5.599 Sockets And Sidekicks
(Released May 18th, 2024)

General Balance Changes

• Orchid rescue spores launch rate slowed from 1 to 6 seconds. (Orchid was capable of out regenerating a regen golem in the right circumstances)

Splintering Spire Balance Changes

• Splintering spire faster at dismantling vengeance generators. From 20 min to 12 min

Dark Zenith Balance Changes

Note: For the moment, most of these changes require enabling the mod: "Dyson Sidekicks". Then when you include the Dark Zenith (invasion mode) in a lobby, you need to opt into the "Incremental Mode"

• General Changes to Dark Zenith (works without needing to enable the mod above) are focused on reducing the power of the DZ's static defenses, especially their higher tier turrets. It is now far more viable to blitz through the DZ's territory to rush their homeworlds

• The DZ is now smarter about choosing which upgrade an Epistyle should do; if another Epistyle is already building an upgrade that only needs to be done once (like upgrading the mark level), the already-in-progress upgrades will not be chosen.
--This fix applies to the base game, and all versions of the DZ (svikari, full invasion, sidekick)

• Fix a bug where the DZ was unable to upgrade their epistles per-planet
--This was an intended feature that never worked

Incremental Change Mode

Previously, the Dark Zenith invasion started out with all of their research unlocked from the start. This made starting with the immediate invasion to be much more difficult relative to the later invasion times.

The DZ Invasion mode has been totally rebalanced with their research unlocks depend on their time of invasion. So the immediate invasion has practically nothing unlocked from the start whereas the late invasion has everything to begin with.

Moreover, the DZ intensities have had their economies and invasion forces rebalanced to be much more on par with 2 AI's of the same intensity.

The goal of this rebalance is to make it far more accessible at all skill levels and to make the invasion time no longer the primary difficulty factor

Sidekicks

• Add a new Wraith AI Type. This AI type uses a variety of different ship types in their sub-fleets
--They use Scourge in the Warden Fleet, Neinzul in the Border Aggression and Templar in the Praetorian Guard.
--In addition, they have a particularly powerful Hunter fleet focused on cloaked ships
• Miskatonic AI Type now have more unique turrets
• The Scourge War can now be all DZ Svikari, all scourge, or a mix.

Socket Increasers

• With the Sidekicks mod enabled, if you are playing a faction that uses the sockets mechanic for building structures (Necromancer Sidekick/Empire, Dyson Sidekick/Empire , Spire Sidekick, Spire Infused Empire), some Major and Minor Socket Increasers spawn on the map
--These are structures you can claim by hacking (like the Necromancer's Amplifiers)
--When you claim them, the necropolis/stronghold/city gets more build slots
--This gives some compelling reasons to capture and hold particular planets on the map, which is a thing that all these factions could use

Dark Zenith Sidekick

• DZ Sidekick can now reset an epistyle's rally orders to "rally to nearest flagship"

• Nadir Bases (the enemy of the DZ Sidekick) try to spawn in worse places for the player

• The DZ Sidekick now has another, even higher tier of flagship to evolve into.

• There are now DZ Fortresses on the map; the player can hack for them to claim them
--They will die to neutral and must be hacked for again. Basically, an extra thing you can spend HaP on

• Elderlings, Templar, and some of the new structures for the Sidekicks-specific AI Types (Lernean, Shadowen, Miskatonic, etc) now grant science to the DZ Sidekick

Spire Sidekick

• Spire Sidekick can now set its difficulty level
--The difficulty is the same as the Fallen Spire

• Elderlings, Templar, and some of the new structures for the Sidekicks-specific AI Types (Lernean, Shadowen, Miskatonic, etc) now grant science to the Spire Sidekick

Dyson Sidekick

• This patch breaks Dyson Sidekick saves, and they'll be broken again in future patches as some of the units are reworked/rethemed.

• Some buffs to metal income

• You can only start as Zenith or Neinzul. Starting as the Spire or Templar is bad, since they don't have access to Metal

• Minor Drills can now be built on ravaged planets (for the case a Chrysalis has spawned there)
--Thanks to RadiantPhoenix for reporting.

