The Riftbreaker News

We are very excited by the amazing reception of the Integrated Mod Manager and the launch of the Steam Workshop. We see that many creators are already migrating their work from other content distribution platforms to the Steam Workshop. We are working on making other modding platforms available, which should help with promoting your work even further.

EXOR Studios started as a modding group. Before we moved on to work on our own projects, we published custom maps, skins, and other mods for our beloved games. Our first major project was D.I.P.R.I.P. - a total conversion of Half-Life 2 focused on vehicular combat in a post-apocalyptic world. We love mods and use mods for various games we play on a regular basis. We see them as a clear benefit for the players and the game itself.

However, like most things, modding needs to be regulated. Not all user-generated content is acceptable, and laws do not work the same in all countries. This is why we would like to give you our policy and state our views on modding in general. Don’t worry - we’re not going to drop a 300-page legal bomb on you. That wouldn’t do any of us any good. Instead, we’re going to set a few guidelines to follow. That will save any sort of legal hassle for both you and us.

[h2]The Riftbreaker - Rules of Modding Conduct[/h2]

1. You can use all files from the original copy of The Riftbreaker as a base for your mod. Copy, edit, mix and match all the files that we made available to you to get the required result.
   
2. You are also free to use our assets from our previous productions - Zombie Driver and X-Morph: Defense for the purpose of making mods for the Riftbreaker.
3. You have the moral rights to any part of the mod that you publish that is your original work. If you’ve added a custom-made model into the game, recorded your own sounds, or created a custom script to make the engine do your bidding - it is yours. However, any mod elements that are based on our work are still owned by us. If you made tweaks to a skin or edited a couple of lines in a script - that is still EXOR Studios’ intellectual property.
   
4. We’ve given you access to The Riftbreaker World Editor Suite. You’re free to use those for the purposes of mod authoring and publishing. However, that software is provided as-is, and we can’t make any guarantees that it will work correctly in all cases. We do not take any responsibility for any damage that may result from using this software.
   
5. By publishing a mod for The Riftbreaker, you give us the right to showcase the mod and create derivative works from it. We may publish a Mod Showcase article on your mod, show it off on stream, and display it publicly - all while explicitly mentioning that you are the author of the mod and where to find it. We may also use your mod to create original game content based on its idea.
   
6. Your mod may not contain any of the following:
   
   
   • elements that infringe on any applicable law
     
   • elements that bear resemblance to any third-party intellectual property
     
   • any assets from games not owned by EXOR Studios
     
   • any viruses, Trojan horses, worms, corrupted files, or any other similar software or program
     
   • obscene, indecent, pornographic, offensive, defamatory, fraudulent, threatening, hateful, or blasphemous content
     
   • content that is likely to bring EXOR Studios, its affiliates and products into controversy and disrepute.
     
   
   We know that some of these statements are vague, but we reserve the right to decide whether any of the points above are applicable subjectively. As long as you don’t pirate 3rd party content and stick to good taste - you will be fine. Remember that there are humans on the other side of the screen.
   
7. EXOR Studios does not guarantee that all published mods will be checked for law or the Rules of Modding Conduct infringements.
8. By publishing a mod for The Riftbreaker, you guarantee that you are the rightful creator of its contents and personally guarantee that it does not break any of the rules set by EXOR Studios. EXOR Studios will not be held accountable for any instability, damages, losses, and other problems that might arise from using your mod.
   
9. EXOR Studios reserves the right to revoke anyone the right to author and distribute mods in case there is a breach of the Rules of Modding Conduct.
10. EXOR Studios reserves the exclusive right to make decisions in cases not mentioned in the Rules of Modding Conduct in order to uphold the good standing of the company, the game, and its community.
11. If you have any questions regarding modding and if you’re unsure if your work is compliant with the Rules of Modding Conduct, please contact EXOR Staff on Discord - www.discord.gg/exorstudios.

We hope that these rules will help both you and us in the long run.

EXOR Studios

When we began working on The Riftbreaker in February 2018, we did not expect that almost five years later down the line, we would be a part of something this special. Yet, here we are. Over the course of The Riftbreaker’s lifespan, we have released countless alpha and beta versions for our community testers, over 20 regular updates, and a large World Expansion. But more important than that - we are a part of an amazing community of over 1.000.000 players across all platforms. We are forever grateful for your help and support over these years. Our work is far from over, and we’re trying to make the game better every day.

