Sipho News

Hello Sipho society, we have an update!
[h2]Bounce Mutation[/h2]
Ever since the Mutation Creation Contest I've had this urge to implement a Bouncy Mutation. Many shoot-em-up games have this because bounciness is chaos and chaos is fun. You can land trick shots over corners, get surprised by enemy fire that bounces off or even create some Rube Goldberg machines. These are the ultimate goal of Sipho - a collection of mechanics that complement each other and allow creating complex systems for you to have fun with and beat the game.

A new Bounce Stat was added and a Mutation to go along with it

Thus the Bounce Stat has been added - as of now, only used by Projectile weapons - Flak, Sniper, Soul Eater and Sprayer. In the future other Zooids might support Bounce stat too, however, it can be trickier to balance as bounce can sometimes be non-beneficial.
One of benefits of having some Bounce is to guarantee your shots in tight areas. Now what do I use to reach that food?

For Projectiles Bounce works by keeping an internal counter of "remaining bounces". When a projectile hits a solid, non damageable object it checks if it has bounces left and bounces off if it does. If it doesn't - it dies as usual. This works with Obstacles and even with Spikes and Flails - projectiles can bounce off them!

[h2]Aquarium Obstacle Menu Overhaul[/h2]
One of the silent and huge updates we had some time ago was updating Aquarium content. This was motivated by the need to tidy-up obstacle names for future game translations and update the old content in general. As a result we now have a pretty nifty spawnable object categorization with previews:

Notice the pleasing column/row ratio 😩👌

It is now also possible to change at which depth objects are spawned - on, below or above playable surfaces. In future, Decorations and Obstacles should become one category - as spawning Obstacles at non-collidable layers makes them Decorations and some Decorations can be interesting to collide with or even have some gameplay function.

Tooling, like changing depth or moving already spawned obstacles is also something I keep in mind.

[h2]Shady Business[/h2]
One of graphical improvements that I really wanted to do for a long time were shadows.
Fancy name for a simple thing - blurry black outlines that get thicker if an object covers another object from higher distance.

Sipho action happens in deep waters and I really want to emphasize the atmosphere of this depth. While 2D by definition does not have depth we can do some tricks. One of which is parallax to add depth to lower layers - the deeper things are, the less they "move" when camera moves. This trick only works for deeper than playable layer. Playable layer can't have parallax as it would creation confusion around collisions. Higher layer in theory could have parallax, but it felt too distracting. So to add some depth emphasis on all layers at once I added Ambient Occlusion effect. It can be tweaked in Graphics Options for your liking!

There is some good stuff hidden in the patch notes - movement improvements, performance optimisations for late game, secret features.

• Add Tier 3 Projectile weapon bounce mutation
  
• Use Factions to determine what Mutations UI represents
  
• Remove separate debuff drag logic and use stat-baed logic for Muck - fixes spazzing out
  
• Modify third Buginis Boss arena walls to have less sharp corners that Siphos can get stuck on
  
• Add Bounce stat, icons, description
  
• Skill use also gets queried in Fixed Update - fixes skipping input for fast skills when framerate is low
  
• Cache Shell Grower results which greatly improves performance for Siphos with large amount of far-reaching Chitins
  
• Add GetAllNeighborZooids variant with HashSet which has optimized search for Contains()
  
• Destructible objects can be indestructible
  

• Experimental symmetrical building by holding Alt button
  
• Handle single zooid sipho velocities better when trying to move
  
• Update angular velocity after zooid rotations were updated - fixes incorrect velocities at frame-after-frame level
  
• Add ZooidDeep layer and use it for Deep zooid. Deep is no longer affected by Pushers and Twisters. Deep collides with large obstacles
  
• Mines no longer explode on contact with Consumables
  

• Puffer spike thicker
  
• Fix Auto Grow messing things up
  
• Detached/Reattached zooids can get callback
  
• Tweak Tank movement to work with new movement logic
  
• Fix Moss glitching out in certain positions
  
• Fix deformed built-in Buginis Layout "Rapacious Buginis Pig"
  
• Use simpler logic to remove detached Zooid connections when repositioning zooids - fixes moving pistons erroring out
  
• Fix incorrect angular velocity calculation of Siphos when passing through 360 degrees - fixes stutter when turning in Tank movement
  
