Awesomenauts: Starstorm Expansion

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The universe is in turmoil as the ever-enduring stalemate between the droid armies of the Ones and Zeros reaches a fever-pitch! Millions of battles have been fought across the scorched wastelands of Sorona, the dense jungle reservation of Ribbit IV, on AI Station 404’s installations and in the recently discovered mystical temple of Aiguillon.
Meanwhile, in the Raki star system, a gigantic remnant of the first AI war drifts near the burning star. This massive unfinished battle station, an abandoned relic of the first generation of robots, is called The Starstorm.
Construction on the station was halted after the defeat of the robots. It was considered to be their ultimate weapon, holding the power to transform the energy from stars into a whirling mass of destruction. Its hull bears thousands of robot ground troops slumbering in their rusty sleep.
The space platform and its robotic legion were thought to be permanently powered down after the first AI war and the station has been idly floating around in space ever since. The Starstorm was never fully operational, until recently...
Emergency reports of the sun imploding into a giant burning space storm have indicated that the Starstorm has somehow been activated. The news of the clearly battle-ready station has drawn the attention of the Ones and Zeros. Both factions have sent their best teams to investigate and secure the station and gain control of the Starstorm’s destructive power!
The pieces are set, the eve of battle approaches once more! Awesomenauts assemble!
The Awesomenauts: Starstorm expansion will be released as paid downloadable content for Awesomenauts on Steam, and all backers in the Copper tier or above will gain access to it as soon as it launches. Only those who own the expansion will be able to play the new characters, make use of the Spectator mode feature and hear the new music. Those who do not own the Starstorm expansion can still join your games, chat, use the twin-stick controller support and fight alongside or against other players who have the new characters.
Awesomenauts: Starstorm will also come to Playstation 4 as a paid downloadable DLC. However, you will not receive a key for the Playstation 4 version of Starstorm as part of this Kickstarter project. The new music and the twin-stick controls will also be available in the Playstation 4 version of the Starstorm expansion, while Spectator Mode and Global Chat will not.
==Content==
Starstorm adds a bunch of characters and new features to the game.
===New Characters===
====Ted McPain====
*Ted McPain was one of the great heroes of the first AI Wars, a long time ago. Long after his eventual heroic demise, he lived on as he became the star of various video games: Ted McPain I through XVII, Ted McPain: Zombie Blast, Ted McPain vs. Evil Ted McPain and Ted McPain Unicorn Dance Karting. Now Voltar managed to re-materialize Ted. The Ted McPain that appeared, though, was missing his pants for unknown reasons.
*Like a true hero, Ted McPain caries several guns. He can switch between those during combat to vary the manner in which he delivers destruction.
*Class: Brawler
====Sentry X-58====
*Sentry is a robot built for infiltration, fooling enemy troops by mimicking anything from an umbrella to a phone booth. After re-activating aboard the Starstorm and finding it overrun by hostile mercenaries, Sentry chose to join them undercover. Biding his time to exact revenge, gathering enough Solar to buy a very serious tank. One with a shark printed on the front!
*Sentry can activate his shield to collect damage, shooting it back at his opponents when the shield ends.
*Class: Tank
====Skree====
*Skree, the powerful but superstitious techno shaman, found himself all alone on an abandoned space station: the Starstorm, filled with mighty looking robots. Thinking the disabled robots were gods, he spent his time collecting different parts of the battle station to create shrines for them. While connecting robot parts and machine scraps to form huge robotic statues and altars, he accidentally activated the mainframe of the Starstorm, re-powering the entire battle station! Frightened by his now activated robotic gods, Skree decided he didn't want to worship them anymore. What better way to travel the universe in search of new spirit-gods, than to join the Awesomenauts?
*When Skree positions his board on the ground, he becomes invisible for several seconds. Then the board rushes straight back to him, damaging everything in its way.
*Class: Assassin
===="Foxy 'naut"====
We're still working out the details on this one, but what we would like to do is have this 'Naut work with an all-new Combo Points system. Blast enemies to rack up Combo Points that can then be used to empower your abilities! You have to decide on which skill to empower though, because your racked-up points will be reset once you've used 'em.
