The Riftbreaker News

This minor update introduces an updated version of steam_api64.dll to prevent a startup crash for users running an outdated version of the Steam Client.

Today we would like to share a little bit of a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at some of our work. This article will tell you what it takes to release a patch for The Riftbreaker. We will give you a step-by-step explanation of all the processes, tests, and verification each of the new builds undergoes. We hope that it will provide you with some valuable insight into how we operate, what kinds of issues we pay special attention to and why patching the Riftbreaker does not happen on a daily basis. It’s a long journey from our hard drives to your gaming devices, so let’s dive into it!

You can't talk about patching without mentioning bugs, so this article is filled with gifs of some weird bugs that happened during development. Here's Mr. Riggs discovering his hidden flight ability, for example.

If you have been following our Discord server for some time, you might have noticed the daily developer changelogs that we publish there. They contain information about all our team's changes to the game over the past 24 hours. Currently, we have three major things we are working on: the World Expansion, the Co-Op mode, and maintenance of the live version of the game. With that many things happening at once, it is natural that we will not want all the changes to make their way to the public version of the game. When it is time to release a patch, we choose the changes we want to include and create an experimental version with those changes only.

Here a Gnerot just decided that they want to slowly dive head-first into lava.

The first step to releasing a new update for The Riftbreaker is always identifying what we want to include in the update. These can be new features, changes to existing systems, fixes, and optimizations. We spend a significant amount of time scouting the Steam Discussions, our feedback and tech support channels on Discord, and our social media to learn about any problems. Sometimes we ask for additional information or a copy of your save files. That helps us find what causes bugs and allows us to prevent them in the future. When our programmers fix those issues, the developer version of the game on our repository gets updated.

A classic 'one zero too many' while setting up effects.

It is now time for an extensive round of testing. We usually focus most on the areas that have seen the most changes. For example, if we have been messing with the liquids system, we will do our best to break it and identify potential issues. Apart from that, we also check if all the game elements are working correctly during a ‘sanity check.’ It is a round of testing covering all the game areas where we found issues before. We make sure that all options work the way they should, all game modes are playable, and we haven’t missed anything important.

We heard you like resources, so here's a resource vein inside a resource vein.

Another area of focus is the save system. To ensure that all the changes that we make will not break the compatibility of your saves, we run automated tests on the experimental version. We have 122 save samples made in the 1.0 version of The Riftbreaker - the very first one that was burned to console discs on the 8th of September 202,1 more than a month before the game was released to the public on October 14th, 2021. Moreover, we prepare a set of save samples from each major game version released later. That quickly adds up to hundreds of tests. Our script loads each saved game individually, then re-saves the same save in the new version of the game and tries to load the updated version of the save file. If there are no issues, the script moves on to the next sample. Rinse and repeat hundreds of times. This automated process takes about 5-6 hours to complete. In the meantime, we do our best to break the save system on our own. We create giant bases, name our save files in a weird way, delete campaigns while playing them, shut the game down while saving - you name it.

No amount of testing will ever beat giving the game to real users. Once we are reasonably confident that the update we are working on should not cause any issues, we post it to the experimental branch so that the community can prove us wrong. Since our players play the game on different machines than ours, and in various ways, they often find bugs that would have otherwise eluded us. We fix those bugs, update the experimental branch and check if there aren’t any new problems as a result of the fixes. After we stop receiving bug reports, we move on to the next step - creating a ‘stable’ version.

This GIF is NOT sped up. They just drank too much coffee.

The major difference between our stable and experimental builds is error logging. The experimental build saves quite a lot of data about potential errors. Our programmers use that additional information for debugging. Unfortunately, that costs a lot of performance. For the “stable” build, we create a separate version of the game’s executables that do not keep track of the debug data. Removing logs might seem like a relatively minor change, but it is more than enough to warrant one final round of testing. We run through our checklist again, and if everything seems okay, we publish the patch.

A classic flickering shadows bug.