• Add Consumption flag to skills and make enemies use them to reach food quicker
  
• Enemies use skills if their skill zooid is in range to the target
  
• Grid spawner debug
  
• Remove Whirlpool spawners from Aquarium areas
  
• Experimental PID movement - F11 toggles
  
• Detach Polyp when teleporting Sipho
  
• Fix audio sliders being 99% by default, not 100%
  
• Update Megalocyst description
  
• Rename zooid files to contain Zooid_ prefix
  

• Update Graphics Connector position when initializing - fixes Graphics Connectors appearing in wrong positions for the first frame
  
• Handle Layout generation positioning when main sipho is at zero position
  
• Polyps do not damage dead damageables - fixes an error spam
  
• Align Polyp mover icon with base
  
• Do not attempt growing new zooid again when ending growth - fixes growing new zooids twice at once
  

• Fix Head zooids costing nutrition when they shouldn't
  
• Display Health Regeneration stat value correctly
  
• Tweak Decoration Coral 3 vertex animation
  
• Fix two custom spawning related bugs - Aquarium spawns and desspawns should now persist
  
• Select Layout preview generator position even more robustly
  
• Initialize Zooids with correct indexes - fixes Piston incorrectly expanding/contracting when spawned
  
• Override main Piston connection with thicker looking connection and non-main with thinner
  
• Zooids can have Graphics Connector overrides for directions
  

• Brighten up Main Menu postprocessing effect
  
• Use campaign spawners for Aquarium areas
  
• Fix whilpool pop when Area Clears
  
• Separate Ancient Rock bottom objects from Rocks
  
• Make deep connections stiffer and correct outline depth
  
• Alien Rock Bottom desaturates with depth
  
• Wacky workaround for not spawning extra empty spaces for Spawnable box
  
• Better Aquarium spawn groups and their UI panels
  
• Cell fitter now supports max cell count constraint
  
• Tweak Obstacle names
  
• Tweak Cooldown Recovery powerup icon
  
• Move Environment Object Variant info onto the same component
  
• Set Aquarium background grid depth to spawnable depth
  

• Alien rock bottom is an obstacle now
  
• Projectile starting health is determined by Penetration
  
• Get unseen position for Sipho preview generator
  
• Cancel snapshot generation when leaving death screen
  
• Holes always spawn things at zero depth
  
• Fix Alien Rock Bottoms overlapping other objects
  
• Rocky spikeball won't spawn in regular levels yet
  
• Tweak boss battle spawn positions
  
• Environment Object shader again has option not to write to depth - fixes some effects overwriting depth
  
• Use RectMask in Aquarium menu instead of per-pixel mask
  
• Fix powerup effects and add missing icons
  
• Display depth tooltip when selecting depth in aquarium
  
• Reorder some spawnables in Aquarium UI
  
• Don't localize intermediate env object names
  
• Don't spam instanceID reimports
  
• Fixup Leech NaNs?
  
• Add Spike ball
  
• Do not localize instances of prefabs as they can have random names
  
• Flower decorations
  
• Report when new localization keys are added
  
• Correct Deeper Rock depths
  
• Reset currents scale when scaling parent object - preserves correct Z
  
• Fix Currents visuals
  
• Alien rock bottom decoration tweaks
  
• Translations
  
• Prepend to filename tool
  
• Add more decorations to spawn in Aquarium
  
• Cleanup decorations
  
• Lava Rock tops correctly inherit from prefab
  
• Add capitalize function to asset renaming window
  
• Do not localize environment object names directly
  
• Aquarium spawning groups up objects with the same name into expandable categories
  
• More obstacle cleanup
  
• More obstacle cleaning up
  
• Aquarium spawn effect has correct depth and group up spawnables
  
• Bump year in Main Menu
  
• New year - reimport all prefabs
  
• Intestines tweak
  
• Correct Piston skill icon
  
• Minion siphos are very angry
  
• Do not include backgrounds to Cra'Than sprite atlas
  
• Add Cra'Than and Buginis environment sprites to atlases
  
• Fix incorrect environment object world position calculation
  
• Aquarium spawns at Mid depth (Z=0) by default
  
• Fix energy regen pickup effect clouds rotating and clipping
  
• Reenable Deep outline
  
• Skin flowers are nasty again
  
• Fix flower 2 visuals
  
• Always output top facing normals for particle sprites
  
• Vertex anim support for environment object shader (shouldn't be used though)
  
