Changelog for GENESIS UPDATE (24 March 2020):

New Features:
- Weapon gear: Thermal Lance
- Shield gear: Shockwave
- Body gear: Carrier
- Added a new super mod: Mortar
- Added a new super mod: Charged Mines
- The mine tree has been reworked and mines have been adjusted
- Auto Mines has been replaced by a new mod: Minefield
- Loaded Mines and Retribution have switched places
- Two new BGM tracks have been added to the game: Superlumen (and its Wild Metamorphosis remix, Superlumen (Warped)), and Infinitum
- Large or dangerous enemies are now announced with a HUD warning, similar to what comets use. This feature will be further iterated on in the future as enemies 2.0 progresses
- Allies that can fire your weapon can now utilize innately charging weapons (Vortex and Thermal Lance)
- Mines that can fire your weapon can now utilize innately charging weapons (Vortex and Thermal Lance) while deployed

Mechanical Changes:
- Vortex uses new, more sensible logic to calculate its damage and charge rate
- Vortex charge rate now additionally scales with weapon blast radius mods
- Power Reserves now reduces the malus from turn rate penalties (presently only Thermal Lance while firing)
- Rancor now works differently. Instead of the increased charge level gained being permanent, it now falls off over time. The charge level gained is ~5x greater than before
- Retribution now has a 0.5-second internal cooldown
- Mines now have a shorter fuse, which no longer resets when you upgrade
- Mines check their proximity detonation more often
- Architect now detonates all constructs if there are more than one when you switch to it
- Blades not produced by the player no longer screen-wrap Firefly + Rampage now combos as you'd expect
- Mayhem and Danger Zone have been adjusted, along with small aspects of the difficulty curve. The first 20 waves grant additional, but decrementing, bonus time per wave instead of only the first 10 waves. Danger Zone now affects wave speed by a factor of 0.65 again, down from 0.70. As a result, Mayhem is fast and more hardcore again, but the very early waves are a little less overwhelming

Balance Adjustments:
- Drones in Predator formation move 33.33% faster than they previously did -5% -> -7% recovery and shield cooldown on Twin Strike +70% -> +80% regeneration rate on Rapid Reconstruction +30 -> +35 base hull on Rapid Reconstruction +15% -> +10% hull damage resistance on Shielded Constructs
- Galvanic Outburst does considerably less damage
- Pulsar's blast attack now has far less knockback
- Temporal Shield's effect has been made ~11% stronger

Bug Fixes and Optimizations:
- Fixed a case where Gemini + Absorption actually creates lethal damage with shields up by splitting a damage value less than 0 and then increasing it to 1
- Made many major improvements to game terminology and text descriptions
- Streamlined the player upgrade script and removed a lot of redundancies
- Blades now use "dynamic trails" which is far more performant, especially in extreme cases
- Medicharge takes Hypermetabolism-reserved shield and hull into account
- Fixed a crash with Priority Zero
- Vortex + Gemini now properly soft-triggers shield cooldown
- Having no weapon now prevents any mobility-reducing effects from your weaponry
- Fixed a problem where shielded constructs would be counted at the wrong moment
- Temporal shield now properly slows Pulsar enemy dashes
- Fixed many instances of things apply Corrosion but shouldn't. Player constructs, their abilities, and even some enemies self-inflicting
- Fixed some cases where Corrosion would last forever
- Fixed a mistake with how mine projectiles / Thermal Lance mines are calculated.
- You should see a smooth progression of projectiles, thermal lances, or pulses as your rate of fire and mine effect increases


Standalone installers updated 25, 26 & 27 March 2020:
- Windows: 0.27.1 ⇒ 0.27.12;
- Mac: 0.27.13 ⇒ 0.27.14 ⇒ 0.27.15.

