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[Zuurix]

Echo #98: Flu and stuff

As I expected, mission X got delayed.
It was because I caught the flu and couldn't work on Sector Six for a whole week.

But before I got sick, I managed to do some good stuff.

Part rotating



It will be possible to rotate almost every part!

Added empty parts



Parts with no stats and a lot of amplifier slots have been added.
They will be sold in one of the areas of Sector Five.

Amplifier cost increased

Amplifiers, anodes, and cathodes now cost as much as fractal parts when you buy them from secured regions.
This is to make empty parts even more expensive and amplifier rewards even more valuable.

Searing Beam changes

Searing Beam now deals less damage - from 150% pylon damage to 80% pylon damage at level 10.
Searing Beam now deals 40% pylon damage at level 1, instead of 15% pylon damage.
Spending points on Searing Beam now increase Searing Beam damage by 4%.

Player hit effects

Player ship will show the same effects as enemies when hit.

Mission X



I have written the script for mission X and done most of the work for Sector Five.
There's not so much work left to finish it, so hopefully, it will be finished next week.

So that's what I did.

Until next time!

[Zuurix]

Echo #99: Bad week

Last week wasn't any better than previous ones.

I was having weird post-flu paracetamol poisoning induced depression and I had to do a lot of work on the farm.
Because of that, very little progress was made with story mission X, so I don't really have anything to write about.

Instead, here are screenshots from upcoming version:











Until next time!

[Zuurix]

Update! Story mission X, balancing, and Sector Five

This update adds a lot of new stuff!



Story mission X

High Path is active, it's time to travel to a dimension beyond the light of Sector Six.
You need to go there to meet a scientist, imprisoned for his work in the forbidden branch of science.

One more step towards victory.
One more step towards the unknown.

If the Almadi knew what you did and what you're planning to do, you would be imprisoned too.

Tips and part rotation

Spaceship building has a received a small update.
Now it's possible to rotate almost every part.
Building a cool-looking ship has never been so easy!

With the new functionality, comes new controls, and because there is no way I could stuff explanation for part rotating into an already long tutorial, I have added tips!
Now every time you will open spaceship interface, below inventory you will see one of several tips.

One of them will tell you how to rotate parts.

Balancing

I've been playing Sector Six a lot recently and I noticed that I have too many units.
To fix that, I made amplifiers, cathodes, and anodes as expensive as fractal parts.
This also makes difficulty level rewards even more rewarding.

The other thing that I have noticed was how powerful Searing Beam is.

So, here is what I did:

• Searing Beam now deals less damage - from 150% pylon damage to 80% pylon damage at level 10.
• Searing Beam now deals 40% at level 1, instead of 15%.
• Spending points on Searing Beam now increase Searing Beam damage by 4%.

Finally, diodes used to be too over-powered and made getting high-grade parts way too easy.
So, now to upgrade higher grade parts with diodes you need more diodes.
E.g.: Upgrading fractal part to mythical now requires 5 diodes.

Sector Five

Accessible after completing mission IX and securing Decelerators area, Sector Five contains these features:

• The region that sells empty parts
• Three new minions unique to Sector Five
• Arena mission in which you can fight these unique minions
• Story mission X

Empty parts

Empty parts are parts with amplifier slots instead of part properties.
E.g.: Empty optimized part instead of 2 properties and 1 amplifier slot has 3 amplifier slots.
So, now you can craft your own parts by amplifying empty parts!
This is another reason why amplifier prices have been increased.

Other changes

• Map tooltips now show up at the correct height.
• "Collect" button now shows a tooltip that explains what it does.
• Corrected Creation Of Energy ability description.
• Corrected Searing Beam ability description.
• Corrected shield removal tutorial.
• Player spaceship now has the same damage and collision graphical effects as the enemies.
• Eolutch is now level 19 region.
• Charred Link is now level 20 region.
• Made new background for High Path region.
• You will no longer get Through Broken Infinity achievement for completing Time Vortex mission. Hopefully.
• Black Rain now deals less damage to the spaceship.

Have fun!

[Zuurix]

Echo #100: Monetization and endgame

100th echo!

I was thinking about what to do for the first triple-digit echo and I asked myself: What do my players want from me?

And I think my players want me to make good games.

So, instead of spending a day making a fancy article, I spend an hour and used the rest of the day to work on Sector Six =]

It's still going to be a special echo because I'm going to use it to write about very important things.

First, about monetization of Sector Six and future games.

I've been following gaming news and they have been pretty depressing lately.
Lootboxes, malevolent patents, multiple billion dollar companies whining about how they don't make enough money, and so on.

This is the first time I officially state that my games will never have microtransactions, DLC's, and pre-order bonuses.

What they will have is a single price tag. Pay the price and get the game.
All of the game, including updates.

My plan is to learn to make really good games and create a reputation of a really good developer.
I hope I will manage to do at least some of that and it will pay off.

Right now I don't make enough money from selling Sector Six.
And by that, I mean that I'm not safe, if something goes wrong in my life I won't be able to continue making games.

Good news is that this is the worst it can get and it's not that bad.
A year or two and I'll be making enough to ensure that I can make games for as long as I want.
And I don't plan to ever stop making games.

In conclusion, support me and I'll make some cool stuff =]

Speaking of cool stuff, it's time for second part of 100th echo:

Endgame!

After weeks of thinking, I think I got a solid plan for Sector Six endgame.

The center of endgame is Broken Infinity, a region that you will create during the story.

Broken Infinity will be a procedurally generated region, with varying amount of areas, randomly chosen enemies, background, secured region cities and so on.
Once you secure all areas in Broken Infinity, it will generate a new, different region to clear.

Well, just clearing all areas won't be enough! You will also need to defeat a boss!
But I can't write about bosses because it's a minor story spoiler.

Another possible feature of Broken Infinity is mission chains.

Let's say current Broken Infinity instance has 3 areas.

Area A, area B, and area C.

Area C has a boss you need to kill to close this Broken Infinity instance and generate a new one.

But you can't get to area C immediately because it's locked!
How to unlock it? Beat mission in area B.
Which is also locked and you have to complete the mission in area A to unlock it.

In conclusion, A -> B -> C and you can generate new Broken Infinity instance, a new mission chain to complete.

Oh, and you cannot generate new missions in Broken Infinity.
You have to deal with what you get.

Let's back up a little bit. Why would you want to close Broken Infinity instance?

That's the best part: Rewards!

When you close instance, you get to reward screen.
On the screen, you see 10 open cases. There's a fractal part in each.

Then you see your instance statistics.
How many areas you secured, average mission difficulty level, optional objectives completed, etc.

Then system calculates reward upgrade chance based on these statistics.

+20% upgrade chance for average 20 difficulty level.
+50% upgrade chance for 5 areas secured.
+10% upgrade chance for 2 optional objectives completed.
Total: 80% upgrade chance.

THEN system attempts to upgrade part in each case.
If you have 80% upgrade chance, you will probably get 8 out of 10 part cases upgraded.