• More names fix
  
• Correct Aquarium depth slider values
  
• Revert translations
  
• Obstacles now have variants in their names
  
• Dither fix again
  
• Add Toggle UI button - default bind F12
  
• Advena rocks use correct depth-supported material
  
• Add depth spawning assets
  
• Add recorder that works
  
• Polyp Zooid descriptions and visual tweaks
  
• Ripple particles have no size limit - they were incorrectly clamped before
  

• Same
  
• Identifyable database uses assset postprocessor to setup references
  
• Fix Decoration dithering
  
• Disable double buffered positions - rotation constraint needs to be fixed first to be sure this has no additional drawbacks
  
• Don't overtiffen rotation constraint when entering growth mode - currently it has incorrect values, so overtstiffing it breaks physics
  
• Revert to more stable soft body constraint calculation
  
• Allow changing depth when spawning in Aquarium
  
• Leech uses interpolated Zooid transform position for graphics
  
• Make sure renderer clones are removed
  
• Revert translations
  
• Add Debug dump all mutations
  
• Gather identifyables when building
  

• Tweak depth layers
  
• Ripples do not sample from things that have higher depth
  
• Add alpha/depth dithering
  
• Make Advena head selection bottom rocks stay at the bottom
  
• Use environment shader functions in depth normals shader to get correctly aligned depth values
  
• Fix Buginis Boss first boss fight particles not being spawned when the fight ends
  
• Reset projectile health when initializing launched projectiles
  
• Move skillbind permutations away from localized strings
  
• Translation cleanup
  
• Use all caps font in Dive button
  
• Add Recorder package
  
• Constraint tester v2
  
• Extract distance constraint function
  
• Use custom shader for rendering depth
  
• Tweak AO default settings
  
• Add Ambient Occlusion setting
  
• Render Ripples at Low depth - fixes ripples overallping collidable objects
  
• Environment Objects and Ripples write into depth
  
• Enable Ambient Occlusion in Postprocessing Profiles
  
• Correct offset falloff and handle inverse orientation
  
• Better constraint tester
  
• Add perpendicular function
  
• Use interpolated Zooid transform positions instead of physics positions when positioning Zooid Growth buttons and Growth Point indicators - fixes them being offset when Sipho is edited in high motion
  
• Fix some nested particle effects getting incorrectly scaled
  
• Support more debug vectors
  
• Extract Rotation constraint calculation method for easier debugging
  
• Apparently I could save one normalization in rotation constraint - more Soft Body Physics performance!
  
• Soften up sentence for The Condemned One and allow it to be included in builds
  
• Apply position and rotation offsets after constraints are calculated - fixes symmetrical builds with contracting muscle zooids spinning out of control
  

Looking through the whole changelog and thinking of "what should I outline for this update" really makes me want to have done this announcement one version ago. Nevertheless, we need to keep ourselves ahead, so here it is - another Sipho update!

In the spirit of celebrations, we have implemented some of new Mutation Contest winning entries. Specifically in this order - Phyllodermic, that reduces Drag stat of Zooids, EF5 Twister that turns Twister into a mild tornado and Reduplicating - which makes your projectile weapons shoot an extra projectile and hurt themselves for the right balance!

[h2]Loving our work[/h2]
Phyllodermic was the first one to be implemented as it seemed the simplest. We didn't have Drag as stat yet, it was a property of Zooid, so we moved its definition to a place where all stats are placed - into a huge ZooidStats data structure. That data structure is modified through all our Buffs and Mutations - meaning that we will also be able to change Drag with the new Mutation. Drag being a negative stat - that slows or "drags" your zooids down, is the first stat to have a negative effect. We had to implement a negative stat concept for Tooltips - increasing that should be a red coloured text as opposed to the rest of existing stats. Having done all that we send a huge thank you, Salreix, for this contest entry!
Phyllodermic reduces Drag by 33% and increases Max Health by 1, as if it was adding a slick layer!