With the end of the year drawing near, the annual Steam Awards are just around the corner. If you enjoy what we’ve done with the game so far, we would like you to consider voting for The Riftbreaker in the Steam Awards ‘Labor of Love’ category. We have already done a lot, but we are determined to make The Riftbreaker an even more complete game, offering something interesting to all fans of strategy, survival, and action games. Let’s take a look at our roadmap:



2022 has seen a couple of major updates for The Riftbreaker:

• Our latest release added Steam Workshop support and an integrated modding manager to make searching for new content easier and more convenient while giving additional visibility and flexibility for modders.
  
• We have added support for several new technological features: AMD FSR 2.1, AMD SSSR, and Intel XeSS.
  
• We released our first World Expansion - Metal Terror.
  
• We added multiple major quality-of-life improvements like mass repair, upgrade and sell tools.
  
• We ran a couple of community design competitions that added several new items to the game.
  
• Numerous optimizations, fixes, and balancing changes have been introduced - more than we can remember.
  

Quite a lot, but we have even more in store for you in the future!

• We are working on the online co-op multiplayer - the number 1 most requested feature of all time!
  
• World Expansion II is due to arrive sometime at the beginning of the next year.
  
• We’re adding several new management and quality-of-life options, like the Economy Management Screen.
  
• The Story Campaign is going to get an overhaul that will enable you to generate more missions and keep on playing even after you’ve finished the main storyline.
  
• …plus a ton of other features suggested by you in the Steam Discussions, our Discord, and our Suggestion board!
  

As you can see, there is still a lot of work ahead of us. If you would like to support us on our way, please consider voting for The Riftbreaker in the ‘Labor of Love’ category of Steam Awards 2022 and leaving a review for the game.

Thank you!
EXOR Studios

The Riftbreaker Hotfix #2, November 18th, 2022. Binaries #611, Package #239:

This update fixes the crash that occurred if a player wanted to travel to another outpost after visiting it before, dying there and not respawning but immediately coming back to HQ. There are no other changes in this build.

EXOR Studios

Hello Riftbreakers!

This update should fix the problems some of you have been experiencing when loading older save files. We are very sorry that happened in the first place. If you still encounter any issues, we're at your disposal at www.discord.gg/exorstudios and here on the forum. Huge thanks to everyone who sent their save files in and helped us find those issues!

[h3]The Riftbreaker Hotfix, November 18th, 2022. Binaries #610, Package #239. Changelog:[/h3]

• Fixed an issue in the Pipe System that caused a crash that occurred when loading an older save file. It is highly probable that your pipelines and other liquid-based buildings will stop functioning after this fix. Open the console with the '~' key and type in: debug_recreate_buildings 1 in order to get them to work again.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the game to crash when an old model of the Canoptrix nest was visible on the screen after loading a saved game.
  
• Fixed an issue with the minimap that caused the game to crash.
  
• Fixed an issue with ghost buildings in build mode that caused the game to crash.
  
• Fixed an issue in ResourceAccount method that caused the game to crash.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused Morirot nests to spawn from Morirot eggs. For real this time.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused shadow-casting lights to flicker if two or more are visible on the screen at the same time.
  
• Removed an underground liquid resource in one of the jungle tiles that was inaccessible, but played its sound back.
  
• More variables added to the benchmark results screen.
  
• Render System variable is now localized properly in benchmark results.
  
• Reflective properties of Morphium have been tweaked to show Screen Space Reflections better.
  
• Reflective Floor textures have been updated.
  
• Using FSR should no longer produce artifacts with bright particle effects.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused some dialog boxes to overlap.
  
• Chinese fonts should now be properly displayed in the Mods screen.
  

Have a good weekend!
EXOR Studios

Hello Riftbreakers!

We’re super happy to present you with the latest update for The Riftbreaker, and it’s a big one! This version of the game comes with a brand-new integrated Modding Management screen, which allows you to browse and download new mods for the game with just a couple of clicks. The update also comes with new technical features, including the highly-requested AMD FidelityFX FSR 2.1 update, as well as lots of balancing changes and bug fixes. Let’s dive into the contents of the update!

The first and most significant change is the addition of an integrated modding manager into the game. It allows you to browse the contents of the Steam Workshop (with support for more modding platforms coming later) and download mods with just a couple of clicks. You can also enable or disable any of the installed mods through an in-game menu, which means no more copy-pasting zip files into The Riftbreaker’s install folder. The release of this version of the game is accompanied by an update to our Riftbreaker World Editor Suite. The upgraded editing tools allow you to easily upload mods to the Workshop and make them discoverable in the game. You can read how to prepare your mods for distribution in this article. We hope this addition will make modding more accessible and encourage you to experiment with the game. With that being said, let’s check another item off of our roadmap!



