V0.36.14

**Patch Notes** **◆** ****V0.36.14****

*This update aims to balance and refine Nova Drift's rough edges before we shift focus to the game's release, which features a final confrontation, ending, and full release.*

*Important note: Menu control bindings have been separated from ship controls. If you have been using custom bindings, you may want to rebind the menu controls after updating.*

## New Feature Overview

* Added new background music to all modes: "Spectra"
* Added new background music to all modes: "Fukura"
* Overhauled how burn and ignites work and made them simpler. Many burn and ignite upgrades have been made more powerful and easier to understand
* Viper has been reworked to be simpler, stronger, and more cohesive. See below for details
* Sanctuary has been completely reworked. See below for details
* Most text-heavy menus have received an aesthetic pass
* Added a lot more options for input binding
* Auto Firing can now be selected from the settings menu, allowing the "fire" input to turn it on and off during gameplay
* The maximum account rank is now 64, up from 60

## Progression Changes

*Please read me! Your unlocks may have changed, and returning players will need to reach the new maximum rank of 64 to have access to a few unlocks they may have previously had. If you don't want to deal with this, you can edit the "accountLevel" setting in your save .ini file to a value of "64".*

* Updated the account unlock order:
	+ Max account rank is now 64, up from 60
	+ Swords now unlocks at rank 25, up from 21 (It was unlocked at the same rank as Blade). This pushes all unlocks after it back one rank (Except Annihilation, which remains at 50)
	+ Charged Shields, Strafing Strikes, and Infuse now unlock at separate ranks instead of all at once on 60
	+ Reordered the final unlocks:
		- ChargedShields = 59
		- Infuse = 60
		- StrafingStrikes = 61
		- Leviathan = 62
		- Apotheosis = 63
		- Ataraxia = 64

## Settings and Bindings Improvements

* Added a new setting: Toggle Auto Firing. Enabling this will cause pressing the fire input to alternate between two states: Firing (input held) and not firing (input not held)
* The mouse can now be moved by using the gamepad right joystick in all menus. This allows players using gamepads to mouse over mods in various menus in order to see their names and descriptions
* Added new bindings: Menu Up, Menu Down, Menu Left, Menu Right, Confirm Menu, Exit Menu, Toggle Pause Game, Toggle Show Combat Log, Strafe Forward, Strafe Backward
* Added the ability to unbind an input
* Gamepad's "back / select" button now declines on the upgrade menu now, not "start", and the button graphic has been updated to match
* The high score entry now accepts spaces and up to 32 characters
* The upgrade, fire, and thrust bindings no longer confirm on menus, though there are now two slots to bind "confirm menu" to
* The directional bindings that affect the player now only affect the player, and not menus
* To prevent users from locking themselves out of the game, critical menu bindings now cannot be unbound and cannot share bindings
* Steam Deck no longer automatically hides the cursor, turns off constrained mouse aim, and disables mouse aim. It loads your saves and defaults as usual. Instead, it hides the cursor in menus (except the upgrade menu) when the cursor hasn't moved for 3 seconds. In such menus, it shows the cursor if the cursor has moved for 7 frames. By default, on the main menu, the cursor starts hidden. (The "hide mouse" setting can still overwrite this as usual)

## Burn & Ignite Rework

*A rework designed to clarify and simplify text and mechanics related to burn damage and ignites.*

* All burn damage now implicitly ignites, and ignites now deal 120 damage /s for 3 seconds unless otherwise stated
* Adjusted the text for every upgrade that uses burn mechanics: All upgrade text referring to ignites have been removed unless they're special cases, cutting down on a lot of reading!
* The terminology for "burning", referring to an ignited target, is now "ignited"
* Ignite duration modifiers are no more. They have been replaced by ignite damage modifiers
* Viper has been reworked to be simpler and more cohesive:
	+ When you take a hull hit, you disgorge Venom Strike projectiles toward the offender
	+ Venom Strike projectiles deal 90 burn damage /s
	+ When you crash head-on, you release up to 24 additional Venom Strike projectiles, increased by 2% per your level. This effect strengthens the longer you have not crashed head-on, up to 10 seconds, and has a 2-second cooldown
	+ +50% head-on crash damage resistance
	+ +50% total ignite damage
	+ Hull: 110
	+ Thrust: 110
* Deadly wake objects persist ~14% longer
* Corrosion no longer reduces weapon damage
* Corrosion stack damage 2.5 -> 2.0
* Corrosion spreads fewer stacks from enemy hull (Corrosion's malus made it often awkward to evaluate and pick on weapon builds, so this has been removed in exchange for some of Corrosion's overall power. The goal is to make the mod feel appealing in more cases, especially on weapons)
* Incendiary Strike ignites for 150% of the damage of the hit, up from 125%. The text now simply displays the ignite as doing "50% damage per second" (this is a buff)
* Purification weapon damage -30% -> -20%
* Purification's +30% Ignite Duration has been replaced with +20% Ignite Damage
* Purification's recovery increased from 0.2/s -> 0.4/s, but it now has a maximum target cap of 5
* Purification's hull recovery is now doubled if you have no shield (meaning you have Rapid Reconstruction. This allows Rapid Reconstruction builds to have the same total healing from Purification, making it and subsequently Dying Star more viable on Rapid Reconstruction builds)
* Dying Star's +30% Ignite Duration has been replaced with +30% Ignite Damage
* Dying Star's range 1200 -> 1500
* Dying Star's ignite damage has been doubled(!)
* Fixed inconsistencies when referring to "burn" damage vs "burning" damage. They just say "burn damage", now
* Added text about Vortex' bolts of energy to the description
* The text now explains Darts more explicitly: "Darts do not ignite targets, but deal their damage, scaling with their weapon projectile size, as burn damage over their duration"
* Since Halo's ignite has been reduced, it has made up for it in base damage: 240 -> 300 /s
* The value for Purge is now calculated right as an enemy is destroyed, so that Incendiary Strike doesn't get skipped for Purge/Deflagration when enemies are instantly killed before a burn tick has happened
* Fixed Viper Strike ignites not stacking with Scorching Wake ignites
* Fixed Discharge bolt, Galvanic Outburst bolt, Vortex bolt, and Tempest Break bolt ignites not stacking with each other
* Rebalanced Scorching Wake in light of increased ingite damage: 240 -> 180 base damage
* Fixed most of the damage from Discharge, Galvanic Outburst, and Tempest Break not scaling with shield effects
* Reduced lightning bolt shield effect damage by ~30% to compensate for them previously not scaling with shield effect