Upgraded to what? Relic!
Unless you've been avoiding my weekly text walls, you already know about relics - parts that have unique and incredibly powerful effects.

So, let's say that now you have 8 cases with relics and 2 cases with fractal parts.

Then cases get closed - you can't see what inside them anymore - and are shuffled.

All you need to do now is pick one of the cases.

If you're lucky, you'll get a case with the relic in it.
If not, you will get a fractal part and will have to close another instance for another chance to get a relic.

Obviously, fractal part is a weak reward for clearing 5 areas and defeating a gigantic boss, so in reality, non-relic rewards will be better.

So, the main part of endgame is clearing ever-changing Broken Infinity instances and fighting brutal bosses for OP relics.
Relics will make you even more powerful which means higher difficulty levels, faster instance clears and even more relics!

But wait, there's more!

You're not meant to secure all areas in all regions, just those that you really need.

These leftover occupied, besieged, and destroyed regions are the focus of second part of endgame!
After the story is completed, the Restoration War begins!
The goal of the Restoration War is to restore Sector Six to what it was before the Machine invasion.

During the Restoration War, every time you complete a mission, one of the regions becomes highlighted.
That region is now your level region, no matter what region it is or what level you are!

E.g.: Highlighted Deep Path region is level 35 and contains level 35 minions/items/secured regions because you are level 35.

If you will secure all - currently 154 - areas in Sector Six, you will get an unbelievably powerful relic that cannot be obtained any other way!

The Restoration War and Broken Infinity will hopefully create that so-called satisfying endgame grind =]

There's third endgame activity - Infinity Invasions, but I'll keep it for another time.

There are only two things left to say.

1) Mission XI is about 50% complete.
2) A little gift from me: Go to settings, mute sounds, and type ETALON to get etalon part.

So, that's the end of 100th echo!
There won't be many echoes after this one because the game will be finished soon.
In a month. Or two. Or three.
Soon!
...

Like always, if you have any questions, I'm ready to answer them.

Until next time!

[Zuurix]

Echo #101: Mission XI and fused minions

This week I was working on story mission XI.

One of my favorite shows is Legion. I love it for its madness.

Mission XI is an attempt to create my own madness in Sector Six.

During this mission you will encounter:

• Replication anomalies
• Black spheres
• Vertical fractures
• Fused and stagnant minions
• Temporal loops

And other crazy things.

I am an idea generator, every day I get many ideas that could end up in Sector Six or my future games.

Many of these ideas never get implemented.
For example, I had an idea of laser trap, but I couldn't add it to a game because that trap was not fun to avoid.

But there are ideas that not only work but work very well.

The fused minion idea is one of those.

So, what are fused minions?

Like most good ideas, it's simple.
Take minion A and minion B, cut them in half and put them together.
Then give the new fused minion abilities from both of original enemies and it's done.

I made three fused minions for mission XI: Heavy veteran, revenant gatherer, and havoc collector.

Heavy veteran uses veteran's ballistic attacks and heavy's reflection.
Revenant gatherer is gatherer with low armor, that explodes after some time.
Havoc collector is worst of them!
It has havoc's missile flurry and erratic mine with collector's beam attack and mines.

So, yeah, I'm having a lot of fun making mission XI.
It should be released soon, maybe even before April.

Until next time!

[Zuurix]

Sector Six Release Countdown: 10!

Sector Six has entered the final stage of development!
I was planning to release two more story missions and then work on the last Early Access update, but decided that it will better to release them with that last update.

Instead of posting traditional echoes weekly, now I will post short summaries of what I've done and update to-do list whenever I reach the next development milestone.

Let the countdown begin!

10!

Done:

• Mission XI.
• Veteran's ballistic attack is now slower.
• Improved dialogue system graphics.
• Oesa's Radiance set effect changed, now base maximum armor is equal maximum ether.
• Damage bonuses now are applied to damage while Lodeon's Ultimatum set is active.
• Fixed and improved certain set descriptions.

Remains to be done:

• Mission XII.
• Mission XIII.
• Mission XIV.
• Broken Infinity endgame activity.
• Restoration War endgame activity.
• Relics.
• Relic dismantling rewards.
• Shared stash in Deep Path to transfer items between player characters.
• Five of the Eight Machines.
• Improve the implemented Machines.
• New save system.
• 49 new achievements.
• Full Sector Six map.
• Rework certain achievements.
• Rearrange achievements in the achievement interface.
• Rebalance ability point distribution.
• Cap ability points.
• Increase starter ability points to 10.
• Increase starter part limit to 10.
• Decrease starter maximum ether to 50.
• Rework Phase Recognition system and phase properties.
• Rework Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity.
• Rework starter equipment.
• Rework Cataclysm ability.
• New part properties.
• Better part names.
• Side mission dialogues.
• Better default controls.
• Ability to reset controls to default.
• Ability to reset settings to default.
• Ability to toggle side mission dialogues.
• Settings interface improvements.
• Fix stack buying glitch.
• Reposition mission interface.
• Rework achievement interface.
• Reset difficulty level.
• Lock modular difficulty system if the player level is lower than 3.
• Fix W. warning button tooltip.
• Virtual / physical weapon clarification / stats.
• Stat page improvements.
• Connection strength near avatar picture.
• Adapt backgrounds to screen shaking.
• Dismantle all/Uninstall all buttons should have a tooltip.
• Holding shift button to dismantle / sell just one item from the stack.
• Looting improvements.
• Improve Techamer's cell.
• Rework loot box.
• Fix loot box stackable item glitch.
• Improve artifact carrier.
• Rework mission III. Again.
• Improve siege mission.
• Improve arena mission.
• Reposition item management buttons.
• Fix dialogue clash with HUD glitch.
• Expand dialogue box.
• Improve shield particles and animations.
• Improve MDS decorative map in mission select screen.
• Fix Lodeon's ship glitch when skipping intro cutscene.
• Intro logo skipping inconsistency.
• Improve mission I.
• Improve alloy containers.
• Remove filled alloy containers.
• Make Awakening Of Inner Power support all missions.
• Fix Guardian Of A Thousand worlds + Concentrated Fire effect timer graphical glitch.
• Ability to reduce the power of MDS modifiers while they are disabled.
• Improve ability bar.
• Add map decorations.

ETA:

• 70 days.

Progress:

• 8% of the tasks completed.
• I'll post again when the percentage will reach 20%.

Until then!

[Zuurix]

Sector Six Release Countdown: 9!

I have finished making mission XII!
That's a pretty big achievement because mission XII was one of the larger chunks of content I needed to make and I did it in time.

Now I will be working on ability and level cap update
This update will make ability points more valuable by reducing the amount of ability points gained from level up to 1.
It will also improve Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity abilities and replace Cataclysm with Breach - passive anti-shield ability!
It will bring Sector Six much closer to perfection.

Completed:

• Mission XII.
• Mission XI.

Completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• While Guardian Of A Thousand Worlds ability is active, Concentrated Fire recharges instantly.
• Improved alloy containers: New property, increased sell and buy price, reduced city stock.
• Removed filled alloy containers.
• Corrected W. warning button tooltip.
• Ability to decrease the level of MDS modifiers even while they are disabled.
• Fixed engine glitch.
• Improved missiles that appear when player's spaceship leaves the enemy range.
• Guardian is now more mobile.
• Potentially fixed Black Rain projectile + reflect chance problem.
• Region update flashes are now brighter.
• Veteran's ballistic attack is now slower.
• Improved dialogue system graphics.
• Oesa's Radiance set effect changed, now base maximum armor is equal maximum ether.
• Damage bonuses now are applied to damage while Lodeon's Ultimatum set is active.
• Fixed and improved certain set descriptions.

Not completed:

• Mission XIII.
• Mission XIV.
• Broken Infinity endgame activity.
• Restoration War endgame activity.
• Relics.
• Shared stash in Deep Path to transfer items between player characters.
• The Machines.
• New save system.
• 49 new achievements.
• Rebalance ability point distribution.

Not completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• Relic dismantling rewards.
• Sector map interface.
• Improve the implemented Machines.
• Rework certain achievements.
• Rearrange achievements in the achievement interface.
• Level cap changes.
• Increase starter ability points to 10.
• Increase starter part limit to 10.
• Decrease starter maximum ether to 50.
• Rework Phase Recognition system and phase properties.
• Rework Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity.
• Rework starter equipment.
• Rework Cataclysm ability into Breach ability.
• Improve Rapid Fire Mode ability.
• Improve Channel ability.
• New part properties.
• Better part names.
• Side mission dialogues.
• Better default controls.
• Ability to reset controls to default.
• Ability to reset settings to default.
• Ability to toggle side mission dialogues.
• Settings interface improvements.
• Fix stack buying glitch.
• Reposition mission interface.
• Rework achievement interface.
• Reset difficulty level button.
• Lock modular difficulty system if the player level is lower than 3.
• Virtual / physical weapon clarification / stats.
• Stat page improvements.
• Connection strength near avatar picture.
• Adapt backgrounds to screen shaking.
• Dismantle all / Uninstall all buttons should have a tooltip.
• Holding shift button to dismantle / sell just one item from the stack.
• Looting improvements.
• Improve Techamer's cell.
• Rework loot box.
• Fix loot box stackable item glitch.
• Improve artifact carrier.
• Rework mission III. Again.
• Improve siege mission.
• Improve arena mission.
• Reposition item management buttons.
• Fix dialogue clash with HUD glitch.
• Expand dialogue box.
• Improve shield particles and animations.
• Improve MDS decorative map in mission select screen.
• Fix Lodeon's ship glitch when skipping intro cutscene.
• Intro logo skipping inconsistency.
• Improve mission I.
• Make Awakening Of Inner Power support all missions.
• Improve ability bar.
• Add map decorations.
• Improve Sector transition cutscene.
• Rework contribution system.
• Improve barrager.
• Improve text input.
• Character customization: Rename character and change avatar icon.

ETA:

• 60 days.

Progress:

• 20% of the tasks completed.
• I'll post again when the percentage will reach 30%.

Until then!

[Zuurix]

Sector Six Release Countdown: 8!

Since the last time I have posted, Sector Six has become a much better game!
In a chain of small changes, I have made ability points more rewarding, ability scaling more important, six least useful abilities more useful, leveling more consistent, and phase mechanic more effective!

Phase mechanic now used to turn enemy damage into player damage.
After X amount of damage taken, player's spaceship will enter phase which will increase damage by Y% for 5 seconds.

I have also added mission XIII.
It's more or less a big cutscene, but with it done, I can focus on the main features of the final Early Access update.

So, yeah, tomorrow I'm starting to work on relics!
The arrival of relics will finally end the dark ages for Sector Six and it will become a true loot game!

Completed:

• Mission XIII.
• Rebalanced ability points: +1 ability point per level, capped at level 360. Yup, level 360 =P
• Mission XII.
• Mission XI.

Completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• Fixed story mission X glitch.
• Reworked phase break mechanic: Gain additional damage after taking a certain amount of damage.
• Channel ability’s ether cost reducing effect now lasts 3 seconds, making Channel much easier to use.
• Cataclysm ability has been replaced with passive anti-shield ability: Breach.
• Renamed Phase to Phasse, to differentiate it from phase mechanic.
• Improved Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity: More powerful, interesting, and consistent with other abilities.
• Decreased starter part limit to 6.
• Decreased starter maximum ether to 50.
• Starter engine now gives less maximum armor.
• Increased starter ability points to 10.
• While Guardian of a Thousand Worlds ability is active, Concentrated Fire recharges instantly.
• Improved alloy containers: New property, increased sell and buy price, reduced city stock.
• Removed filled alloy containers.
• Corrected W. warning button tooltip.
• Ability to decrease the level of MDS modifiers even while they are disabled.
• Fixed engine glitch.
• Improved missiles that appear when player's spaceship leaves the enemy range.
• Guardian is now more mobile.
• Potentially fixed Black Rain projectile problem.
• Region update flashes are now brighter.
• Veteran's ballistic attack is now slower.
• Improved dialogue system graphics.
• Oesa's Radiance set effect changed, now base maximum armor is equal maximum ether.
• Damage bonuses now are applied to damage while Lodeon's Ultimatum set is active.
• Fixed and improved certain set descriptions.

Not completed:

• Mission XIV.
• Broken Infinity endgame activity.
• Restoration War endgame activity.
• Relics.
• Shared stash in Deep Path to transfer items between player characters.
• The Machines.
• New save system.
• 49 new achievements.

Not completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• Relic dismantling rewards.
• Sector map interface.
• Improve the implemented Machines.
• Rework certain achievements.
• Rearrange achievements in the achievement interface.
• Level cap changes and game options.
• New part properties.
• Better part names.
• Side mission dialogues.
• Better default controls.
• Ability to reset controls to default.
• Ability to reset settings to default.
• Ability to toggle side mission dialogues.
• Settings interface improvements.
• Fix stack buying glitch.
• Reposition mission interface.
• Rework achievement interface.
• Reset difficulty level button.
• Lock modular difficulty system if the player level is lower than 3.
• Virtual and physical weapon clarification and stats.
• Stat page improvements.
• Connection strength near avatar picture.
• Adapt backgrounds to screen shaking.
• Dismantle all and uninstall all buttons should have a tooltip.
• Holding shift button to dismantle and sell just one item from the stack.
• Looting improvements.
• Improve Techamer's cell.
• Rework loot box.
• Fix loot box stackable item glitch.
• Improve artifact carrier.
• Rework mission III. Again.
• Improve siege mission.
• Improve arena mission.
• Reposition item management buttons.
• Fix dialogue clash with HUD glitch.
• Expand dialogue box.
• Improve shield particles and animations.
• Improve MDS decorative map in mission select screen.
• Fix Lodeon's ship glitch when skipping intro cutscene.
• Intro logo skipping inconsistency.
• Improve mission I.
• Make Awakening Of Inner Power support all missions.
• Improve ability bar.
• Add map decorations.
• Improve Sector transition cutscene.
• Rework contribution system.
• Improve barrager.
• Improve text input.
• Character customization: Rename character and change avatar icon.
• Improve ability interface.
• Improve ability level scaling.
• Improve damage text.
• Almadi cathode rework.