The next milestone on our roadmap is World Expansion II, which should be ready at the beginning of the next year. You can wishlist it right now over here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2108630/The_Riftbreaker__World_Expansion_II/

Another bunch of upgrades goes towards the technical front. We have added support for the much-requested AMD Fidelity FX Super Resolution 2.1. The upgraded AMD FSR 2.1 algorithms produce much sharper image compared to version 1.0, allowing you to enjoy a high level of visual fidelity without sacrificing performance. We are really impressed with the results and hope you are going to enjoy it as well. AMD FSR 2.1 is available on all systems, regardless of the GPU vendor.

The next new feature is also a member of the AMD FidelityFX family. Stochastic Screen Space Reflections (SSSR for short) allow suitable surfaces to show reflections of their immediate surroundings. They show up best on metallic surfaces, as well as on the surfaces of liquids. SSSR is a very subtle effect that adds an extra layer of realism to the graphics of the game. We made a video comparing the visuals with SSSR on and SSSR off. You can watch it here:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
This feature is available on all DirectX 12 systems - no raytracing needed.

The update also features a large number of quality-of-life upgrades, as well as balance changes. Most of them have been introduced thanks to your feedback on the Steam Forum, our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios, and the suggestion board at https://riftbreaker.featureupvote.com. While some of them, like rebalancing the damage output of certain weapons, might be a little controversial, we believe that introducing them is the best thing for the game overall. We are continuing our efforts to make the Campaign mode a better experience overall by offering more challenge and open-endedness. Try the game out after these changes - we believe they lead to a much more enjoyable and balanced experience.

Without much further ado, here’s the full changelog!

[h3]NEW FEATURES[/h3]

• Added an integrated modding manager. The new manager is a comprehensive built-in browser that allows users to download mods for The Riftbreaker with just a couple of clicks. The manager screen will currently allow you to browse the mods available on Steam Workshop, but we're also working on supporting Mod.io and Curse Forge. Installing a mod is a matter of just a couple of clicks. It will also inform you of any dependencies - if a mod requires another mod to be present to work properly, we will tell you exactly what you need to download. As for the mod creation pipeline, we have updated The Riftbreaker Workspace Editor to allow direct upload and authoring of mods, all in one place.
  
  
  
  
• Added support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.1. The latest version of FSR allows you to enjoy high framerates at a greatly improved level of visual fidelity compared to FSR 1.0. The advanced algorithms used in this version of FSR greatly reduces the visual glitches and improves the sharpness of the image without that artificial 'sharpen +100' look.
  
• Added AMD FidelityFX Stochastic Screen Space Reflections, or SSSR for short. This feature adds dynamic screen space reflections that add an additional layer of graphical fidelity to the game. You will now be able to observe reflections of buildings and map props on reflective surfaces, such as various metals and liquids. This feature is available for all DirectX 12 compatible systems.
  
• Optimized CPU Performance - new memory allocator that results in more efficient memory use and improved CPU performance - especially during high-intensity battles and late-game scenarios with large bases.
  
• FramePrepareMeshRenderable contention decreased. It's quite a big optimization step, as on a 12-core CPU, the cost per frame decreases from 15% to 5% of the overall rendering time. Your mileage may vary depending on the number of CPU cores available to you, but it's a step in the right direction.
  
• Added radius displays to all defensive towers, repair towers, and shield generators. Selecting one of them in the Build Mode will display the radius of that one specific building. In the case of Shockwave and Flamer Towers, the radiuses of all towers of that type will be displayed to allow you to cover the desired area effectively.
  
• Picker tool added. You can use it to quickly build copies of existing buildings. Press the hotkey ('B' by default) or select the Picker tool from the Build Menu, select the building you want to build more of, and you're set!
  
  
  
  
• Attack waves triggered by interacting with bioanomalies have been reworked. They are now much more demanding and scale, along with the bioanomaly rarity level and game difficulty level. Opening one of these should be a conscious and well-thought-out decision!
  
• 4 additional map tiles for the Acidic Plains biome and 2 additional tiles for the Volcanic Area biome have been added to improve the randomized map generation variety.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• (Modding) Teleport: created teleport machine for working with all entities. Required parameters in the database are: target (as int or vector3), optional parameters: (float) disappear_time, wait_time, appear_time, and (int) portal_entity (for getting a notification on appearance)
  
• Added a Reflective floor variant so that you can enjoy the glorious Screen Space Reflections in your base.
  
• Added level 2 and 3 Heightened Wall Floors.
  
• Mech radar can now be upgraded, and it will, in fact, affect the fog of war reveal range!
  
• Radar Pulse received Advanced, Superior, and Extreme versions with upgraded range.
  