A skill-system like this is something that we've been wanting to do for a while, but right now the character is still very early in development. More details will come after we've done some playtests with it, and we haven't even settled on the visuals yet. We know that tons of players were hoping for a fourth female Naut in the game, and one thing we can announce right now is that this new character will be a girl! Here are some sketches we have for different directions for the character.
===="5th Starstorm 'naut"====
From the Starstorm Report #19 by Robin Meijer of Ronimo Games:
"But first it's time for some good news - we have received the funds from this campaign, and after doing a lot of counting, we are happy to announce that we have passed the $415,000 mark! That means that a fifth character will be included in the Starstorm line-up! Right now we don't even know what this character is going to be... But we have loads of cool ideas and will be doing some thinking about this over the coming weeks. Once we've got some concepts sketched up, we'll let you know!"
===New Features===
====Infinite Spectator mode & Replay Functionality.====
*Detailed replays of all your matches are automatically saved and you can share them online. You can browse all the public replays and watch them whenever you want. While viewing a replay, you can switch between characters, move the camera around freely, switch to slow-motion, and pause the replay. If the players enable this option, you can even watch a replay while that match is still going on! 
*The Replay feature makes Spectator invites unnecessary (but still possible) and allows for any number of players to spectate a single game at the same time.
====Global Chat====
*We will add global chat in the main menu. Discuss the latest tactics, find people to play Private Matches with, and talk about that sick Froggy G & Derpl combo you saw in that match you just spectated.
====Twin-Stick Controller Support====
*For ultimate precision with controllers, we will add an optional second control scheme: twin stick! One stick to walk, the other stick to aim. With this, those who prefer a controller over a mouse can get the same killer aim as mouse players. The old control scheme will of course also still be available to play with.
====New Music====
*Along with the 5 new theme songs and killing spree songs of the new characters, there will also be 3 new songs added to the regular soundtrack. More variation, more beats, more awesomeness!
====New Map====
A new map and a new song will be added to the Awesomenauts: Starstorm expansion when we reach this stretch goal. The map will play on the epic Starstorm battle station itself. This is a perilous environment, full of automated devices like guns and flamethrowers. These will fire at predictable intervals, resulting in tense combat as you try to move yourself and your opponent in and out of certain areas at certain timings. On this tense map it can make all the difference whether you move out right before or after a gun starts firing!
Only players who own Awesomenauts: Starstorm will be able to select this map in Private and Practice matches. Players who do not own the map will still be able to join matches in it, so everyone will still be playing together.
The new song has been confirmed to be exclusive to the new map, meaning that it will not play while playing on maps other than Starstorm.
====Custom Games====
*Change your Private Matches and Practice Games into something completely different. Feel like playing another game mode like Team Deathmatch? Go right ahead! Want to turn all Droids into Super Droids and play without Turrets? Do it! Or maybe you want to double the speed, triple the damage, halve the cooldowns, make all items free and remove all stuns? Now you can! Always dreamed of playing against ten Froggy G bots? Stop dreaming, start fragging!
*Only players who own the Awesomenauts: Starstorm expansion will be able to host Custom Games. Those who do not own the Awesomenauts: Starstorm expansion can still join your Custom Games, so there will always be plenty of people to play with. The user base will not be split into who does or does not own the DLC: regardless of whether you own it or not, all players will still be playing together in the same matches.
*You can use the lobby browser to join public Custom Games, look for specific types of matches, and even to play unranked normal matches! When you set your Custom Game to Public, everyone can see it in the lobby browser, view the settings, and join it. Games can be open for drop-in-drop-out, or limited to only let others join before the match starts. There is of course also the option to set your Custom Game to Private and play with only your friends.
==Road Map==
==Concept Art==
StarstormConcept1.jpg|Concept for neutral gun hazard
StarstormConcept2.jpg|Concept for fire on floors
StarstormConcept3.jpg|Concept for the remnant of the idol Skree created