After more than 9 months of development, 6.0 is finally here. There have been far too many changes to reasonably list here, so I'll go over the highlights.
Units:
- The unit system has been completely reworked
- All unit sprites have been re-drawn and cleaned up
- Many new unit types have been added
- Player-specific pads and unit-specific factories have been removed
- All units can now be created, commanded and controlled by players
- 3 different unit factories: ground, air, and naval
- Each unit factory can produce multiple types of units
- Units can be moved into special tiered Reconstructor blocks to upgrade them
- 6 unit branches: insect units, ground attack units, ground support units, air attack units, air support units, naval attack units
- Each branch has 5 tiers, making 5*6 = 30 buildable units
- Each core block has a special player-controlled flying unit type associated with it, resulting in a grand total of 33 total units
Campaign:
- Complete rework of the 5.0 campaign system
- Everything takes place on a planet, where each hexagonal/pentagonal sector is a separate map that can be visited
- 260+ procedural sectors, with 16 special "landing zone" sectors
- Procedural sectors are optional for campaign completion, but landing zones are not
- Most sectors have a certain number of waves that need to be survived in order to capture them
- Other sectors may have enemy bases on them, which need to be destroyed for capture
- Each sector will produce resources in the background even when you play in other sectors
- Resources can be moved between sectors with Launch Pads
- Sectors near enemy bases will be periodically invaded unless the enemy base is destroyed
- "Global Resources" no longer exist - all research costs are taken directly from your pooled core resources
- More planets will be added in the future
New Blocks & Mechanics:
- Added upgraded 3x3 versions of the Silicon Smelter, Separator and Overdrive Projector
- Cores can now be upgraded to higher tiers
- Added "Segment" point defense turret - targets and destroys incoming bullets
- Added "Parallax" electric anti-air turret - pulls in enemy aircraft with a tractor beam
- Added "Foreshadow" long-range railgun turret, for taking down bosses and armored units
- Added "Tsunami" liquid turret - acts as an upgraded version of the Wave
- Added Plastanium conveyors - stack items together, move them with high throughput
- Added mud & dirt decoration blocks
- Added slag liquid floor, can be pumped to obtain slag
- Added space floor
- Significant amounts of block balancing, bugfixes and tweaks
Logic System:
- Added Processor blocks that execute commands in a loop
- Processors use a very simple assembly-like language
- Code can be written in-game with a visual editor, or imported from text files
- Processors are capable of performing complex tasks, such as controlling units, reading block state, disabling/enabling buildings and outputting text to message blocks
- Added Display blocks - can be used for displaying vector images from processors
- Added Memory blocks - can be used to store numbers for internal processor use
- Added Button block - can be linked and used as an input devices for processors
- Examples of logic applications include automatic heat-sensing reactor controllers, unit transport systems, custom unit AI, visual power level displays, various types of games and more
Maps:
- Added 4 new maps for custom games
- Added 5 types of weather: rain, fog, snow, sandstorm and sporestorm
- Each type of weather has a certain effect on blocks or units
- Added attack AI rule: when enabled, enemy cores will spawn units that build basic defense schematics
- Added map rules for fire, schematic use, enemy light visibility, unit ammo mechanics, explosion damage and more
- Added new filters in editor, to aid with procedural map generation
- Added new editor filter options
General Changes:
- Added more music
- Added more sound effects
- Added community server groups
- Improved most sprites and icons
- Many small visual improvements
- Added button to pan camera around map
- New physics system
- Made schematics save power node connections & message contents when copying
- Many, many small QoL changes
- A lot more stuff that I've probably missed