Changelog for Update 0.27.20 (01 May 2020 / added 04 May 2020):

Visibility, Features, and QoL
- Started improving the pause menu. It has a bit more info, and it is partially dynamic to your loadout
- Asteroids now have a slight outline to differentiate them more from the background
- Added a finder circle and a finder pointer for when you're near the edges of the screen
- Grenade explosion artwork has been made less occlusive
- Salvo explosion effects have been made smaller (the blast radius is the same)
- When you screen wrap, the pulsing effect now moves with you, making the player object easier to locate
- The volume and pitch of the crash sfx now changes depending on how hard you are knocked back
- Added some pitch randomization to a few other sfx to try it out
- More fonts are now retina friendly. All fonts now scale at 50% for non-retina to reduce distortion
- Enemy missiles no longer screen flash if fired rapidly
- Firing direction no longer modifies your forward-facing aim scope

Enemy and Wave Balance
- Made the wave speed modifier from Danger Zone and Mayhem a little less crazy compared to the previous adjustment
- Added considerably more wave time padding for early waves, before wave 30 (was 20), up to 8 seconds
- Enemies now start becoming stronger at wave 100 instead of 120
- Reduced the scaling value, and the maximum value, of enemy knockback dealt to the player based on their hull
- Serpent Elites fire their spines a little less frequently
- Serpent Elites won't appear in the wild before wave 25 now, up from 20
- Wardens and Interceptors now allow a little more time to defeat them
- Pulsars now chase you somewhat less quickly
- Normal and elite Pulsar shots have a little less targeting
- Spitfires now won't introduce more Pulsars if there are already 2 or more
- Spitfire is now a little harder to trick into not firing
- Eclipse champions won't spawn randomly before wave 45 (was 40)
- Eclipse shield retaliation cooldown 2 frames -> 3 frames
- Small asteroids now push less hard
- Small asteroids are more likely to contain orbs
- Small Asteroids deal 10 -> 5 damage

Game Balance
- Grenade's knockback has been halved, making it easier to hit with clusters
- Grenade base damage: 75 -> 85
- Salvo base damage: 50 -> 60
- Salvo's stockpile rate from projectile count now works consistently with other sources of rate of fire, and also has been improved from 5% -> 15% per projectile (If you go this route, I recommend Convergence over Fusillade)
- A previous buff to Salvo's stockpile diminishing returns was accidentally a nerf. I have inverted this and buffed it further
- Barrage now properly affects projectile count for the purposes of Loaded Mines (with all projectile-based weapons) and Stockpile
- Mine hull 30 -> 25
- Charged Mines now prevents mines from using a trigger radius. They will still detonate on impact (This is a huge buff for this mod in most set ups)
- Mine trigger radius decreased by 25%
- Loaded mines now take 2 -> 4 damage for innately charging weapons
- Swarm Construct damage 5 -> 6
- Interceptor Ally now uses a larger cone angle for targeting integrated weaponry. It is now more likely to start charging Vortex, more likely to start or keep firing Thermal Lance, and more likely to fire other weapons near enemies
- Vortex base damage 4 -> 3.4 (-15% base damage)
- Loaded Mines last rule has been modified: "For weapons that charge innately, your mines charge your weapon at 75% of your charge rate. Additionally, they constantly take 4 damage /s and pay +100% charge costs" (Note that Thermal Lance does not have a "charge cost", only Vortex does)
- Mine effect, for innately charging weapons, has been made consistent with other forms of charge rate scaling instead of being multiplicative

Explanation: Vortex is most fun when it has a high risk vs reward element. Recent changes to its scaling allowed it to become monstrous without ever really putting you at much risk, due to increased levels of crowd control and charge rate. This reduction in damage will require that you spend longer charging and taking damage to reach those huge damage numbers from huge vortexes. As for the mine changes, Architect was on another level, with Vortex Mines being substantially better than any other kind of mine (or maybe even any other Architect choice). This was because of both mine hull being disposable, unlike the hull of the player or allies, as well as some explosive scaling with Architect's mine effect. Combined, these changes affect Vortex considerably, and Thermal Lance mines only a little.

