V18.06.16 - AURAL AURORA OVERHAUL EDITION

**Patch Notes** **◆** ****V18.06.16 - AURAL AURORA OVERHAUL EDITION****

*This release focuses on audio, music, user friendliness, and game balance. Because of an issue beyond my control, all of the previous sound effects have needed to be replaced. The good news is that I'm much happier with what we have now! Thanks, Miles. That said, the audio isn't ready, and several more revisions and improvements will be made. I wanted to release a build sooner rather than trying to rush a feature as large as a total sound overhaul.*
*In addition, this build features big improvements to performance and a pretty heavy balance pass. Enjoy, and thanks for your continued dedication to making this game as good as it can be.*

## Features

* All of the sound effects have been replaced.
* Music and SFX are now in sterio
* Many weapons now have their own sound. Overall there are about ~4x more sounds total
* Reinstated borderless fullscreen
* Added an animated title
* Added a placeholder for the "Learn" menu
* Added some new music, including a late wave track, a few boss tracks, and a track for the "Learn" menu
* Added a visual and audio warning for when a comet is coming
* Black holes now have their own song and sound effect
* Added floating mouse-over text for the missing mods
* Trains are now... trainier
* Improved the unlock rainbow effect
* Enemies can now be knocked back or burned if you hit their parts, not just their "core"
* Endless mode randomly selects the starting color and planet
* Added credits
* Added a fancy debug mode. You can now select an enemy to spawn with Page Up and Page Down, then spawn a wave with Insert. This feature stops enemy waves from spawning for a while, and jumps you to wave 61. I created this to assist with recording videos and trailers
* You can also spawn a background planet with the Home button

## Balance Changes

* Orbs nolonger heal hull
* Discharge contact damage increased 25% to compensate for Hidden Power nerf
* Warpath ROF increase potential 40% -> 30%. It's still 40 stacks
* Discharge shield cost has been lowered ~20%
* Railgun base spread has been slightly increased
* Railgun rate of fire is now slightly slower
* Blitz total multiplier 25% -> 20%
* Added Projectiles & Fusillade impose less spread penalty
* Salvo gathers reserve missiles 5% faster
* Siege Weaponry self-damage ramps up a little more aggressively
* Base regeneration, and the regen you gain from the Hull Regeneration mod has been decreased consierably
* Rapid Reconstruction regen rate has been increased considerably
* Rapid Reconstruction flat hull increase 10 -> 15
* Omni Shield's flat shield increase 35 -> 40. Omni Shield now grants +10% shield effect
* Temporal Shield effect is reduced to a more reasonable level, as it was a time freeze at maximum effect
* Halo self damage 12/s - > 7/s and nolonger resets shield cooldown
* Vortex base self-damage cost has been reduced
* Several champion enemies, and enemies that deal burst damage in general, have been made more deadly, especially Celestials
* Wave speed has been reverted (its fast again)
* Essence Sap now has double the magnitude and half the duration (this needs further review)
* Rate of fire now affects the charge rate of Charged Shot (but not Vortex )
* Pulse inner ring radius increased
* Pulse knockback decreased
* Pulse secondary fire spread 360 -> 240 degrees
* Pulse damage 150 x 2 > 155 x 2
* Torrent damage 14 > 16, base size and velocity increased slightly
* Grenade damage 50 > 60, with a wider base cluster spread
* Calibrate works slightly faster
* Singular Strike spread penalty 25% -> 20%
* Last Stand now grants a brief immunity, just like Emergency Systems
* Rupture base size has been increased
* Auto-Mines nolonger immediately dump reserves
* Continued to iterate on enemy hull values

## Bug Fixes and Corrections

* Gemini nolonger applies your hull defenses to both halves of the damage
* Improved some description terminology for consistency
* Serpent champions nolonger ruin everything by crashing the game
* Station Omega can now burn
* Fixed the backwards hit flash graphic problem
* Bastion now works properly with Last Stand
* Fixed a problem with ridiculously wide monitors
* Stray nebulae nolonger "pop" onto the screen, but fade in
* Constructs nolonger flash every time you upgrade
* Fixed a problem with background color snapping
* Fixed a problem where level-locked mods wouldn't appear after using Rebirth
* Fixed several instances of enemies "escaping" the field of play, delaying waves
* Shielded Bastion Constructs nolonger confuse the reserve Bastion count

## Performance

* This build marks the biggest improvement to performance yet. There's still work to do on collisions, but this is a leap forward
* Despite this, keep in mind that the Mac version is still not native, so it will be much better at launch
* Hit effects, explosion particles, damage numbers, glows, and warpath stacks now use asset pooling
* Burn effects now occur 15/s instead of 60/s. Keep an eye on burn, corrosion , and purge , this could have side effects
* Fixed some serious problems with expensive objects existing off screen
* Optimized some expensive effects, such as Deadly Wake and explosion "slag"
* Optimized background assets, like Nebulae
* Added a toggle from the main menu to turn off trails, the most expensive effect
* For some reason, borderless fullscreen is much more performant. Awesome

## What's Next?

* I'm pretty happy with the state of balance right now, but late waves just aren't consistently dangerous. I'll be doing some work to turn up the heat after wave 120 (when single player would end)
* Waves in general haven't been improved in a long time, and can be more interesting and utilize enemy synergies. Certain enemies are too common and others too rare
* Battery needs a pass, it's pretty inconsistent
* Wave 100 boss trio
* The Architect body gear
* The Steam wishlist page is going up soon, with a trailer