Sipho News

Hey all!
Big bugfixing update is now available for everyone.

Sipho's performance is very important - even small stutters can ruin your experience. The FPS needs to be smooth. Therefore we have put our attention to how disabled objects are handled as they were causing stutters. Now, instead of disabling whole hierarchies of Obstacles, Consumables, Decorations - everything that is constantly spawned and despawned in played level, we disable only parts that are visible or cause interactions. This has cut the time CPU has to process level spawning by almost a half - noticeably improving performance in denser areas and level-ends. Let us know if you notice a difference!

Full list of changes below:

• Add test to catch offset graphics
  
• Fix Polyp graphics position too
  
• Fix Energy Leech graphics object being offset and consequently making connectors render incorrectly
  
• Fix Consumables being added to the instance list twice - fixes ghost Consumables shown in Sonar
  
• Fix outlines still rendering for pooled objects
  
• Fix Zooid pickups not getting disabled
  

• Tweak Buginis boss 3 behavior and arena
  
• Add Health Regeneration stat and use it for Vagorian mover
  
• Soul Eater projectiles die faster when they're flying fast
  
• Do not allow camera movement after death in campaign
  
• Fix Steamworks app ID location
  
• Debug things
  
• Explicitly control what gets disabled when poolables are pooled - improves spawn/despawn performance by ~50%
  
• Update Mover dash stat multipler
  
• Update Steamworks.NET to Release 15.0.0
  
• Stat values are now stored as 1000 times larger integers to avoid rounding errors over time
  
• Make consumables without owned edible immediately
  
• Tweak Sizzler effects
  
• Update steamworks
  

This update might not seem like a big one from the first glance - not so many content additions, mostly tweaks and bugfixes. But there is one major tweak that will change how Sipho is played - Snacks now restore Nutrition if you have fallen below your recorded maximum!

That's right - if you lose half of your colony, you can still get it back by consuming much more abundant Snacks. This helps to keep achieved progress and avoids soft-locks where one is unable to re-grow parts without killing whole Siphos. This change has been suggested in many forms by you, players, and we had to figure out how to make it work intuitively. Nutrition Orb now displays missing nutrition as a red bar above your current nutrition, as well as indicates how much nutrition you lose or gain by doing actions:

Notice how picking up additional Snacks don't provide nutrition beyond the red zone. We hope that these changes will remedy some of unfortunate moments due to volatile nature of Zooids.

Cra'Than Sizzler zooid has received a facelift - it has received a better visual effect to show what has been affected by the shock. Affected zooids are no longer random - now closest zooids and their neighbors are shocked.

Additionally, Sizzler stun duration is now affected by Ranged Power stat, which increases stun duration by 1 second for each stat point.

Changelog in detail:

• Show nutrition delta on Nutrition orb
  
• Add utility to find neighboring zooids up to zooid count
  
• Sizzler is now affected by Penetration - how many zooids it affects and Ranged Power - stun duration
  
• Add Development-only Penetration powerup
  
• Shell now protects from Sizzler stun on application rather than in update step. This allows adding additional stuns on the same frame
  
• Add tooltip explaining lost wealth to Nutrition orb
  
• Search for tooltip instances in parent game objects too. Tweak some UI objects to not provide unrelated tooltips
  
• Return ungrowth nutrition immediately when ungrowing zooids
  
• Fix plant leaves looking weird when rotten
  
• Food should not block growing new zooids
  
• Reset player's MaxWealth when growing from layout or toggling unlimited nutrition in Aquarium
  

• Add cooldown and energy cost to skill description shown in zooid tooltip
  
• Increase base energy regeneration to 25 (up from 20)
  
• Chitin shell is removed when it protects from Sizzler attack
  
• Apply poison to nearby targets on initial poison spawn. Makes using Mines up close easier
  
• Do not twin-stick turn Sipho while game is in Growth mode transition
  
• Prewarm poison pill so it instantly appears as intended
  
• Sipho Death events now carry information about killer. Prevent other Siphos picking up consumables which they don't own for 1 second
  
• Make damage powerup triangles two-sided so they don't disappear when consumable is flipped
  
• Cra'Than hole spawn progress decreases instead of being reset when something covers it
  
• Increase Event System Drag Threshold to 15 (from 5)
  
