Starlight: Stardrifter Version 3.1

Jakob Sharp
Jan 31
8 min read

"I just had a few bugs from the last release. I'll just work on fixing those"

Those were the words I had at the start of this month. Little did I realize that at the end of this month, I'd have over 13 pages of patch notes for this "small update".

Download Link: https://smallduckinteractive.itch.io/starlight-stardrifter

I've got a new project that I'm starting to work on next month. The hope is that the first version of this project will be available in the coming months. This project will be inspired by a lot of newer games I enjoy.

Anyways, here's the patch notes:

Outposts:

Ancient Technologies can now be purchased at the Outpost
- Every time a shop is made without an ancient technology, there's a small boost for the next shop to appear with one. When one appears, the odds are reduced again.
When equipment is discounted or desired, the button for buying/selling is colored blue.

New Scrap Amounts for Equipment:

Tier 0: 28 Scrap

Tier 1: 23 Scrap

Tier 2: 18 Scrap

Tier 3: 14 Scrap

Tier 4: 10 Scrap

Tier 5: 5 Scrap

Ancient Technology: 35 Scrap

Outpost Healing:

Rarity: 5 ~> 4
Cost: 5 ~> 10
Shields Gained: 10% Max Shields ~> 17.5% Max Shields
Each time time a copy is bought, price is increased by 2. Resets when going to a new galaxy.

New Outpost Items:

Shield Rites
Final Rival
Defensive Obscure
Bygone Detector
Acceleration Cannon
Immaculate Destructor

Wave Spawn Mechanics

Distractor Waves

When the timer ran out while enemies were still active, there was a chance for wave of non-lethal enemies to spawn to provide support.
This has been removed as it didn’t contribute enough to be interesting.

New Wave Total

Due to the change above, the wave total ended up being 30 normal waves in total.
This has been increased to 60 normal waves with a mixture of enemies.

Scrap

Indicator

When scrap is picked up now, there is an indicator on the right side of the screen that lets you know how much you just picked up. If more is picked up before it leaves, it adds it to that total.

Totals

Most enemies had a decrease in at least the maximum amount of scrap they can drop. This reflects trying to reduce basically having infinite stock equipment.

Meteors:

Rework:

Meteors have been replaced by Asteroid Storms. These will only occour after using the Asteroid Storm Active Item or being in a Forecasted Storm Distortion Galaxy.

An indicator will appear on the side of the screen where the Asteroid Storm will come from. After a few seconds, Asteroids will fly across the screen. Anything these hit take a large amount of damage. If they are shot down, they will drop equipment.

New Equipment to Drop:

Acceleration Cannon
Light’s End
Cryptic Remouens

Equipment:

Tier 0 Items:

These items generally revolve around creating new bullets or powerful effects.

Guns:

New Guns:

Cryptic Remouens

Replaces the chipper as a gun that applies shield break.

Immaculate Destructor

Shoots a bullet that slows at it flies, draining enemies of shield for damage. Once the bullet is done flying, explodes into 8 smaller bullets.

Light's End

Shoots a burst of four bullets that explode into three bullets.

Tamper Emission

Shoots a bullet that explodes into 5 bullets that can apply Target Disruption.

Reworks:

The Chipper

When hitting an enemy, the bullet has a chance to chip shields and drop scrap.

Rebalance:

Acceleration Cannon

Base Damage: 2 ~> 1.5
Shots Per Second: 3 ~> 3.25
Shot Speed: 4.5 ~> 4
Range: 15 ~> 17.5
Knockback: 2 ~> 8
Speed Up: 1 ~> .8
Bullet Size: .3 ~> .35
Damage Increase With Speed: ~>.6

Basic Blaster

Shots Per Second: 3.75 ~> 4.15
Shot Speed: 6 ~> 5.5
Range: 15 ~> 16
Knockback: 2 ~> 5
Explosive Range: 2 ~> 3
Bullet Size .5 ~> .6

Boomerang

Rarity 2 ~>3
Base Damage: 2.75 ~> 2.5
Shots Per Second: 2.5 ~> 2.25
Range: 20 ~> 22
Burst Interval: 0 ~> .2
Knockback Strength: 2 ~> 1.5
Explosive Range: 4.5 ~> 3.25
Explosive Strength: 22.5 ~> 12.5
Spread: 75 ~> 65
Bullets have a slight randomness to where they go.

Brain Drain

Shot Speed: 5.5 ~> 5
Range: 15 ~> 17.5

Burster

Shots Per Second: 3 ~> 3.5

Corrosive Divulger

Base Damage: 2 ~> 1.6
Bullets Per Shot: 5 ~> 6

Destruction Engine

Base Damage: 3.75 ~> 3
Shots Per Second: 10 ~> 9
Range: 15 ~> 16
Burst Interval: .05 ~> 0
Bullet Size: .085 ~> 1
Damage Mod: .55~> .5
Shots Per Second Mod: 1.33 ~> 1.4
Bullets have a slight randomness to where they go.