Fixes
- Fixed Adrenal Module setting a value where it should be adding a value, overwriting the global damage gained from Masochism
- Homing Strike now works properly with Burst Fire for Allies
- Construct formations no longer flip out if the player teleports or is schlorped into a singularity -The finder no longer activates if the player does the above
- Fixed some description formatting
- Gemini + Shielded Drones + Discharge now properly ignores Gemini
- Architect charging a blade doesn't detonate other constructs until it actually fires
- Prevented the Ludicrous Speed achievement from being earned in debug mode
- Phantom Strike and Outrage module now work with Homing Strike
- Fixed a crash with Outrage module
- Square Drift no longer crashes (perfectly square aspect ratios)
- Grenades with Hyperboost are now less occlusive
- Fixed Grenade's damage being misreported
- Gemini Protocol now indicates that your shield must protect you, as was the case
- Allies using Thermal Lance no longer discontinue the charge if a valid target exists
- Ally burst fire homing strike no longer breaks projectile count
- Halo + Gemini no longer works with Shielded Constructs, as intended
- Prevented Bastion + Architect from detonating mines when it is assembled but not deployed (using Shielded Constructs)
- Fixed Shockwave not creating a shockwave when your shield cooldown completes, but your shield capacity is full
- Fixed Echo Strike misreporting that it hits twice
- Fixed Carrier text colors
- Blade now informs you that its construct limit is equal to your projectile count
- Fixed Shockwave depth sorting
- Stabilize now works while thrusting if Thrust and Up are bound to the same input
- Defensive Drones prioritize hazards in Orbit formation
- Orbit and Rampart formations prefer targets in the direction they're facing
- Vortex charge and Thermal Lance beam now take directional offset from Propulsive Munitions into account
- Antimatter Rounds proced with Salvo's stockpile now divides its added self-damage by your burst fire count, preventing unintentional massive self-damage from burst fire
- Antimatter rounds with Salvo's Stockpile was additionally being applied a second time at a value far greater than intended. This has been removed
- Clamped Bastion Shield's sprite index to prevent a crash when it gets too high
- Prevented a crash involving enemy beam charges being unable to find their leader (when its cleaned up for being off-screen for too long)
- Prevented Sanctuary from (improperly) working with Shielded Constructs
- Fixed cases of Gemini Protocol (improperly) working with Bastion Shield when you have Shielded Constructs
- Fixed some cases of Bastion using base damage instead of current damage to trigger hull-threshold-based mods
- Prevented hull-damage-threshold-triggered mods (that they themselves trigger self-damage) from overwriting the original hull damage you were intended to take (?!)
- Siege Weaponry self-damage now reports in the combat log
- Outrage Module trigger now reports in the proper place in the combat log
- Architect now properly triggers detonate on your constructs when a blade is produced by Phantom Strike or Outrage Module
- The pause menu now properly reports ignite duration modifiers from body gear
- The singularity doesn't blot out the pause menu anymore
- The singularity doesn't draw in front of the darkness anymore
- Fixed excessive Volatile Shield / Tempest Break with Blade + Bastion + Shielded Constructs + Burnout Reactors
- Blade + Burst Fire + Courser / Battery can no longer cheat blade count and fire extra projectiles
- Blades with Shielded Constructs no longer do less damage after taking damage
- Visual Warp Shield radius now works with shield radius modifiers
- Essense Sap can no longer leech from Asteroids and such using Force Armor's blast
- Thermal Lance beam now resets its color after Hyperboost ends
- The Blink reticle no longer disappears if you pause during a blink
- Champion Juggernaut displays its hull bar
- Fixed cargo train box hull bars
- Hidden Power now prevents Mortar
- Rancor charge slow down no longer persists with Mortar
- Swarm Constructs will now attack Eclipses properly. When targeting, they have more accurate ranging (it was using square hitboxes, so oddly shaped enemies were an issue)


Standalone installers updated 04 May 2020:
- Windows: 0.27.12 ⇒ 0.27.20;
- Mac: 0.27.15 ⇒ 0.27.20.