When it comes to publishing updates on PC platforms, we can make them public anytime we want. We are in complete control of that process. The matter gets a bit more complicated when it comes to consoles (and PC Game Pass). All changes that we make to the game need to be revised by the console vendors’ internal certification teams. They check if the updated version of the game is still in compliance with all the legal and technical standards. This process takes a couple of extra days, which is why you often see a slight delay between a patch arriving on PC versus consoles.

These Zorants decided they were not interested in fighting anymore. They just left.

‘If you spend so much time testing our builds, why are there still bugs in the game?’ you might ask. Well, The Riftbreaker is a very expansive and open-ended game. You can play any way you like and create strategies we have not even thought about while developing the game. With thousands of players trying out new things every day, some of them will inevitably run into errors we had no idea about. This is why the data from our crash reporter is so valuable to us - it allows us to figure out where we made a mistake and fix it in the next patch.

We hope you learned something interesting about our update process, and it has become a bit clearer why game patches don’t usually happen overnight. Let us know about any other aspects of game development you would like to read about. Perhaps one of these articles will inspire you to try a career in game dev?

See you next time!
EXOR Studios

We would like to give you a little sneak peek of one of the quality of life changes we have been working on lately. It is, in fact, one of the most requested changes since the launch of the game. We’re talking about the mass repair, upgrade, and building deconstruction tools. While they may not sound very exciting, we had to solve some interesting issues while working on them, which we will tell you about in this article.

Let’s start with the reason why many players requested these features in the first place. When The Riftbreaker first launched, negative weather effects, such as hailstorms or acid rain, were global, not regionalized. All buildings were damaged because of those events, which was especially painful for players who wanted their bases in pristine condition. Obviously, you could build Repair Facilities around your base, but setting them up takes time and resources. Manual repairs were always instant, but their point-and-click nature has led to negative experiences.

We have the technology.

We realized that we should give our players the ability to repair buildings in a larger area. The idea is pretty simple - select the repair tool, use the mouse scroll to choose the desired size, click once, and have all your buildings repaired in no time. However, since manual repairs were instant, you could easily keep repairing structures under attack, making them virtually indestructible. We needed to make changes to the repair mechanic as a whole. These are the changes we decided to make to facilitate mass repair:

• Manual building repair will no longer be instant. Mr. Riggs will send drones to repair the damaged buildings in the selected area. The drones will repair those structures in a short amount of time.
  
• The maximum repair time is 10 seconds. The drones will repair buildings at a constant rate, 10% of maximum health per second. If a building is at 50% health, it will take the drone 5 seconds to bring it back to 100% condition. This rate is the same for all buildings, whether it’s a wall or a Fusion Power Plant.
  
• If a building gets damaged during the repair process, the process is stopped. This is necessary to make ‘cheesing’ attack waves impossible.
  
• Maximum repair cost stays unchanged - it’s 20% of the original building cost.

These assumptions allow us to keep the mass repair process relatively cheap and quick while avoiding various potential issues.

The game will automatically detect all the damaged structures in the area selected with the repair tool and mark them with a green highlight. Once you give the order to start repairs, the system will try to repair as many structures as you can afford.

Keep an eye on your economy - mass upgrades can be costly!

We decided to give the upgrade and deconstruction utilities the same treatment to keep parity between tools. Once the update goes live, you will be able to use your mouse wheel to increase the area of the selector for these tools. The upgrade tool will highlight all the structures that can be improved and try to make that happen for as many buildings in that area as possible. Obviously, you can still select and upgrade buildings one by one if you’d rather have complete control over the process. The deconstruction tool will simply sell all structures on the highlighted area - be careful what you choose!

Choosing to sell all your defenses instead of repairing them might be a suboptimal move.

The updated versions of these tools are still in development. There are still some aspects that require tweaking and some bugs to iron out. We also want to add a tooltip that will inform you precisely about the costs of the operation you are about to carry out. Plenty of work ahead of us, but there are even more highly-requested quality of life changes coming to you in the near future, including the ‘build max level’ upgrade. We will keep you updated on our progress. The best way to get all the latest news is to join our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios. You can also tune in to our streams - Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3 PM CET at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios.

See you soon!

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

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.