Energy Tap

Rarity 3 ~> 4
Base Damage: 1.5 ~> 2
Shot Speed: 4.5 ~> 3.5
Range: 15 ~> 18
Absorb Range: 4.5 ~> 5
Absorb Strength: .8 ~> 2.5

Quark Cannon

Base Damage: 1.25 ~> 1.5
Burst Interval: .3 ~> .2
Explosive Range: 2 ~> 3

Railgun

Base Damage: 15 ~> 20
Shots Per Second: .5 ~> .7
Shot Speed: 15 ~> 20
Range: 30 ~> 90
Knockback: 0 ~> 8
Bounce Amount: 2 ~> 4

Items:

New Items:

Acceleration Lens

Bullets have additional range and Shot Speed.

Discouragement Drone

Creates a drone that bounces around the galaxy. Enemies inside of it are slowed and shoot bullets slower.

Expansion Divinator

Bullets split halfway through flight. The first item causes it to split into two bullets with 30% of the range and damage. Additional items give an additional bullet and 10% range.

Rebalance:

Bygone Detector

Rarity: 6 ~> 2

Condensed Hyper Bombs

Rarity: 3 ~> 1

Defensive Obscure

Rarity: 6 ~> 0
Damage Decrease: .9 ~> .85

Energy Absorbing Bullets

Absorption Range: +1.5 ~> +.5
Absorption Strength: +.33 ~> +2.5

Hollow Rounds

Rarity 5 ~> 4
Pen Amount Granted: +2 ~> +1
Affected every other gun ~> Affects each gun.

Interlaced Hardlight

Rarity: 5 ~> 4
Shields Increase: x1.25 ~> x1.33

Logic Sensors

Rarity: 3 ~> 1
Shot Speed: -.075 ~> -.2
Now adds +2 Range
Now adsd +1 Homing Range

Loot Vacuum

Pickup Range: x1.05 ~> x1.08

Range Finder

Rarity: 4 ~> 3

Rocket Power

Acceleration: +.01 ~> +.1

Shotgun Augment

Rarity: 2 ~> 1
Bullets Per Shot: 3 ~> 2
Range: x1 ~. X.65 (first copy only)

Active Items:

Rework:

Meteor Signal

Reworked into the Asteroid Storm Active Item. When used uncharged, will cause an Asteroid Storm to appear. When fully charged, an Asteroid Storm with additional Asteroid will appear.

Rebalance:

Constructor Core

Reboot Cost: 7 ~> 6
Fully Charged Cost: 7 ~> 8

Disruption Lattice

Rarity: 3 ~> 2
Fully Charged Cost: 7 ~> 8

Explosive Wave

Rarity: 4 ~> 3
Now deals 12.5 damage to every ship while charged. When fully charged, deals either 25 damage or 10% Max Shields, whichever is larger.

Final Rival

Rebooting Cost: 7 ~> 6
Fully Charged Cost: 6 ~> 7

Magnetic Manifold

When Fully Charged, gain an additional 1.5x scrap.

Matter Interchange Device

Tier 1 Equipment can be upgrade to Tier 0 equipment.

Nanomachine Repairs

Rebooting Heal: (2 * currentCharge / fullyChargedCost)% ~> 10%

Reste Metric

Rarity: 2 ~> 3

Shield Rites

Using while Rebooting costs 25% Max Shields.
Using while Fully Charged costs 17.5% Max Shields.

Time Displacement Device

Rarity: 2 ~> 3
Using while Rebooting causes a 7.5% slow for 2.5 seconds.
Using while Fully Charged causes a 15% slow for 4 seconds.

Weapon Overload

Rarity: 2 ~> 3
Damage Boost: 1.5 ~> 1.75
Duration: 7.5 seconds ~. 10 seconds

Enemies:

Rework:

Enemies now have a damage scaler based on the amount of galaxies defeated as well. Depends on difficulty selected

Mine

Now have collision with the ships and bullets. Will slow down after moving for a bit.

Destructive Engine Device

Will stop bullets if it's currently in explosion mode.
Will disengage if the only other ships currently active are non-lethal ships.

Twin Rigs

Rigs no longer have Energy Tap equipped. Instead have a Galactic Shotgun.
Should now be able to drop equipment.

Haunting AI Ghost Boss

One of the ships it can inhabit has Double Tap guns rather than Energy Taps.

Frame Hacker

Has half of second delay after appearing before it’ll move to the reflected position.

Removed:

Enhancement Emitter

No longer a hostile enemy and is now used for the Discouragement Drone.