Changelog for Update 0.28.12 (25 May 2020 / added 27 May 2020):

Major Features
- Added French, Russian, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese localization, which you can toggle between in the Settings menu. The game will attempt to detect your OS language settings and otherwise default to English
- Added a menu to the pause screen. You can now resume, quit, change your settings, or view Super Mod requirements during a game. The pause menu has also been improved, displaying more stats about your build. Quitting from the pause menu now requires a confirmation
- Overhauled the Settings menu
- "Mouse Mode" and "Keyboard Mode" have been consolidated into one mode. Both always work. The toggle for WASD or Arrow Keys has been removed, but you can reset to the defaults for either one in the customization menu. You can now assign two bindings to both thrust and fire, which accepts mouse or keyboard inputs. If you were previously using Mouse Mode, or Customized Mouse Mode, you may need to rebind your custom controls
- Updated Gamepad and Keyboard / Mouse customization menus to be more intuitive and consistent
- You can now choose which gamepad stick is used for steering, which works with all 3 aim styles
- If you are already using directional aiming, it will default to the right stick, and otherwise default to the left stick
- Gamepad Stabilize is now PRESSING the stick, because down doesn't make sense for the directional aim setting
- Gamepad can now rebind Stabilize
- There are now multiple toggles for windowed resolution. The game will also accept any resolutions that you manually input into your save file
- Rewrote Nova Drift's system for handling audio. Music, SFX, and global volume can now all be adjusted separately from settings
- The Challenge Modes you used are now displayed on your High Score list! However, this addition isn't retroactive for old scores
- Added new BGM: the Infinitum remix, Infinitum (Genesis), now plays in Wild Metamorphosis

Improvements
- Removed the delay when switching from mouse aim to keyboard/gamepad aim
- Reduced the delay when switching from keyboard/gamepad aim to mouse aim (This delay exists so that accidentally brushing your trackpad or mouse doesn't interfere with keyboard controls)
- More mouse buttons are now supported for customization
- Whenever avoidable, text is no longer used in tutorials to increase the ease of localization
- Collapsed a few tutorials into one
- Framed tutorial buttons now have a few discrete sizes to make localization easier (There is a known bug with this where the button is larger than needed)
- Added hue cycle offsets to Super Mods
- Reworked sound effects for huge explosions, large explosions, Torrent, Saucer enemy shots, and several EMP blast sfx
- Barrage variants have been added for Blade, Torrent, and Dart Addes SFX for Champion Beamcasters

Game Balance
- Salvo can no longer stockpile while your weapon is on cooldown, but the base damage has been increased 60 -> 90
- Salvo now unloads your stockpile faster for each stock you have remaining
- Salvo's diminishing returns for high levels of stock are now more favorable
- Thermal Lance base damage has been increased by 10%
- Charged Shot now properly considers Rancor if benefiting from extra projectiles from Charged Shot
- Constructs pursuing targets do so faster and more efficiently. This is especially meaningful for Swarm Constructs

Fixes
- Fixed a bug where Singular Strike always considered you having one more pre-existing projectile than it should (so it does 10% more total damage now)
- Added a very small cooldown to Player wrapping, to prevent a bug where Singularities could cause you to wrap dozens of times per second
- Fixed Viper's burn duration not applying to Incendiary Strike
- Fixed Incendiary Strike not benefiting properly by increased Burn Duration
- Warden plasma shots generate smaller "splinters" after being degraded by Counter Artillery
- Optimized trail performance
- Optimized construct performance


Standalone installers updated (0.27.20 ⇒ 0.28.12): 27 May 2020.

Changelog for Update 0.29.8 (01 October 2020):

Major Features
- Added a new Body Gear: Leviathan (Nova Drift's most requested feature!)
- Major rework: Helix Shield has been replaced with Orbital Shield, and has been given entirely new mechanics and visuals (Nova Drift's second most requested feature!)
- Rework: Assault Body has been granted new power: There is an 8% chance for weapons fired by you to be "empowered", greatly increasing the stats of the attack. As with all unique body powers, certain mods can scale this power
- Rework: Assault Body now resists mobility-reducing effects from weaponry by 15%
- You gain additional gear choices at account level 25 and 50, to a maximum of 7. This means that with 7 choices, it will never cost more than 1 reroll to get the gear you want
- Added the above "Empower" mechanic to a few Wild Mods: Outrage Module & Phantom Strike. More mods will gain this keyword later
- Added a new BGM, "Recursor", to both Standard and Wild Metamorphosis modes
- Added the game credits to the main menu. If I missed anyone, please don't hesitate to mention it

