The Riftbreaker News

Hello Riftbreakers!

We have a lot of great news for you today. Let’s kick things off with the most important one: The Riftbreaker will be released in fall 2021. The game is very close to reaching the ‘feature complete’ status, which means that our internal development build is playable from start to finish with just a few functionalities left to be finished. We are currently focusing on filling the game with final content and balancing the final game mechanics for the campaign and the survival mode. You can see some of this new content in our latest trailer!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Ready for more news? Great! The Riftbreaker will be released simultaneously on PC, Xbox Series X|S consoles, and PlayStation 5. Our initial plan was to release console versions at a later date, after the PC release. Thankfully, the power of the next-gen consoles has changed our minds - they are able to handle The Riftbreaker with all its features with minimal changes and optimizations, reducing the required amount of work. In addition to that, we will be releasing physical, disc versions of the game for both Xbox and PlayStation thanks to our partnership with Maximum Games. Box copies of the game will be available globally on day 1.



Did you really think we’re done with the news? Not a chance! We are also releasing a huge content update for the closed Alpha build of The Riftbreaker. It’s one of our biggest updates yet, introducing the new research tree and a complete balance shakeup. You can read the complete changelog at the end of this article. As always, this is accompanied by a new wave of Alpha invitations. Check your Discord messages to see if you got one! The Prologue version of the game will receive its update at a later date. We will also have some extra opportunities for you to get Alpha keys, so if you haven’t joined www.discord.gg/exorstudios, you definitely should do so!





[h2]Features:[/h2]

• Completely redesigned research tree with new inventions, new upgrades, and new weapons (over 250 research items instead of the previous 60). More info in the articles here and here.
  
• New creature species added to survival: Bomogan, Gnerot, Baxmoth, Kermon, and Krocoon. They are now included in survival attack waves and mix things up by a lot!
  
• New types of towers have been added to the game. You can now build and use rocket, plasma, laser and minigun towers. Oh, and there's also the heavy artillery - 2x2 size, shoots nuclear shells. You're welcome.
  
• Vegetation lifecycle has been introduced. The plants that get cut down will grow back over time. This makes plant biomass power plants more viable even without access to flora cultivators.
  
• The First version of mech upgrades added to the game. There are lots of modules you can now research and install in the Mecha-Suit. They grant various bonuses that are also randomized.
  
• Added a penalty for player dying. Upon death, the player now drops equipped items based on the difficulty level. The player can then pick their items back up from the ground.
  
• Higher levels of HQ added to game - 5, 6, 7. These are required for downloading and researching advanced technologies.
  
• Added steathComponent support. It allowed us to introduce invisible units and also give Mr. Riggs items that engage an invisibility cloak.
  
• New effects for the geo scanner - it can now also detect enemies hidden underground. It will flash red instead of blue and play a different sound if that happens.
  
• DamageSystem: add DamageEffect::REFLECTED. You can now install new armor modules in your Mecha-Suit that will deal a portion of the damage you take back to the attacker.
  
• Save system has been refactored. Saves take up less space, they are more robust and include a screenshot for easy navigation in the menu.
  
• Particle effects now scale with damage. More damage - more boom.
  
• Added support for damage resisted status. Creatures with elemental resistances will take a % amount less damage, according to the resistance value.
  
• Proper display of disabled grid based on building exclude terrain types. What this means is - if you can't build somewhere, you will immediately see why because of icons on the building grid.
  
• Bestiary screen added - more information in the article.
  
• Added new music - the adventure playlist.
  
• Added Ribbon System - it allows us to create more aesthetically pleasing energy trails (eg. like the one in the sword attack).
  
• New and better attachments with level numbers have been added to a lot of buildings.
  

[h2]Changes:[/h2]

• Reworked Survival mode difficulty
  
• Big weapon balance iteration
  
• Rebalanced resource drops from monsters and environmental objects
  
• Rebalanced crafting costs
  
• Crafting of consumables is now manual instead of automatic
  
• Handheld shield item and forcefield item category removed. Forcefield stat has been added to armor properties.
  
• Repair items now have a much longer cooldown. This nerf is offset by adding many items that have regenerative properties.
  
• Geothermal vents are now more visible on the minimap.
  
• Minigun - default piercing turned off
  
• All advanced, superior and extreme weapons rebalanced:
  burst rifle nerfed - piercing and projectiles per burst
  swarm missiles nerfed - splash radius, fire rate
  laser buffed - damage multiplier cooldown, piercing, damage
  railgun buffed - beam width, fire rate, damage
  rocket laucher buffed - splash radius, damage, fire rate
  shotgun buffed - range
  small machinegun buffed - damage
  grenade laucher buffed - damage
  
• The inventory screen has been changed visually - the mech now has an idle animation and some extra effects have been added. There are less colors in the item lists.
  