[h2]Twisting mechanics[/h2]
The second mutation from the contest to be implemented was EF5 Twister. "EF5" is a highest, most destructive category for tornadoes, which is a very fitting name to our micro-tornado creating Zooid. Twister was designed with deep synergy with projectiles in mind - to carry them the extra distance to your target and to keep bombs, like Burstopod bombs, close to your foes. Looks like our players wanted some more OOMPH out of Twister so the Mutation was conceived. The idea was to allow Twister dealing damage as if it was a tornado. To implement that we have added an internal damage counter to its Swirls, which makes them deal damage per second equal to the Ranged Power stat on the Zooid. If Swirl kills anything, it gains +1 DPS as if it "absorbed" broken pieces of what it hit and loses 2% of its DPS when damaging something - it "lost" a part of things that deal damage. To balance high power scaling and not to allow Twister become a tornado with a few damage increasing Zooids like Agonizers, we have given it base Ranged Power reduction of 66.6%. That means each damage buff from Agonizers or Zenoplates that give +1 Ranged Power to connected Zooids will only give +0.33 Ranged Power to Twister.

The EF5 Mutation, being a Twister specific can be generous in damage increase, so it gives base +5 Ranged Power and +100% multiplier. Playtesting it has proven to be fun and interesting - it makes you attack less health-regenerating sides of your enemies and use environment Spike-balls for extra damage. Thank you, Vera, for this great concept!

[h2]Reduplicating work[/h2]
Finally, Reduplicating Mutation has been implemented. It makes Projectile (Flak, Sprayer, Sniper, Soul Eater), Bomb (Miner, Burstopod, Muck) and Cloud (Squirter) Zooids fire an extra projectile. This required some rewriting of our projectile-shooting code. Due to historic reasons and incremental development we had unique scripts for almost each Zooid. In year 2017 we started out with FlakWeapon script, which was used by Flak, Sprayer and Sniper zooids. Later on, in 2019 a more abstract LaunchObjectSkill was added for Twister and others. Being more abstract, LaunchObjectSkill was eventually used for more Zooids and become better maintained. To clean up some code, I've decided to migrate FlakWeapon zooids onto LaunchObjectSkill. Mostly everything went fine, we were even able to add little fire effects to each former FlakWeapon. There was a one big issue with Flak Zooid itself - it fired three projectiles already, but with different damage values. Initially Flak had 2 Ranged Power and fired three projectiles - two 1 damage and one 2 damage, which would add up to 4 damage in total - not what tooltip said, nor it made any sense as Flak had 2 Ranged Power. To stay as close to previous balance as possible, I've set values to mimic previous behaviour as close as possible and allow scaling through stats:

Now Flak has Ranged Power of 1.33 and Projectile Count 3 with 60% linear falloff - meaning that side projectiles deal 60% and centre ones deal 200% - 60% = 140%. In total, this rounds to 4 damage per shot.
A note for math enjoyers - the linear falloff creates a "house" looking curve with sum area of 1. With steeper side-damage-ratio the error can sum up to 7% because the function is evaluated per-projectile. In reality, this becomes negligible as damage values are high and rounded. From gameplay perspective, it's usually better to have single high damage projectile as it has more chances to kill a Zooid, so this rounding error can be considered a small nerf to extra projectiles for Flak. So far, other projectile weapons have constant damage across all launched projectiles.

Now that all shooting Zooids have been migrated onto we were able to implement Reduplicating Mutation:
The Reduiplicating Mutation is quite powerful and gives +1 Projectile Count, essentially multiplying your damage output. And there's this broken heart thin- What's this "Strain" stat?

[h2]Strain stat[/h2]
To balance already powerful ranged weapons and not scale them ad infinitum with another cool Mutation, a Strain stat has been added. Its behaviour might change in the future and the current version is quite radically fun:
Zooids with Strain stat will receive damage equal to the Strain value on skill use. Meaning that Sniper weapon with 5 strain will lose 5 health per shot. Then, each neighbour of Strained zooid will receive Strain-1 damage - so the Sniper's neighbour will receive 4 damage. And then further neighbours will get damaged, until Strain damage reaches zero.
This means that if you decide to make your ranged weapon more powerful you will have to balance this extra damage with additional healing - either Health Regeneration or Chitin's Shell. Yes, Chitin blocks this damage and even though it feels like the Strain should be "below" the shell, it makes it up with interesting synergy between Chitin and Strain. A very graphic example of 5 x Reduplicating Mutation Straining Flak
We might use Strain in other places as well - I think it would be interesting to see Soul Eater have 1 Strain if it gets shot empty - this would encourage filling it up and add a bit of strategy to Pusher/Twister and Soul Eater combo. Zooids like Radial, which regenerates Energy when damage could benefit from this anti-stat.