• Added the missing level 2 and level 3 of Biocomposter to the research tree.
  

[h3]CHANGES[/h3]

• Energy Walls and regular Walls now share the same menu tile. We made this change to allow you to use the same keyboard shortcut for both variants.
  
• Mods in Campaign Mode will start dropping only after the Communications Hub has been built. Previously building the Armory was the trigger for these drops, which caused players to end up with several mods and no real use for them for a long time.
  
• Changed the effect for the Rift Station startup sequence interruption - now with more camera shake and louder sounds!
  
• Added sound emitters to liquid resource deposits.
  
• Reduced the chance for mod drops from 'smaller' boss creatures - Nerilians, Stregaroses, and Magmoths.
  
• Orbital Laser and Orbital Bombardment now require advanced resources to be crafted.
  
• You can now reconstruct after being destroyed on a mission that has already been completed.
  
• You can now lose weapons if your mech is destroyed after finishing a planetary mission if you choose to return to HQ and abandon that mission location.
  
• Skills of higher quality now replace their lower-quality counterparts after being crafted.
  
• Orbital Bombardment and Orbital Laser now display a large glowing decal in the targeted area.
  
• Research Completed' popup will now be displayed for 10 seconds instead of 5.
  
• Morphium Towers now need to be built in a 4-grid radius from one another - they were too powerful if stacked tightly close to each other.
  
• Significantly decreased research costs for magma powerplants in the campaign mode.
  
• Reduced the fire rate of the Sentry Gun.
  
• Reduced the damage and piercing values for the Lightning Tower.
  
• Increased the ammo consumption for Laser and Heavy Plasma.
  
• Production times of (almost) all consumables have been changed. Higher quality consumables take longer to recharge.
  
• Sentries and Mini Miners can now be deployed quickly, one after another, but the player's inventory capacity for them has been reduced.
  
• Reduced Bioscanner Turret crafting time.
  
• Storage space for Gravity Grenades reduced to 5.
  
• Lowered the fire rate of more advanced versions of the Mini Nuke Launcher.
  
• Explosive ammunition for the mech has been tweaked - the storage space has been reduced, and the recharge time has been increased. This prevents the players from 'going infinite' with basic explosive weapons and 6 ammo storages.
  
• Changed the effects for Heavy Plasma - the sounds, explosions, and projectile trails are much beefier, making the weapon more satisfying to use.
  
• Heavy plasma charges much faster(shield), but the charged shot has reduced damage.
  
• Reduced the Railgun charged shot charging time.
  
• Reduced the High Caliber Rifle charging time.
  
• All varieties of liquid-based weapons consume more ammo now.
  
• Higher levels of the Armory building are now more expensive.
  
• Obsolete or non-functional modding options were removed from several weapon types.
  
• Player drones damage type changed from acid to physical.
  
• Tweaked Brabit scannable chance and added Alpha and Ultra species to the discoverables.
  
• Increased the Bioscanner scanning chance from 0.1 to 0.15 for some crystals species.
  
• Doubled the chance of large props being able to provide a sample for the Bioscanner.
  
• Added destructible metal sounds to metallic biome destructible objects.
  
• Wall Gates can no longer be overridden by other buildings, such as wall segments or floors.
  
• Changed building upgrade sound to have more variety and to be more robust
  
• Heightened floor can now override basic floors but won't affect your walls and gates.
  
• Pressing 'Escape' in any level of the options menu will immediately take you back to the previous one.
  
• The game will automatically save after typing in the save name and pressing 'enter.'
  
• Radioactive Desert Scouting mission tweaked - only Standard bioanomalies can appear during this mission.
  
• Changed the muzzle flash effect for Floating Mines.
  
• Shockwave Tower's shockwave effect is now more visible.
  
• Added more loot possibilities to the Flurian Boss.
  
• Idle sounds for spawners are louder and audible from a greater distance.
  
• Increased Magmoth Boss' HP.
  
• Different types of player's drones can now be distinguished more easily.
  
• Increased the Stregaros Boss HP.
  
• Removed an unnecessary dialogue line about crafting the Bioscanner in the armory
  
• Sentry Guns and Landmines are now destroyed if placed on quicksand.
  
• Changed the timing of the announcement in the Ash Cloud event.
  
• Increased the creature difficulty boost after finishing any campaign outpost.
  
• Creature Eggs now have a new, fully 3D model.
  
• In order to reduce the length of some localization strings, we replaced the words 'mech' and 'tower' with dedicated icons in ammunition-related information boxes. Thanks to that, the descriptions are much shorter, especially in languages known for long, compound words.
  
