This update is heavily based off feedback, both good and bad. As such it's a mix of changes to lots of different systems. I expect I may have created some bugs, if you find any please let me know and I'll get it fixed as quickly as possible.

A lot of people asked if Star Vortex was a twin-stick shooter and all I could really say was "kind of". Although it had twin-stick controls with a controller this never translated well to keyboard and mouse due to the lateral dodging.

Well this has now changed, you can now dodge in any direction and in the controls tab in settings you can now switch to Twin-Stick Controller mode if you prefer that. Personally I prefer the regular controls, but that's why I have settings!

As the next big update (v0.9.00) will include the item crafting system I've made some changes in preparation for that. Legendary, Rare and Different items now have slightly different modifier restrictions and I've pulled in a few of the crazier values.

More importantly the change I didn't even know that I needed. Cargo size is now fixed at 40 and you can arrange your items however you like within the grid. In addition stacking consumables now go up to stacks of 99 instead of 5!

In the game the only thing your ship design really impacted was your hit box. As such it became in your best interest to make ships as small as possible. In an effort to prevent this I made ship classes have minimum sizes, but even then you still wanted your ship to be as small as allowed for the class.

Well no longer! Your ships hull is now determined by the size of your ship. Bigger ship... more hull, tiny ship... less hull. Makes sense when you think about it.

Some encounters your tasked with defending a friendly ship against enemies for a period of time. The ship you had to defend had a habbit of flying off at high speed in to hordes of enemies. Turns out you guys did not enjoy this...

Now the friendly ship will limp about like a wounded animal and not engage enemies. So you guys better protect it!

The point of the different types of debris was to make people have to carry different types of shields for different encounters. While this is still encouraged you will no longer be so heavily punished for not having the correct shield.

Debris encounters will now only double the duration of their respective debuffs, not make them infinite.

In addition you can now purchase consumables that not only remove the debuffs but also grant +10% resistance that last 30 seconds and can be stacked for longer durations.

I've also renamed 'Heat Resistance' to 'Thermal Resistance' as that was confusing when ships generated heat.

This was a big one in feedback, the short story being that Railguns were over-powered. Their significant range allowed you to kite most bosses. As such all the range related modifiers along with the Railguns themselves have been nerfed. Also, some bosses like the Basilisk now have a longer range weapon at their head in case you try kiting them.

The levels at which you unlock new ship classes, new slots and some parts have been adjusted to match the new level ranges of each sector.

Finally the new boost immunity mechanic now activates a bit faster but cooldowns on consumables stop ticking while you're boost immune as I found myself exploiting this a bit.

Enjoy, full patch notes are below. Keep the feedback coming and I'll get on to it after the crafting update!


New Features / Content

• Cargo is now a fixed non-scrolling grid that you can arrange as you wish.
  
• Drop area for dragging items to sell / discard expanded and moved above cargo.
  
• Ships now have 40 cargo space and it no longer increases per level.
  
• Removed storage space display and sorting options from cargo display.
  
• Players can easily now select from classic controls or twin-stick shooter in settings.
  
• Dodge now works in any direction, it can now officially be a twin-stick shooter.
  
• Aim speed has been entirely removed, equipment now aims instantly.
  
• Removed aim speed upgrade and passive items.
  
• Removed turn speed upgrade and passive items.
  
• Removed thruster reverse and strafe stats, acceleration is now used in all directions.
  
• New dodge factor stat added to all thrusters.
  
• Dodging now briefly stops weapon activations.
  
• Dodging now briefly increases max speed by 10%.
  
• Dodge cooldown is now displayed on ship stats in equipment panel.
  
• All thrusters now have new stats and have been regenerated.
  
• Boost invulnerability now activates at 50% maximum speed instead of 75%.
  
• Technician upgrades to aiming and turn speed replaced with dodge upgrades.
  
• Controller L1 button will now dodge in the direction of your left stick.
  
• Controller R1 button is stabilize your ship's velocity.
  
• Debuff removing consumables have been improved to also grant 30 seconds of +10% resistance.
  
• Player ship hull is now reduced if your ship is smaller than the class maximum size.
  
• Friendly ships in rescue encounters now drift around and don't engage enemies.
  
• Radioactive debuffs now tick for 5% of the weapon that inflicted its DPS (per stack).
  
• Burning debuffs now tick for 25% of the weapon that inflicted its DPS.
  
• Debris now just doubles the duration of debuffs instead of making them permanent.

Balance Changes

• Consumable cooldowns now freeze while boost immunity is active.
  
• Reduced damage of Osprey scatter guns by 40% and increased delay from 0.75s to 1.0s.
  
• Reduced damage of Locust plasma blasters by 20% and increased delay from 0.75s to 1.0s.
  
• Reduced range modifiers on weapons to +15% maximum instead of 25%.
  
• Reduced velocity modifiers on weapons to +15% maximum instead of 50%.
  
• Reduced projectile life modifiers on weapons to +15% maximum instead of 25%.
  