• If the Dyson Empire is the only empire in the game, the game will now spawn Data Centers and Superterminals

• The Dyson Sidekick can now build Hacking Generators
--So it can hack for Socket Increasers

• Neinzul District One units have been reworked.
--Siren: Corvette cap. Harmonic. Generalist and zombifier
--Harpy: Swarmer cap. Melee. Deals extra damage based on how damaged opponet is.
--Cockatrice: Corvette cap. Engine stunner/Weapon jammer. Anti-strikecraft
--Wisp: Standard cap. Stealth, melee unit. Fortified, Anti-Guardian; weak vs. strikecraft

5.600 Hotfix
(Released May 19th, 2024)

• Fix a bug with the Fallen Spire unable to find a difficulty level
---• Thanks to Friend Computer for reporting
• Dyson Sidekicks: Fixed the visual size of the wisp and cockatrice. These were originally copied units so they ended up having far larger (x30) scaling when converted to unique entities

Knights of the Chalice 2 Version 1.71

Hello everyone! Version 1.71 of Knights of the Chalice 2 has landed. It adds two important new feats, fixes lots of bugs, and creates new opportunities for custom modules to shine!

• New Feats: Added two new feats accessible to all the character classes: Excellent Two-Weapon Fighting, and Graceful Charge. Graceful Charge allows you to bypass creatures when charging, especially if you also have the feat Overrun. Very useful for all melee classes! Excellent Two-Weapon Fighting reduces or eliminates the attack-roll penalties when fighting with two weapons. Great if you'd like to use two large weapons and your character isn't a Fighter or Gladiator! Fighters and Gladiators can receive a different benefit if they take the feat. Thank you so much Kyle for these awesome feat suggestions!
• Engine: Spells with a line area of effect will now stop when hitting a tall obstacle (being defined as any square of altitude 15 ft above the origin square or higher). The reason for this change is that I've seen the AI use Lightning Bolt through castle towers, which doesn't seem right.
• Engine: Large creatures, when squeezing, won't take falling damage when one of the squares they occupy changes altitude (unless it's the creature's 'main' square, the top-left corner of the area occupied).
• Engine: Added a few speed optimisations to accelerate the AI and gameplay.
• Module Editor: In the Module Editor, you can now set for a module a custom (1000 730 pixels) introduction screen, a custom (1000 730) title image that will appear on top of the introduction screen, a custom music for the introduction screen, a custom music for the party-creation screen, a custom music for the character-creation screens one and two, a custom music for the character-creation screens three and four, and a custom music for the 'Escape' menu during play. Please go to your module's Module Data screen to set these.
• Module Editor: In the Script Editor, added the possibility to retrieve the 'Name of the item user or caster'. This allows us to have items that apply an effect or cast a spell directly on the character holding the item. Thank you so much Kai for the heads up in the forums!
• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug with the Mage Knight feat Improved Shocking Grasp not improving the damage from Shocking Grasp and Greater Shocking Grasp. Thank you so much Christiano!
• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug with the Wizard spell Globe of Invulnerability having no effect. Thank you so much Christiano and frgrndrgns for the heads up!
• Bug Fix: Fixed a source of crashes when using the Delay action in large battles. Thank you Christiano for the bug report!
• Bug Fix: When creating a Rogue character, the game will now require you to select a Rogue specialisation. Thank you Christiano for the heads up!
• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug with the Cleric/Bishop feat Fast Touch Domain Powers. Thank you so much Christiano for the heads-up!
• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that occurred whenever a script command would remove from a dual-wielding character his or her main-hand weapon. Thank you Kyle for the heads-up!
• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug with the spell Produce Flame not getting empowered when cast by Fire Druids. Thank you Christiano for the heads-up!
• Bug Fix: Fixed errors associated with the feat Epic Overrun.
• Graphics: Fixed a graphics issue associated with Dwarf paperdoll images.
• Augury of Chaos: Added a line in the Quest Journal entry for the quest of the Vanishing Sword highlighting the fact that if you go to any location not leading you towards the sword, the quest will be marked as cancelled. Thank you Kyle!
• Help Entries: Improved the in-game description of the spell Halt Undead and, in the help entry for magic weapons, added a note saying that you need at least a +1 enhancement value on a weapon or armour in order to enchant the item with other enchantment types like Flaming.
• Weapon/Armour Enchantment: In the weapon and armour enchantment interface, a note '+1 Required' will appear when the selected item hasn't yet received any enchantment. Thank you so much Kyle for the heads up!

