The Riftbreaker News

Hello Riftbreakers!

All three levels of the new Minigun Tower, just chilling.

If you have been watching our streams lately (which you totally should, but no pressure, twitch.tv/exorstudios, Tue and Thu 3 PM CET) you already know that we have started modifying costs, power level of weapons, weapon properties, as well as the creatures’ stats. The game feels much more solid as a result - it is not that easy to reach the state where Mr. Riggs has so much firepower that nothing can hurt you. However, there is no need to worry - we have also introduced new variants of defensive towers! We are going to present them to you one by one over the course of the next couple of weeks, starting today.

Is 'dakka' the term you use these days, fellow young people?

The first one we’re going to show off is the Minigun Tower. That’s right - our favorite brrrrrrrt machine is now available in a building form, plus it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg! The Minigun Tower is a great tool for crowd control and dealing with large groups of small enemies. It’s similar to the good old Flamethrower Tower in its function, however, the bigger range of the new tower makes it a bit more versatile. It also can be equipped with any modifications you could install in your regular minigun, so it is possible to increase the number of projectiles, the amount of damage dealt, or even reduce the ammo cost. Plus, it’s super fun to watch them shred the enemies to pieces!

The area around our testing facility started changing color, for some reason.

Another cool toy that you will get to try out in The Riftbreaker is the Laser Tower. Unlike the Miniguns we discussed before, these puppies are meant to deal with single targets with a high hitpoint cap or a lot of armor. The way the Laser Tower works is very simple - it takes energy from your energy grid (no additional ammo required!), concentrates it into a single beam, and fires it at the target. Moreover, the longer the beam is able to stay on target, the more damage it deals, making it a perfect solution for those nasty Ultra Hammeroceroses. With more and more creatures joining The Riftbreaker bestiary we are sure you will find plenty of uses for this weapon.

Close-range, long-range - doesn't matter. You're about to be fried!

These two are just the tip of the iceberg, we have a lot more towers coming your way and we’re sure you will be eager to try them out as soon as possible. While you’re waiting for them to arrive, why don’t you check out our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios? You can spend some time there getting to know us, chatting with your fellow Riftbreakers, checking out the latest community mods and many more. Remember that being active in the community increases your chances for Alpha access.

EXOR Studios

www.twitch.tv/exorstudios

Hi!

Resource management is one of the most important aspects of The Riftbreaker gameplay. On one hand, you always want to use up the Carbonium and Ironium produced by your factories to expand your base. On the other hand, high-level upgrades, such as extreme quality weapons require you to save up a significant portion of your resource production, so it’s not always easy to decide what to do with your solid materials. However, there is a resource you always want to have in store and that’s energy. Today’s featured building will help you with that.

The Fusion Power Plant and the supporting cast in their full glory.

The Fusion Power Plant is one of the most expensive and most advanced buildings you can construct in your base on Galatea 37. It’s the pinnacle of human technology, after all, harnessing the power that comes as a result of nuclear fusion, the same process that keeps stars alive. In the world of The Riftbreaker scientists have managed to tame this technology and reduced the risk of a catastrophic ( and potentially world-ending) failure to a mere 50% (it will either happen or it won’t). Ashley, our heroine, can take advantage of this tech to power her equipment on her mission to Galatea 37, but it won’t be easy.

Placing Liquid Resource Containers between your Supercoolant Refineries and the power plant itself will give you a safety buffer in case something happens to the refineries.

The Fusion Power Plant has the potential to produce lots of power, but you will need to take care of its requirements first - sufficient cooling and removal of the byproducts of the reaction. It will be necessary to research and construct a couple of specialized buildings in order to do so. The first one of those is the supercoolant refinery. The refinery produces a titanium-enriched liquid with an extremely high heat capacity. This liquid is required to keep the Fusion Power Plant stable and working. Build the refineries, start the coolant production, store it in liquid storage and you’re ready for the next step.

The construction of the Power Plant takes quite some time, so lay down the pipes and Storage in the meantime.

To fully utilize the potential that the Power Plant carries, you should take care of the byproduct of its operations. While working, the facility not only generates huge amounts of energy, but also plasma. You do not have to do anything about it - the Fusion Power Plant will work just fine without the need to offload the plasma anywhere. On the other hand, it would be a shame if all of it went to waste… There is a solution to this - the Power Plant building has a pipe outlet that you can use to transport plasma out of the facility and into storage containers. You can work out a way to make it useful, can’t you? ;)

Putting finishing touches and... IT'S ALIVE!

