V0.23.8

**Patch Notes** **◆** ****V0.23.8****

## New Features

* Wild Metamorphosis has been added to the game! It can be enabled from the Loadout menu. At least temporarily, this Challenge Mode is not gated behind any unlocks
* 12 common Wild Mods have been added to the game!
* 12 rare Wild Mods have been added to the game!
* Wild Metamorphosis now plays the remixed version of the 6 standard BGM tracks! Later, this may change to be a mix with the other tracks, and may not play in this order
* The Research ship has learned a new ability. It now gains 1% total Hull Strength and Shield Durability for every banished mod (through any means)

## Quality of Life Changes

* Hidden Power now refunds your Weapon Gear upgrade point, if you spent one
* Rapid Reconstruction now refunds your Shield Gear upgrade point, if you spent one
* Shield Gear is now selected before Body Gear
* Improved the visuals and transitions for upgrading

## Blade Weapon Changes

* Blade has been reworked. Blade can now be utilized by other constructs, Burst Fire, Siege Weaponry, Saturation Fire, and Barrage
* Blade's stats have been changed. As a result, Blades created by the player are effectively the same power they previously were, and 25% weaker and 15% smaller when deployed by other constructs. Blades deployed by constructs also do not fire submunitions
* A Burst-Fired blade is deployed one at a time instead of in a spread
* Blades (and any future constructs) not deployed by you cannot be shielded or employ shield effects from the Shielded Constructs mod
* Blades have a rate of fire of 1/s for the purposes of all calculations. When deployed by the player, this is effectively bypassed at the cost of using assembly and construct limits, as usual
* Blades attempt to return to their launcher. If a launcher doesn't exist, they take 60 hull damage /s
* Architect stat bonuses and limitations only apply to Blades it directly created (For example, Blades created by an Ally construct won't be beefy or be detonated by Architect's ability, but the Ally construct which fired the blade will be)

## Pulse Changes

* Pulse has been reworked and has received new artwork, which occludes visibility less
* Blast-based weapons (currently only Pulse) now fire in a cluster when used with Loaded Mines. The number of Pulses created depend on your rate of fire and mine effect modifiers
* Pulse now works with Barrage (As it has no primary projectiles, it will Pulse once and then barrage the secondary projectiles)
* Pulse secondary projectiles are now affected by most anything that would alter size, homing, velocity, and so on (including Cloaking, Charged Shot, Skirmish, etc.)
* Pulse secondary projectiles are now affected by Splinter Shot
* Pulse was double-dipping modifiers to blast radius. This is no longer true. The base size has been made larger to compensate, especially the outer ring, which is now considerably larger
* 135 x2 -> 180 / 90 Pulse base damage. This means that the inner ring now deals twice as much damage as the outer ring (66.67%)
* Pulse shards are now smaller and deal 50% of the damage of the inner pulse

## Gear Balance Changes

* Vortex has been made more consistent with other weapons
* Vortex base damage has been reduced ~10%
* Shields, apart from Bastion, have had their cooldown made faster by .5 seconds
* Shields with cooldown are now more resistant to having their cooldown reduced by damage
* Helix shield spawns 3 orbs at a time instead of 2. A full rework of this shield is pending
* +3% -> 2% total construct assembly speed per downed construct for Engineer body's innate ability, Priority Zero
* 90 -> 100 Halo shield durability
* 135 -> 130 Bastion shield durability
* 90 -> 85 Research body hull strength
* -10% -> -15% Research body shield durability
* 80 -> 90 Courser body hull strength

## Other Balance Changes

* Essence Sap max hull rate recovered 6% -> 5%
* Antimatter Rounds base and scaling self-damage has been reduced slightly
* +30% -> 25% total bonus for Singular Strike
* Apex Machinery malus for construct assembly time +100% -> +70% (this is a buff). Bonuses to constructs 25% -> 30%
* Tactical Link is now a binary buff. If you're in the radius of an Advanced Construct, you and that construct have 8% hull damage resistance. It works on Bastion, even though it does not display a radius
* Player and drone projectiles don't collide with dead objects anymore. This makes a difference with weapons such as Flak which fire many projectiles at once
* Loaded Mines now uses a different formula for calculating how many projectiles it should create. It works similarly to the Wild Mod, Death Blossom. Projectile count scaling and a projectile floor results in roughly the same power level for heavy weapons and a stronger result for high projectile count or high rate-of-fire weapons
* Loaded Mines now varies the speed of projectiles with most weapons
* Weapon recoil is now an additively stacking property
* Burnout Reactors no longer increases the damage of Self Destruction. Adding the ability to scale with burn damage is more than enough
* The mechanic which governs how much shield effect and radius is lost based on how many constructs it is spread across has been made less generous
* Capped player speed at 75 pixels per second
* The enemy boss, the Seraph, has had the damage on its orbs and Tesla mine reduced
* The enemy boss, the Spitfire, now summons Pulsar enemy adds