• Projectile velocity and other range upgrades now increase range by 3% per level instead of 5%.
  
• Adjusted balance of Behemoth to make it a little less savage.
  
• Laser on head of Basilisk now does more damage with longer range to discourage kiting.
  
• New ship classes now unlock at level 15, 25 and 35.
  
• New slots now unlock at level 10, 20, 30, etc.
  
• Adjusted required levels for all ship parts to match new sector ranges.
  
• Increased price of black market items by 50% after the last update halved them.
  
• Enemies will now only get boost invulnerability when chasing the player's ship.
  
• Reduced legendary drop chances on Bosses by 62.5%.
  
• Reduced legendary drop chances on Elites by 50%.
  
• Legendary modifiers now have more sane numbers in preparation for crafting.
  
• Different item modifiers are now slightly more limited than rare items.
  
• Different items now get 1-2 modifiers (max 1 global / 0 rare).
  
• Rare items now get 3-4 modifiers (max 2 global / 1 rare).
  
• Legendary items now get a maximum of 6 modifiers (max 2 global / 1 rare).
  
• Level requirement remains a free modifier in regard to limits.

Quality of Life / Accessibility

• All stackable items now stack up to stack sizes of 99 instead of 5.
  
• Renamed heat to thermal damage to avoid confusion with heat generated by primary weapons.
  
• Keyboard players are now prompted in the tutorial to pick a control scheme.
  
• Rescue targets are now displayed on rescue encounters in navigation.
  
• Durability displayed on ship bar now flashes red if equipment is broken.
  
• Storage space displayed on ship bar now flashes red if full.
  
• Increased time required for some of the tutorial steps for new players learning the controls.
  
• Displacement thruster now tells you it makes you immune to damage while dodging.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed cutscenes and tutorials not playing correctly in some languages.
  
• Fixed issue with shield hit effects not animating correctly.
  
• Fixed camera not moving to end boss during final sector cutscene.
  
• Fixed Substring error in virtual keyboard when pressing backspace too many times.
  
• Attempted to fix rare null pointer in DialogOverlay.Next().
  
• Attempted to fix rare null pointer in MajorEventBanner.IsActive().
  
• Fixed bug where projectiles would become immune with their parent ships.
  
• Fixed comparison tooltip sometimes appearing off-screen.
  
• Fixed comparison of passive items showing double negative symbols.
  
• Comparison tooltip no longer flutters between items when highlighting with mouse.
  
• Comparison tooltip will no longer compare unscanned items.
  
• Fixed arrow in left-aligned comparison tooltip to align to right of header.
  
• Equipment hotkeys will no longer break slot selection overlays in panels.
  
• Mission collection is not disabled if cargo space is insufficient.
  
• Fixed navigation map loading at the wrong size due to panel animations.
  
• Fixed error when controller is disconnected during automatic pause.
  
• Fixed big slot-type icon showing on slots that were missing.
  
• Notice that prompts you to infect waypoints is now hidden if already infected.
  
• Debris that hits shields now triggers the animation at the correct point.
  
• Fixed null pointer in HUDController.RemoveMinibar().
  
• Fixed exit game menu option not working in demo.
  
• Fixed display of status effects not showing time remaining.
  
• Fixed auto repair constantly playing repair sound in mothership panel.
  
• Pressing space to dock with mothership no longer clicks buttons inside panel.

Just some quick fixes before I embark on the next big update.

After getting a bit of feedback I've re-arranged the roadmap. Gameplay right now can get a bit repetitive with combat only really being broken up by quick trips to the fleet to repair and re-supply. Also far too many of the weapons can be a bit useless.

As such I think it's important to get the item crafting system in next. This system will allow you to take modifiers from items you don't want as well as increase their rarity and level. Star base sieges will now be pushed back to the update -after- this next one.

I hope you all have a nice holiday, see you in the new year!


Balance Changes

• Reduced number of enemies in rescue encounters.
  
• Halved damage of Species-XI hunter elite enemy.

Quality of Life / Accessibility

• Utility slot now remains active despite boost invulnerability.
  
• Ship will now drift in direction they are turning to face.
  
• Using face bindings with a keyboard now auto-enables turret mode.
  
• Controller shoulder buttons no longer turn the ship when aiming with right stick.
  
• New sound effects added for rewards and encounter complete / failed.
  
• Current ship class is now highlighted on upgrades panel.
  
• Overheat warning sound can now be previewed from settings panel.
  
• Friendly tags on arriving ships are now blue to match the rest of the game.
  
• Rescue ships now get a blue reticle around them to make them easier to see.
  
• Faction dialog and echo visits no longer trigger on rescue encounters.

Performance

• Fixed a large amount of the latency when buying / selling in the mothership panel.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed hash and key test languages in developer mode not being selectable.
  
• Fixed invalid AABB in AABB error when arriving at boss encounters.
  
• Primary weapons no longer generate heat when boost invulnerability is active.
  
• Fixed bug where charges on weapons could get stuck with incorrect value.