The Heavy Metal update includes a lot of changes and adjustements you can check now on the Patch Notes!

Welcome to one of the big milestones on our Roadmap! It has been a while, but the patch is finally around the corner and it brings TONS of stuff. This is the first part of a two-step process focused on weapon depth. There's more coming with the Epic Forge update. This means you'll see plenty of unused space on the menus, don't mind too much about it.

Enough about the future, let's talk about HEAVY METAL!





WEAPON PARTS

We've completely redesigned the Forge since the old Blueprint system was too binary:

- Whenever you didn't get the BP you wanted, that match hadn't gotten you closer to your actual objective.

- Players who had only invested on finding BPs would feel stuck the day after they played the only match that awarded BPs.

- Players were not taking actual decisions, they either had the BP or not.

- The randomness in the system was not granular enough. Sometimes all the stakes were on which BP appeared on the reward screen.

- There was no choice when spending gold to build weapons. We've reduced gold costs but weapons take time to build, you can either take the reduced cost and wait or spend more gold to get the weapon instantly.





This update introduces weapon parts! You'll ALWAYS get weapon parts when playing for them and the match score will determine their quantity. There are 12 different types of weapon parts and each weapon needs a different subset of parts, but there's A LOT of overlap. Now you'll be able to focus all your farming efforts towards the weapons you desire.

- Daily rewards now include cases with weapon parts. Cases can have three sizes (small, medium and big) and three qualities (standard, superior, luxury).

- Reduced the price of building common weapons from 1000/4000/10000/15000/20000/25000/28000/31000/34000 to 2000/4000/6000/8000/10000/12000/14000/16000/18000

- Reduced the price of building rare weapons from 42000/54000/60000/66000/70000/74000/78000/82000/86000 to 25000/27500/30000/32500/35000/37500/40000/42500/45000

- Building a weapon has now a time requirement: 20 hours for common weapons and 40 hours for rare ones.

- Building times can be skipped by spending gold.





For more info on weapon crafting costs, check this thread: https://www.spacelordsthegame.com/community/index.php?topic=31550.0







Blueprints still exist but they are much better now. None of the BPs you own now will be taken away, but from now on, players can only get BPs as monthly rewards. Weapons forged with blueprints will be totally free and will have no time requirement.





WEAPON SLOTS

We've implemented a weapon slot system so every character can have five versions of each weapon. Players start with one free slot per weapon and new ones cost 500 gold each.





NEW TALENT SYSTEM

The card system has been remade and cards are called talents now. It's been a long road for the card system, so here are the issues we are addressing with this update.

- The old system was too random, there is no randomness involved in the new system.

- Shuffling cards would not get you closer to your objective.

- The maximum number of cards you could really choose from was limited to 4. All talents are available to you, forever, once you unlock them.

- The talents are now arranged on a grid.

- You own the talents in the first row. Building talents further down the grid requires destroying another Talent and time or Talent Points.

- There are three different routes/options to reach each Talent:

- Fast: It requires destroying a Talent from the previous row + Talent Points + time.

- Cheap: It requires destroying a Talent from the previous row and more time than "Fast", but no Talent Points.

- Shortcut: It requires destroying a Talent from two rows above + Talent Points + time

- Building times can be skipped with gold.

- Affinity is no more involved in talent building.





BUILDING SLOTS

Weapons and Talents now take time to build, but there's a limited amount of things that can be build concurrently.

- When you build a new Weapon or Talent, they will be included in a Building Slot. This slot will remain locked until the construction is complete.

- There are up to five Building Slots. They're unlocked for free at level 1/10/30/50/70.





PLAYER PASSIVES

The passive system has been subject of controversy, specially when players with similar MMR but also a substantial level difference were matched:

- The passive system was introduced as a tentative first step for what could've been a new progression system. All this time we've been improving other more promising systems and the Passive System has simply fallen behind.

- We'll fully removed the passive system, however as this requires rebalancing all Weapon Characteristics, we're just removing Melee Passives (Resistance and Brute Strength) for now.

- Melee damage and resistance numbers have been adjusted accordingly.

- Shooter resistance (Armor) will be removed when the Epic Forge update comes around.





UNLIMITED AMMO

Running out of ammo was one of the extreme cases of the ammo management that players were expected to make in Spacelords.

- Similarly to what happened with Player Passives, the system didn't evolve as rich and deep.

- On scenario, actually running out of ammo, was the only impacting point of the system.

- Ammo drops and weapon ammo itself have been removed. Weapons can't run out of ammo anymore.

- The "I need ammo" message has been removed from the ingame communication system.





DODGING WHILE WOUNDED

A few updates ago we reviewed the wounded state to make it less rough and punitive. Following that line, we've implemented the ability to perform a dodge while wounded.

- This dodge maneuver is slower than the normal dodge.

- Used with precision it can be the difference between dying or getting out of the wounded state rapidly.





ALEPH GEMS

We're working on the Aleph Gem dropping gameplay to make sure it's rich and deep.

- Aleph Gems now automatically trigger when dropped, with no need to shoot at them.

- Aleph Gems can now be launched from afar in a grenade-like fashion by dropping a Gem while aiming.

- We've also improved Aleph Gems' positioning when killing enemies in CQC so they're more easily pickable..







NEW TALENTS FOR ANESKA AND SOOMA

Aneska and Sööma are receiving 6 and 7 new cards respectively, each of them with a Gold version.





CHARACTER MENU REVAMP

We've remade the whole character menu so it will be easier and more intuitive to use. There's also more detailed information concerning each one of the playable factions' stats that can be consulted on this menu.





NEW ANTAGONIST ORDER

- We've added a new antagonist order for those missions with pickable items, such as Loath's canisters.