That's it for now, enjoy Sipho and let us know what you think!

• Fix Muscle Zooid trying to get its Siphonophore while being uninitialized
  
• Twister EF5 Mutation
  
• Twister effects
  
• Use stat relevancy for displaying stats in descriptions
  
• Twister can very inefficiently do damage
  
• Melee Grade 4 Mutation reduces Drag and rebalance Powerup Addiction Mutation
  
• Add Charge and Reach Stat icons
  
• Add Phyllodermic Mutation that decreases Zooid Drag
  
• Flail respects Drag stat change
  
• Fix Buffing zooids not being notified of stats changed
  
• Zooid Mass and Drag are now Stats
  
• Scale Puffer transform correctly
  
• Restore Puffer to having 16 connection angles
  
• Update Siphonophore RecentWealth immediately if Wealth changes to higher - fixes Aquarium spawners initially spawning empty heads
  
• Support Polyp-only siphos
  
• Siphonophores no longer store unused stats
  
• Update 2D packages
  
• Muscle Zooids change distance by absolute values - makes Piston and Puffer bit more reliable
  
• New Zooid visual tests
  
• Expand Piston connections only for main connection Zooid
  
• Fix Flail wind-up which would send Flail flying forward when its retracted
  
• Update volatile stats when updating structure
  
• Update credits
  
• Advena mover Radial applies Energy Regeneration buff instead of instantly granting 10 energy per damage point
  
• Make Energy Orb tooltip dynamic so it always refreshes
  
• Polyp damages Zooids it's attached to
  
• Add option to not destroy projectiles on chip
  
• Add Skill energy cost scaling support
  
• Revert back to old pusher behavior - push force vectors are collinear when pushing and concentric when pulling
  
• Projectiles remember pierced colliders
  
• Launch objects at offset distance by launch angle instead of fixed point
  
• Save manually spawned enemies in Aquarium
  
• Remove Mutations from built-in Layouts
  
• Try to fix neighbors stored in Layouts when loading
  

• Essence of the Elders reduces Strain
  
• Tweak Twister damage
  
• Deal Strain damage on the next frame - won't require dealing with dead Zooids mid-skill activation
  
• Add Reduplicating Mutation and its icon - fire extra Projectile, but have increased Strain
  
• Flak, Sprayer and Sniper are now using Launch Object Skill and supports multiple projectiles per shot. Add new shot effects
  
• Use Projectile Count stat with Launch Object Skill Zooids - Burstopod, Twister, Soul Eater, Muck, Squirter
  
• Use generic launch object skill instead of poison sack for Squirters
  
• Display multiplied values when displaying buffs and Mutations
  
• Add Strain stat - using skill with deal damage to the Zooid itself and with fall-off to its Neighbors. Add Strain Icon
  
• Twister Grade 4 Mutation gives base damage 2.5 as well
  
• Twister starts with 2 Penetration (up from 0), lower inherent Twister damage downscale to -300% (from -400%). Twister Swirls that destroy things increase their internal Damage Per Second by 1. Swirls that deal damage lose 2% of their DPS
  
• Earthy Blossoms Area: Spawn mossy bricks only in deeper layers and bright bricks in top layer
  
• Do not apply energy regen percentage buffs if Zooid doesn't have base energy regen - reduces possible permutations for Intercirculatic Mutation
  
• Parallelize soft body mass inversion calculation for 1% performance improvement
  
• Fade-in soft body deformations instead of having them instant
  
• Split some of Projectile logic into separate scripts for modularity
  
• Allow offsetting random time per zooid renderer - more visual variety for animations
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Delay stat change update to the next frame on Zooid to prevent stack overflow
  
• Fix Shell created effect appearing in wrong places
  
• Remove hack in zooid shader which made zooids fully opaque if they were black
  
• Fix Twister incorrectly counting objects that haven't been damaged as pierced
  
• Handle Leeches dying from leeching on their targets
  
• Premultiply alpha of all Zooid and Environment sprites that do not have semi-transparent parts. Fixes white outlines on some sprites. Was especially visible in Advena areas
  
• Fix negative stat change multiplier display percentage

• Launch Flak, Sniper and Sprayer projectiles at full speed and have no extra force for the same behavior as before
  
• Build
  

• Scale extra Flak projectiles in a similar way they've been scaled with old Flak Weapon behavior
  

• Update Flak description
  
• Cleanup Zooid descriptions and add Projectile Count stat
  
• Scale Zooid add-force-over-frames added force linearly instead of applying constant force until all force is applied
  
• Deal Strain damage over time
  

• Correct Flak damage distribution
  

Halloween has quickly passed and have finally tallied all of the Mutation Creation Contest results!
Considering the difficulty of the challenge - designing Mutations that are only experienced while deep in the game, the Sipho community has proven to be adamant with 9 entries in total!


