Spliced (v0.8.6)

Apologies for the delay with this update. Some updates are bigger than others and this one is now huge.

When you first discover a Species-XI Infected Seed, you're told that you can summon more and use their own technology against them. I've finally made that possible, but while working on it, I also saw an opportunity to address one of the complaints I've heard about the game.

Ultimately, most item modifiers are just more stats, which usually means more damage. With this update, you can now infect equipment to give it a Mutation Modifier. Unlike regular modifiers, mutations aren't stat increases. They fundamentally change how your equipment behaves.

Create a powerful shield that protects the front of your ship, a Temporal Drive that can rewind time, or a Drone Bay that deploys one enormous drone instead of several smaller ones. More information below.

Splicing

You'll now find a new Splicing tab in the Assembler once you've rescued it and discovered your first Infected Seed. Place ingredients into the 3x3 grid and, when they match a valid recipe, the indicator turns green. Hit Splice to fill the vats and create something new.

Splicing never fails and recipes don't cost any credits. You won't have to experiment blindly, either. Recipes are automatically revealed once you've discovered all their ingredients, so your recipe list will gradually expand as you play.

Splicing: Overclocking

Species-XI elites and bosses can now drop Primordial Seeds. Splicing one with a piece of equipment reduces its Required Level by 1, up to a maximum reduction of 10 levels.

Each reduction also adds 2% to the item's base damage, hull or shield. At the level cap, a fully overclocked item effectively performs like a level 110 item.

Splicing: Mutations

This is the part I've had the most fun working on! Splice a legendary item with eight Infected Seeds to infect it. You'll then get to choose from three randomly selected mutations appropriate for that item.

Unlike regular modifiers, mutations change how your equipment actually works.

Weapons can fire projectiles that split on impact and seek out nearby enemies. Hits can spawn Mites that dive into their targets. Drone Bays can deploy additional drones whenever you take damage. Shields can recharge through kills instead of regenerating over time.

There are 71 different mutations spread across every equipment family except passives.

Each mutation has a fixed strength, so there's no need to endlessly reroll for better numbers. You can transfer mutations between infected items or schematics using Replace Modifier, or infect an item again to replace its existing mutation with a new one.

Splicing: More Recipes

Mutations and overclocking aren't the only things you can do with Splicing. There are several other recipes to discover:

• Combine three Hull Nanobots or Shield Batteries into one of the next tier.
• Combine one of each elemental Capsule into a Prismatic Capsule.
• Transform a Rare item into a copy of any legendary you've already discovered.
• Create the new Symbiont passive, which allows your kills to hatch Larvae that temporarily fight alongside you.

I've also added Splice All to make bulk crafting much easier. It automatically processes every complete set of ingredients in your cargo, so creating a pile of Prismatic Capsules no longer means repeating the same recipe over and over.

You can now buy stackable items in bulk, too, making it much quicker to stock up on ingredients.

Infected Elites Get Affixes

In the last update, I introduced Species-XI entities that could appear and infect nearby ships, transforming them into powerful elites. These infected elites can now spawn with 1 to 3 affixes, making them considerably more dangerous.

The five possible affixes are Fortified, Shielded, Berserk, Swift and Nimble. Higher-level enemies can have more affixes, with a second becoming available at level 25 and a third at level 60.

Of course, tougher enemies should mean better rewards. Each affix increases the XP awarded, adds an extra equipment drop roll and boosts Item Salvage.

Photo Mode

This one's a little different, but I've also added a Photo Mode! Press M or select Photo Mode from the pause menu to freeze the action and hide the HUD, giving you a chance to capture some great screenshots.

You can pan around and zoom in or out to frame your shot, although the camera is limited to the area you could normally see during gameplay. Photo Mode is only available in single player, since freezing the entire universe while someone takes a screenshot would be a bit of a problem in multiplayer!

There's plenty more in the full patch notes below, including Colorblind Modes, a Steam Workshop browser in the Mod List and a much smarter Ship Builder preview. Enjoy!

Patch Notes

New Features / Content

• New Splicing tab in the Assembler fuses items and mutates legendaries.

• New Photo Mode, on M or in the pause menu, freezes play and hides the HUD.

• The Ship Builder preview now flies your real ship with its glows and clouds.

• The Mod List has a new Steam Workshop tab to browse and subscribe to mods.

• New Stormcaller legendary for the Tesla Coil, firing an orange storm bolt.

• New Storm Kunai legendary for the Tesla Axes, alongside the other Kunai.

• New Hive Drive legendary for the Void Thruster, with a purple boost trail.

• Ships infected into Elites now gain 1 to 3 affixes, with more XP and loot.

