The Riftbreaker News

Hello everyone!

Long time no see! These past few weeks have been very intense for us at EXOR Studios. We have been working very hard on preparing The Riftbreaker for release and we come with some good news for you.



First of all, we managed to prepare a substantial update for The Riftbreaker Beta version. It’s a major update, with multiple fixes and reworks for the systems that needed them most. The Beta 2 update includes a completely redesigned crafting screen, reworked pipe and liquid resource system, lots of performance and memory optimizations as well as multiple other fixes that you’ve been asking for. The full changelog for The Riftbreaker Beta 2 Update is included at the end of this article.



As usual, we are going to celebrate the release of the patch with a Beta giveaway stream. Join us today, August 24th, at 3 PM CEST on www.twitch.tv/exorstudios. Simply be there and be active in the chat to take part in the giveaway - we’re going to gift you codes at random times during the entire stream, so don’t worry if you can’t make it on time - you will still get your chance to get into the Beta.



There is one more thing we would like to share with you today. We are still on track for release this autumn. Naturally, this requires us to shift our focus and resources entirely towards bringing the game up to the level of polish that is both satisfying for us and for you. That’s why we’ve been so quiet lately. The good news is that we’re making great progress and we should be able to announce the game’s precise release date within the next few weeks. There are going to be plenty of events accompanying the release, with some sweet prizes for you to win as well. The best way to keep up with all the news is to sign up for our Discord server at www.discord.gg/exorstudios.

Now let’s take a look at the changelog:



[h2]FEATURES[/h2]

• The crafting screen has received a massive overhaul. All feedback is appreciated.
  
• Pipe system has been reworked. It allows for draining pipes that were filled with liquids and is generally more robust. That being said, try as hard as you can to break it.
  
• All game menus can now be operated on the gamepad using a software cursor controlled by the analog sticks on your controller.
  
• Bioanomalies have been added. You can read more about them here:
  
• When Mr. Riggs loses all weapons in any of his hands, the game automatically equips a basic version of the power fists. You are no longer defenseless after dropping all the boomsticks.
  
• Max FPS limiter has been added to the settings menu. Thanks to this option you can manually reduce the maximum workload of your GPU without enabling V-Sync.
  
• Cursor size setting has been added to the settings menu. There are three available sizes and the game chooses the right one according to your screen resolution, but you can change it manually if need be.
  
• New ribbon effects have been added to all throwables, melee attacks and bigger projectiles, such as rockets. They are fully dynamic and much better at showing you exactly what's going on on the screen.
  

[h2]CHANGES[/h2]

• The Geoscanner and Bioscanner are no longer craftable items. You don't have to equip them either. If you have Cobalt Handling technology, you can use the Geoscanner at any time by pressing the space bar (X on Xbox controller, square on PS controller). The Bioscanner becomes available after researching 'Alien research'. The key for that one is the middle mouse button (LB+RB on gamepads).
  
• The Geoscanner and Bioscanner effects have been improved.
  
• Changed the basic research tree layout and costs:
  - geothermal lvl1 is easier to get
  - solar and wind lvl 2 and 3 are easier to get
  - cultivators are much cheaper to research
  
• Much bigger solid material storage - +200 from +100 at level 1, +400 from +200 on level 2 and +800 from +400 on level 3.
  
• Ground_unit_artillery type added to bomogan, baxmoth, lesigian and nurglax. This is important because:
  
• Ground_unit_artillery set to the highest priority target in artillery and heavy artillery towers. You're welcome.
  
• Baxmoth reworked - less hp, more murderous drones, fixed behavior patterns.
  
• Added Baxmoth attack waves in the jungle survival biome
  
• Increased the minimum number of sludge volumes generated on the jungle map.
  
• Added a sound for collecting dropped weapons.
  
• Less powerful basic fists - much less stun and lifesteal, smaller damage radius
  
• Survival - shorter build time for uranium centrifuge
  
• Tweaked some weapon mods - some are less powerful, some are actually useful now.
  
• Tweaked how foliage fire is spreading for all you pyromaniacs.
  