• Rearrange development menu spawn items
  
• Interactive area is deactivated if main sipho dies
  
• Death cancels whirlpool diving
  
• Better debug for Graphics Connector and Swarm Minion to catch reported exceptions
  
• Break down Head Selection intialization code for debugging
  
• Fix null key paths after starting new game
  
• Fix Vagorians not being spawned
  
• Nutrition orb shows mising wealth
  
• Update UI default shader
  
• Pushers won't try pushing Decorations
  
• Update engine to 2020.3.2f1
  
• ignore Debug folder
  
• Bring back Nerverfiber heal to 2. Do not restore nutrition through heals
  

Last bugfix and quality updates for 0.7.8 are here! Next update is going to be about addressing surfacing common feedback - enemy behavior and nutrition drops, stay tuned.
[h2]Version 0.7.8f8 [/h2]
- Use optional debugging menu for debugging some game systems that were previously just drawing their own debug things and cluttered whole screen
- Fix Buginis environment leaves for some reason being 2x smaller than intended
- Heads no longer deal damage on touch. Tweak head graphics to appear above connections
- Spike fixaroo 5: Electric boogaloo - reduced launch force and drag for spike tip to make it match expected distance and be more stable
- Do not change Rigidbody type and disable them entirely when sinking. Should improve performance on Area Clear
- Fix error throw if growing through Growth point failed
- Clip transparent Zooid pixels
- Fix Zooid growth growing on different growth point than it previews
- Fix growth point search for peapods
- Update Sipho structure data when growing from Layout
- Make Cra'Than areas scale as the rest of the areas
[h2]Version 0.7.8f7[/h2]
- Make zooid repositioning work with relevant zooid search
- Improve Growth Point UI search by taking their relevant direction into account
- Improve zooid highlights by highlighting "main" connection zooid
- Remove duplicate Layout and update original "Genial Advena Nosher"
- Clamp healing to max health to prevent overhealing
- Fix old builtin layout Advena Slicerness
- Update Sipho structure data on demand
- Only upgrade layouts if their version is lower, rather than not equal to current
- Update total Siphonophore movement power every frame instead of on structure change

This update addresses some requests for better control binding - you can now bind default keys for skills. Dive action keybind has been also separated from Confirm button - so it will be possible to bind to another key for gameplay and still use it for confirming UI navigation.

Big refactor has been performed on how Layout data stores zooid angles - we had an issue where growing a perfect circle with 22.5 degree turns was impossible - it would get rounded up or down. We had to update how Layout data is stored which means it will no longer be backwards compatible with previous versions once new version is loaded up.
[h2]Version 0.7.8f6[/h2]

• Buginis Boss 1 attacks back
  
• Add option to limit total spawns of an Enemy Spawner. Limit Alpha spawns to 1 per level
  
• Angle-clamp zooid angles in layouts to 1440 degrees
  
• Increase exported Layout position precision to 3 fraction digits (up from 2)
  
• Optimize boss skill range checks by exiting early if skill is unavailable. Should improve Buginis Boss 3 performance
  
• Fix zooid angle rounding error by internally storing zooid angles 4 times higher, to support up to 32 rotations as integers
  
• Fix spacing in UI Elements by adding minimum height as font size
  
• Add missing sprites for Controller key binds. Allow setting default keybinds for skills in Options menu
  
• Add separate Dive button keybind
  

We had an opportunity to make several small fixes to a part of issues we had reported. Enjoy!
[h2]Version 0.7.8f5[/h2]

• Delay Buginis Swarm boss obstacle checks up to over 10 fixed frames to easen CPU load
  
• Don't spawn 30 shockwave particles, spawn 1 instead and as twice as distorting - fixes lag in some boss fights
  
• Add missing pickup and place sounds for Zooids. Add test for missing zooid sounds
  
• Tweak visual connection distances for Claw and Peapod
  
• Add Head Selection debug messages to help debugging game launch error
  
• Remove duplicate event system in tutorial level
  
• Swarmer improvements - faster minion turning, prioritize zooids over everything else, move at 75% speed (rather than 15%) when on obstacles
  
• Use slider joint to limit spike movement along extension axis. Add drag when it's extended so it doesn't flail as much
  
• Set Growth UI object name to contain zooid that will be grown name for easier debug