## Upgrade Reworks & Balance Changes

* Sanctuary has been completely reworked:
	+ While your shield protects you, create a large Sanctuary on the battlefield that slowly follows you. Your shield still protects you from damage, but shield effects originate from the Sanctuary instead of from you
	+ While you are inside the Sanctuary, you gain 10% shield damage resistance, +15% global damage, and recover 6 shields /s
	+ +40% crash knockback resistance
	+ -20% thrust
	+ Your shield effect radius becomes equal to the Sanctuary's radius, but it cannot be increased or decreased by other modifiers. Instead, your modifiers to shield effect radius apply at 40% effectiveness to your shield effect power
	+ While you are outside the Sanctuary, your shield effects are disabled, and your shield cooldown is doubled
* Blaster base damage 20 -> 25
* Flak base damage 45 -> 50
* The way Salvo calculates the rate at which it unloads its stockpile has changed: Releasing Salvo is baseline slower and gets faster for higher effective projectile counts, instead of higher stockpile amounts. This addresses the problematic combo of Singular Strike + Salvo while leaving other uses alone (Slowing down Salvo's release allows Amp, Charged Shot, and Cloaked to fall off before too many missiles are released)
* Further lowered the knockback of Salvo
* Bastion now inherits the player's crash damage, and then applies mods for construct damage and shield effect
* Phantom Strike and Outrage Module now put Swords on cooldown, unless you're charging. (Though its still an unusual interaction, this is to make it more consistent with other weapon gear and removes an exploit)
* Homing Strike now adds an additional pair of projectiles for every 5 of your projectiles
* Polished Rebuke orbs a bit: They reach a higher targeting value more quickly and then lose it linearlly rather than proportionally. (Should look a bit more natural and be more reliable)
* Maelstrom now excludes projectiles reflected by you
* Updated the artwork for Power Reserves. (We needed fewer icons that contain the player for better visual parsing)

## Enemy Adjustments

* Nova Drift has been steadily experiencing the power creep expected of any very long duration game project. Upgrades are generally stronger, but more specifically, construct performance has increased dramatically, ignites are better, and crashing does more damage. This has the greatest impact on the early game, especially the new player experience, resulting in weak, older enemies feeling a bit fragile. To compensate, the base hull of most older enemies and asteroids has been increased by a small value between 10 - 240, depending on their previous hull pool
* Adjusted Crucible to provide more time for newbies to calm down and learn its moves. It's also slightly less lethal
	+ Crucible idles for an additional 1.5 seconds before acting, so players can register the disabled screen wrapping
	+ Crucible orbs ramp up their rotation a little slower
	+ The single Crucible Hoop charge up time has been increased by 1.5 seconds
	+ Crucible Hoop damage -5%
	+ Crucible Drone bullet damage 15 -> 14
* Crucible now reduces its "Bullet Party" phase duration if all of its drones have been destroyed (750 -> 150 frames)

## Text and Localization

* Made over 100 text changes based on community suggestions
* Fixed a few inconsistencies with gear description spacing
* Added scroll bars to a bunch of menus
* Updated the Japanese localization

## Bug Fixes

* Void Slice now appends its extra invulnerability time to the start of its "blink", not the end, preventing a single frame window of vulnerability
* You no longer lose invulnerability from being in a Singularity if you upgrade
* You can no longer collide with targets while being damaged by a singularity
* Singularities now won't do anything to you while you're not in control of the player (Such as teleporting in any way)
* While charging weapons but not in control of the player (such as teleporting in any way), the player will still be considered to be charging, but will no longer gain weapon charge or take self-damage from charging
* Exiting a singularity now sets strafing strikes to end
* Time scaling from Temporal Shield or waves advancing now affects Scion and Snapper charge effects and lance beams. Because this would have resulted in them being overall larger, their size has been reduced to 75% of what it was
* Fixed Temporal Shield behaving oddly for asteroids. It was less useful each wave until it was finally accelerating them!
* Fixed the build prefab debug tool from spawning some unintended objects that could crash the game
* Viper strike trails no longer have their colors affected by Antimatter Rounds
* Fixed Rupture and Deflagration not triggering for some enemy segments
* Fixed Emergency Systems text so it says what it actually does. This mod does boost regeneration, but does not boost thrust
* Fixed Emergency Systems affecting regeneration based on Hyperboost stats (Which is +33%) instead of its own reported stat (Which is +25%)
* By extension, fixed Emergency Systems regeneration not stacking with Hyperboost
* Fixed Turrets with Point Defense and Temporal Shield using the wrong variable (and probably never working properly?)
* Fixed the angles of the secondary spikes produced by the Shredder Mine triple-spike projectile
* Fixed a rare crash from the player's gun angle potentially being unset