Balance Changes

• Every Species-XI invasion now rewards an Infected Seed, not just on arrival.

• Species-XI invasions lose one credit reward to fit the Infected Seed.

• Sector 4 Species-XI encounters now reward an Infected Seed instead of credits.

• Small Hull Nanobots and Small Shield Batteries now cost 50% more.

• Intercept transports now drop 71.4% more credits, so intercepts pay most.

• Credits caches now drop 54.8% fewer credits, so intercepts pay more.

• Hull Reinforcement gains 316.7% more hull per level to keep up on big ships.

• Bio Network gains 28.6% more hull regen per level to help in long fights.

• Each fleet ambush makes the next wait 50% longer, so long visits get calmer.

• Dockable fleet ships now regenerate hull and can't die, so docks stay open.

Quality of Life / Accessibility

• Traders, the Assembler and Science Vessel no longer pause, as in co-op.

• New Colorblind Mode in Accessibility shifts UI colors so they stay distinct.

• Damage types now show their debuff icon next to the text, not just a color.

• New Toggle Fire controls let each weapon button fire on a press, not a hold.

• The game now starts in your Steam language the first time it is launched.

• Chinese text now uses Chinese character forms instead of Japanese ones.

• Music now loops and moves between track sections with no gap.

• Jump loading screens now last only as long as your PC needs to load.

• Loot Filter rules now spell out and/or and flag Never rules that skip items.

• The Assembler now saves your last tab, so it reopens there after you jump.

• The Mod List now marks mods other players don't need as Client-side Only.

• Saves with missing mods now list them in larger, easier to read text.

• Modifier tooltips now list the item types each modifier can be moved onto.

• Shields can now be swapped once their recharge delay ends, not only at full.

• A failed multiplayer join now offers to get the host's missing mods.

• The Glossary's item and legendary lists now show how many you have found.

• Stackable items at the Mothership and Flagship can now be bought in bulk.

• Starting an item drag now closes any open dropdown list.

Performance

• Only the language you play in is loaded now, saving memory and startup time.

• Textures are now sized so they compress, more than halving their memory use.

Bug Fixes

• Healing and regen no longer push drones and turrets to 3x their health.

• Flames on a dying ship now burn out instead of vanishing with the hull.

• Drones, summons, reanimated and mind-controlled ships now fire past allies.

• Drones from Holo Drive clones and summons now get your drones' health bonus.

• Ships summoned by Holo Drive clones and summons no longer use enemy scaling.

• Idle Holo Drive clones and summons now settle into formation smoothly.

• Charging gun Range and Velocity spans now start in meters, not game units.

• Bloom now measures brightness correctly, so glows keep their source's color.

• Dynamic Glow now blends like real light, so dark ship outlines stay dark.

• Beam hit flashes now draw over the beam tip, as the beam showed through them.

• Chinese, Japanese and Korean text now fits short rows instead of vanishing.

• Keys now follow their position, so WASD works on AZERTY and other layouts.

• Twin Stick controls now have every default key the standard controls have.

• Activatable 11 to 15 moved to U, I, O, P and L, as Y is Utility 2.

• Holo Drive clones now copy your drone behavior, firing angles and links.

• Repair Rays no longer heal enemies, as they now pass over hostile ships.

• Repair Ray item cards now show the heal rate instead of 0 DPS.

• Quitting before keeping a new display mode now returns to the old one.

• The wishlist button now opens your browser when the Steam overlay is off.

• Steam Deck defaults now apply even when Steam features fail to start.

• Saves no longer list Client-side Only mods as missing once turned off.

• Steam's on-screen keyboard no longer covers the text box you are typing in.

• The boost tutorial no longer says boosting disables weapons, as it doesn't.

• Light Lance's description no longer says it only grapples unshielded ships.

• Rarity is no longer misspelled in the item sorting options.

• Assembler tabs now wrap to two rows at high UI scale instead of overlapping.

• Vault buttons and sorting no longer overlap each other at high UI scale.

• Hangar Bay now scrolls so designs no longer spill off it at high UI scale.

• Fixed mistranslated and inconsistent terms across all 11 translated languages.

• Long modifiers, buttons and NEW badges now fit in 9 translated languages.

• Glossary reactions no longer run into their descriptions in 3 languages.

• Rebinding or clearing a key now frees the old key, as hidden copies stayed.

• Area hits now scale each target alone, as level bonuses stacked across them.

• Scatter Gun and Plasma Blaster now fire their full listed spread, centered.

• Torch spikes, blades and burning patches no longer skip targets after a kill.