We have realised that objectively choosing a single winner out of all entries would be impossible - high majority of the ideas fit perfectly in the game. And we can only tell if presented ideas are going to work is by implementing them. We have decided to award all of the participants as most entries differ by their presentation, while underlying ideas are pretty solid. We want our competitions to be a celebration for the community and inspire future participation. We have commented each entry how we imagine these ideas in the game by order of their submission:

[h2]Injector[/h2]
Steam Entry by Earwig Incorporated

This Mutation turns Spike into a debuffing Zooid that specifically counters Chitin Shell passive ability - growing Shells on other Zooids and protecting them from damage. We could see this effect on more Zooids than just Spike - Shells do tend to get out of control in later Epochs.

[h2]Loitering Leach[/h2]
Discord Entry by skipydog

Effects: 
+ 75% range
+ 1 penetration
- 50% energy usage (-100%)
- 66% autotracking (-150%)
- 30% stiffness (leach tip lags behind movement)
- Zooid is permanently activated

The goal of this mutation is to transform leach type zoids into one where the leech lazily "hangs around", like the stinger of a jellyfish but still just as deadly, where prey that happen to get caught in it are leeched of their blood instead of stung!

A punny play on words, this Mutation turns Leeches into jellyfish-like tentacles that sting on touch. This sounds like a great idea that could synergize well with fast-moving Siphos. Furthermore, Leech tentacles could be affected by Pushers and Twisters as well. That would give player control to extend limp Leeches further as they would lack stiffness with this Mutation. Definitely worth of thinking about and giving some extra work on Leech physical interactions with the world.

[h2]Reduplicating Combat[/h2]
Discord Entry by Moff

The classic extra-bullet per bullet take with a twist - at the expense of reduced healing and Energy efficiency. Ranged weapons are inherently very strong - most of them can safely damage their prey while being far away from the danger. To balance that, proposed drawbacks help limiting the damage potential - with reduced energy efficiency and increasing the risk - with reduced healing effect. We could push this further by making affected weapon damage its neighbours while firing - as if it was leeching life-force to create additional stings or bombs to fire. This could be mitigated with healing and regeneration Mutations. This could open up interesting synergies with Zooids that activate their passive abilities after being damaged - one of which is Advena's Radial mover that regenerates Energy after being damaged.

[h2]The Ramak[/h2]
Steam Entry by buzzart30

As a Mutation, The Ramak appears to be a conversion of Nervefiber into a self-sufficient damaging Zooid. Imagine a ball of Ramaks slowly approaching their enemies - sounds like some body-horror blob of death. We will keep this entry as a separate Zooid idea.

[h2]Phyllodermic Utility[/h2]
Discord Entry by Salreix Von Otsuu

A mutation for weapons and utility based on the dermal denticles that sharks have for reducing drag (hence the name translating to leaf-skinned because some denticles resemble leaves, idk)

Loving the biological basis for this Mutation! Physical Drag reduction Mutation was one of the things we were thinking about of introducing into Mutation pool and this idea hits the right spot. The very subtle +1 Max Health hints of Zooid getting an additional layer of skin - one that makes them move better in the water.

[h2]Adhesive[/h2]
Discord Entry by Vera the Wut Worshipper

Grade IV Mutation for Burstopod, Miner, and Muck

Effects:
- +1 penetration (if applicable)
- +2 ranged power (if applicable)
- +50% range
- 50% slower cooldown
- Zooid projectiles no longer detonate on their own, instead eventually fizzling out after a while.
- Zooid projectiles gain the ability to attach to enemy siphos, detonating after a short period of time after attaching.

This mutation aims to turn the Miner into a weapon that you can use on its own, and the Burstopod into a better weapon. Muck also becomes more useful at slowing down enemy siphos, because the attached mines will mess with their "aerodynamics".

