted with a message that will inform you about the Lunar New Year event. Similar to the Christmas celebration that we held just a month ago, this is a purely cosmetic event to spice up the Galatean atmosphere a little bit. Some of the basic structures in your base will be replaced with special, seasonal versions. Enjoy the premium wooden floors, designed by the best carpenters in the galaxy. Frighten your enemies with your new Sentinel Towers, which now have golden tiger heads instead of their regular turrets. Let the light of the paper lanterns warn up the night.



If this seasonal event is not your jam, you can turn it off in the options menu at any moment. You won't miss any content because of this.

Additionally, we have added two entirely new skins for Mr. Riggs! You can get them by redeeming the codes TIGER and SPRING in the options menu.

The code SPRING will unlock this skin for you. Gold and red really work well together for some reason.

The code TIGER will unlock this skin for you. Just look how happy Mr. Riggs appears with that... massive predator painted on his windscreen!

Another addition to this update is the Statistics Screen. You can access this screen at any point during gameplay and also after a finished Survival run. The stats will give you all the useful data we could think of about Mr. Riggs, your buildings, and the enemy creatures. This will allow you to analyze your tactics on a much more factual basis, showing you exactly what works and what doesn't. As always, if you have any requests or see any areas we could improve when it comes to this screen, please let us know.



The update also comes with numerous tweaks and fixes for many of the problems that you let us know about, including the ability to switch back from Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) to Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA). Some players disliked the overly smoothed-out look of TAA and the ghosting that it could cause. If you experienced these problems, please try using FXAA and see if it works better for you.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Check out this great video to learn more about Anti-Aliasing techniques!

Changes in this build are not limited to technicalities only. After receiving tons of feedback regarding the energy system in The Riftbreaker, especially in case of a power shortage, we have done a lot of work on it. The energy priorities are much more logical and predictable now. For example, the energy network will prioritize AI hubs instead of defensive towers, as towers can't work at all if AI hubs are inactive. This should result in a much more natural experience and save you some trouble in those tight situations.

These are, of course, just a couple of changes that we made to the game over the past few weeks. You can check out the full changelog at the end of this news article. We are waiting for your feedback and reports.

Now, back to work on the World Expansion and online co-op...
EXOR Studios

[h2]The Riftbreaker, Lunar New Year Update, Package #106, Binaries #498 Changelog:[/h2]

[h3]FEATURES[/h3]

• The Spring Festival is here! A new seasonal event has arrived in Galatea 37. Celebrate with two new Mr. Riggs skins (unlock them with codes TIGER and SPRING), new lamp models, new floor patterns, new Sentinel Towers, and even a custom weather event! Just like the previous winter seasonal event, this is purely cosmetic and entirely optional.
  
• The mouse cursors implementation has been completely reworked. It is now much more responsive and faster, reducing lagging and any other potentially unwanted behavior.
  
• The Statistics Screen has been reworked and added to the in-game menu and the end game screen.
  
• The full version of the game and the Prologue now feature different main menu backgrounds to differentiate more easily between the two.
  

[h3]CHANGES[/h3]

• We re-enabled the option to change the anti-aliasing method from TAA to FXAA. Use it if you dislike the minor TAA ghosting artifacts. Enabling FXAA will prevent you from using FidelityFX Super Resolution as it requires TAA.
  
• The energy priority system has been dramatically improved. Previously, in the case of an energy shortage, the buildings would come on- and offline semi-randomly in case of an energy shortage. Now, it’s more granular and predictable, with AI hubs taking priority over defensive towers.
  
• Changed the radius of the objective marker in the Tanzanite Concentration mission from 100 to 10 meters.
  
• Adjusted the minimum number of spawned Cryogenic plants in the Magma Find Samples mission.
  
• Deployable Sentry Guns are more visible now, thanks to tweaked visual effects.
  
• Temporary (green) Rift Portals are now light emitters.
  
• Adjusted fade-in and fade-out timings for dynamic decals - blood splats, explosions, and similar.
  
• Reduced the amount of hitpoints for large Magnetic Rocks, making them easier to deal with.
  
• Menu screens have been adjusted to fill the screen space better on non- 16:9 aspect ratio displays.
  
• Ammo research requirements added to the Corrosive Gun, the Cryogenic Atomizer, the Nuclear Launcher, and Swarm Missiles. This is to prevent a rare scenario where you could develop a weapon but have no means of producing the ammunition required.
  
• Loot from Acidic Yeast should be more visible now.
  
• Planetary Screen is now hidden in Survival Mode and the Prologue.
  
• Bigger chance for "something useful" in Bioanomalies (skills, skins, etc.), instead of random resource caches.
  
• Additional Bioanomalies spawn in on bigger maps.
  
• Requirements are now visible for a couple more items in the Alien Technology research tree.
  
• The Acidic Yeast can now destroy any non-acid-resistant floor.
  
• When the player tried to upgrade the Headquarters building without the necessary resources to do so, they would get the warning pop-up, just as if they could afford the upgrade. This is no longer the case.
  

[h3]FIXES[/h3]

• Fixed an error that caused some meteors to spawn double decals.
  
• Fixed collision of multiple small vegetation pieces to improve scanning with the Bioscanner.
  
• Fixed AI core cost errors that happened while using cost-reducing gear, like Maintenance Tools.
  
• The Cryo Station no longer takes damage shortly after being built on the Magma floor.
  
• Fixed an error that happened when deleting saves through the main menu.
  
• Nurglax Drones are no longer selectable.
  
• Fixed the Uranium Ore icon in research.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused problems with the Build Menu focus after using a hotkey while building.
  
• Floors no longer cast shadows, which should result in performance improvements.
  
• Fixed multiple issues related to minimap zooming.
  
• The buttons on the Journal screen now correctly display their corresponding tooltips.
  
• 'Remove from the research queue' button has been fixed.
  
• Fixed a large number of minor errors and crash bugs.
  

[h3]SOUNDS[/h3]

• New sound added for gates opening and closing.
  
• The sound framework has been reworked entirely, eliminating many issues and crashes that happened before. Please let us know if you notice any strange behavior regarding sound.