October 25, 2024
ArtTrials in Tainted Space
67 Comments

Paulette by Adjatha!

Whew, this is a long time coming! There’s a lot of things I wanted to get done testing and polishing before releasing this, but with familial obligations approaching this weekend, I would rather you have your hands on this now than sit on it even longer.

A lot of my time over the last two weeks has gone into playtesting the game. Paulette’s recruitment arc starts out on Tarkus, and I wanted to play through the combat encounters to make sure they were up snuff. She also has higher level content, meaning the best way to test her would be to take a lower level (or fresh) save through the whole game. This presented an opportunity to create some proper test saves for the Kineticist class. Merc, Smuggler, and Tech Specialist all have test saves for character level to make testing content easy. The new kid on the block needed to catch up.

It has not been the smoothest sailing. In addition to doing a lot of tweaking on Paulette’s initial Tarkus tank quest to get it up to the quality levels I find acceptable, I kept finding myself side-tracked into fixing other bugs, balance issues, and aggravating content. Around Zheng Shi the Kineticist class can really start to struggle, especially if suboptimal talent selections are made, leading to me scattering a generous wave of buffs across the class. And I think they need more. My psychic babus are going to get some more higher level adjustments in the future – I just need more time to play, tweak, and test them further.

0.9.111 Changelog:

  • Hotfix: Fixes for numerous crashes as a result of public builds failing to access utility functions in backer builds. (Donkey)
  • Hotfix: Paulette’s sleep with scene should no longer soft lock.
  • [Backers] Paulette Crew is IN. Written by Magenta Needle and coded by Leek. She has a small quest on Tarkus to get her recruited, culminating in a battle with a tank! Once onboard, she has several events on other planets and a bit of a quest…
  • [Backers] New Items: “Snake Boba” & “Snake Shake” (by Madam Materia, coded by Leek). As you might surmise, snake transformations are on the way!
    • Available at a 50% drop rate from Slyveren Slavebreakers.
    • Available at Jade’s shop on Tavros Station.
    • Available from select vending machines.
  • [Backers] New Item: “Lactomax Ring Piercing” (coded by Leek). You might guess that these will keep your lactation from ending. You’d be correct!
    • Available from Narc.
  • [Backers] New Item: “Hardlight Fans” (coded by Leek). These are a new rare quality melee weapon that can hit flying targets without the lunge perk. (Attributes subject to change pending balance review.)
    • Available from Gabmart Threadz.
  • [Backers] New Item: “Scout Shield” (coded by Leek). (Attributes subject to change pending balance review.)
  • [Backers] New Item: “Electrokinetic Knuckles” (coded by Leek). These are melee weapons with stagger chance! (Attributes subject to change pending balance review.)
    • Available from Malai.
  • [Backers] New Item: “BFD 9001” (coded by Leek). Despite the long history of acronym-based weapons being guns, this is a big fucking drill! (Attributes subject to change pending balance review.)
  • [Backers] New Item: “Hardlight Chakrum” (coded by Leek). The likes of Lucy Lawless would greatly appreciate this ranged weapon’s addition. (Attributes subject to change pending balance review.)
    • Available from Rivet
  • [Backers] New Item: “Fogcaster Rifle” (coded by Leek). A new gun approaches! This has a special skill alt-fire… (Attributes subject to change pending balance review.)
  • [Backers] New Item: “Worn Out Shield Bracers” (coded by Leek). These are a new shield-boosting accessory. (Attributes subject to change pending balance review.)
    • Available from Shekka.
  • [Backers] New Item: “Ganger Jacket” (coded by Leek). Transparent cyberpunk jackets are all the rage on Dhaal. (Attributes subject to change pending balance review.)
    • Available from Zaika Ganger Techies, Bruisers, Riotors, and Bangtails as a 33% drop chance.
  • [Public] The Private Party
  • [Public] The Nuka Rancher
  • The basic grapple status is now red colored. (Fenoxo)
  • Added a quest marker for the Stellar Tether encounter square on the map for Tarkus. (Fenoxo)
  • The scrap shield had its level correctly reassigned to 4 (was 9) (Fenoxo)
  • Improved the map connection on Myrellion for the Seeker’s shop so that it correctly appears as locked when the shop is closed. (Fenoxo)
  • Several places in the game had their text formatting updated with our fancy new text animation systems, courtesy of Jacques00.
  • Numerous other tweaks and improvements.

0.9.111 Balance Tweak Changelog (All ‘Noxo Baybee):

  • The Kineticist Class received numerous buffs (and more are coming!)
    • Entropic Leech now restores more energy as the player character’s energy nears rock bottom. This should make fights at inopportune moments more winnable and improve how the class feels at higher levels.
    • Force Darts now shoots an addition dart at level 6 and level 12.
    • Vortex Brand lasts 5 rounds (up from 4).
    • Debris Field lasts 6 rounds (up from 3).
    • Numerous status effects had their icon selection improved and their status colors correctly assigned.
    • Thermal Sunder and Kinetic Burst both got a little more level-based scaling and some extra damage bumps at level 6 and 8.
    • Thermal Sunder and Kinetic Burst’s status effects now last longer.
    • Smaller scaling buffs to some of the higher level abilities.
  • Tainted Rusher got some nerfs at lower levels.
  • Nyrean Praetorians now only stun for a single turn.
  • Taivra now only stuns for a single turn.
  • The standard headbutt attack now only produces a 1 run stun when used on player characters.
  • Slavebreakers now have a grapple cooldown so they cannot keep re-grabbing you.
  • The Rats Raiders encounter received numerous tweaks.
    • Their weapons no longer have inbuilt stun-chance on hit.
    • Reduced shields by ~45 (varies by rat)
    • Reduced HP for some rats.
    • Blind duraction reduced from 3 to 2 rounds (and text tweaked to notify better).
    • Headbutt attack and stun gun attacks now have a shared cooldown. (And the attacks should display a bolded stun notice)
    • Cleaned up extra per-rat description entries that weren’t really used for anything.
  • Reset encounter proc count on reaching Maike. This will prevent a random enemy attack from immediately occurring after the boss fight.