• The "run" sound is turned on only when the monsters move fast.
  
• Blood effect templates for all kinds of monsters - particles and decals.
  
• The Rift Portal now costs 25 carbonium.
  
• Splash damage changed to area damage in ResistanceComponent.
  
• Physical damage changed to area damage in the nuclear mine.
  
• Fixed uneven storage space for solid resources.
  
• Loot is now conditional - certain items will drop only after requirements are met.
  
• The Canoptrix Spawner has been significantly improved - the effects are better, the model changes as it receives damage, destructible parts have been added.
  
• CrashReporter: add content corruption warning. This lets us know if the game files were okay at the time of your crash.
  
• Water or supercoolant is now required by the nuclear powerplant.
  
• Radiation damage added to nuclear explosions.
  
• Animal biomass powerplant gives more energy.
  
• Changed the cluster projectiles spread angle defaults. You can now aim with the ricocheted projectiles.
  
• Rare resources are not needed for crafting - all items require only carbonium and ironium (this is temporary, rare resource costs are coming soon).
  
• High-level weapons are much more expensive.
  
• Special weapon and ammo stats can only be added by mods - lifesteal, cluster, auto-aim, homing, splash, time damage, stun.
  
• Tweaked mech ammo production time.
  
• Smaller mech ammo storage and ammo production
  
• Elemental mod effects added to muzzle, hit, and projectile effects for weapons with projectiles
  
• Announcement timeouts increased to avoid audio spam.
  
• liquid_pump new model (textures, meshes, material)
  
• Target effect added to the grenade launcher.
  
• Repair kits are now more expensive, but they do not require animal biomass for crafting.- Changed the HQ portal to an energetic version - it had a metal frame before.
  
• Building cap added to armory, comms hub, and laboratory. It can be increased by researching higher levels of these buildings.
  
• All prop file names and references to those files have been standardized and moved into their proper folders. This is a huge change that included over 40000 operations on files. Hopefully, the folder structure will be much clearer to you now. The caveat is that old mods will no longer cooperate with this new file structure.
  
• The prologue mission received its own version of the research tree. Try to break it. NOTE: we're still talking about the prologue mission in the Alpha 5 build, not the free prologue. We will update that version too at a later date.
  
• Removed HQ requirements from most buildings.
  
• New version of proximity mines. They require a couple of seconds to arm themselves after being placed down. They can be destroyed by creatures in that time. No more running into a pack of canoptrix and blowing them up at will!
  
• The emergency explosions skill can be researched and crafted in four rarity levels, each with different stats.
  
• water OR supercoolant is used by fusion and nuclear powerplants and magnetic stabilizers
  
• The creeper is now more intelligent, actively growing towards your base
  
• Building limits can be upgraded by completing research for the armory, research lab, and comms hub
  
• New crafting costs added to all skills, consumables, and upgrades
  
• Tweaked water filtering plant - resources input/output ratio is more reasonable now
  
• Longer cooldown for power jumps and special dash to prevent abuse
  
• More visible uranium damage effect
  
• No floors can be built under the creeper
  
• Bigger death effect for quelver
  
• Disconnect the save system from the AdaptiveMusicSystem - being stuck in a 'battle' playlist will no longer prevent the game from saving your progress outside of combat.
  
• INFINITE PARTICLE VERTEX BUFFER!!! Blow things up as much as you like (and as long as your pc can handle it).
  

[h2]Graphics:[/h2]

• New models for each upgrade level of walls, gates, and towers.
  
• New icons for weapons, skills, and consumables.
  
• Building level numbers are now attached to buildings with level 2 or higher.
  
• Light with raytraced shadows added to the teleport exit effect.
  
• Tweaked the big atomic explosion - smaller, better shockwave.
  
• Refactored CameraShakeComponent - we have a greater deal of control over screen shakes now.
  

[h2]Sounds:[/h2]

• New sounds for many creatures, both old and new.
  
• Changed instance limits on some announcements - if you research multiple items at the same time, you won't get attacked by the same sound multiplied.
  
• Ambient sounds added to magnetic rocks
  
• Mech footstep sounds change with the kind of surface you're walking on.
  

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

• Improved CPU and GPU performance optimization
  
• SettingsScreen: fixed crash on display modes detection failure
  
• Fixed basic tower not hitting air units
  
• D3D12: add support for stretched-scaling modes in GetSupportedVideoDisplayList
  
• HUD: fixed scale/size on ultra-wide displays (action menu, augments menu)
  
• fixed radius_name in pumps lvl 2 and 3 - higher level pumps can't be built next to each other anymore
  
• sniper rifle renamed to High Caliber Rifle
  
• Fixed a lot of bugs with the DX12 renderer, thanks to your help back in January.
  