- The antagonist can now give the order of carrying an item away from the Raiders.







REWARDS AND WEAPON FORGE

Affiliation and Treasure Hunter can't award more than the maximum gold per mission.









MISSION BALANCE





HANGING BY A THREAD

- The extraction zone visual effect has been updated so it's more easily seen.





LOW BLOW

- Added a visual effect when a barrier is being damaged.

- Decreased total barrier health points by 50%.

- A health bar has been added to the last barrier.

- The extraction zone visual effect has been updated so it's more easily seen.





THE MOUSE AND THE SNAKE

- Added a third turret during the Beholders' combat encounter.

- Changed all turrets' positions.

- Reduced the starting ammo for all turrets.

- Changed all of the Beholders' routes so they can be more easily defeated with short-range weapons.

- Added extra regeneration information to the Regenerator Beholder's healthbar so its behaviour is more easily understood.

- Changed the Armored Beholder's defense system to an intermittent one. Added extra information on its healthbar so its behaviour is more easily understood.

- Increased the Armored Beholder's resistance against shooter damage from 200% to 300%.

- Increased the Light Beholder's movement speed by 20%.

- Reduced the Regenerator Beholder's health points by 10%.

- Added two new turrets to Valeria's combat encounter.





A BREATH OF HOPE

- Changed Guardians' life regeneration. Instead of slowly regenerating life at all times, their health now quickly regenerates a few seconds after receiving damage, only during a brief amount of time.

- Added extra regeneration information to all Guardians' healthbars, so their behaviour is more easily understood.





IN SHOCK

- Decreased the Beholder's health points by 16% when not playing against an antagonist.

- Increased the time it takes for the Beholder to kill players.

- Decreased Kuzmann's health points by 16% when not playing against an antagonist.





THE BEAST'S LAIR

- Changed Aleph Gem spawn positions during the last phase.





UPSIDE DOWN

- Decreased Kuzzman's health points by 16% when not playing against an antagonist.

- Decreased Kuzzman's health recovery after retrieving his head by 20% when not playing against an antagonist.





DESTROYER OF WORLDS

- Increased Aneska's health points by 10% when playing against an antagonist.





DOUBLE AGENT

- Increased hypnotized Schneider's health points by 16% when not playing against an antagonist.

- Decreased de-hypnotized Schneider's health points by 10% when not playing against an antagonist.

- Decreased Schneider's Mech's health points by 10% when not playing against an antagonist.





MIND OVER MATTER

- Decreased Fifth Council's health points by 10% when not playing against an antagonist.

- Increased Fifth Council's health points by 10% when playing against an antagonist.





CHARACTER BALANCE





HAREC

- Decreased Ferox Impetus' charging time (-15%)

- Decreased Ignis Fugit's damage (-15%)





ALICIA

- Increased Novera CC1-1212's damage (+15%)

- Increased Vinc "Eager" 23-1's damage (+15%)

- Greatly decreased Smoking Daisy clip's explosion damage (-20%)

- Decreased Rock&Roll's damage (-15%)





SHAE

- Greatly decreased Sa-Dhu's full charged damage (-20%)

- Greatly decreased the pressure removed by manually purging Sa-Dhu (-50%)

- Greatly increased the pressure removed by shooting with Sa-Dhu (+100%)





KONSTANTIN

- Decreased O.Shtorm BV's damage (-10%)

- Decreased Hornet HH3's damage (-10%)





HANS

- Slightly increased Ansgar "Warm" MM1's damage (+10%)

- Slightly decreased Heaven's Bane K8's damage (-10%)





VALERIA

- Shakura revamped

- Greatly decreased quantum projectile's damage (-40%)

- Weapon's special ability now changes the direction of the quantum projectile to your position.

- Weapon's special ability can be used as many times as the player wants.

- Now the quantum projectile is always able to do damage after the player activate it for the first time

- Decreased The Whip's monster speed (-15%)

- Greatly decreased The Whip's Einstein-Rosen Bridge cooldown from 60s to 30s





SÖÖMA

- Catharsis damage profiles have been unified. Now it has only two damage profiles based on the weapon's charge: default and gatling.

- Greatly increased Catharsis' fire rate on charging mode (+60%)

- Decreased Redeemer's both shot and sphere damage (-15%).

- Increased Last Vial's projectile damage (+15%)

- Increased Last Vial's AoE duration (+0.3s)





IUNE

- Decreased Last Wish's damage (-10%).

- Greatly increased Sight's damage (+20%)

- Greatly increased Sight's push distance(+200%)





H.I.V.E.

- Decreased all weapons' (except Raceme) swarm damage range to 4 meters.

- Decreased Plague's swarm damage (-30%)

- Increased Plague's bullet damage (+10%)

- Plague's bullets now deal damage if they hit an enemy through a wall.





RAK

- Increased The Hatchet's hit frequency from 0,075s to 0,2s

- Increased Shepperd's damage (+10%)





LOAHT

- Greatly decreased Cookie's damage (-20%)





GINEBRA

- Slightly increased S.Bogen C-A00's tightening time (+1s)





BUG FIXING

- Fixed a bug where cancellable invulnerability lasted a different amount of time for some characters/melee weapons after regaining character control.

- Fixed various melee bugs in which strikes/grabs wouldn't collide against enemies under certain circumstances.

- Fixed a bug where Raiders would automatically lose the match when overloading the first active Aleph extractor in Short-Fused right at the start of the second part of mission.

- Fixed a bug where shoulder swapping was resetting the burst-fire timing of several weapons.

- Fixed a bug where Shae's Sa-Dhu was doing twice the intended damage with non-charged shots.

- Rak and Sööma's movement speed has been increased by 12% in order to match with the rest of the Umbra Wardog characters.