Wild Metamorphosis Adjusments
- Added a new Wild Mod: Evolutionary Niche
- Added a new Wild Mod: Grandeur
- Added a new Wild Mod: Maelstrom
- Added a new Wild Mod: Quantum Decoherence
- Added a new Wild Mod: Spontaneous Generation
- Rare Wild Mods are now slightly more common (1 in 4 -> 1 in 3.5)
- If Chaotic Ambition increases your maximum Wild Mods per level by more than 7 it will begin to increase your minimum Wild Mods per level instead
- Transmogrification now grants +1 level
- Obsession penalties -1.25% / level -> -1% / level
- Phantom Strike is now an empowered attack
- Outrage Module is now an empowered attack

Improvements & Balance
- Research hull 90 -> 85
- Research shields -10% -> -15%
- Research can no longer banish THE VOID (Void banishes you)
- Research must now pay 2 rerolls in order to banish a rare Wild Mod
- Rare Wild Mods now say "RARE" in their titles
- Added shake and sound feedback for failing a Banish
- 110 -> 115 shields for Reflect Shield
- There is now a hard level cap of 100. If you manage to somehow reach this, we've got a problem, please report it
- Homing projectiles now seek enemies and targets equally
- You can now toggle healing numbers in settings for you and your constructs, off by default
- You can now toggle self-damage numbers in settings for you and your constructs, off by default
- Drones now spread out their firing sequence evenly
- If you have an old corrupted save file, the game will attempt to fix it
- Experience orbs now scatter a bit from enemies
- Experience orb probabilities change as waves progress, resulting in less but more valuable orbs for the same value. This reduces visual clutter
- Increased base exp needed per level a touch. This only really impacts the first dozen waves or so
- Increasing your level by a mod no longer affects the EXP curve at all. You will be treated as though you are your base level
- Added a border and some breathing room to owned mod displays
- Retribution gained a new rule: If Retribution causes your mines to exceed your mine construct limit, an existing mine is detonated
- Charged Mines gained a new rule: -1 to mine construct limit
- Antimatter Rounds is now stronger but only affects weapons fired by you. This change was made because it enabled insane shenanigans with mines, especially when charged. - Additionally, the game could use more incentives for self-firing builds Since it is now possible to achieve +50%, or even +100%, for unique body powers, Engineer's added construct limits now respects this modifier (rounded down)
- Courser & Battery now scale their added projectiles with modifiers to body unique powers (rounded down)
- Warp Strike total damage -35% -> -30%
- Homing Strike has been given a more informative description
- Homing Strike total projectile damage -80% -> -70%
- Homing Strike total blast, velocity & size modifiers -70% -> -60%
- Homing Strike grace degeneration time extended from .6667 -> 1 seconds
- Changed how targeting affects various weapons. Most notably, very fast projectiles are now better at targeting
- Modifiers to thrust now have a minimum value of 0%
- Rampage now scales with modifiers to thrust, and the text has been changed to "You gain constant added thrust power"
- The pause menu now reports your size modifier
- The pause menu now reports your plating

Construct Improvements:
- Interceptor allies with Salvo now build up stockpile count and fire a spray of missiles of at least 10
- Improved construct targeting behavior, especially for Guardian Allies:
- Guardian targets the objects closest to the player
- Guardian tries to stay between the player and its combat target
- Turret with Counter-Artillery tries to shoot down projectiles heading toward the player
- Construct aiming rotation now has more damping so they don't overshoot
- Swarm Constructs now deal 6 -> 7 damage
- Swarm Constructs cap their firing range at 240 units so they don't fire out of range
- Swarm Construct attack scaling based on their target's distance is now more likely to hit
- Swarm Constructs consider the average of sprite width and height for the purpose of range, instead of the larger
- Swarm Constructs are allowed to clump up a bit closer
- Swarm Construct target range is now slightly shorter

Enemy Changes
- Triangle mines, from Pulsars, now spray projectiles 3 at a time with wider spacing (Because triangles)
- Enemy serpents use degrees for sinusoidal movement and reduce sinusoidal movement when near a screen edge to avoid leaving the screen. If they do leave the screen, they now wrap
- Bolt-Throwers linger a bit longer after firing
- Interceptor Champion charge speed ramps up more slowly, and they spend more time "charging". They drop mines less frequently for longer. As a result, mines are dropped farther apart, and you have more time to react to the charge
- Saucers now require wave 10 to be elite and wave 15 to be champion
- Saucers now screen-wrap more tightly
- Spitfire grants you an extra half-second to react to its arrival and deal with other waves before charging its orb
- Saucers give +25% orbs

