Greetings Pioneers,

Today’s release is a rather large one. Over the last six weeks we’ve been working especially hard adding and debugging our flying A.I. creature, know as the IKA. We can safely say it adds another dimension to the combat play, so be prepared for some vertical madness!

We’ve also focused heavily on balancing the whole game, including the new upgrades we’ve added. This is an ongoing process, so please do continue to let us know what you think and we’ll review any feedback and feed further balancing changes into upcoming updates.

Now, prepare yourself, for the full list of new features and fixes below.

Patch Notes Version 0.0.4

• New enemy – IKA. It’s a flying creature which uses superheated mineral blobs for projectiles.
• New Defense Structure – Energy Pillar. Construct and place Energy Pillars to create laser walls between them. Rotate the Pillar before placing to choose your connections.
• Added wall-running, which allows you to run horizontally and vertically along flat surfaces by holding the Shift key.
• New Regeneration Module added. This will allow you repair your existing structures.
• New Upgrade Tree functionality and interface. Spend materials to unlock new upgrades for your Modules. Once unlocked, an Upgrade can be Activated/Deactivated by your Eden Kit. Each Module has a limit of how many upgrades can be active on it at any given time, so choose wisely before venturing out.
• New Kinetic Force Module Upgrades.
• New Gauss Gun Module Upgrades.
• New Energy Harness Module Upgrades.
• New Regeneration Module Upgrades.
• Added Save Game Upgrade from previous versions
• Key bindings and the ability to remap them has been added to the options menu.
• Updated Day and Night Cycle. The day and night now have different lengths, new balancing, and additional visuals for dawn and dusk. Days are now longer, nights are shorter.
• Added first-person character body. You can now look down and see your legs!
• Added new wind effects to foliage in the world.
• Options Menu has been split into Sub-Menus.
• Added X-axis inversion to the Options Menu.
• Added Weapon Spread to Pistol, Rifle and Gauss Cannon.
• Structures can now be “sold” by using the Energy Harness Module with the Reclaim upgrade activated. This functionality replaces the “Undo” ability, which is now obsolete and removed.

Energy Harness

• Extended Energy Straps – Increase range at which the base module can perform desired action. This will only affect mining and not smash as they are are two separate parameters.
• Vortex Drills – Damage when mining will receive a percentage boost which allows the player to mine items twice as fast.
• Increase Energy Gained – The amount of energy gained when mining from plants and leaves etc will receive a percentage boost allowing the player to refill their energy counter quicker.
• MATA-Combat (Smash) – Free Upgrade – Allows the player to pick up enemies and fling them at objects with each hit applying damage. This can be chained together allowing for greater combinations and damage to be dealt.
• Impactful Smash – Increase the amount of damage each smash hit deals to an enemy.
• Brutal Deconstruction – Gain small amounts of energy per smash
• Reclaim Materials – Free Upgrade Provides the player the ability to sell any of their existing structures based on health remaining.
• Recycle Structure – If the structure is at full health, you get 100% of its cost. Additionaly, structures (but not Primitives) with no damage taken are returned to the inventory.

Regeneration

• Reduce Time – Reduces the percentage of time it takes for the regeneration to complete.
• Reduce Cost – Reduces the cost to the player’s materials required to regenerate a structure from the default 75% to 50%.
• Module Range Increase – Increases the range at which the player can initiate the regeneration of a structure. This excludes the AOE effect which is included in a separate upgrade. However it does take into account the capture upgrade.
• AOE Repair – Activates an “Area of Effect” on the module allowing players to regenerate a greater amount structures at the same time. Requires Power Shift button to be pressed (Control).
• AOE Range Increase – Increases the range at which the AOE can be effective on structures. Requires the AOE upgrade to be active for it to be functional.