As you can see, the Fusion Power Plant has a lot of requirements to get going. First, you need to download all the necessary blueprints, then, you must find a good area for all the required buildings, and finally, you need enough resources to set up your new facilities. Jump through all these hoops, however, and soon you will be able to get rid of all the solar panels, wind turbines and other inferior structures you had to use to get by in the early game. Plus, once you get it running it can easily sustain all the buildings required to keep it running, making it almost self-sufficient.

The complete structure, neatly organized and well lit. Good job, Mr. Riggs!

We hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into one of the most advanced technologies available in The Riftbreaker. This technology is also the gateway to another one that is also highly beneficial to your base, but more on that later. Follow us on Steam not to miss the article. You can also join our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios to get in touch with us and the community. We’re very active there and would love to have you on board!

Cheers!
EXOR Studios

www.twitch.tv/exorstudios

Hello!

One of the most frequently asked questions we get about The Riftbreaker (right after ‘What’s the release date?’ and ‘Will there be multiplayer?’) is whether the game will support mods. The short answer is - yes. The Riftbreaker is easily moddable. The longer answer requires a little bit of backstory, so let’s dive into it!

The mods range from inside jokes to entirely changing the way the game plays out!

Did you know that EXOR Studios started out as a modding group? Most of the original members of the team have known each other since they were little kids, growing up in the same neighborhood and attending the same elementary school. Even back then, video games were a major part of their lives, which was not uncommon for kids their age. What made the proto-EXOR different was that these guys have always been interested in how the games actually run, how they can modify them, and what they can do in order to make them different.

The working conditions in the early days were quite different from what we are used to nowadays. That's tea, BTW.

Let’s fast forward a couple of adventurous and turbulent years, filled with working a regular day job, developing mods at night, and fragging each other in Quake 3 in between. D.I.P.R.I.P. was born - a Source Engine mod focused on online vehicular combat in a post-apocalyptic environment. (Fun fact - it was one of the first five mods published officially on Steam, back in 2008). As D.I.P.R.I.P matured, so did EXOR Studios. We became an officially registered company. We continued working our regular jobs until 2007 when we all quit our company and focused entirely on EXOR.

Some buildings that do not have a use in the survival mode just yet have received mods to repurpose them.

‘Why is that even relevant, and why should I care?’ you may ask. Well, since we know what kind of obstacles we had to overcome as modders, we can do something so that you don’t have to navigate a minefield in order to run a modded version of The Riftbreaker. The data structure of the game is not obfuscated at all - you can simply open up the game’s zip files and take a look into all the assets and entities. Knowing the data structure, you can tweak and replace anything you like.

You can change almost anything you like - for example, you can create your own, custom flags or skins for Mr. Riggs.

In fact, there is quite a thriving modding community on our Discord server already! There are mods changing the balance aspects of the game, repurposing some buildings or even adding completely new game modes altogether. What is worth mentioning here is the fact that all these mods are meant for The Riftbreaker: Prologue, which is insane - we would never have expected someone to start developing mods so early, let alone for a demo version of the game! If you would like to check them out join us at www.discord.gg/exorstudios and look for the rb-modding channel.

We have many questions about this one. What's in the box?!

Importantly, we want to support the modding community as much as we can. After the release of version 1.0 of The Riftbreaker we are going to give you access to all the developer tools we use to make the game (Notepad++ is NOT included). With that you will have practically unlimited access to maps, missions and more. Since we’re online almost 100% of the time, you can also ask us any questions you might have directly through Discord, which should make modding the game a lot easier. We’re also looking into a couple of integrated solutions that would enable you to easily share and download your creations.

Mods allow you to end up in a lot of interesting situations...

We hope that this clears up our attitude and plans towards modding in general. Join us on www.twitch.tv/exorstudios on Thursday at 3 PM CET to see some of the mods in action!

P.S. The screenshots in this article have been provided by our wonderful community members: Harkonnen, Frognik and SenorRagequit. Thank you very much!

See you then!
EXOR Studios