Sipho 0.8.2 - Better performance, more synergy and new effects


This update brings polish to various parts of Sipho.

Most notably - performance, which after latest physics update has not been as good as with older physics. It was expected as calculations are now more complex, but reports have shown that some players were unable to play in certain parts of the game. We would have left optimisation phase for 1.0 release, but we tackled this issue now, as we want to keep the game as accessible as possible. Not only we have spent time improving physics calculations related code, but also optimised other parts of the game to give more CPU room for physics to run.

Some of Powerup effects were quite dated - coming from the older times when Powerups have been just introduced and never changed since. Other effects were placeholders which weren't replaced for a while. We took an opportunity to make visual effects more consistent and fit a more realistically into Sipho world.

We are always looking for ways to improve mechanics in the game by tying up different zooids with synergies. Either through stats or other more interesting interactions. Thus we have finally added support for Leech and Energy Leech to benefit from Penetration stat. Leeches will now slurp on more targets as Penetration stat scales. The leech graphics behaviour had been also updated which looks quite satisfying.

New Powerup effects and Buffed Leech in action.

Another, more fringe mechanic was added to Sniper zooid. We wanted to try this for a long time and while Sniper was already a strong zooid due to its ranged capabilities, it didn't differ much from other projectile weapons. We made its projectiles carry status effects. Sniper Projectiles can now be imbued with Sizzler energy, can be Poisoned or Mucked if they pass through a cloud and carry these effects onto targets as if the Sniper's owner was applying them. This makes fighting with Sniper more interesting - your damage type depends on what you are fighting. Or you can come up with elaborate Layouts to imbue your projectiles with deadly effects.

Version 0.8.2f1

  • Make Sizzler and Muck damage logic based on Reactions - this allows doing damage when Muck is applied after Stun and allows Sniper projectiles to carry this effect
  • Buffs can now react to each other
  • Change Soul Eater base Penetration stat to 3 and scale additional stat increases by 300% - 1 additional stat increase would actually increase Penetration by 3
  • Wait one frame after activating a skill before activating another so that it's easier to time ordered skill use

Version 0.8.2a4

  • Add Damage powerup remove effect
  • Dirty prefabs
  • Add fade-out effects for Cooldown Reduction and Cra'Than powerups
  • Sizzler now damages Damageables other than Zooids if they are Mucked
  • Reduce Sizzler penetration base value to 4
  • Update Sniper description
  • Sipho Eggs do not explode on contact if they're stunned
  • Food containers and Sipho eggs can now be debuffed
  • Sniper projectiles now carry over debuffs to their targets
  • Add IDamager interface for damage callbacks and use it with Projectile
  • Allow BuffManager have no zooid.
  • Tweak Powerup effects
  • Fade out ripple effects when entering growth mode
  • Increase size of deformable parallel job batches to reduce overhead caused by the job system - fast machines are already fast at this and slower ones will benefit from less overhead
  • Pre-calculate inverse mass ratios outside of soft body loop
  • Normalize constraint direction
  • Use regular lerp instead of slerp for slightly faster orientation lerping
  • Optimize soft body calculations by not converting rotations to angles and back
  • Add Slerp for lerping orientations

Version 0.8.2a3

  • Initialize GraphicsConnectorSystem on BeforeSceneLoad rather than BeforeSplashScreen

Version 0.8.2a2

  • Saenus Boss 3 enemies are now more goal-oriented (to kill the player)
  • Cra'Than powerup effect is now black
  • More robust leech calculations
  • Use Frame Skipper for Boid-based boss ability checks
  • Use Frame Skipper to skip pulling in consumables with Eaters
  • Fix Cra'Than holes not counting their spawn time correctly after FrameSkipper changes
  • Jobify GraphicsConnector position updating
  • Fix FixedFramSkipper not skipping frames correctly. Add utility method to check for skips
  • Remove unused EaterGraphic script
  • Add method to remove script from all prefabs
  • Execute Deformable Fixed Update latest in the frame so it has time to complete Deformation Jobs
  • Add performance log to GraphicsConnector update
  • Optimize Zooid consumable consumption search - now they will only try to consume if Siphonophore overlaps nearby food by its radius
  • Optimize Zooid Overlay controller
  • Fix leech weapon accessing position of dead zooid in rare cases

Version 0.8.2a1

  • Add teleport delta to leech tongue positions when Sipho is teleported
  • New Powerup effects that fit in better in the world.
  • Speed Powerup effect is now a cool shadow instead of blue sparks
  • Renderer cloner can now clone Sprites onto Particle Systems as well
  • Allow Following Effects not have Particle System
  • More leech polish
  • Improve leech graphics
  • Update leech graphics
  • Leeches now attach to multiple victims based on their Penetration stat
  • WIP Leech Penetration support
  • Fix Cra'Than Holes spawning things after they have been disabled. Also simplify some other components that get disabled when pooled
  • Advena boss 3 ungrows zooids only if there are enough poison stacks to kill
  • Bump year :^)
  • Mines (Poison and Muck mines) don't explode when touched by Bombs (Burstopods)
  • Avoid infinity and NaN in recent wealth
  • Add Optional Debug to Reward On Death
  • Move tooltip scripts to separate folder
  • Correctly get world corner tooltip positions for non 16 by 9 screen resolutions. Correctly calculate tooltip direction for world objects
  • Allow getting key down if Input Manager is null
  • Make it easier to hover mouse over Zooid unlock pickup by adding larger UI collider

Files

sipho-linux-x64.zip 482 MB
Version 0.8.2_f1 Feb 27, 2022
Sipho Windows 64bit.zip 464 MB
Version 0.8.2_f1 Feb 27, 2022
Sipho OSX.zip 476 MB
Version 0.8.2_f1 Feb 27, 2022

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