Bay 12 Games Forum

Hi Everyone,

We just released a huge tuning/balancing patch today, and I wanted to make sure you all knew about it.  We are really happy with a lot of the changes, and Chapter 4 in particular got a big tuneup.

Here is the changelist to get you excited


Added   Damage Viewer (Turn on in options)
Added Added Hotkey (Y) for auto turrets
Added Drone research levelups will increase drone damage
Added Invading marines can now steal data, blueprints, blackboxes and release specialists, based on hacking skill in crew research tree..

Changed Cannon boosters: lowered reload speed increase, added projectile speed, range, damage buffs.
Changed Missile booster: lowered reload rate boost, added damage boost.
Changed Beam booster, added damage and range boost
Changed Grav missiles regen much faster
Changed Increased torpedo speed, damage
Changed Increased all missile damage
Changed Increased hunter SRM ion damage
Changed Increased SRM damage
Changed Damage increase for micro missiles
Changed Mothership shields stronger
Changed Ion cannon converted to Energy damage type
Changed Disruptor cannon and Pulse cannon damage reduced
Changed Cloak damage lowered to 33% boost.
Changed Allow turrets to fire on autofire if cloak disrupted (and probably player has fired recently)
Changed Changes move to position AI to make it less orbity
Changed Increased specialist storage by 1 per mothership level
Changed Specialist drop rate increased
Changed Specialist bonuses decreased (was destabilizing late game)
Changed Late game zombie level increased
Changed One sidequest drops a Godlike specialist (so can always get the achievement reliably)
Changed Insane achievement should unlock expert too.
Changed High capacity reactor, faster recharge, more expensive
Changed Give fusion beam a good damage boost,
Changed Overload/Focal emitter slight damage boost
Changed Escort ships do not run from explosions, was too annoying.
Changed Minefields will not track non hostiles, even if attacked. But the relation will lower if they are destroyed.
Changed Minedroppers longer reload time.
Changed Made civ torpedoes faster/more damaging
Changed Disruptor cannon slightly slower reload, Pulse cannon still old faster speed.
Changed Increased scanner ranges
Changed Lowered mine damage a bit
Changed Scanner mines can hunt non cloaked vessels too
Changed More data for killing ships
Changed Systems with more tech blueprints, tend to have higher level starbases
Changed Increased sec4 base upgrade requirements
Changed Zombie critters better infectors, but fewer
Changed More hitchhiker critters on zombie ships
Changed Zombie crittes move faster
Changed Each zombie kill on a ship has a 50% chance of producing a new zombie onboard.
Changed Increased  invasion combat rate
Changed Mines less health, less damage, higher speed
Changed Armor slightly more resistant to projectiles
Changed Hull more resistant to projectiles and lasers, weaker against missiles
Changed Rebalanced reactors so smaller weapons register better.
Changed Casting Stones mission less difficult
Changed A system you just left cannot be invaded.  This allows for better strategic decision making and pushing an invasion back instead of it leapfrogging over you.
Changed Zombie invasions can be reinforced from neighboring stars. 
Changed Made fewer ally reinforcement ships, but made them tend to be larger.
Changed Readjusted all difficulty levels.
Changed Difficulty affects: Zombie critter combat prowess
Changed Difficulty affects: Respec cost
Changed Difficulty affects: Station upgrade Rez/Goon Cost
Changed Difficulty affects: Blueprint cost
Changed Difficulty affects: Relation improve cost
Changed Difficulty affects: Bribe cost
Changed Difficulty affects: Zombie intercept turns
Changed Difficulty affects: Zombie intercept fleet size
Changed Difficulty affects: Zombie invasion chance
Changed Difficulty affects: Zombie invasion strength

Fixed Damage system optimized.  Should help Zombie slowdown for some people.
Fixed AI not allowed to shoot stuff in tractor beams
Fixed Various typos
Fixed Reversed Taskmaster and Foreman specialist skills..
Fixed Hooked up Mediator specialist skill
Fixed Speed Loader Specialist Skill
Fixed "WINNIE MCDONAGH" Specialist
Fixed Broken gender based specialist bonuses
Fixed Eye Popper achievement can occur on FE
Fixed Beams stuck in fire state forever.
Fixed AI blowing up player ships should not cause relations change.
Fixed When a ship is venting, sometimes the last vented crew member dies and the ship explodes.
Fixed AI is obsessed with mine layers, people abusing them as decoys. 
Fixed A scanner hitting a mine layer will get the mine layer to chase you..
Fixed "Oh its you" missions sets civs to enemy upon start
Fixed Optimized cloaking  code
Fixed  Mine targeting optimized
Fixed Escape pods can be picked up sooner after launch, especially large ones
Fixed Phantom blueprint drop fixed
Fixed Moved weak spot on Jamison's Hammerhead Armor to the rear. 

We are hoping to get the next patch out in early August.  I am going to roll up my sleeves and get back to work on the specialist system as soon as I finish this post.  It is getting pretty exciting and I want to play with the new toys!

We also want to do a bunch of balancing for the next patch.  A big one for us is making some end game techs like lasers and armor more useful against zombies.  There will be some pretty big adjustments with the infected ships to keep the people who invested in techs aside from missiles and shields effective.  Also SRM missiles are going to get taken down a couple notches.  Man they can get insane late game.  We never had a chance to test everything out because of the game's length, and we are glad the community let us know how overpowered they are.

Anyhow I will be keeping a close eye on these forums and I hope to have some updates soon. 

One interesting non game related thing is that we are having our first TV interview on Wednesday.  Both of us at MinMax are not the in front of the camera type of people, so it should be interesting.  The nerves have already started.

Hi Everyone,

This is Blorfy from MinMax Games (one half of the team that made SPAZ.)

It is great to see the activity on this thread.  We are busily working to have SPAZ ready for a final release by mid august.  Currently we are spending a lot of time on tuning, optimizing, and adding three new features.  Specialists (randomly generated characters that improve ship performance, think diablo items), Arenas (places to battle through a ladder of challenges for large rewards (usually epic level specialists), Bounty hunters (they track you down if you are in one place for too long and also have overpowered experimental ships), and we are also adding side quests to flesh out the main storyline.  It is a pretty tall order for august 15th, but we plan to patch in new features for months after release anyhow so the game will just keep evolving.

By mid august we should be on every major digital distributor.  So wherever you want to get SPAZ it should be there.  In the mean time, here is a link to our demo. 
http://spacepiratesandzombies.com/spazdemo/SpazDemoInstaller_0.9.007.exe If you like it, you can get in on the beta, and your key will continue to work for the final version.

We are also adding skill levels to help with the grind.  Currently SPAZ can ramp quite heavily and would probably skew to a higher difficulty level. 

We are also toying with the idea of taking over stations early on.  More like collecting protection money, but in this case the resource on the station. 

Thanks,

Blorfy

@Sergius
I have confirmed with Steam that we will be able to migrate keys assuming the contracts are signed. 

Hi everyone,

This is Blorfy, one half of the SPAZ development team.  Alex just mentioned his post to me and I thought it would be good to say hi.

I would be happy to answer any questions about SPAZ.

Ahh, looks like this is also a quite active other link.  I will monitor that one too then