Gauss Gun

• Increase Rate of Fire – Allows the player to shoot targets quicker than they could previously however does increase the likelihood of depleting ammo a lot quicker than previously.
• Increase Spread – Increases the amount of spread dealt by the weapon when fired. Allows greater area of bullets to hit targets. (Can not be activated with Decrease Spread Upgrade)
• Increase Module Accuracy – Decreases the amount of spread caused by the Gauss Gun allowing for greater accuracy when hitting single targets. (Can not be activated with Increase Spread Upgrade)
• Increase Spread While Moving – Additional upgrade used in conjunction with Increase Spread node allowing the player to greatly increase the amount of potential targets hit at any given time.
• Increase Accuracy While Moving – Additional upgrade which will decrease the spread when moving allowing for greater accuracy.
• Increase Damage – Each bullet that hits its target will deal a greater amount of damage per hit. Will allow the player to kill multiple amounts of enemies quicker.

Kinetic Blast

• Range Increase – Increases the range which the module can be reach its target. Will also affect Kinetic Laser.
• Kinetic Laser – Holding down the Blast button will continuously apply damage to its target via a powerful laser which is emitted from the MATA tool.
• Damage Increase – Increases the amount of damage the Kinetic Laser causes.
• Force Increase – Only applied to blast. Will increase the force at which the target is pushed back from their starting position. The player will be able to push single enemies further away than they previously could.
• Propulsion Blast – Each blast will push the player back. Ideal for jump attacks and propelling yourself higher when in mid-air. Requires Power Shift button to be pressed (Control)
• Reduce Energy Cost – Decreases the amount of energy consumed every time the module is used. Upgrade is applied to both Blast and Sustained Blast.
• Pulse Amplifier – When unlocked and active, Kinetic Blast will now deal damage to targets it hits. It also allows for player to quickly break rocks and trees aiding when mining although does increase the chance of some materials being destroyed when hit with the blast.
• Kinetic Laser Effective Range Increase – Increases the effective range of the Kinetic Laser, so it does maximum damage at a greater distance.

• Kinetic Manipulation Module has been temporarily removed from game, because it was not providing any relevant gameplay at this stage.
• Increased run speed from 150% to 180% of player walk speed.
• Drastically lowered Splintermites’ movement speed when burrowed.
• The melee attacks has been heavily tweaked. They should now perform more believably and usefully.
• A lot of AI balancing and changes. New pathing system for enemies has been implemented, which includes plenty of improvements and possibly few new bugs.
• Kinetic Laser’s damage is now reduced by the distance to the target.
• The base range of Kinetic Blast, Regeneration Module, and Energy Harness is now consistent, but shorter than before. It can be increased via upgrades.
• Material shards will now remain on the floor for ~60 seconds, up from ~15 seconds.
• HUD displays an “Out of Energy” warning when the Tool is out of energy.
• HUD displays when Eden Kits are out of Power from too many structures dependent on them.
• Quickbar now states when you haven’t got enough Materials to Craft an item.
• Save System slots in the menu now displays total time played.
• Added Video Settings confirmation window functionality.
• Normalised Mouse Sensitivity values as some users thought the minimum was still too high.
• AI will now only send one patrol group per hive, per night.
• Improved major slowdown when smashing enemies into trees

• Fixed bug with Turrets firing at dead Splintermites
• Fixed bug with Turrets not picking a new target if they lose line of sight.
• Fixed a bug which allowed turret to be built submerged in the ground.
• Fixed a bug that caused bushes regrow through your structures when you were away from your base.
• Fixed various bugs which allowed certain actions to continue when they should be interrupted, such as displaying of a structure hologram after swapping to weapons.
• Fixed bugs with Options Menu Graphical Changes.
• Fixed bugs with some Options Menu settings not being set correctly on startup.
• Fixed bugs with Quick Start items not being Quick Craft-able or in some cases stackable properly.
• Fixed a bug where Objective Prompts could appear over the Death Screen.
• Fixed Mouse Sensitivity and Inversion not being applied properly on startup.
• Fixed some Scrollbar bugs which made them non-interactive or non-responsive.
• Fixed issues with Glow Plants being the wrong colour/size at certain distances.
• Fixed missing impact effect on turrets.
• Fixed melee using energy when it shouldn’t.
• Fixed issue where players could build Eden Kits in non playable areas resulting in automatic death to the player when respawning.
• Fixed seam in small parts of the landscape
• Fixed pfx crash when absorbing materials
• Fixed rare crash that occurred when player dies and is about to respawn
• Multiple other bug fixes… too many to mention

We have updated the Known Issues list to reflect the current version, Please let us know if you find any bugs that are not listed.

