Re: Onslaught, Audio Asteroids, released for Windows, macOS, and Linux
This is the biggest post-release patch yet, so I'm posting the changelog here. If you haven't downloaded updates in a while, now might be a good time to do so. I'm not going to edit the Markdown, so apologies if this forum makes a mess of it.
Release notes for version 21.01.14.1821
Changes:
* Fragmented asteroids sometimes got a speed of 0 and never moved. This is now fixed. Asteroid fragments should all move, rather than sitting around waiting to be picked off.
* _Silence distant asteroids_ is now enabled by default. If there are no complaints, the setting will vanish in the next release. Note that if you've previously disabled this setting, you'll have to re-enable it to use the feature.
* Various sound levels were tweaked to account for the fact that the game is now quieter with _Silence distant asteroids_ defaulted to on.
* Asteroids now move slightly faster in subsequent waves. Hopefully this causes a shift in strategy over time. Initially, it is generally safe to pick asteroids off only when they're close, but on higher levels, you have less and less time to react and need to rely on hunting or focus modes.
* The tutorial was updated to mention the new silent asteroids default. Documentation updates to come soon, assuming this new default sticks.
* Restarting the tutorial from the pause menu should now actually, well, restart the tutorial. Previously, it behaved like resuming.
* Previously, tutorial asteroids all started from the same positions. Now, positions are randomized where it makes sense (I.e. the later tutorial stages.)
To follow up on previous discussions here:
* I decided not to make collision alerts obey the _Silence distant asteroids_ setting just yet because the a) speed boost and b) bug I fixed where fragments had 0 speed might substantially change the balance. As such, I didn't want to risk either taking away a valuable tool, or making a change that won't really matter until players reach waves that previously were easy but now aren't. I'm willing to reconsider, but let's let this batch of changes settle before continuing to shake things up.
* I'm willing to introduce saucer steering and potentially remove the speed boost if it's too much of a challenge, but that's some fairly complex code to write and debug. Massive multi-hour games are meant to be the exception, not the norm, and shooting saucers also changes balance. The fact that they aren't smart enough to survive long also exposes another strategy--pick off enough asteroids so that saucers are more likely to survive, wait for them to spawn, and hunt them to mine points. I want to see what these changes cause before writing complex AI steering code.
Enjoy.
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