Rebalances:

Carrier of Valor

Added to Droppable Equipment:

Tamper Emission

Blocker

Equipment Drop Chance: 45 ~> 30
Scrap Drop Chance: 55 ~> 30
Nothing Drop Chance: 10 ~> 30
Maximum Scrap Drop: 40 ~> 30

Added to Droppable Equipment:

Discouragement Drone

Bounce Blaster

Equipment Drop Chance: 35 ~> 20
Scrap Drop Chance: 55 ~> 25
Nothing Drop Chance: 10 ~> 30

Constructlet

Equipment Drop Chance: 35 ~> 15
Scrap Drop Chance: 55 ~> 40
Nothing Drop Chance: 10 ~> 35
Sheild Drop Chance: 25 ~> 10
Maximum Scrap Drop: 20 ~> 10
Minimum Scrap Drop: 10 ~> 5

Construct

Maximum Scrap Drop: 25 ~> 20
Minimum Scrap Drop: 20 ~> 10

Destructive Engineering Device

Equipment Drop Chance: 35 ~> 20
Scrap Drop Chance: 55 ~> 25
Nothing Drop Chance: 10 ~> 30
Maximum Scrap Drop: 0 ~> 15
Minimum Scrap Drop: 0 ~> 5

Added to Droppable Equipment:

Cryptic Remouens

Fixer of Fate

Equipment Drop Chance: 35 ~> 25
Scrap Drop Chance: 20 ~> 25
Nothing Drop Chance: 20 ~> 25
Maximum Scrap Drop: 30 ~> 25
Minimum Scrap Drop: 15 ~> 10

Added to Droppable Equipment:

Expansion Divinator

Frame Hacker

Added to Droppable Equipment:

Discouragement Drone

Monstrosity

Green

Minimum Scrap Drop: 20 ~> 15
Maximum Scrap Drop: 45 ~> 35

Added to Droppable Equipment:

Tamper Emission
Expansion Divinator

Red

Minimum Scrap Drop: 20 ~> 15
Maximum Scrap Drop: 45 ~> 35

Added to Droppable Equipment:

Light’s End

Tan

Minimum Scrap Drop: 20 ~> 15
Maximum Scrap Drop: 45 ~> 35

Added to Droppable Equipment:

Immaculate Destructor

Nanoswam

Maximum Scrap Drop: 10 ~> 7
Minimum Scrap Drop: 5 ~> 2

Added to Droppable Equipment:

Cryptic Remouens

Radiator of Strength

Equipment Drop Chance: 30 ~> 15
Scrap Drop Chance: 15 ~> 25
Nothing Drop Chance: 25 ~> 30
Maximum Scrap Drop: 20 ~> 15
Minimum Scrap Drop: 10 ~> 5

Rampant Falcon

Equipment Drop Chance: 40 ~> 30
Nothing Drop Chance: 15 ~> 25
Maximum Scrap Drop: 20 ~> 15
Minimum Scrap Drop: 15 ~> 10

Added to Droppable Equipment:

Light’s End

Storm Blazer

Scrap Drop Chance: 40 ~> 30
Nothing Drop Chance: 15 ~> 25
Maximum Scrap Drop: 20 ~> 15
Minimum Scrap Drop: 15 ~> 10

Added to Droppable Equipment:

Immaculate Destructor

Twin Rigs

Equipment Drop Chance: 35 ~> 25
Scrap Drop Chance: 35 ~> 25
Shield Drop Chance: 0 ~> 20
Maximum Scrap Drop: 40 ~> 30

Added to Droppable Equipment:

Cryptic Remouens

Vessel of Valor

Knockback Resistance: 0 ~> 1 (Full Resistance)

Fixes:

Enemies created by other enemies (The Construct, Carrier of Valor, etc.) now create enemies correctly, giving them the effects from the difficulty.

Distortions

New:

Forecasted Storm

An Asteroid Storm will appear between 30 and 60 seconds after the last storm.

Reworked:

Ancient Galaxy

Ancient Techology: +2% of appearing.
Rarity 4: -1.5% of appearing
Rarity 3: -.5% of appearing

Budget Galaxy

Ancient Technology: 1% ~>0%
Rarity 4: 5% ~> 6%
Rarity 5: 6% ~> 7%
Shield Chance: 0% ~> -10%

Chaotic

Tier 0 can be randomized now.

Glitched

Tier 5: -10 ~> -12%
Tier 0: 0 ~> 2%

High Value Galaxy

Rarity 0: 0% ~> 1.5%
Rarity 1: 0% ~> 1.5%
Rarity 2: 7% ~> 4%
Rarity 3: 8% ~> -2.5%
Ancient Technology: 0% ~> 1%

Overall Fixes:

Opening a save now correctly loads the items into the equipped inventory.
Enemies should now no longer breach the galaxy's border.
Fixed being able to have multiple active items equipped.
The Popup boxes with information regarding the equipment currently hovered over now stays within bounds and is more clear what it’s lining up with.