Sipho News

Oh boy, what a journey this was. The short version of the story is - Sipho physics are now different - more squishy, wiggly and natural-feeling.
Just look at this Sipho segments individually moving in different directions!

New physics allow Zooids to have different Connection Stiffness parameter - something that controls how much deformation resistance Zooid has. Higher stiffness means less deformations and more similar behaviour to old physics. Lower stiffness means that connected Zooids will be more wiggly and Sipho will have more difficulty holding its shape. Current stats as of this patch are:

• All non-structure Zooids have 100% connection stiffness
  
• Saenus Chitin also has maximum stiffness. It should be de-facto the most stiff Zooid - When future physics tweaks allow us to have more stiffness Chitin stiffness will be increased. Currently it is as stiff as it can be
  
• Cra'Than Nervefiber has 80% stiffness
  
• Vagorian Peapod has 80% stiffness and a skill to toggle down to 10%
  
• Advena Zenoplate has 70% stiffness
  
• Buginis Splitter has 60% stiffness
  

The stiffness loss compared to old physics is somewhat acceptable for Siphos grown in Campaign mode - they don't usually reach the size where more stiffness would be needed. This won't be the case for super large Siphos saved in Aquarium. Some larger Siphos now might suffer from not being able to hold their shape:

This can be solved by using Chitin or adding more connections:
These improvements were long coming from the conception of Sipho. We once used built-in Unity 2D joints, but they have proven to be very unstable with more connections.

At some point we switched to shape-matching physics you have become familiar with - the algorithm would try to hold Sipho in shape that is defined by Layout. This worked for up to 4 by 4 Zooid sized Siphos. However, it had limitation of not understanding limbs - larger Siphos would feel box-like and deform somewhat unintuitively.

Hopefully these new physics will make Sipho stand out even more from similar games, such as shipbuilders and other rigid-body simulation games. Having quite rigid and box-like creatures didn't feel as organic and live as we want Sipho to feel.

To iron out all issues and provide as much variety as possible physics might get tweaked in the future - we want to provide as many creative compositions as possible and allow you to make creature you wish to play with.
Just look how happy he is stretching those limbs!

And for the most curious, please have a changelog! Read bottom-to-top:
[h2]Version 0.8.0f2[/h2]

• Optimize Zooid food eating check
  
• Add flail launch force over time
  
• Make procedural generation of Cra'Than Boss 3 more robust
  

[h2]Version 0.8.0f1[/h2]

• Tweak Layout Info panel
  
• Fix Whirlpool NaN on spawn
  
• Fix Growth Ghosts being updated in between growth states
  
• Add ChargeUpButton and use it for Layout deletion button
  
• Tweak skill UI font so Q is more visible
  
• Deselect growth element when tooltip is shown in tutorial
  
• Do not show center text in Tutorial as it obstructs other text
  
• Fix typo in tutorial
  
• Fix wrong info for skill rebind key
  
• Extrapolate positions and rotations from velocity when adding new body to deformable
  
• Add wider margins for growth camera
  
• Do not automatically regrow Zooids which neighbors are too far away. Apply force to bring them together
  
• Fully stiffen Zooid connections when they are close enough
  
• Grow Zooids with connections initially relaxed for far away neighbors to reduce immediate forces
  
• Use last seen alive neighbour position to display dead Zooid ghosts
  
• Fix NaN center of Mass and Thrust when Sipho dies
  
• Regrow zooids next to their alive neighbors rather than at undeformed position
  
• Place new zooids locally according to their neighbor position
  
• Add Mass and Movement Force stat icons to Growth Mode. Clicking them toggles display of their areas
  
• Recalculate Center of Mass and Center of Thrust on Sipho to support stat display in Growth Mode
  
• Recalculate Sipho volatile stats on Zooid reposition
  
• Move whole Sipho if center of mass is outside of area of trust - fixes unbalanced Siphos getting stuck on rocks while trying to turn
  
• Prevent Sprite renderers without sprite to be cloned. Remove dummy sprite renderer from Grabber connection
  
• Do not update Growth menu in Fixed Update - should reduce lagspike when entering growth mode
  
• Override Sipho stiffness to undeform when entering growth mode
  
• Allow setting custom save/data path with -datapath launch argument
  
• Move Relax skill onto Peapods, make them originally stiffer
  
• Projectile weapons apply their knockback force over several frames to avoid breaking physics simulation with large impulses
  
• Fix certain Buginis boss layout Zooid positions being off-grid
  
• Whirlpools always break obstacles and decorations
  
• Add soft body connection stiffness parameter to Zooids
  

Happy October everyone! This is quite fitting update for the month as it features improved boss fights for third Saenus Beefuorus encounter and various improvements for other bosses.
Third Saenus boss concept is a Warden of The Depths - it is a literal boss of a prison guarding various aggressive outlawed Siphonophores. It launches shockwaves which destroy parts of arena letting captive enemies out. This destructible obstacle feature was something we wanted to experiment for a long time and may be used elsewhere in the future.
Check out the full list of changes below:

• Add last two missing layouts to Saenus Boss fight 3
  
• Priotize breed in saved Beefuorus Boss 3 Layouts
  
• Add three more Layouts to Beefuorus Boss fight 3
  

• Add several supervillainous enemies to Beefuorus Boss fight 3
  
• Buginis Boss 3 fight obstacle break does big screenshake
  
• Reduce flail drag to 1
  
• Aggro Cra'Than Boss 2 when player passes through them
  
• Sink Advena Boss 1 and 2 center arena rocks after fight
  
• Players start with 16 nutrition and Cra'Than start with Leech
  

• Saenus Boss 3 stops sending shockwaves after all obstacles are broken
  
• Properly clear automatically gathered Boid skills
  
• Check if sinking destroyed sinkables
  
• Higher Saenus Boss 3 sweep damage
  

• Third Saenus Beefuorus boss is now called Warden Of The Depths and has more things going for it
  
• Hide Pusher debug draws behind debug option
  
• Damageable Sweeper now has falloff damage value for nicer sweeps
  
• Collection Utility acceps IReadOnlyList instead of IList where applicable
  
• Destrucitble Obstacles are now stored in static list for easy access
  
• Boid AI now dynamically gathers skills, avoid distance checking obstacles further away than their target is
  
• Add Old Bronze Rock destructible variants
  
• Add GetClosestZooid to EnemyUtilities
  
• Do not do special Poolable enable when new object is spawned so it doesn't call OnEnable twice
  
• Add ISiphonophoreAI interface to time boss AI when fights start
  
• Damageable sweeper now handles objects with multiple child IDamageable components correctly and damages them only once
  
• Add destructible Old Bronze Water rocks
  
• Allow Rock Damaged and Destroyed effects to be created off-screen
  
• Add experimental conductive object feature which conducts Sizzler attacks
  
• Sort zooids by name so they are displayed in order in Head Selection menu, debug menus
  
• Obstacle Base prefab does not override Outline object's layer to Default
  
• Powerups now also restore one Regeneration Point as do Snacks
  
• Allow toggling Currents
  
• Support world position as UV for dissolve map in Environment Object shader
  
• Damageable Child returns own collider if parent doesn't have
  
• Twister twists do not pass through obstacles
  
• Add segments of walls in Buginis third boss fight which open up when enemies are killed for the segment
  
• Increase zooid reward spawn distance with each additional reward
  
• Spawn boss kill particles from last killed boss sipho if available
  
• Buginis Boss 3 siphonophores move slower if there are no threats around
  
• Destroy Buginis Boss 3 eggs on touch
  
• Reduce Buginis Boss 3 DNA drops to 1 each
  
• Initialize Head Selection Controller upon activation
  
• Cache growth-dependant values in Growth Point UI. Fixes rare exceptions
  
• Check if cached raycast results were destroyed when checking for UI pointer overlaps
  

• Prioritize child of already shown tooltip when selecting which object to show tooltip for
  
• Growth Sidebar is not a UI raycast target - fixes structure tooltips appearing when hovering sidebar
  
• Make BuffUI scale correctly and fit perfectly above skills
  

Greetings! It's been a while since last update - summer has taken toll on development time with its social life occasions. Finally, the Autumn is here and we can finally sit back at our screens and deliver the Sipho content everyone awaits.

Speaking of updates, previous one has introduced a new kind of powerup which stacks and its effectiveness heavily relies on how many stacks it has. We already have more than 5 different powerups which need an easier way of tracking - telling which ones and when will fade away. Powerups are designed to be something that impact moment-to-moment decisions of fighting or fleeing so the information has to be readable at glance. Thus buff UI was added:
Hovering it also highlights affected zooids and what stats it provides - it should be especially clearer for new players what buffs do. In the future, more interesting effects can be shown in this space.

Most of the zooids were designed with simple ways of connecting them in mind. By experimenting, we have noticed that having more diverse zooid connections makes more interesting Sipho Layouts. Combined this experience with feedback that starting breed weapon Spike should be placeable at an angle we found that it can be a very (inefficiently) fun zooid!

Spike can now not only be placed at an angle, but also allows other zooids connect to it. The gif above shows new Spike placement taken to extreme. To place Spikes, or other multi-connection-point zooids at a different angle, rotate them with default key R.