Please don't hesitate to email me at enquiries@heroicfantasygames.com if you find any bugs and annoyances, so that I can fix the game quickly. A saved game may be very helpful, too.

Thank You So Much For Your Support, Fearless Heroes of the Realm! Enjoy :-)

1.51.3 - Rare-Space Elements

* New ore graphics. Ores are now more visually distinct and look closer to their real-life counterparts.
* Ships you encounter in the rings, both flying and derelict, will now have more variety in the equipment installed.
* Improved LIDAR performance, AI collision avoidance performance and pilot adrenaline performance.
* Decreased memory fragmentation of Doppler LIDAR. While no memory was leaking, during longer dives your memory could get fragmented over time and exceed your CPU cache sizes, which could slowly degrade performance in multi-hour dives.
* On some occasions, the Enceladus background could zoom out far further than it should.
* Ore carried with a mining companion docked to your ship will not trigger NDCI collision warning anymore, or make your pilot freak out with adrenaline surge.
* You can now scroll the Pilot's tab in OMS with gamepad analogue stick, if it doesn't have focus.
* You can access and scroll the Pilot's tab with the gamepad even if the first contact you have has a "Hail Error" connection status.
* The pilot's tab will scroll automatically when you move through the contacts with your gamepad.
* Fixed some events trying to despwn over and over again when flagged as "essential, not despawning", which could hinder the game performance if you flew away from such an event.
* Updated translations.

1.51.5 - Repeat Offender

* If you try to get weregild for the same offence twice, people will now call you out on that.
* Fixed HUD previews not showing up in the Equipment menu.
* Updated translations.

CHANGELOG v1.5.5 (main branch)

**fixes

+ fixed unable to scroll down in custom rally stage selection in certain cases
+ fixed unable to scroll up in main menu in certain cases
+ das hammer v3 livery now loads correctly when the car is unlocked in career

BETA BRANCH (GOG Galaxy) update v1.5.5

We released a build with improvements to controller support across the board on the beta branch. If your controller had issues previously, it's worth trying it with the new beta build. Especially on macOS, or if you're running Galaxy in Linux via Wine/Proton.

If you didn't have controller issues before, but now have with the beta branch build, please report the issue to the team and attach the game logs. You can do it here or use email / Discord. For our contact details see: https://www.funselektor.com/contact

Graphics Upgrade Is Here!

Hello Ghoul Hunters,

I'm proud to introduce to you the first batch of facelift for Tunguska! In this update, I added the following eye candies:

• Volumetric sunlight. Now you can enjoy beautiful sunrise and sunset, as well as some haze after the rain! This can be disabled in the options.

• Cloud shadows during overcast weather. Gone are the boring, washed out overcast environments; you will now see realist, moving cloud shadows that spices up the map! This can be disabled in the options.

• Increased moonlight and mist at night

• Rain mist and water splashes when you run during rainy weather

• Blood spatters! When you injure any NPC, there will be blood flying out and landing on the ground and the wall behind (if the gun is capable of exit wounds)

• During toxic fog in Lake Cheko, you will no longer see the boring, hazy static fog. Instead there will be yellow-green mist.

• When you kick anything, not just door/crates, you'll hear the thud and see dust coming out. Also added camera shake for kicking. Feels much better now!

And there are a lot more updates and fixes in this patch:

• Fixed a bug with some assault rifles with PSO scope not able to aim at the head

• When you use mouse wheel to zoom in, you can also raise the camera angle to see further

• When you climb the silo in Ravenwood valleys, you will hear a different set of environmental sounds

• Fixed the problem with trees not being affected by fog from afar

• Fixed a problem with throwing mines/grenades and it lands right under player's foot

• You can now cancel the grenade aiming (holding RMB) by clicking LMB

• F1 grenade will properly cook when you are holding it in your hand and using G to aim

• The throwing bar indicator for F1 grenade and throwing knife will now say "Fuse" and "Rotation" to be more clear

• Fixed a issue with crossbow firing above the aim point

• Fixed a bug with NPCs not fading properly

• Fixed a bug with the Kraikretten house key disappearing if you drop it on the ground

• If you are trying to deliver a food order, and for some reason the customer is no longer there, the game will try to respawn him if there's an appropriate faction in the vicinity.