Another classic mechanic entry with a suggestion of sticky, or rather, Adhesive mechanic - with a twist of Mines and Bombs becoming a bit less volatile until they get stuck on objects. Shaking those bad boys off would be hard. So we're thinking that initially the Adhesive force would be weaker and additional stacks would increase the strength of the effect - giving player and its enemies a chance to "shake off" stuck bombs early and additional stacks creating more sticky situations.

[h2]EF5 Twister[/h2]
Discord Entry by Vera the Wut Worshipper

Grade IV Mutation for, you guessed it, the Twister.

Effects:
- +1 cooldown (100% slower cooldown)
- More energy usage
- Swirls move slower
- Swirls pull and push things more violently
- Swirls now deal damage to things that are inside them, akin to poison. This makes them affected by mutations/zooids that affect penetration and ranged power, they have a base ranged power of 3 and a base penetration of 0.
- Swirls have a "dustier" appearance, similar to a tornado, to differentiate them from normal swirls.

This mutation, like the one I submitted before it, also aims to turn a utility into a weapon. I feel this mutation would help the Vagorians' lack of weaponry to use, having only the inconsistent burstopod to rely on most of the time.

An attempt to give a deadly power to Twister, a harmless Utility Zooid that creates twists of currents that carry things around, is a welcome attempt. While this Mutation could reduce Twister synergy with Burstopod and Projectile weapons as it would destroy projectiles inside of it, we could make those destroyed projectiles "feed" into the twister, increasing its passive damage. So the play would be keeping the Swirl alive with by releasing additional Swirls and feeding it various objects so it becomes more "dusty" and dangerous.

[h2]Unrelenting Grabber[/h2] Discord Entry by Moff

Grabber is a very special Zooid that we keep looking for ways to improve - it is chaotic and often does more harm than good - pulling in a spiky ball from offscreen is rarely fun for the player. This Mutation changes how Grabber would work - turning a meme machine into a more controllable and reliable gap-closing Utility Zooid. We might not have this as a Mutation, we might just change how the Grabber works - control and reliability is very important in the physically janky world of Sipho.

[h2]Noodle Piston[/h2]
Steam Entry by Mr Gaymer

This entry cracks us up as it is a Mutation for a Zooid that doesn't exist yet. At least officially. Piston Zooid is an experimental Zooid, hidden deep in game files and in historical development test builds. We tested how could new "squishy" physics work with muscle Zooids - that can extend and contract their connections. And they do somewhat work - their quick and hacky implementation makes them extend one of their connections further away - allowing player to change their shape on a whim. They could be used as muscles for opening "jaws" without needing to change layout. There are some technical challenges with making connections weaker - Zooids can become tied-up in a disorderly ball if their connections are loose enough. Before we implement Piston or any other kind of Muscle Zooid, we will keep this Mutation in our hearts. Figuratively.

[h2]Thank you all for the participation![/h2]
Dear Earwig Incorporated, skipydog, Moff, buzzart30, Salreix Von Otsuu, Vera the Wut Worshipper and Mr Gaymer, we are very humbled and thankful for your participation in this event! The support is immense and we love making Sipho a better game for you! We will be contacting Discord entry authors on Discord. Steam users - please contact us on [email protected], by messaging Dominas or on Discord to receive your prize!

Speaking of support, we have a community-ran Wiki page that you can participate on. It is pretty fresh, but the content is solid - waiting for more additions. We also discuss Wiki matters and other Sipho development topics most actively on our Discord server.

This update brings small bugfixes and some hidden code refactors to make Sipho a bit more extensible for future Zooids.

There is a one notable fix to how dive-awarded Mutations were applied. They were given to the player when they should have been applied to enemies. Newly spawned enemies would get their Mutations correctly, but since the player never dies, player accumulated them by surviving. Saving and re-loading would apply correct player Mutations. This was noticeable by player being weaker after save reload. The outcome of this fix makes New Game plus a bit harder. The upside of that is that we can add more powerful Grade IV Mutations that will help the player a bit more in the future. Big thanks to our player who reported it.

And a reminder - our Mutation Design Contest is still on-going and gives you a chance to win Sipho keys for you or your friends!