• Ground textures have been tweaked to give them more contrast.
  
• Reworked alien research tree to allow easier rare resource handling
  
• Split up melee weapons research into separate items.
  
• Blue moon event is really blue now.
  
• New sorting order for resources on HUD.
  
• Increased creature volume respawn time.
  
• Less powerful reflect damage upgrade.
  
• Ammo storage and solid material storage buildings now have separate models for all building levels.
  
• Longer protection time for loot pickups.
  
• Reduced arming timer in mines.
  
• Much brighter flashlight on the mech.
  
• Added support for screenshots in auto saves.
  
• New sound sets for baxmoth.
  
• Fixed krocoon stun animation and changed his resistance from physical to area
  
• Updated skins for kermon
  
• Power jumps - shorter cooldown but less damage and smaller radius
  
• SettingsMenuScreen: `vibration` and `camera_shake` are now power sliders, allowing you to fine-tune the intensity of those effects.
  
• Continue Game' option has been added to the main menu. It will load the newest available save file.
  
• "How to play" removed from options because you know how to play.
  
• Icons added to shielding research.
  
• Fixed names in all shielding researches.
  
• Fixed icons for building limit, towers and bioscanner
  
• Tweaked build menu order for defense category. This is still not the final version of the build menu, but it will do for now.
  
• Laser pointer removed from bioscanner.
  

[h2]FIXES[/h2]

• Improved CPU and GPU performance, especially on larger maps with lots of creatures.
  
• Improved creeper performance.
  
• Improved performance for scenarios with large radar coverage.
  
• Grass models have been changed to have a lower impact on the GPU.
  
• Updated seed for the GPU benchmark.
  
• Small amount of storage added to liquid pumps to fix setups with short pipelines. Pipes are being reworked atm.
  
• Fixes for metal floor 3x3 and 2x2 tiles appearing darker in some conditions
  
• Fixes for memory harvesting and leaks.
  
• Fixed raytracing glitches and crashes.
  
• Fixed a lot of random crashes and performance issues.
  
• Achievements: fix `Walk in the park` not being bound to campaign type
  
• Minimap: `cheat_minimap_teleport_on_click` will work only within playable bounds
  
• Minimap: tweak disappear/appear dissolve timers for cheat teleport
  
• PauseOverlayScreen: fix 'new' adorner being always visible on DatabaseScreen icon
  
• DamageSystem: generate lifesteal events only when attacking units
  
• Launcher: fix for `languages` changes not being properly written to file
  
• MissionObjectSpawner: prevent spawning objects on blocked/taken cells
  
• Achievements: fix crash when equipping extreme quality mod in towers level 3
  
• Fixed crafting screen gamepad shortcuts
  
• Achievements: change `Book worm` trigger to 50%
  
• mine_layer_drone.lua: fix for drone being stuck in `landing` animation pose
  
• flora_cultivator.lua: make sure there is always biomass_sapling item
  
• flora_cultivator.lua: fix crash when selling building
  
• Fixed terrain segments issues (viewport border blinking)
  
• Multiple fixes that should increase stability when raytracing is on
  
• Fixed blocking build menu entry/exit due to psychotic user behavior
  
• Fixed resetting the map to the starting state after save corruption is detected.
  
• Similar items should now be correctly displayed in the inventory.
  
• Fixed a couple of severe memory leaks.
  
• Saves will no longer end up in 'unknown' folder.
  
• Flora cultivator retains the sapling after being upgraded.
  
• A lot of other fixes, changes and improvements that were never logged and forgotten.
  

www.twitch.tv/exorstudios

www.twitch.tv/exorstudios

Hello everyone!

We know how eager you are to play The Riftbreaker. We see your comments everywhere, calling for the game to release already. That’s super awesome because it means that you care about the game. It motivates us to work even harder and to deliver the best product possible. It’s going to take some time, but we can assure you - we’re almost done. In the meantime, we’d like to tell you about some new features that we haven’t shown you before - not to tease you, but to prove that we’re still firing on all cylinders! :)

As you know, in The Riftbreaker you have an entire planet to explore, You will be the first human to discover, research, and catalog the unknown fauna and flora inhabiting this wild world. If you are an explorer at heart, we have no doubts that you will spend some time learning all the Galatean secrets. On the other hand, if wandering about and enjoying the views isn’t your thing, we still have a reason for you to go exploring.