• Fixed a bug where if you refuse to help Jacob, you'll still get the journal entry to talk to him after marking all the anomalies

• Fixed a bug where your visibility while sneaking doesn't change by your movement

Update 1.83-5 Patch Notes

This is a quick update to fix some graphical errors caused by the new sun ray/cloud shadow effects. Also adjusted ambient color and color post processing.

Version 1.2.0.16

① Items
• Hyperallergenic can now be extracted from its gland that can sometimes be obtained from Death Stalkers

② Tweaks
• Scrapperac self-daze will no longer trigger with ranged attacks; also increased its duration to 2 turns.
• [Expedition] All energy-based jet ski weapons should now properly work with High-Technicalities feat

③ Bugs
• Fixed several minor npcs not staying hostile when the game is saved, instead reverting to their default attitude on load
• Fixed Creeping Dread and Eye of Tchort status effects not applying penalties to Heavy Guns and Temporal Manipulation
• Fixed Heidi not taking money for providing medical services
• Fixed zone transition problems with some random encounters featuring holes in the ground
• Fixed Abram not being treated as a member of a certain faction when located in a certain secret place
• Caltrops can now properly land on bridge tiles
• Acid can now be spilled onto bridge tiles
• Scan Call Overload modifier will no longer reset to 0% on save/load (effects that are applied before the update will still be bugged)
• Vanishing powder grenade will no longer fail to put you in stealth if you didn't have 10 remaining AP after its usage
• Crossbow super string will now properly stack like other such components
• Molotov cocktail and other incendiary hand grenades will now remove chill and other frost based effect of the targets caught in the blast even if they are not set on fire
• Fixed the bug that would cause the turn-based UI control to not show all the movement points in some specific cases
• The maximum zoom out for the world map has been reduced as the previous one was bugged
• Sap will now properly work on targets that are immune to bleeding or poison
• Certain chemical accident should now properly prevent you from using psi abilities
• Fixed the bug that would can an item to disappear when swapping in held weapon into certain crafting recipes while using a riot shield (basically if the weapon getting swapped into the hand was two-handed, it would just disappear)
• When an NPC throws a large object in turn-based combat, the turn will not pass to the next participant until the object lands; though it was fun seeing mutants count-cheese the stasis play
• Taste for blood should now properly trigger when killing the target with damage from armor
• [Expedition] Psi-somatic Agent will now have the correct icon
• [Expedition] Fixed magnifying neuroscopic filters for plasma beam and cryogenic barrier not appearing in the world
• [Expedition] Fixed some cocktails stacking indefinitely in Mixer Jesse's store
• [Expedition] Fixed a rare crash that occurs if the player receives a call from Aegis - after dying
• [Expedition] Fixed Servants short-circuited by the MRI field sometimes becoming neutral to the player after the field has been turned off
• [Expedition] Fixed being able to see through a covered section of Eldrän's tent
• [Heavy Duty] Fixed Gunslinger ignoring hostilities directed at the player in a few specific instances
• Various minor dialog/zone fixes

Hotfix Patch 1.1.9

• Fixed long-standing bug where player can get more Spritelings than their cap.
• Safety net for rare bug where player can get to Frostfields Camp without a Shiverling. Now if this happens, you'll just be given a Shiverling.
• Fixed issue where Faeflies can still spawn in an area where a hive was destroyed.
• Updated engine for upkeep and small performance and QOL improvements

Incoming Transmission: Crash Site is OUT NOW!

We come in peace!

Inspired by the legendary Area 51, this update is bursting with otherworldly content to transform your steambot city into a haven for the curious (or perhaps the slightly paranoid).

Watch the launch trailer

Here is what's crash-landing into your game:

• 13 New Decorations: Channel your inner Mulder and Scully with a collection of eerie decorations, including a giant UFO, warning signs, fallen meteors, restricted area fences, and even some suspicious crop circles.

• Unit Fifty One: Unlock a brand new reward building - A top-secret military facility shrouded in mystery.

• Night Vision Activated: Explore the new night map bathed in an eerie green glow, perfect for creating an atmosphere of suspense and intrigue.

• Mine Like a Martian: Delve into a new mine collection and unearth resources unlike anything you've seen before!

Are you brave enough to face the unknown?

Download the free Crash Site update for SteamWorld Build today and build your very own slice of extraterrestrial intrigue!

Join the official SteamWorld Discord Community to chat with other SteamWorld fans!
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