[h2]Version 0.9.1f1[/h2]

• Always update Sipho stats in Growth mode so energy regeneration and other values do not get stale
  
• Attempt to fix spooky growth point null ref bug
  
• Grabber remembers what damageables it has pierced
  
• Pierce objects one-frame early with Grabber so the tip doesn't stop when piercing
  
• Sync Muck cloud particle lifetime with its effect better
  
• Award all unlocked achievements that are saved in files on launch
  
• Fix Mutation Manager applying mutations to player when they should be applied to correct Faction when adding new mutations
  
• Workaround not getting Steamworks callback for enabling us to report Achievements
  
• Pusher supports negative force
  
• Polyp uses Fixed Joint
  
• Polyp correctly attaches to surfaces and aligns to their normal
  
• Polyp applies strong energy buff when attached to a surface
  
• Track enemies in defined areas instead of globally in Buginis boss fight 3 - prevents soft-locks if there are enemies in unreachable areas
  
• Add 3 second spawn delay to Reward consumables so they aren't accidentally picked up so easily after spawn
  
• Highlight Mutation zooids on UI select
  
• Update ignored zooid collisions when repositioning zooids correctly
  
• Use strict initialization path for ZooidComponents
  
• Fix Aquarium Spawners not saving spawned things due to inconsistent ID
  
• Fix Polyp connection angles
  
• Leeches hold things better
  

Have you ever had ideas for new spooky and creepy Mutations? Now there is a chance - we announce The Halloween Mutation Creation contest!

If you need inspiration, you could think of how you would like to see certain Zooids act differently and what needs to be changed. For example - if you wished to have dozens of passive Spikes that are good enough just to sit on your structure Zooids while you ram your enemies your wish could be a Mutation: Reduce Spike Mass, Drag, Range and Cooldown Recovery and it becomes a stationary, passive Spike, which can be placed all around your Sipho. You can also read more about Mutations in our Mutations update announcement.

Mutations can be seen as Zooid ideas which are not unique or distinct enough to become physical Zooids. This type of thinking allows taking some of those ideas and creating them as Mutations. Or creating Mutations that shift existing Zooids into their idea counterparts. This changes how your Sipho is laid-out and that is what makes Mutations and replaying the game interesting.

There are some design limitations - Mutations need to stack to not make their usefulness limited. If you wish to negate some of existing Zooid functionality you could play around with Stats as in previous Spike example. Adding negative Stat allows to shape Mutated Zooid into playstyle you want. And those Stat reductions can be alleviated with other Mutations, allowing player with a certain Mutation combo have a very powerful Sipho.

[h2]How to participate[/h2]
Think of a Mutation that changes the way you would play the game and write that down. You can also use Aquarium and create a Layout that shows how your Mutation is used. Creative freedom is yours! After your are ready to share the idea, post it in our Discord or on Steam's Artwork page. Most unique and technically achievable ideas will be remade in the game!

You don't have to be a professional designer to participate in this event. A basic doodle on a napkin and a description of Mutation effects are enough for us to pick it up and get it into the game. Anyone can participate. Although if you haven't played Sipho before, be sure to check videos or screenshots to get familiar with its world and creatures.

[h2]Basic guidelines:[/h2]

• Describe Mutation effects - try using existing Stats, Buffs and other mechanics or come up with new ones. If the idea is chosen - we will come up how to implement it!
  
• These effects should stack - picking up designed Mutation for second time should make its effects stronger
  
• Describe which or what kind of Zooids are affected - type of zooids, breed or specific Zooids. For example: Weapon type Zooids, Weapons that shoot projectiles, Weapons, Advena breed Zooids, Grabber
  
• Provide a sketch or a screenshot with Layout string of a Sipho that uses this Mutation - if your Mutation is chosen to be added to the game, we will also include the Layout
  
• You can also draw an icon for the Mutation - it will not be judged, but will be a welcome addition. Make sure it is not subject to copyright and by providing it you allow it, or modified form of it, to be used in the game
  
• More unique and technically achievable Mutations will be judged better. Cleverly using existing game mechanics are much more welcome
  
• Post your entry on Sipho's Artwork section. If you can't post it there, leave a comment with a link here or post it on our Discord
• Multiple contest entries are allowed
  

[h2]Have fun![/h2]

Our team will pick one or more winning designs right after the end of this event.
Winners will be awarded with Sipho Steam keys and their name in the credits.

The event ends at November 1st, 00:00 UTC