• Stun time changed from 10s to 2s in all weapons to prevent the player from stunlocking bosses and other high-health enemies.
  
• Fixed uranium shards - damage has been turned off
  
• Menu: targeting 60FPS
  
• Fixed multiple CustomizeControlsMenuScreen crashes
  
• Added Exor::IsWindows10OrGreater implementation - We check this to see whether we can enable DirectX 12.
  
• Fixed fullscreen focus lost with always on top applications
  
• Better and much cheaper lava pool effect - this reduced the performance hit in lava regions.
  
• DisplayRadiusSystem: fix tower range on the minimap - The minimap used to show the range of towers twice as big as they really are.
  
• Fixed AMMO_COST mod stat - it now properly give you a chance to fire a bullet for free!
  
• Inputs: fixed input leaks from "Pause" to "Gameplay" state.
  
• Fixed artillery idle turret rotation. Artillery Towers in idle state aim upwards.
  
• fix load game after failed game - you can no longer get stuck in the load game screen after losing and trying to reload your last save.
  

Hello Riftbreakers!

Last week you had a sneak peek at one of the most disturbing inhabitants of Galatea 37 - the Phirian. Well, to be completely honest we showed it to you even earlier, back in September, as a little Easter egg in one of our other news pieces. To be fair it was well hidden - which is fitting. Phirians are not the most sociable creatures on the planet. Today let’s take a more detailed look at this mysterious creature and discover all the different ways they are going to try and ruin your day.

All Phirian variants with the mech for scale. The mech is 5 meters tall, by the way.

The Phirian is unlike anything we’ve seen before on Galatea 37. It is a weird amalgamation of a reptile and a humanoid. The creature uses its five muscular tails to push its tall, slender body along the ground, almost like a snake, but the similarities end there. Phirians keep an upright position, giving them a great overview of their immediate surroundings, which means that if you see one, it can most definitely see you as well. This will give you a chance to have a closer look at one of the Phirian’s most prominent features - its arms.

Phirians are actually pretty chill when you are not around...

While the left arm of this abomination would be enough to deter most people from ever wanting to deal with the Phirian, it is the right arm that takes the spotlight. Yes, that’s a sword. Yes, it’s bigger than your sword. No, running away will not help you. Despite being almost 10 meters tall, Phirian’s signature attack is a blisteringly quick dash towards the target, accompanied by a powerful thrust of the sword arm right through the victim. This is preceded by a short preparation period when the Phirian coils its body up in order to get the most strength out of its horrendously long and muscular body. If you can spot that, you can also avoid the strike.

...but if you are around they are going to slash you into pieces, also destroying everything along the way.

The entire upper body of the creature is covered with thick armor-like plates, meaning you will need to work really hard to punch through. Gather all the samples that you find and make sure to use the bioscanner to find the Phirians’ weaknesses. You will need every edge possible in order to combat these creatures. Luckily for you, it doesn’t seem like these creatures’ population is that big and it is highly unlikely you will meet them in larger groups. If that happens, do the reasonable thing - just teleport back to base, pack your bags and go home ASAP.



Just kidding. As long as you don’t allow yourself to get cornered, Mr. Riggs’ equipment and weapons will take down even the toughest creatures you could find on Galatea 37. They may be scary. They may be ugly. They may be gross. But they are no match for you. You are The Riftbreaker, the best of the best, and the entire world is counting on you. Do them proud.

www.twitch.tv/exorstudios

Hello Riftbreakers!

For the longest time our gameplay videos and news articles had one (well, three, to be accurate) things in common - the enemies. We had a small unit in the form of Canoptrix, a slightly larger, range attacking Arachnoid and the beefy Hammeroceroses. This trio was quite enough for us to test our ideas and the initial mission design - especially since we were confined to the jungle biome only. As the game expands, so does our bestiary, including the basic cannon fodder. They seem a little less important than bigger creatures, but don’t be fooled by their small size. They are a very important part of the game design and they take the spotlight today.

They might be small, but they are not safe to be around.

Each biome has its own type of small, close-combat creature that’s a counterpart of our good old friend, the rabid space doggo - Canoptrix. However, they are not carbon copies of each other with a slightly different model. All the small species have their own characteristics, posing a different kind of challenge for Ashley and Mr. Riggs. Make sure to collect samples and visit the Bestiary to learn how to approach them. Enough of beating around the bush, release the gremlins!

KILL THEM WITH FIRE!