ETA:

• 55 days.

Progress:

• 32% of the tasks completed.
• I'll post again when the percentage will reach 40%.

Until then!

[Zuurix]

Sector Six Release Countdown: 7!

This and previous week, I've been improving Sector Six loot.

I have made many changes to random part generation system, made higher grade parts more common, added 22 part properties, gave parts more interesting names, but most importantly – I have implemented relic system and first 7 relics!

Relics not only are the rarest and the most powerful items in the game - they also have unique effects, skins, and even animations!

I would have made a video about relics, but I didn't have enough time for that, so instead scroll down for screenshots.

With relics implemented, now I will work on the last story mission and several small changes.

Relic facts:

• After rarity changes, relics are now rarest items in the game, their drop chance is 1 in 500.
• Relics can be sold for 2 relic fragments. 8 relic fragments turn into a relic.
• Relics give reliquary items instead of alloy when dismantled.
• Reliquary items re-roll and transform relics.
• Relics can have up to 7 properties, but cannot be amplified.
• Relics are always level 1 and have properties that are useful no matter what level you are.
• You cannot install more than 3 relics. Yet.
• You cannot install relic duplicates. E.g.: You can't have two Quasar Domes installed.
• 7 relics are implemented, I will implement at least 10 more before game launches.

Completed:

• Relics.
• Mission XIII.
• Rebalanced ability points: +1 ability point per level.
• Mission XII.
• Mission XI.

Completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• New part properties.
• Improved part names.
• Higher grade parts are now more common.
• Relic dismantling rewards.
• Parts give less damage reduction and reflect chance.
• Parts give fewer wave chances.
• Improved item generator: Now produces more random items.
• Item changes: Changed diode cost, changed certain item sprites, improved item use error messages, improved tooltips.
• Fixed story mission X glitch.
• Reworked phase break mechanic: Gain additional damage after taking a certain amount of damage.
• Channel ability’s ether cost reducing effect now lasts 3 seconds, making Channel much easier to use.
• Cataclysm ability has been replaced with passive anti-shield ability: Breach.
• Renamed Phase to Phasse, to differentiate it from phase mechanic.
• Improved Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity: More powerful, interesting, and consistent with other abilities.
• Decreased starter part limit to 6.
• Decreased starter maximum ether to 50.
• Starter engine now gives less maximum armor.
• Increased starter ability points to 10.
• While Guardian of a Thousand Worlds ability is active, Concentrated Fire recharges instantly.
• Improved alloy containers: New property, increased sell and buy price, reduced city stock.
• Removed filled alloy containers.
• Corrected W. warning button tooltip.
• Ability to decrease the level of MDS modifiers even while they are disabled.
• Fixed engine glitch.
• Improved missiles that appear when player's spaceship leaves the enemy range.
• Guardian is now more mobile.
• Potentially fixed Black Rain projectile problem.
• Region update flashes are now brighter.
• Veteran's ballistic attack is now slower.
• Improved dialogue system graphics.
• Oesa's Radiance set effect changed, now base maximum armor is equal maximum ether.
• Damage bonuses now are applied to damage while Lodeon's Ultimatum set is active.
• Fixed and improved certain set descriptions.

Not completed:

• Mission XIV.
• Broken Infinity endgame activity.
• Restoration War endgame activity.
• Shared stash in secured regions.
• The Machines.
• New save system.
• New achievements.

Not completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• Sector map interface.
• Improve the implemented Machines.
• Rework certain achievements.
• Rearrange achievements in the achievement interface.
• Level cap changes and game options.
• Side mission dialogues.
• Better default controls.
• Ability to reset controls to default.
• Ability to reset settings to default.
• Ability to toggle side mission dialogues.
• Settings interface improvements.
• Fix stack buying glitch.
• Reposition mission interface.
• Rework achievement interface.
• Reset difficulty level button.
• Lock modular difficulty system if the player level is lower than 3.
• Virtual and physical weapon clarification and stats.
• Stat page improvements.
• Connection strength near avatar picture.
• Adapt backgrounds to screen shaking.
• Dismantle all and uninstall all buttons should have a tooltip.
• Holding shift button to dismantle and sell just one item from the stack.
• Looting improvements.
• Improve Techamer's cell.
• Rework loot box.
• Fix loot box stackable item glitch.
• Improve artifact carrier.
• Rework mission III. Again.
• Improve siege mission.
• Improve arena mission.
• Reposition item management buttons.
• Fix dialogue clash with HUD glitch.
• Expand dialogue box.
• Improve shield particles and animations.
• Improve MDS decorative map in mission select screen.
• Fix Lodeon's ship glitch when skipping intro cutscene.
• Intro logo skipping inconsistency.
• Improve mission I.
• Make Awakening of Inner Power support all missions.
• Improve ability bar.
• Add map decorations.
• Improve Sector transition cutscene.
• Rework contribution system.
• Improve barrager.
• Improve text input.
• Character customization: Rename character and change avatar icon.
• Improve ability interface.
• Improve ability level scaling.
• Improve damage text.
• Cathode rework.
• Improve controller support.

ETA:

• 41 days.

Progress:

• 40% of the tasks completed.
• I'll post again when the percentage will reach 50%.

Until then!

[Zuurix]

Sector Six: Two years on Steam!

On this day, 2 years ago, Sector Six was released on Steam and I'm giving away a few keys on SteamGifts and Steam group!

Go to group >>
Go to SteamGifts >>

I would do something bigger for this special day, but I'm really busy preparing the game for the final release.

Luckily there will be many more anniversaries and many opportunities to do something cooler =]

Happy birthday, Sector Six!

[Zuurix]

Sector Six Release Countdown: 6!

Since the last time I posted, I've been working on inventory improvements, mission XIV, ability scaling, new HUD, and other things.

Long story short, mission XIV is getting closer to being finished, meanwhile many parts of the game have become easier and better to use.

Now I would be directing all my attention to mission XIV, but this week I have received a lot of new feedback and now I have to make a few important decisions.

I might choose to do some really big changes to the game, which would delay the release by a month.
If that happens, I will make another post explaining the situation.

Anyway, to the task list!

Completed:

• Relics.
• Mission XIII.
• Rebalanced ability points: +1 ability point per level.
• Mission XII.
• Mission XI.

Not completed:

• Mission XIV.
• Broken Infinity endgame activity.
• Restoration War endgame activity.
• Shared stash in Deep Path to transfer items between player characters.
• The Machines.
• New save system.
• 49 new achievements.

Completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• Improved Kithalia’s Blight set penalty
• Improved barrager.
• Toggle XP gain feature has been removed.
• Improved Sector transition cutscene.
• Improved pausing.
• Improved HUD.
• Improved ability level scaling.
• Improved item management and filtering.
• Repositioned item management buttons.
• Stat page improvements.
• Virtual and physical weapon clarification and stats.
• New part properties.
• Improved part names.
• Higher grade parts are now more common.
• Relic dismantling rewards.
• Parts give less damage reduction and reflect chance.
• Parts give less wave chances.
• Improved item generator: Now produces more random items.
• Item changes: Changed diode cost, changed certain item sprites, improved item use error messages, improved tooltips.
• Fixed story mission X glitch.
• Reworked phase break mechanic: Gain additional damage after taking certain amount of damage.
• Channel ability’s ether cost reducing effect now lasts 3 seconds, making Channel much easier to use.
• Cataclysm ability has been replaced with passive anti-shield ability: Breach.
• Renamed Phase to Phasse, to differentiate it from phase mechanic.
• Improved Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity: More powerful, more interesting, and consistent with other abilities.
• Decreased starter part limit to 6.
• Decreased starter maximum ether to 50.
• Starter engine now gives less maximum armor.
• Increased starter ability points to 10.
• While Guardian of a Thousand Worlds ability is active, Concentrated Fire recharges instantly.
• Improved alloy containers: New property, increased sell and buy price, reduced city stock.
• Removed filled alloy containers.
• Corrected W. warning button tooltip.
• Ability to decrease the level of MDS modifiers even while they are disabled.
• Fixed engine glitch.
• Improved missiles that appear when player's spaceship leaves enemy range.
• Guardian is now more mobile.
• Potentially fixed Black Rain projectile problem.
• Region update flashes are now brighter.
• Veteran's ballistic attack is now slower.
• Improved dialogue system graphics.
• Oesa's Radiance set effect changed, now base maximum armor is equal maximum ether.
• Damage bonuses now are applied to damage while Lodeon's Ultimatum set is active.
• Fixed and improved certain set descriptions.

Not completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• Sector map interface and map tutorial.
• Improve the implemented Machines.
• Rework certain achievements.
• Rearrange achievements in the achievement interface.
• Level cap changes and game options.
• Side mission dialogues.
• Better default controls.
• Ability to reset controls to default.
• Ability to reset settings to default.
• Ability to toggle side mission dialogues.
• Settings interface improvements.
• Fix stack buying glitch.
• Reposition mission interface.
• Rework achievement interface.
• Lock modular difficulty system if the player level is lower than 3.
• Connection strength near avatar picture.
• Adapt backgrounds to screen shaking.
• Holding shift button to dismantle and sell just one item from the stack.
• Looting improvements.
• Improve Techamer's cell.
• Rework loot box.
• Fix loot box stackable item glitch.
• Improve artifact carrier.
• Rework mission III. Again.
• Improve siege mission.
• Improve arena mission.
• Fix dialogue clash with HUD glitch.
• Expand dialogue box.
• Improve shield particles and animations.
• Improve MDS decorative map in mission select screen.
• Fix Lodeon's ship glitch when skipping intro cutscene.
• Intro logo skipping inconsistency.
• Improve mission I.
• Make Awakening of Inner Power support all missions.
• Improve ability bar.
• Rework contribution system.
• Improve text input.
• Character customization: Rename character and change avatar icon.
• Improve damage text.
• Cathode rework.
• Improve controller support.
• Improve tutorial and class select.

ETA:

• 35 days.

Progress:

• 50% of the tasks completed.
• I'll post again when the percentage will reach 60%.

Until then!

[Zuurix]

Echo #102: Class merge and ability distribution rework

In "Sector Six Release Countdown: 6!" I have said that I was considering to do some big changes to Sector Six.

Now I have decided to do them, and this is an update on that, as promised.

What are the changes?

First, spaceship classes are not going to be a thing anymore.
All abilities will use the same damage type.

Secondly, abilities will be unlocked with level. You'll start with three basic abilities and unlock other abilities on level up until you reach level 30.

Finally, because weapon damage is now universal to all abilities, weapons will now reduce cooldown and maybe even ether cost of certain abilities.

Why am I doing these changes?

Because they will make the game much better both for low-level and high-level players.
New players won't have to deal with 36 abilities, weapons will be more interesting, leveling up will be more impactful than ever, there will be more important decisions to make, and so on!

What's the catch?

The catch is that it will take a week or more to do all those changes so the final Early Access update will be slightly delayed.

Hope this sounds good, I will post again when I'll catch up to countdown or when there will be more changes in plans.

[Zuurix]

Echo #103: Weapon rework

It's been a week since I made the last post, so here's an update on what I'm working on.

Two days ago I have successfully merged classes and made abilities unlock when leveling up.

Yesterday I have started working on weapon rework.

Since abilities use the same damage type now, all weapons are the same and that is not good.

To combat this, I have made weapons reduce ether and cooldown of abilities.

I have doubled ether costs and cooldowns of most abilities.
Installing right weapons would reduce ether costs and cooldowns to their normal values.

It did make weapons more interesting than ever, but it was a little too messy.
Just replacing one installed ability with other, would require the player to hunt for a different set of weapons.

Plus, it didn't create any interesting decisions.

It feels like punishment for not installing right weapons and it's not what I want.

So, I am going revert all yesterday's progress and start working on the new idea.

The new idea is to make weapons work in a way that allows the player to build three different spaceships.

- Powerful spaceships that have higher damage, longer cooldowns, and burn more ether.
- Fast spaceships that have shorter cooldowns, lower damage, and burn more ether.
- Efficient spaceships that have longer cooldowns, lower damage, but burn less ether.

To make it happen, weapons will get two new properties - ability ether cost reduction and ability cooldown reduction.

To stop these properties from making abilities too fast or not expensive enough, they will not interact with ability ether costs and cooldowns directly.

Instead, the player will need to install a certain amount of weapons to reduce ether costs or cooldowns of abilities by 25%.
If requirements are not met, abilities will have base stats or even become 25% more expensive and/or slower.
Requirements will rise with the number of parts installed.

Basically, there will be three types of weapons and by focusing on one weapon type will allow the player to make spaceship powerful or fast or efficient.

What's also good about this system is that it doesn't really end with three spaceship types.

It will be possible to build balanced ships that are not bad or good at anything

It will also be possible to make spaceship excel at more than one field - maybe even at all three with enough rare, amplified weapons.

As for the final Early Access update, I'm still over a month away from releasing it.
This rework created a huge delay, but I think that it's worth it because the game will become a lot better.

Next week I'm hoping to continue the release countdown, so until then!

[Zuurix]

Sector Six Release Countdown: 5!

Since the last time I posted, I have finished weapon and ether reworks!

Weapons now modify ability stats and ability ether costs increase with level.
These changes have significantly improved quality of loot and variety of possible spaceships.

There are three weapon stats now: Weapon damage, cooling rate, and ether efficiency.

Relays increase weapon damage, which increases ability damage.
Pylons increase cooling rate, which reduces ability cooldowns.
Nodes increase ether efficiency, which reduces ability ether costs.

It's possible to focus on one weapon stat to make spaceship deal a lot of damage or have low ability ether costs or have low ability cooldowns.
Or anything in between!