• Unequipping a pulse now always stops its wave, even when two waves overlap.

• Disabled mods no longer count as installed when joining a multiplayer game.

• Piercing homing missiles no longer circle a ship they already pierced.

• Equipping an item from storage now keeps the slot's link and snap settings.

• Held fire now resumes after a Displacement Thruster boost, as it stayed off.

• Time Echo can no longer rewind ships out of an elite or boss trap.

• Dragging on an open dropdown list no longer lifts the item behind it.

• Dropping an item on the Increase Level panel no longer blanks its slot.

• The Overclock recipe tooltip now says -1 Level Requirement, not +1.

• Item stat names no longer lose letters, as long ones are now shortened.

• Lifeburst Thruster boost and Leech Gun sounds now play in mono as intended.

• Global Modifiers no longer shows raw color tags, as only some were removed.

• Fleet ambushes no longer come twice as often at 200% Game Speed.

Modders

• ModLoader.RegisterSetting now keeps saved values and works in Settings.

• OnGameLoaded now reaches mods, as it used to fire before any mod had loaded.

• New Modifier.GetUsableOnString and Item.categoryTree/FormatCategoryTree.

• New static ModifierTooltip builds the shared modifier tooltip text.

• Palette colors are remapped at runtime while Colorblind Mode is on.

• New Palette.FormatDamageType/GetDamageTypeOpenTag add damage type icons.

• Rewired updated to 1.1.65, so keyboard keys are no longer UnityEngine.KeyCode.

• Rewired keyboard keys are now Rewired.KeyboardKeyCode.

• GameShip.SetPendingKillContext gains a float netHatchChance last parameter.

• New WorldController.SetPhotoMode, IsPhotoMode and CanOpenPhotoMode.

• Star.Invade(StarType, bool grantArrivalBonus) is now Star.Invade(StarType).

• WorldController.TriggerInvaders drops its bool grantArrivalBonus parameter.

• BeamWeapon.CalculateDPS is now virtual and RepairLaser overrides it.

• New BeamWeapon.AddDamageItemStats adds the Damage Type and DPS card lines.

• New Ship.affixes and static ShipAffixes hold an infected Elite's affixes.

• MsgEntityDeath gains int affixes, read for the kill XP multiplier.

• GameShip.Damage now scales a copy of its DamageData array, not the caller's.

• GameShip.Damage's body moved to private GameShip.DamageCopy for transpilers.

• Pulse.ClearWaveReference() is now ClearWaveReference(GameObject endedWave).

• New ModInfo.active is true only for mods that loaded at startup.

• New ModInfo.workshopId comes from mod.json or the Workshop install folder.

• ModLoader.GetMultiplayerMods now lists only mods that loaded at startup.

• New SteamWorkshopMods.QueryPage, QueryDetails, Subscribe and Unsubscribe.

• WorldController.IsTimePaused is now false while a dock panel is open.

• WorldController.DockPlayerShip now docks the ship in single player too.

• New SceneGlowFeature.SetSecondaryCamera(Camera) glows a second camera.

• New ShipOutlineFeature.SetSecondaryCamera(Camera) does the same for shadows.

• FluidClouds gains a Material outputMaterial last constructor parameter.

• FluidClouds.Simulate gains a GameShip extraShip last parameter.

• Fluid cloud results now go on the Clouds' material, not shader globals.

• New Clouds.SetStyle, SetColor and SetExtraShip methods.

• Clouds.FitToScreen and Dust.FitToScreen are now public.

• New Dust.SetColor and Background.GetHueColor, GetColor and SetColor.

• ShipBuilder.shipBuilderPreview and shipPreviewRectTransform are removed.

• New ShipPreviewWorld runs the Ship Builder's live preview.

• CargoPanel.Buy gains a last optional int quantity parameter (default 1).

• TradePanel.Buy and CoreEquipment.Buy overrides take that quantity too.

• New virtual CargoPanel.CanBuyQuantity(Item) lets a panel sell in bulk.

• New virtual Star.ClampIntoTrap(GameShip, Vector2) keeps a position in a trap.

• New static EliteStar.ClampIntoCircularTrap does the same for a circular trap.

• Utils.GetUIComponentUnderMouse<T> now returns null if a UI hit covers T.

• Utils.GetUIComponentUnderPosition<T> returns null too if T is covered.

• New StaticUpgradeItemBase.healthMax sets the hull gained per level.

• StaticUpgradeItemBase no longer scales hull 2% per level, so set healthMax.

• New Modifier.StripColorTokens removes the color tags from a modifier line.

• New NPCBase.hullRegen and Ship.hullRegen set hull regen per second.