Patch 1.3 - Optimizations & Multiplayer Beta Updates!

Hey parasites!

Thanks for playing our multiplayer beta and sending us all the helpful feedback. They have been really helpful for us to pinpoint and resolve any issues with the game mode. At the same time, we heard your concerns about the game's performance and a lot of work is being done in the background to optimize the game in general. With all the new changes ready to go, it's time for a new patch!

The highlight of this patch is a plethora of optimizations as we want to help Pathogenic runs smoother on more devices. With this new update, the game can get twice as fast on lower settings for weaker machines! There are also additional updates to the Multiplayer Beta branch addressing some of your feedback since the beta went live. Please see the changelog below for more details:

Patch 1.3

What's New

• Many significant optimizations: Moved many performance critical parts like softbodies and attacks to native code.
• Graphics Engine: Pretty Multithreaded is the new default. It draws on its own thread, which makes the game smoother on most PCs. If it crashes or glitches for you, pick Pretty (same visuals, no separate thread) or Fast.

• Attack Limit slider in Graphics: When the screen gets crowded, your attacks merge into fewer, stronger ones and do the same total damage. You can lower it on slower PCs to prevent a critical meltdown while your cells trigger nuclear reactions.

• Highlight Enemy Contact Damageoption in UI Settings (off by default): Enemies that deal damage on touch get a red outline to give them more visibility. Only on the parts that actually hurt though!

• Loading tips: They now appear on the body map loading screen, mostly about how infuser chains work.

• Mods menu: Every installed mod now has its own on/off checkbox. If the game fails to start because of a broken mod (for example, after a new update), it turns your mods off by itself and tells you, so you no longer have to unsubscribe to get back in.

• Hungarian translation: Thanks to lostprophet.hu, another language has been added to our list of supported localizations!

Balance

Buffs

• Pyrosome: burn 4 + 3 x rarity → 5 + 4 x rarity (overcharged bonus 4 → 5)
• Oxidator: burn +1
• Pyrocyst: burn +20%
• Exocytotic Chamber: damage +43%
• Trophic Pseudopod: reach +25%
• Cnidocyst and Galvanic Cnidocyst: attack 33% faster
• Scatter Ejector: damage +12.5%
• Autophagy: +1 extra max HP
• Apoptosome reworked: now all enemies explode on death, not just the ones killed by connected attacks
• Conal Burst and Projectile Surge: melee swings now scatter around your cell instead of stacking on one spot, and laser weapons in a burst actually hit

Nerfs

• Focused Specialization: +200% / −50% per weapon → +160% / −40% per weapon
• Argentic Coating: +0.5% → +0.4% damage per core
• Nanobot: 50% → 30% of health pickups become armor
• Hormesis: heal chance 35% → 30%, and it can now be offered at most 3 times
• Kinetosome: damage −30%
• Galvanic Flagellum: damage 48 + 24 × rarity → 34 + 17 × rarity
• Refiner: charge time 120s → 150s
• Ossificator: 60s → 70s
• Regenerator: 40s → 45s
• Pristine Mitochondrion: overcharge lasts 30s / 45s (was 40s / 60s)

Performance

• Large performance improvements in busy fights: shots, explosions, melee swings, lightning, beams, toxin clouds, hairs and soft bodies are much cheaper to run
• Swarm, Sentry, Nidublast and Bacteriophage minions are much lighter
• The organelle editor no longer doubles the GPU cost
• A paused game that isn’t being touched redraws only once a second, which saves power
• Liver walls use much less video memory, which fixes hangs and crashes on laptop GPUs during the Liver loading screen

Quality of life

• The hacker terminal intro can be skipped with any key or click once shaders are loaded
• Pneumonia swarm boss lasers are much quieter
• Steam Deck: touching the screen no longer switches to touch controls

Fixes

• Gyrosome + Magnetosome + Perforin beams no longer freeze the game and eat RAM until it crashes
• Gyrosome- and Magnetosome-moved attacks now break secret doors
• Stacking 3 or more Gyrosomes no longer makes shots flip direction or vanish
• Glycocalyx arc no longer blocks your own Chromatophore Lens and Gland beams
• Exocytotic Chamber with a laser weapon no longer fires a cluster that hits nothing
• Daily runs can no longer be quit and continued
• Quitting right after dying no longer leaves the run continuable
• Resuming a run inside a secret room no longer leaves it invisible and sealed
• Teleporting out of a doorway no longer starts a fight in a room you never entered
• A boss shoving you through the closed exit door no longer skips the rest of the level
• Drops pulled toward you from behind walls now fly through to you after 3s
• Improved detection of the player cell being stuck in walls
• Amoeba and Nanobot no longer leave body pieces behind when teleporting after a rebuild
• Music no longer comes back during the ending after the Heart or Brain boss
• Diatom local co-op: the second controller now vibrates too
• Stacked minions no longer freeze the game
• Several crash fixes (explosions on level change, modded bullets, quitting with attacks in flight, and more)

Online Multiplayer Beta (Multiplayer Beta branch)

• New host options: Friendly Fire, Player Collision, an Ally Attack Transparency slider, and Enemy Health per Extra Player (default 100%, up to 400%)
• Hosts can kick players
• New Server Browser, lobby screens reorganized into tabs, and co-op menus translated
• Each player rolls their own pedestal, shop and mutation offers. Stash, rerolls and plasmids are saved per player.
• The secret path and the Brain lock are shared across the party
• Revived players appear next to a partner and get their own build screen
• A floor ends early once every living player is at an exit
• If a partner disconnects, the run waits for them instead of being lost; the run is saved if the host quits from the window or the death screen
• Secret doors, lung air traps and barrel explosions now behave the same on every screen
• Heart boss lasers and arcs stay inside its room
• The speedrun timer keeps running while a partner plays on; hit-stop is off in online sessions
• Modded hosts no longer get stuck with no waves and closed doors
• Many sync fixes (held beams, enemy kills and shots, amoebas, photo mode, pause screens)