For example, during testing, I have built myself a spaceship that reduced cooldowns of its abilities by 94%!

While it dealt very low damage, powerful abilities like Shards of Chaos, Swarm Control, and Entropic Missile had really low cooldowns, so I was able to spam them and it compensated the lack of damage.

It was really fun, and I can't wait to see what you guys can do with this new system.

As for ether rework, it made each ability point spent increase ether costs of all abilities by 10%.
This allowed me to make part ether properties scale with level, so now parts that increase ether are more rewarding than ever!

Now I will be working on making tutorial and introduction shorter and better, which should take about a week.
After that, I will work on story mission XIV.

ETA is back to 50 days, because I have added new things to the list and because there were all those reworks that created a huge delay.
Let's hope my calculations will be wrong again, but this time to our favor!

Completed:

• Ether rework: Ether properties now scale with level, ability ether costs increase with ability levels.
• Weapon rework: Nodes now reduce ability ether costs and pylons reduce ability cooldowns.
• Ability rework: Abilities now use same damage type and are unlocked as spaceship level increases.
• Relics.
• Mission XIII.
• Rebalanced ability points: 1 ability point per level.
• Mission XII.
• Mission XI.

Not completed:

• Mission XIV.
• Broken Infinity endgame activity.
• Restoration War endgame activity.
• Shared stash in Deep Path to transfer items between player characters.
• The Machines.
• New save system.
• 49 new achievements.

Completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• Fixed inventory leak.
• Adapted backgrounds to screen shaking.
• Improved dialogue avatars.
• Improved settings interface.
• Added button that resets settings to default.
• Added button that resets controls to default.
• Modular difficulty system changes: Flow Stagnation maximum level changed to 1, rebalanced rewards.
• Reworked Creation of Energy and Channel abilities.
• Improved achievement interface.
• Repositioned mission interface.
• Fixed weapon amplifying.
• Improved ability bar.
• Made better ability icons.
• Heavy Shield rework: Now called Power Shield, no longer slows down spaceship.
• Improved ability and effect icons.
• Improved Kithalia’s Blight set penalty
• Improved barrager.
• Toggle XP gain feature has been removed.
• Improved Sector transition cutscene.
• Improved pausing.
• Improved HUD.
• Improved ability level scaling.
• Improved item management and filtering.
• Repositioned item management buttons.
• Stat page improvements.
• Virtual and physical weapon clarification and stats.
• New part properties.
• Improved part names.
• Higher grade parts are now more common.
• Relic dismantling rewards.
• Parts give less damage reduction and reflect chance.
• Parts give less wave chances.
• Improved item generator: Now produces more random items.
• Item changes: Changed diode cost, changed certain item sprites, improved item use error messages, improved tooltips.
• Fixed story mission X glitch.
• Reworked phase break mechanic: Gain additional damage after taking certain amount of damage.
• Channel ability’s ether cost reducing effect now lasts 3 seconds, making Channel much easier to use.
• Cataclysm ability has been replaced with passive anti-shield ability: Breach.
• Renamed Phase to Phasse, to differentiate it from phase mechanic.
• Improved Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity: More powerful, more interesting, and consistent with other abilities.
• Decreased starter part limit to 6.
• Decreased starter maximum ether to 50.
• Starter engine now gives less maximum armor.
• Increased starter ability points to 10.
• While Guardian of a Thousand Worlds ability is active, Concentrated Fire recharges instantly.
• Improved alloy containers: New property, increased sell and buy price, reduced city stock.
• Removed filled alloy containers.
• Corrected W. warning button tooltip.
• Ability to decrease the level of MDS modifiers even while they are disabled.
• Fixed engine glitch.
• Improved missiles that appear when player's spaceship leaves enemy range.
• Guardian is now more mobile.
• Potentially fixed Black Rain projectile problem.
• Region update flashes are now brighter.
• Veteran's ballistic attack is now slower.
• Improved dialogue system graphics.
• Oesa's Radiance set effect changed, now base maximum armor is equal maximum ether.
• Damage bonuses now are applied to damage while Lodeon's Ultimatum set is active.
• Fixed and improved certain set descriptions.

Not completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• Sector map interface and map key.
• Improve the implemented Machines.
• Rework certain achievements.
• Rearrange achievements in the achievement interface.
• Level cap changes and game options.
• Side mission dialogues.
• Better default controls.
• Ability to toggle side mission dialogues.
• Fix stack buying glitch.
• Lock modular difficulty system if the player level is lower than 3.
• Holding shift button to dismantle and sell just one item from the stack.
• Looting improvements.
• Improve Techamer's cell.
• Rework loot box.
• Fix loot box stackable item glitch.
• Improve artifact carrier.
• Rework mission III. Again.
• Improve siege mission.
• Improve arena mission.
• Fix dialogue clash with HUD glitch.
• Expand dialogue box.
• Improve shield particles and animations.
• Improve MDS decorative map in mission select screen.
• Fix Lodeon's ship glitch when skipping intro cutscene.
• Intro logo skipping inconsistency.
• Improve mission I.
• Make Awakening of Inner Power support all missions.
• Rework contribution system.
• Improve text input.
• Character customization: Rename character and change avatar icon.
• Improve damage text.
• Cathode rework.
• Improve controller support.
• Rework tutorial and class select screen.
• Rework introduction.
• Optimize.
• Improve secured region interfaces.

ETA:

• 50 days.

Progress:

• 60% of the tasks completed.
• I’ll post again when the percentage will reach 70%.

Until then!

[Zuurix]

Sector Six Release Countdown: 4!

Since the last time I have posted, I have made a new introduction and tutorial, loot rework, region select screen, another MDS reward rework, character customization, and...
And something else probably.

The most important of those is, of course, loot rework!

It's very simple - making missions more difficult will make enemies drop more and better parts.
Additionally, drop quality is now influenced by minion power and whether it is modified or not.

For example, modified dreadnought will drop better parts than the normal dreadnought and normal dreadnought will drop better parts than a tank.
There are still a lot of random chances involved, so don't expect this to be true all the time.

Introduction cutscene has been removed, because it was too long and, well, not that good.
Instead of it, there are several dialogue boxes that appear before and after the tutorial.

The tutorial has been shortened as well, so it takes a lot less time to get to the real game.

Region select screen allows to quickly jump from one region to the other, without using arrow buttons.
This is useful to higher level players and it will be even more useful when the Restoration War activity will be added.

Finally, now it's possible to create a custom character for dialogues.
You can change character's name and dialogue appearance.

I'm really happy with the improvements, but not that happy with how fast I've been working.

Unfortunately, ETA has not moved forward much. Now it's at 45 days.
This is because there were several delays and because loot rework was not included in the previous ETA.

Two steps forward, one step back.
This weekend I won't be at home, so that's another delay, but when I'm back, I'll be working on the final story mission and the Machines.
My current estimate is that it'll take 3 weeks, but if I can do it faster, this will bring the release much closer.

Currently, story mission XIV and the Machines are the biggest tasks on the list.