0.0.3 Saves – Please Note:
While we have made every effort to allow old 0.0.3 saves to open, we recommend starting a new game to get the full experience of this update. If you saved during the night, there will be a new swarm of enemies spawned (one patrol group for each hive nearby) upon load. On new saves however, the AI Manager should remember if it has sent a patrol group out for that night or not. Also to obtain the Sell Upgrade you will need to manually activate it (it should be unlocked), when you start a new game it will be unlocked and activated by default.

Before we leave you to engage in survival combat on Pharus, we would like to announce the winning creature name for our bi-pedal fauna. Through vote of popularity ‘Vogel’ is the winner, with a close runner up for ‘Narnar’. We had hundreds of votes in total so thank you to everyone who participated. The ‘Vogel’ will be arriving on Pharus soon in a future update.

Lastly, we’re trying to crash E3! so if you can give us a vote, which will give you access to a click fest mini game. If we get some serious points on the board we may stand a chance of getting there. Which would be absolutely amazing!

Please follow this link to cast your vote for us and play the clicker game to earn us points!

Happy hunting!

– Flix Team

Greetings Pioneers,

Our week has been full of testing, nose to the grindstone development, and one mysterious April fools cheesecake.

We were hoping to get an update to you by the end of this week, but due to unforeseen circumstances we’re going to be pushing the update release back to ensure stability. This means that we will be making every effort to get v0.0.4 update out to you next week!

Just as a quick re-cap, here is a list of the major features that are making it in for v0.0.4;

• An AI Overhaul – Rewritten all AI to utilise a task graph rather than a behaviour tree. Creating less rigidity and more fluidity, to allow the AI to adapt to changes in the word and more effectively react to the players actions.
• Laser Walls – Static posts that can be placed in the ground, between which a Kinetic Beam acts as a barrier to any ground based enemies. NOTE: Laser Walls combined with turrets are very useful for channelling enemies into kill zones.
• Alien Ika’s – A flying enemy that shoots volatile and corrosive projectiles from a distance.
• Ika Hives – Even evil alien flying squids need somewhere to call home.
• Wall Running – Added ability to run up or along vertical surfaces, acts as a buff awesome way to navigate the environment and your base.
• Reclaim and Recycle Upgrades – Added RMD/MATA-Tool upgrades to enable Pioneers to reclaim materials from a structure back into their inventory.
• Regeneration Module – Added structure repair module with its own upgrade tree.
• RMD/MATA-Tool Upgrade Tree Expansion – A plethora of upgrades that include faster mining, adding extra single blast damage, increased mining range and more.
• Gauss Gun Module Upgrades – Increase the spread of the Gauss gun, its effective range and more.
• Key-Remapping – Re-assign keys and save any custom keyboard mappings.
• Day Night Cycle Update – Added dawn/dusk sky colours, lengthened the daytime period, and introduced further optimisations.

Our aim is to ensure we release features that are cohesive and enjoyable to play. However, instead of leaving everyone waiting, we’ve taken some footage and screenshots from one of our current development builds for you to feast your eyes upon.

The following video and screenshots are development previews including some of the new content we’ll be introducing.

Please bear in mind that all of these features are work in progress for future updates and are subject to change.

New Defenses: Laser Perimeter Walls

Kinetic Blast Upgrades

Flying Enemies (IKA) Attack

Day & Night Cycle updates

-Team Flix

Greeting Traveller,

So yesterday I think I lost control of my own mouth when trying to explain to the rest of the team that I am only one man and no amount of “reminding” can make me get the testing done any faster. I say this in jest of course, however there is somewhat of a “test crunch” this upcoming week.