As always, the nitty-gritty details can be found below:

• Fix inconsistent race condition when initializing ZooidPlacementGhosts
  

• Display damage in debuff description
  
• Show basic tooltip information upon hovering enemies in growth or aquarium mode
  
• Tweak zooid connection point UI. Do not show for zooids with standard connections
  

• Move buff UI above skill bar
  
• Respect UI scaling when calculating tooltip pivots
  
• Use bigger brain way of showing zooid placement ghosts
  

• Show connection points when growing new zooids
  
• Shift + Rotate rotates zooids in other direction
  
• Automatically detect anchors for tooltips - improves positions of many different tooltips
  
• Make Buff UI selectable with controller
  
• Add experimental option of increasing MaxWealth when picking up nutrition while being under MaxWealth. Needs game rebalance to work
  
• - Rename Zooid prefab files to reflect prefab type, zooid type and name so they are more easy to search in Editor
  
• None of Food Spawners are scalable so they are not important and don't block enemy spawning. Also fixes having too many food spawns in later levels
  
• Fix Freeroam not spawning enemies
  
• Add Buff UI which shows currently active buffs, debuffs and powerups
  
• Allow highlighting zooids outside Growth mode
  
• Tooltips can now also be dynamic and be updated each frame
  
• Handle sprite renderer copies without sprite
  
• Copy zooid shader properties when cloning materials - makes greaser, muck, agonizer buffs to display dissolve amount
  
• Display number of buffed neighbor zooids in tooltips
  
• Use sprite icon pivot to correctly display Spike position when growing
  
• Fix zooid selection saying "poop" the first time it's shown and there are no zooids adapted
  
• Fix error throwing when initializing Extra Zooid UI before Head Selection Controller
  
• Make a copy of zooid list when doing new game animation
  
• Spike has additional connection points
  
• But be 99% strict when checking for Sipho self-overlaps - still needs to be fixed on Layout level of logic
  
• Be only 75% strict when checking for overlaps when repositioning zooids - Growth Points already ensure correct positions
  
• Fix gathering more neighbors than a zooid should connect to - short-connected zooids will no longer created invalid distant connections
  
• Fix Leech bottom graphics being offset
  
• Fix Advena boss 3 throwing errors while trying to ungrow poisoned zooids
  
• Post-build updated assets
  

The closer we get to feature-completeness of the non-linear levels the more wacky mechanics we can experiment with and reach our design goals.
One of them is introduction of The Essence of The Elders buff exclusive to Cra'Than evironments. Even though it was designed to make Cra'Thanos boss fight quicker and easier, it can be found in The Twisted Betrothal and Cra'Than environments as well, spawned by Holes. It has a very short 5 second duration, 90% shorter for each stack, but it stacks +50% buff to damage, movement speed and range. It also temporary reduces all zooid health by 50% with each stack turning your (enemy) sipho into a glass cannon. We have already seen players stacking it to ludicrous stacks and having fun with that.
Following Holes spawning a new buff, Tentacles have received a bit of brain and will react to things touching them. We hope that these environmental gimmicks bring more to the table and makes visiting Cra'Than areas play out differently than usual.

• Zooid unlock pickup is now a trigger and is possible to pass-through
  
• Zooids also try eating consumables with Trigger colliders
  
• Zooid pickup needs to be charged-up to pick-up instead of being instant pick-up
  
• Twisters now only check for pushable layer - doesn't affect decorations
  

• Tweak Cra'Than boss 2 arena
  
• More robust save upgrade process for very old saves. Save game version in saves
  
• Hide Tentacle debug text behind debug option
  
• Tweak Cra'Than Boss 2 arena
  
• Make Tentacles react to things touching them
  
• Essence of the Elders buff has stronger but shorter effect. It also decreases max health
  
• Color zooid max health in tooltips according to positive/negative change
  
• Fix buff descriptions showing +- for negative effects
  
• Zooids with lower max HP than normal will decay as if they were damaged at their normal HP
  
• Cap minimum value of zooid health at 1
  
• Rename Energy Regenerated Per Second to Energy Regeneration
  
• Make Sniper projectile 50% faster
  
• Cra'Than Holes now only spawn The Essence of The Elders and Snacks
  
• Tweak Cra'Than first boss fight arena to allow fitting 3 zooid wide Siphos on sides
  
• Add The Essence of Elders powerup
  
• Fix Spike trying to update pooled graphics connectors
  
• Replace whitespace with underscores in itchio upload version tags
  
• Fix enemy flee direction - fixes enemies clumping up at (0,0) coordinates
  
• Handle rotated camera in growth mode UI correctly
  
• Hide sonar in growth mode
  
• Reward more nutrition for killing larger enemies
  
• Only pull consumables which can be consumed
  
• Allow eating consumable if it provides no nutrition while Sipho is full
  
• Include tag to version of builds uploaded to itch