• Portals and liquid pumps should now display their operating radiuses after selecting them in build mode.
  
• Changed the radius decal for Magnetic Stabilizer.
  
• Changed some old loading screen tips that were no longer relevant due to gameplay changes. We also added a couple of new ones - for now, they are displayed in English only.
  
• The 'P' key can now be bound to any action in the Controls Customization screen. The only hardbound key that is left in our control scheme is 'Esc.'
  
• We reduced the bloom effect occurring during the thunderstorm event. Light flashes should be much less severe now. Let us know what you think.
  
• Grenades have been added to the player loadout in the Prologue.
  
• Reworked and added many sounds for working buildings.
  
• Changed how ears are positioned in the 3D scene and smoothed out the 3D sound positioning parameters (surround sound channel mixing).
  
• The Canoptrix Nest model has been entirely changed to fit the 21st century better.
  
  
  
  
• The Shield Generator should now finally display its operating radius.
  
• Added magma powerplant research item unlock to magma survival. Players don't have to research an 'empty' node anymore.
  
• Changed spear damage collision timing. The spear should not deal damage when retracting.
  
• Building time for compressors and decompressors has been reduced.
  
• Solar damage after researching Environmental shielding - sun has been reduced from 0.2 to 0.
  
• Missing third base statistic added to Fusion Core's and Magnetic Pistons' upgrades.
  
• Tweaked the defensive drone lighting effects.
  
• AMD FSR 1.0 has been replaced by AMD FSR 2.1.
  

[h3]FIXES[/h3]

• Fixed an error that caused building cubes to stay behind after completing construction or repair.
  
• Fixed the Rift Station not shutting down properly in case of disruption of the resource delivery chain.
  
• Removed the collisions of corpses with buildings. It might cause some bodies to land in your base, but it saves us a lot of technical issues, including levitating corpses!
  
• Fixed an issue that resulted in some tooltips displaying doubled resource values while selling and upgrading buildings.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused drones to get stuck in certain situations.
  
• Fixed the positioning and scaling of objects in the Cultivator Sapling menu and the Tower Mod selection menu.
  
• Added the missing localization string for 'Minimap Zoom In' keybinding option.
  
• Fixed the appearance of quicksand.
  
• Fixed cache counts and instance limits for many types of particle effects in order to increase the game's performance.
  
• Fixed a crash that sometimes occurred when disassembling an item with mods installed.
  
• The HUD will no longer deform when resizing the window in windowed mode.
  
• The initial build menu selector position when playing on the gamepad has been moved from the corner to the middle of the screen.
  
• All types of resources are now displayed properly after entering the building menu.
  
• Keyboard and gamepad shortcuts are now displayed properly on the crafting screen.
  
• Removing items from the research queue or changing their priorities will no longer automatically scroll the queue list to the top.
  
• Fixed a possible campaign mission flow block that could happen if a player attained stregaros familiarity lvl1 before unlocking the find stregaros objective.
  
• Fixed the displayed range for the Railgun. It now properly states that the base range of the weapon is 33 meters instead of 50.
  
• Fixed the positioning of certain weather events to cover the entire screen without wasting performance on rendering particles out of bounds.
  
• Buildings rebuilt from ruins (hidden, optional feature for the time being) no longer double your resource storage.
  
• Pipes should no longer connect to buildings that do not use liquids.
  
• Sentry turrets should now properly sink in quicksand.
  
• Fixed the effects of the Offensive Drone for the mech to match the damage type.
  
• Fixed issues with key binding options disappearing in certain conditions.
  
• Shield Generators now display their operating radiuses.
  
• Added missing icons for Energy Storage building levels and Ironium Factory building levels.
  
• Long in-game dialogs should now scroll properly.
  
• Gamepad building tool shortcuts now work properly in build mode, which allows for double-binding some keys on the pad.
  
• Loading tips should now properly display button symbols.
  
• Pipes built in the older versions of the game should now properly connect to the new ones and vice versa.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when loading a save file made during the construction process of a building.
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred when entering the research screen with no Communications Hub present.
  
• Added the Acidic yeast phrase mentioned in the dialogues to the bestiary sample name
  
• Multiple miscellaneous fixes and improvements that were lost within murky or missing source control commit comments. Press "F" to pay respect...
  

If you've read this article this far - congratulations, you are awesome! If you want to read even more things, join us on our Discord at www.discord.gg/exorstudios. We are waiting there for all your feedback and suggestions. You can also use the Steam Forum, comments and our suggestion board - https://riftbreaker.featureupvote.com. We check all of those daily.

Have fun with the new update!
EXOR Studios