Being part of an indie team means I get to blag the title of Lead QA, when in actuality, I’m the only one in the QA “department”. This can offer up many challenges, the most prevalent of which is finding enough time to get everything done. I work with an amazing bunch of devs that are both talented and driven. Ultimately this is a wonderful and deadly combination as when asked about what they think they will be able to get delivered for the next update the general consensus seems to be “go big, or go home”. Which is wonderful for an inspired, motivated and talented team as everyone in the office gets pumped when talking about all these awesome features they want to get in and the excitement grows over the next week or so as they begin to knock out prototypes and implement features and I can admit that this is contagious. It’s always a little short lived though.

So picture me, like a kid in a sweet shop, bounding around like the over excited court jester I am. Laughing and joking with the team, patting them all on the back as they showcase their work (oh and I occasionally try and get a little bug fixing done in between laps of the office). Then it starts, slowly at first, like a zombie apocalypse movie where at first one person gets sick and its no big deal then before you know what’s happening you’re knee deep in reanimated douchebags. In my case its not zombies, its features to test. It’ll start at around 2pm on a tuesday, two or three weeks into the sprint. Someone will tentatively approach my desk and calmly say “hey, I’ve just committed [insert feature name here]. Could you give it a quick test for me?” and my response is always the same “yeah mate, I’ll get on it right away”, as I’m just as excited as them to see how this new feature or content will look and work in the world.

About an hour later, someone else will say “hey Andy, can you look at this please. It’s in the mainstream.” This is the “one person is sick” section of my zombie apocalypse. Then by wednesday night I’ve got 12 devs “reminding” me that their work is in the mainstream and ready for testing. Now its a full blown outbreak and I’m up to my knees in work and I can’t see how I’m going to survive.

Thankfully being an awesome indie team, there is always someone close by to offer you a helping hand. This always helps me loads, just being able to split the work loads is a relief. This week it all got a little much though and I couldn’t see how I was going to wade through all this testing even with the help of others. I felt bad for the people offering to help me with the work. As though they were Hershel from the Walking Dead and I’m screaming “dont do it buddy, you’ll end up losing your leg”.

In true Flix form though, when one person struggles the whole team pulls together to help get them back on track. So from yesterday feeling like I was the protagonist in a George Romero movie, to today where I can see a way out of this shopping mall full of untested features and content (if you get the reference without the help of google we should be friends) thanks to a lot of help from my Flix family.

It’s not always easy being indie, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Andy Lead (and indeed only) QA…Over to Kyle

…Thanks Andy, Annnnnywho, slightly laboured but entirely understandable Zombie metaphor aside, let’s get on to our dev update for the most Eden of all the Stars.

The Flix Gnomes are busy tinkering away on shiny new features to bring to the next update of Eden Star. We are currently working on a multitude of new features, however here we have decided to list only those of which we believe are on course to the April update

These features include, in true Generation Game style, are:

• An AI Overhaul – Rewritten all AI to utilise a task graph rather than a behaviour tree. Creating less rigidity and more fluidity, To allow the Ai to adapt to changes in the word and react to the players actions.
• Laser Walls – Static posts that can be placed in the ground between which a Kinetic Beam acts as a barrier to all those pesky critters.
• Laser Turrets – Acting as a variant of the Ballistic Turrets, they utilise kinetic energy to deal damage to the indigenous wild life hell bent on hastening your demise.
• A Decorative Dining Set and Matching Napkins
• Alien Ika’s – A flying enemy that shoots projectiles from a distance
• Ika Hives – Well even evil alien flying squids need somewhere to call home
• A Crushed Ice Dispenser
• Wallrun – Added ability to run along horizontal surfaces, acts as a buff awesome way to navigate your base.
• His and Hers Toasted Sandwich Makers
• Re-absorb and Repair – Added RMD/MATA Tool functionality to enable Pioneers to sell structures and reclaim minerals, or repair damaged structures
• A Cuddly Toy
• RMD/MATA Tool Upgrades – A plethora of upgrades that include faster mining, increased mining range and a personal favourite, the shotgun like Gauss Gun spread.

And last but not least, We have had a ton of awesome responses to naming the newest edition to the Eden Star universe. Many thanks to all who contributed to the ‘Name this Creature’ thread, we have narrowed it down to 6 of our favourite names.

Click the link below to vote for your favourite name for our first benign fauna.

Vote Here

Stay frosty,
Kyle