Completed:

• Loot rework: Bigger enemies now drop better parts, difficulty level makes enemies drop better parts.
• Ether rework: Ether properties now scale with level, ability ether costs increase with ability levels.
• Weapon rework: Nodes now reduce ability ether costs and pylons reduce ability cooldowns.
• Ability rework: Abilities now use same damage type and are unlocked as spaceship level increases.
• Relics.
• Mission XIII.
• Rebalanced ability points: 1 ability point per level.
• Mission XII.
• Mission XI.

Not completed:

• Mission XIV.
• Broken Infinity endgame activity.
• Restoration War endgame activity.
• Shared stash in Deep Path to transfer items between player characters.
• The Machines.
• New save system.
• 49 new achievements.

Completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• Graphically improved loot.
• Added region select screen and map key.
• Improved mission overview interface.
• Improved mission I.
• Improved mission III.
• Improved text input.
• Reworked tutorial.
• Reworked introduction.
• Added avatar customization: Name your character and choose how it looks in dialogues.
• Improved spaceship building interface.
• Reworked Super Shield ability: Shield lasts 8 seconds and increases armor generated on kill while active.
• Fixed inventory leak.
• Adapted backgrounds to screen shaking.
• Improved dialogue avatars.
• Improved settings interface.
• Added button that resets settings to default.
• Added button that resets controls to default.
• Modular difficulty system changes: Flow Stagnation maximum level changed to 1, rebalanced rewards, removed diodes.
• Reworked Creation of Energy and Channel abilities.
• Improved achievement interface.
• Repositioned mission interface.
• Fixed weapon amplifying.
• Improved ability bar.
• Made better ability icons.
• Heavy Shield rework: Now called Power Shield, no longer slows down spaceship.
• Improved ability and effect icons.
• Improved Kithalia’s Blight set penalty
• Improved barrager.
• Toggle XP gain feature has been removed.
• Improved Sector transition cutscene.
• Improved pausing.
• Improved HUD.
• Improved ability level scaling.
• Improved item management and filtering.
• Repositioned item management buttons.
• Stat page improvements.
• Virtual and physical weapon clarification and stats.
• New part properties.
• Improved part names.
• Higher grade parts are now more common.
• Relic dismantling rewards.
• Parts give less damage reduction and reflect chance.
• Parts give fewer wave chances.
• Improved item generator: Now produces more random items.
• Item changes: Changed diode cost, changed certain item sprites, improved item use error messages, improved tooltips.
• Fixed story mission X glitch.
• Reworked phase break mechanic: Gain additional damage after taking a certain amount of damage.
• Channel ability’s ether cost reducing effect now lasts 3 seconds, making Channel much easier to use.
• Cataclysm ability has been replaced with passive anti-shield ability: Breach.
• Renamed Phase to Phasse, to differentiate it from phase mechanic.
• Improved Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity: More powerful, more interesting, and consistent with other abilities.
• Decreased starter part limit to 6.
• Decreased starter maximum ether to 50.
• Starter engine now gives less maximum armor.
• Increased starter ability points to 10.
• While Guardian of a Thousand Worlds ability is active, Concentrated Fire recharges instantly.
• Improved alloy containers: New property, increased sell and buy price, reduced city stock.
• Removed filled alloy containers.
• Corrected W. warning button tooltip.
• Ability to decrease the level of MDS modifiers even while they are disabled.
• Fixed engine glitch.
• Improved missiles that appear when player's spaceship leaves the enemy range.
• Guardian is now more mobile.
• Potentially fixed Black Rain projectile problem.
• Region update flashes are now brighter.
• Veteran's ballistic attack is now slower.
• Improved dialogue system graphics.
• Oesa's Radiance set effect changed, now base maximum armor is equal maximum ether.
• Damage bonuses now are applied to damage while Lodeon's Ultimatum set is active.
• Fixed and improved certain set descriptions.

Not completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• Improve the implemented Machines.
• Rework certain achievements.
• Rearrange achievements in the achievement interface.
• Better default controls.
• Fix stack buying glitch.
• Lock modular difficulty system if the player level is lower than 3.
• Holding shift button to dismantle and sell just one item from the stack.
• Improve Techamer's cell.
• Rework loot box.
• Fix loot box stackable item glitch.
• Improve siege mission.
• Improve arena mission.
• Fix dialogue clash with HUD glitch.
• Expand dialogue box.
• Improve shield particles and animations.
• Intro logo skipping inconsistency.
• Make Awakening of Inner Power support all missions.
• Rework contribution system.
• Improve damage text.
• Cathode rework.
• Improve controller support.
• Optimize.
• Improve secured regions.
• Rework evolving mechanic.
• Replace gauntlet missions.
• Improve collision system.
• Add help pages.

ETA:

• 45 days.

Progress:

• 70% of the tasks completed.
• I’ll post again when the percentage will reach 80%.

Until then!

[flex$]

slow and steady wins the race my man. keep going strong.

[Zuurix]

slow and steady wins the race my man. keep going strong.

I will, thanks =]

[Zuurix]

Sector Six Release Countdown: 3!

Sector Six story is completed!

I admit that I wanted too much from it.
14 different missions, 8 bosses, choices, all those dialogues - it was too much for me to do it flawlessly.

But the most important thing for me was to make a story campaign that is more than just...
More than just a bunch of "go there" goals so that player would know what to do.

So I think I have accomplished that and I'm happy.

Other cool things that I did:

The story is now literally bigger because I increased dialogue font size!

Loot box now shows up to 170 items!

I have updated boss missions to use all minions, instead of just scions, sentinels, and gatherers.
It also supports Manifestations of Destruction and doesn't support The Decision modifiers now, so it's, well, better.

I have added more bulwark blocks for siege missions, now there are explosive blocks that destroy blocks diagonally when hit and blocks that contain loot!

Finally, the arena missions have been improved significantly.
Now they support The Assault of the Modified and The Rain of Fire modifiers, and you no longer need to keep going back to summon new minions.

And now I'm going to work on endgame content!

The current plan is to make the procedurally generated region with objectives and rising loot quality, war to secure all areas, new mission type, and more relics!

The new estimated time of arrival for Sector Six is 24 days:

Completed:

• Mission XIV.
• The Machines.
• Loot rework: Bigger enemies now drop better parts, difficulty level makes enemies drop better parts.
• Ether rework: Ether properties now scale with level, ability ether costs increase with ability levels.
• Weapon rework: Nodes now reduce ability ether costs and pylons reduce ability cooldowns.
• Ability rework: Abilities now use same damage type and are unlocked as spaceship level increases.
• Relics.
• Mission XIII.
• Rebalanced ability points: 1 ability point per level.
• Mission XII.
• Mission XI.

Not completed:

• Broken Infinity endgame activity.
• Restoration War endgame activity.
• New save system.
• New achievements.
• Compressed part rework.

Completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• Expanded dialogue box.
• Improved cathodes.
• Improved loot box: Up to 170 looted items visible, glitch free.
• Updated boss mission.
• Improved arena mission: Better loop, supports The Assault of the Modified and The Rain of Fire modifiers.
• Improved siege mission: New blocks, minor graphical improvements.
• Expanded credits.
• Graphically improved loot.
• Added region select screen and map key.
• Improved mission overview interface.
• Improved mission I.
• Improved mission III.
• Improved text input.
• Reworked tutorial.
• Reworked introduction.
• Added avatar customization: Name your character and choose how it looks in dialogues.
• Improved spaceship building interface.
• Reworked Super Shield ability: Shield lasts 8 seconds and increases armor generated on kill while active.
• Fixed inventory leak.
• Adapted backgrounds to screen shaking.
• Improved dialogue avatars.
• Improved settings interface.
• Added button that resets settings to default.
• Added button that resets controls to default.
• Modular difficulty system changes: Flow Stagnation maximum level changed to 1, rebalanced rewards, removed diodes.
• Reworked Creation of Energy and Channel abilities.
• Improved achievement interface.
• Repositioned mission interface.
• Fixed weapon amplifying.
• Improved ability bar.
• Made better ability icons.
• Heavy Shield rework: Now called Power Shield, no longer slows down spaceship.
• Improved ability and effect icons.
• Improved Kithalia’s Blight set penalty
• Improved barrager.
• Toggle XP gain feature has been removed.
• Improved Sector transition cutscene.
• Improved pausing.
• Improved HUD.
• Improved ability level scaling.
• Improved item management and filtering.
• Repositioned item management buttons.
• Stat page improvements.
• Virtual and physical weapon clarification and stats.
• New part properties.
• Improved part names.
• Higher grade parts are now more common.
• Relic dismantling rewards.
• Parts give less damage reduction and reflect chance.
• Parts give fewer wave chances.
• Improved item generator: Now produces more random items.
• Item changes: Changed diode cost, changed certain item sprites, improved item use error messages, improved tooltips.
• Fixed story mission X glitch.
• Reworked phase break mechanic: Gain additional damage after taking a certain amount of damage.
• Channel ability’s ether cost reducing effect now lasts 3 seconds, making Channel much easier to use.
• Cataclysm ability has been replaced with passive anti-shield ability: Breach.
• Renamed Phase to Phasse, to differentiate it from phase mechanic.
• Improved Aggression, Resistance, and Capacity: More powerful, more interesting, and consistent with other abilities.
• Decreased starter part limit to 6.
• Decreased starter maximum ether to 50.
• Starter engine now gives less maximum armor.
• Increased starter ability points to 10.
• While Guardian of a Thousand Worlds ability is active, Concentrated Fire recharges instantly.
• Improved alloy containers: New property, increased sell and buy price, reduced city stock.
• Removed filled alloy containers.
• Corrected W. warning button tooltip.
• Fixed engine glitch.
• Improved missiles that appear when player's spaceship leaves the enemy range.
• Guardian is now more mobile.
• Potentially fixed Black Rain projectile problem.
• Region update flashes are now brighter.
• Veteran's and revenant factory’s ballistic attacks are now slower.
• Improved dialogue system graphics.
• Oesa's Radiance set effect changed, now base maximum armor is equal maximum ether.
• Damage bonuses now are applied to damage while Lodeon's Ultimatum set is active.
• Fixed and improved certain set descriptions.

Not completed – Minor changes and improvements:

• Rework certain achievements.
• Rearrange achievements in the achievement interface.
• Lock advanced features if the player level is lower than 5.
• Holding shift button to dismantle and sell just one item from the stack.
• Improve Techamer's cell.
• Improve shield particles and animations.
• Intro logo skipping inconsistency.
• Make Awakening of Inner Power support all missions.
• Improve damage text.
• Improve controller support.
• Optimize.
• Improve secured regions.
• Rework evolving mechanic.
• Replace gauntlet missions.
• Improve collision system.
• Add help pages.
• Improve background system.

ETA:

• 24 days.

Progress:

• 80% of the tasks completed.
• I’ll post again when the percentage will reach 90%.

Until then!

[Zuurix]

Sector Six Release Countdown: 2!

Sector Six endgame content batch 1 is done!

I have added three endgame activities:

Infinity Instances
Complete areas in procedurally generated regions that are in Broken Infinity to gain loot quality bonus.
Includes instance boss missions and increased chance of spawning uncommon mission types.

Restoration War
In the endgame, random regions get scaled to your level, so you can complete missions in low-level regions and secure areas you haven't secured yet.
Securing all 144 areas in Sector Six will reward you with a very powerful relic.

Arcane Arsenal
Obtain all relics in the game to get a special relic that will appear in all your saves.

If there will be a demand for more content, I'll add more endgame activities.

Now I will be working on new achievements, the new save system, a few minor things and...

Well, that is all!

The new ETA is 13 days.
I have added extra few days to ETA just in case =]

Normally I'd put task list and screenshots here, but that takes a lot of time and soon it will be possible to experience changes directly, so I won't bother this time =]

I am going to make another post about my plans for the future of Sector Six, pre-release beta, and out of Early Access release, so until then!

[Zuurix]

Echo #104: End of Early Access, Pre-release beta, and Perfection Project

Here are my plans for the end of Early Access, pre-release beta, and post-release updates:



Release preparations

Testing, uploading new achievements, etc.

Pre-release beta

IMPORTANT: Saves will not be erased after pre-release beta.
IMPORTANT: In pre-release beta, the game is essentially complete. The beta is just in case, I expect Sector Six to be without any major flaws at this point.

During the beta, I'll ask everyone to play the game to find as many problems as possible!
There's a lot of new features and it's too much for me to test on my own.
During this period I'll also be making a new, final Sector Six trailer and updating the store page.

End of Early Access

The big release!

Post-release

During September, I'll be releasing updates to fix glitches and balance things, if needed.
After September, I'll either start working on a new game or continue developing Sector Six.
This depends on the number of sales.

If the game will sell much more copies than it sells now, on average, I'll continue working on Sector Six.
I doubt that it will happen, but it's not impossible.

If the game will not sell much more than during Early Access, I'll move on to the next game. I'll still update Sector Six annually to add the content that is currently missing.

Perfection Project updates

If the game will sell enough copies, some or most of this will be implemented:

- Full scaling support
- Maze mission
- Boss craft mission
- Boss siege mission
- Tomb capture mission
- Tomb purge mission
- Perfected time attack mission
- Perfected arena mission
- Two more bosses for boss missions.
- Improved armored colony seeker.
- Improved mission entering and leaving times.
- Massive parts.
- Intellect Encryption Template activity.
- Lost Regions activity.
- Level 30-90 content.
- Full background overhaul.
- New modes.
- New enemies and ruins.
- 100+ relics.

Minimum Project updates

Otherwise, only this will be implemented:

- Tomb capture mission
- Tomb purge mission
- Perfected time attack mission
- Perfected arena mission
- Two more bosses for boss missions.
- Improved armored colony seeker.
- Improved mission entering and leaving times.
- 30+ relics.

IMPORTANT: Everything between minimum and perfection is possible =]

Like always, I will do everything based on feedback and analysis, so these lists will probably change.

Prepare for the beta!