Galatean deserts are home to Mushbits. They are insects, living in large colonies and always appearing in packs. These creatures have developed remarkable survival mechanisms to withstand the scorching heat and radiation of their home biome. Mushbits are incredibly quick, giving them a significant advantage over other species while fighting over territory or food. Yes, that includes you - trying to outrun these creatures is doomed to fail. Mushbits’ bodies are covered with an exoskeleton that grants them protection from heat and radiation. Their claws are also made of the same material - it’s razor-sharp, but also quite brittle. Physical damage should do the trick.

Granans jump with joy every time they see you!

Let’s travel to a different part of the planet - the Acid Biome. Life has found a way to adapt to this area quite well and the area is teeming with plants, mushrooms, and animals, including Granans. They are happy little critters that skip around the place using their two short legs. One of their most prominent features is the bioluminescent appendix on the top of Granans’ heads. It is used to lure small animals into the Granan’s giant maw. As if hundreds of teeth were not scary enough, these creatures can also spit acid, albeit at a short range. Better equip Mr. Riggs with some protective armor. On the plus side, Granans don’t handle fire too well, which cannot be said about our next species…

KILL THEM WITH FIRE! Oh, shoot, doesn't work on these guys...

Morirots dwell in the rocky Magma Biome. They are completely resistant to fire and heat, which makes sense, given that they live in areas of high volcanic activity. For a creature this small, they are really tough, so you should fight them only when it is absolutely necessary. And it will be necessary. They are a very aggressive species and will do whatever it takes to get rid of your presence in their domain. We heard good things about cryo mods, you might want to give them a try to make fighting with them a little easier.

...and they just keep coming...

Each creature we showed you today comes in three flavors, from the most basic one to the heavily beefed up Ultra version. All in all, these creatures might be small, but they are the bread and butter of the attack waves and almost all combat scenarios in The Riftbreaker. Do not forget about them while preparing your defenses. Don’t forget about the streams every Tuesady and Thursday, either! We go live at 3 PM CEST on www.twitch.tv/exorstudios. Join our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios to receive notifications about them.

Hello Riftbreakers!

On Wednesday we published a news piece about our research tree redesign. Once again your feedback on the Prologue and streams has given us plenty of valuable information on how to improve the game. That knowledge and a dash of our own new ideas evolved into the research system that is very close to what we can call a ‘release candidate’. However, there is still some work ahead of us and we haven’t told you everything about the system just yet. Today we will dive deeper into the secrets of Alien Research!

Alien research is the third 'tab' of our research tree.

It’s been an ongoing meme that Ashley uses bullets and rockets to ‘investigate’ and ‘research’ the local fauna and flora. We’ve had plenty of lines of dialogue that suggested the importance of gathering alien samples for future experiments. Now the memes become reality and all the specimen samples that drop from fallen enemies have their purpose. Collecting samples of extraterrestrial organisms will unlock access to entirely new technologies for Ash to use during her mission on Galatea 37.

An intense research session.

The samples you gather are analyzed in the Laboratory. We showed this building to you some time ago. Laboratory works in conjunction with your existing Communication Hubs. The results of experiments conducted in the Lab are uploaded back to Houston, where teams of scientists and engineers develop new blueprints for equipment that further enhance Mr. Riggs and your base. These new inventions range from Environmental Shielding modules, designed to protect you from hazardous conditions, to entirely new weapons, such as Gravity Grenades or Railguns.

You won't find toys like these anywhere on Earth.

In order to start researching alien technologies, you need to gather enough samples of an alien species. They do not drop often, so you will need something to track your progress. That’s where the Bestiary screen comes in. Here’s what it looks like:

Oooops, we seem to have leaked a creature... Or did we? Perhaps we showed it to you before but no one noticed?

The Bestiary records your encounters with alien species and counts the number of specimen samples you collected. The higher the number of samples, the higher your Familiarity Level. Familiarity Levels unlock additional information about the species, such as their statistics, weaknesses, resistances and possible loot drops. These levels are also required to gain access to new technologies in the Alien Research category.

If you are not a fan of decimating the alien population of Galatea 37 there is another way of collecting samples - the Bioscanner. It is a non-invasive device that allows Ashley to scan creatures from a safe distance and synthesize samples on the basis of the scan results. It is especially useful in the case of very rare creatures - they do not appear in large numbers and killing them does not guarantee a useful sample. By scanning the aliens first you give yourself two chances at finding out something noteworthy. The same goes for non-aggressive species. There’s no need to kill these innocent creatures. Just scan them and be on your way.

I said there was NO need to kill them, you maniac!

That’s a lot of information to drop on you at once, huh? Do you know what the best part is? These are not just concepts. We have all of these features working in the game already! We are going to update our Alpha with the new Research System soon, so be on the lookout for that! Additionally, you can always drop by on the stream to see how it all plays out in real gameplay situations. Follow us on www.twitch.tv/exorstudios and join www.discord.gg/exorstudios not to miss a beat.