Fixes
- Fixed a silly bug where enemy knockback would apply twice from collisions, resulting in about +25% more effective knockback from all crashes than intended (I'm so sorry)
- Interceptor Ally aim now takes firing direction modifier from Propulsive Munitions into account
- Fixed a crash with Ally
- Overseer's movement penalty now works properly
- Blades created by allies can no longer take blast or beam damage to their non-existent shields
- Made global damage calculations more sensible
- Fixed a bug where Scion wouldn't drop its rewards
- Fixed a bug where Settings would become stuck if you tried to go to the online leaderboards, but they aren't available on that game version
- Having both Overseer, a construct that can use your weapon, and Rapid Reconstruction no longer results in no Weapon Gear being offered
- Removed an exploit where you could enable Mayhem mode and disable the other modes by editing your save file
- Fixed a bug that would cause certain effects and objects to be deleted if you pause while the player is in a black hole
- Various performance optimizations


Standalone installers updated: 0.28.12 ⇒ 0.29.8


~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~


Standalone installers updated (0.29.8 ⇒ 0.29.12): 09 & 13 October 2020 (no changelog).

Thanks for this thread!

The patch notes for the game are also regularly updated on the Nova Drift blog: https://blog.novadrift.io/patch-notes (...though the site may be down at the moment?)

And the Steam news feed for the game is here: https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/858210

The latest update on Steam was last Monday, November 16 (I assume it's been rolled out to GOG as well): - Version 0.30.5 Is Live: AZIMUTH UPDATE -: New Translations, Enemy Improvements, & New Roadmap

Changelog for Update 0.30.8 (03 December 2020):

FEATURES
- Outrage Module fires in the direction of the incoming hit!
- Evolutionary Niche & Bravado now scale Research's power-up duration bonus
- Upgrades and Rerolls numbers are blue once again for visibility
- Guardian Ally now wants to be further away from the player ship when it has Decoy Signal
- With Leviathan: Deadly Wake emits from the tail body segment, 2/3 of Scorching Wake emits from random body segments

FIXES & UNDER THE HOOD
- Continued making Bastion and Blades less of "special snowflakes", removing some bugs in the process
- Fixed Bastion taking too little damage from Burnout Reactors
- Fixed a strange interaction between Bastion and Stealth
- Fixed Bastion triggering shield break effects when its down and you gain a level
- Fixed Volatile Shields from triggering too many times with Bastion and Shielded Constructs
- Homing Strike Blade projectiles now return to their launcher
- Fixed a typo that was preventing the custom banish keybinding from being saved
- Fixed many cases of upgrades not applying until your next upgrade
- Fixed the formatting of end-of-game unlock messages
- Fixed several problems with Interceptor Ally configurations
- Adjusted position and size of construct count numbers so they're more legible (especially double-digit counts)
- Reduced depth of player-related objects by 100 so they're less likely to get obscured
- Fixed the level up notification not appearing under certain conditions
- Hive continuously reduces emission rate as spawned count increases (This prevents the number of Hive Drones from growing as uncontrollably)
- Optimized Hive swarms
- Fixed Viper granting inconsistent damage reduction
- The pause menu now considers Viper's bonus to ignite duration
- Overseer now displays the Apex Machinery Supermod combo
- Retribution now displays Apex Machinery and Vital Bond Supermod combos
- Fixed an outdated appearance of the old interceptor icon
- Fixed a depth sorting error with Blade & Shield artwork
- Fixed Outrage Module not firing forward in cases where it should
- You no longer recoil with no weapon, if something makes you fire without one
- Small code optimizations
- Fixed a few minor text issues
- Improved translations: Japanese
- Improved translations: Brazilian Portuguese
- Improved translations: Simplified Chinese

Standalone installers updated:
- Windows (0.30.5 ⇒ 0.30.8): 04 December 2020;
- Mac (0.29.12 ⇒ 0.30.8): 10 December 2020.