Hey everyone,

This update is a pretty large one, containing some very exciting additions and changes.

The first one is the implementation of "Hands" in the place of a "weapon" and "offhand" slots. The first usable arm contains the main weapon you wield. All the other ones can be attacked with as well, given your Dexterity stat passes a check upon attacking. Having four arms now gives you three extra chances to deal damage when you attack an enemy, which is very exciting! The remaining issue is two-handed weapons only take up one spot for now. I'll get around to that implementation with the next update.

Second is the addition of various difficulty options in the place of a permadeath toggle. Two difficulties (Adventurer and Scavenger) do not end the game upon your character's death. Instead, you are teleported either to your home base (more on that later) or the starting screen. Higher difficulties will have more punishing results of death, such as the loss of items, money, XP, or even stats. I hope these make everyone happy with their own playstyles. I know permadeath isn't everyone's cup of tea, and I want to cater to the RPG fans too. The game will be primarily designed around Rogue mode though.

Third has multiple segments to it. The base is a discover-able area which acts as your "home". You will find a "Return" tome here, enabling you to return whenver you wish. Followers can be sent here to make room for new ones, or if you get tired of their crap. Speaking of followers, you can now trade with them, and specify what gear they wear (if they can speak). This makes Mercenaries very powerful tools!

Lastly, mod support continues. I think I'm almost ready to start loading from a "mods" folder instead of forcing the player to edit the game's files directly. I have moved more functionality to Lua, and expanded what items can do from the Json file. The player's sprite is no longer multiple SpriteRenderer components layered on top of each other. Instead, it will merge together all the current textures into a single sprite, which allows me to more easily set a render order for the player. Before, you would always be behind any NPC, even if you are "lower" on the screen. Now, there should be much better sorting. This relates to modding, since I have moved the character's base and equipped item sprites to the data files. You can change the path or layer of any of these objects if you wish. This pipeline will also eventually come to NPCs and Objects.

Thanks for reading the walls of text. Check out the changelog for the full picture of what I've accomplished over the last month. I'm very proud of it!

Cheers,

Matt (Cynapse)

CHANGELOG:

Additions:

• Added the body part type "Hand", which holds weapons and shields. This replaces Main/Off Hands.
• The first non-severed arm holds the "main" hand. (Right to start) This will be your primary weapon. All other hands will have a chance to attack when you do, based on your Dexterity.
• Additional arms grant additional hands.
• I still have yet to differentiate between one and two handed weapons using this system.
• Difficulty Options:
• Various difficulties that impact what happens upon character death. There are 4 currently.
• Abilities ported over to Lua file, which is accessible to modders.
• Disease effects ported over to Lua.
• New enemy types.
• New diseases, including a precursor Vampirism disease.
• New status effects.
• Added shield-specific modifiers.
• XP bar below HP/ST.
• Added a Home Base area.
• You can send followers to this base, and pick them up at any time.
• Inside, you will find a tome allowing you to teleport back to that location.
• You can now trade with followers if they are able to speak.
• Many come with a few items that you can "borrow".
• You can manage followers' equipment if they are able to speak.
• Slightly varied underground maps by adding rivers and pillars.
• New tiles for crashed ship walls.
• Exposed character pieces sprites to modders.

Changes:

• Drain Blood as a vampire no longer requires your opponent to have certain status effects to succeed.
• Removed obsolete abilities.
• Tweaked many abilities in various ways to balance them.
• Increased ability level cap by 2 points.
• Removed "Offhand", "Light Armor", "Medium Armor" and "Heavy Armor" proficiencies.
• Added "Shield" and "Armor" proficiencies.
• Increased Proficiency level cap by 2 points.
• Proficiency and Ability XP is now displayed as a percentage.
• Ability panel now shows the hotkey for each one (1-9 and 0)
• Abilities no longer gain XP or cause you to lose stamina if you do not have a target. (For adjacency abilities)
• Toppled entities can no longer attack flying enemies unless either entity has a hold on the other.
• Toppled entities are no longer considered "flying" for the duration of the effect.
• Changed Ka-Nil's first quest to a more reasonable objective.
• The terminal quest in the Power Plant now only requires 5 to be used. One on each floor.
• Dialogues can no longer be opened while enemies are nearby.
• Items can have multiple components acting on the same trigger. Even ones of the same type.
• Items can now influence proficiencies like Butchery and Firearms.
• Your own organic limbs don't suffer deterioration from being severed and re-attached. May revert this in the future if exploits are found.
• Body parts with multiples differentiate themselves by being right or left oriented. "(R)" and "(L)"
• Buffed Doctors.
• Butchery is no longer available by default. It, along with most abilities, will be given to the player by side-quests.
• Influence is now displayed on the character screen. This will be useful in a future feature arc.
• Ore is now dug from a new object, rather than from wall tiles.
• You can place doors in the map editor. If none is placed, it will default to  the normal wood one which does not require permissions to open.
• Adjacent NPCs with certain status effects no longer follow you up/down stairs and between screens.
• Removed the Save and Permadeath options in the game menu.
• The player's sprite is now a single one with multiple layers. This was needed to get render order correct with larger objects/characters, and to reduce complexity in adding new art.

Fixes:

• Combat log now displays modifier names and unique named item names instead of generic bases.
• Killing quest givers should now fail the quest after reloads more consistently.
• Status effects once again persist through save/load cycles.
• Negative resistances no longer make a creature immune to that element of damage. Inverted negative.
• Procced unarmed attacks with the offhand give you Unarmed XP instead of Misc.
• Body parts are now flagged as organic if the synthetic limb is severed, and re-evaluated upon replacing it with a new item.
• Body parts preserve armor after being severed.
• Fixed an issue with the Blacksmith's third quest not starting.