A fountain of loot always brightens up the day.

During your exploration of Galatea 37, you might encounter strange objects with unique properties. Initially, they might look like ordinary rocks, cocoons, or creature nests - but they are far from ordinary. Apart from emitting energy waves, they are covered with an anomalous substance of an unknown origin. Initial scans of the substance revealed that it is actually a living organism, pre-dating anything else on the planet. In fact, the objects under the influence of this organism seem to be frozen in time.

The Guardians range from Ultra-strain creatures to unique, one-off specimens.

The Bioanomalies, as we call them, are great at attracting the attention of Galatean creatures. Before you get close to one of the Bioanomalies you will have to face its guardians. Sometimes that will be a pack of Ultra strain creatures. Ultra strains are bigger than regular enemies, deal more damage, and are much beefier. Meeting those is the best-case scenario for you, though. If you venture far enough into the wild, you will have to face off against unique - much stronger, elemental variants of Galatean creatures. You’ll love them. Or hate them…

You never know what you may find inside.

After you triumph over the guardian, you are finally free to uncover the secrets of the Bioanomaly. The mysterious objects can hold items of great value, that will propel your progress. Most often it’s going to be a fountain of resource shards, ranging from carbonium or ironium to the rarest minerals in the world of Galatea 37. With these newfound riches, you will be able to craft items of immense power and develop new technologies.

What, you thought this cache was unprotected? Think again!

Thanks to the unexplained, strange nature of the Bioanomalies, you can also find other materials inside - including mods, that you can install in your weapons to alter their properties. On top of that, some of the materials that you find will allow you to build new decorations for your Riftbreaker base or alter Mr. Riggs’ appearance.

The Bioanomalies scattered around the map, resource caches hidden underground, and a variety of fauna and flora - they are all there, waiting to be discovered. Exploration pays off on Galatea 37 - make sure to try it out! Also remember to explore our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios and our streams over at www.twitch.tv/exorstudios - you can find some treasures there, too!

Hello!

We are thrilled to announce that EXOR Studios Discord server has been accepted into the United Servers of Discord Alliance! The Alliance is a joint effort from several communities, working together to maximize the enjoyment of our members. It incentivizes active participation within the community and encourages the discovery of new, high-quality servers.



This is all made possible through the use of several bots that help with cross-server communication. Don’t worry though - they are confined to their designated channels and won’t bother you with any pings or DMs unless you specifically ask them to. Let’s have an overview of what this brings to the EXOR Studios server.

First of all, there is the #alliance-chat channel. All messages you send in this channel will be copied and embedded in partnered Discords. This way we can all communicate with each other, without server-hopping and completely seamlessly, all thanks to the Alliance Chat Bot. A team of moderators monitors the chat to make sure that everyone follows the Code of Conduct (available on EXOR Discord in the #important-stuff channel).

Next, we have the #alliance-trivia channel. Every 8 hours, at 12 AM, 8 AM and 4 PM UTC the bot will pick another member of the Alliance for us to go against in a battle of trivia. Everyone can participate! The team that reaches 25 points the quickest wins. It’s a great way to show off your knowledge, learn something new and win bragging rights (and perhaps some other prizes as well).

Then, we come to the real star of the show: #alliance-events channel. This is where you will get the chance to participate in both EXOR Studios and other Alliance members’ events. These events are an opportunity for you to get to know people from other servers a little better PLUS win some amazing prizes, such as Discord Nitro subscriptions and Steam game codes.

As we move forward, we will come up with more ways for you to find new communities and take part in exciting events. We hope that by joining the Alliance we will improve our Discord even more and provide you with even more entertainment and networking opportunities.

TL;DR - Join us at www.discord.gg/exorstudios - it’s more fun than ever!