Release Notes for Shardpunk

Patch 1.1.8 (09/04/2024)

QoL stuff:

Increased the game speed by reducing the duration of some of the in-game pauses and transitions.
Introduced the experimental game speed option, accessible from the gameplay settings menu, which allows to speed the combat gameplay up to 130%.

Balance changes:

Enemy reinforcements can now be split between different spawn points, meaning that one wave of reinforcements can now come from many directions at once
Adjusted the drop rates of items. Stimpaks and Grenades should be less common now, but there should be more resources to craft them in the shelter phase.
Fiddled with reinforcements spawn rates, enemy pod sizes, and how they progress, to tackle the snowballing issue.

Bugfixes:

Fixed the issue with rain/lightning bolts being displayed indoors in some cases.
Fixed the icon of the broadcast quest action in chapter 3.

Hotfix 1.1.4.5 (16/08/2023)

Bugfixes:

Fixed an issue that could break character details in some situations.

Patch 1.1.4 (10/08/2023)

New features:

Added character bonds to the game.

Difficulty/balancing:

Reinforcement tweaks: they tend to have more rat grunts starting from chapter 2, and the reinforcement appearance rate is slightly randomized.

QoL:

Camera now does not pan to newly uncovered enemies if they are on the screen already.

Bugfixes:

Poison mortar rats should now behave more aggressively (they tend to hunker down a lot if they were in a close proximity of an explosive barrel).

Patch 1.1.3 (20/07/2023)

New features:

Added Dread mechanics to the game, expanding the way stress is handled.

Bugfixes:

Gunter's Focus action now receives stress reduction from the "Face the danger" Team Skill.
Fixed missing glyphs for the Japanese fonts.
Fixed some missing cover issues on one of the map pieces.

Hotfix 1.1.2.2 (17/07/2023)

Bugfixes:

Fixed the issue with rescuable characters being of the same type as characters in player's party. Note: this fix only affects new runs; the existing ones might still have it. If you encounter it, do contact me and I will fix the save file for you.

Patch 1.1.2 (13/07/2023)

New features:

It is now possible to encounter a rescuable character even if the party is at full size (5 characters plus an automaton). Rescuing such a character will allow the player to finish a mission with six characters. After a mission (and before the shelter phase), the player will have to choose which character gets left behind. Such a character might still appear later on as a rescuable character.

Bugfixes:

Explosive barrels now have proper graphics upon game load.
Fixed a few issues regarding how flanking is displayed/calculated.

Hotfix 1.1.1.3 (06/07/2023)

Bugfixes:

Fixed the issue with regular reloads reducing the number of free reload charges.

Patch 1.1.1 (06/07/2023)

New features:

Added a possibility to rename characters. A character can be renamed in-game via the character details screen.

Difficulty/balancing:

Suicide bombers now should not explode in front of bleeding out characters that often.

Bugfixes

Gunter: corrected the effects of the "Focus" skill on Wait it Out and Take Cover combat tactics.
Combat bot: fixed the issue with ground slam not consuming an AP if the bot had 1 AP left.

Hotfix 1.0.31.6 (23/06/2023)

Bugfixes:

Fixed an issue that could randomly not spawn a loot point that was necessary for the tutorial level.

Patch 1.0.31 (22/06/2023)

Difficulty/balancing:

Added an Ironman mode, which prevents the players from reloading a mission. Actually, that was the default way the game was played until now, so maybe the correct way of saying should be "added a non-Ironman mode". All existing saves are treated as Ironman modes. Non-ironman mode allows the player to restart any mission (except the tutorial one). Unlocks and achievement progress does not get rolled back though (as they are bound to a profile, not the current game-in-progress).
Increased the number of enemies that can appear in chapters 2 and 3.
Increased the base HP of chapter 2 boss.

QoL

Added a numeric HP display in combat. It can be altered in the Gameplay Settings.

New content

Added explosive barrels on maps. A map can spawn a random number of such barrels. Barrels will appear in existing saves as well from now on.

Balancing

Rose: “Salvage bandages” shelter action has been replaced with the “Heal everyone” shelter action, which allows to heal every character in a shelter. In existing saves, the old action has been replaced with the new one.
Rose: “Rush It!” action now simply grants a regular extra AP instead of adding that “non-movement AP” thing.
Hector: increased the amount of enemy misses in the “untouchable” skill.
Michael: “Clean weapon” skill now adds extra damage (it was extra max damage until now), but the bonus is reduced.

Patch 1.0.30 (15/06/2023)

Localisation:

Added Polish language version.

QoL

Improved controller support - the game should be now playable without the occasional mouse support.

Hotfix 1.0.29.7 (01/06/2023)

Bugfixes:

Fixed an issue that could cause a Fusion Core not to appear in the player's inventory after a pickup.

Hotfix 1.0.29.6 (31/05/2023)

Bugfixes:

“All in” skill from Silas now correctly counts enemy kills (it was counting attacks before).
Rose’s “weak spot” skill does not deal 3 extra damage if it’s at level zero.

Modding:

Game now supports Japanese glyphs that can be used by the modders.
Made sure that character names get correctly refreshed after game's language is changed.
Added missing translation keys and support for some existing translation keys. Details:
- "characterDetails_teamSkillRemainingPoints" key is now used in Team Skills button tooltip
- added "combat_retaliation" key for the "Retaliation!" text
- added "general_shelterAPCost" key for the AP cost text in the shelter phase
- added "achievement_progress" key for the achievement progress box header

Patch 1.0.29 (25/05/2023)

Content:

Added a Very Hard difficulty (more enemies, healthier enemies, more stress gain). This is but a prelude to real difficulty customization which I will add in the future.
Balancing:
Rat shotgunner attacks now do not shred armor.

QoL

Free reload actions that come from skills/upgrades are now separate actions - meaning that the player can choose when to use them.
Added an alternate font type support.

Patch 1.0.26 (25/05/2023)

Bugfixes:

Probably fixed issues with the game not loading/not progressing to the shelter phase correctly. I'm not 100% sure about that as I did not manage to reproduce it, and I haven't received feedback on an experimental debug version that I sent to some of the players who reported the issue in the first place. Note to every player experiencing this: reach out to me on Twitter or Discord, I am eager to help.
Codex entries are now not cropped in 16:10 aspect ratios.
"The last one left" trait (applied when there is only one human character left) now does not prevent a character from losing stress.
Gunther's pistol overwatch action does not consume main weapon's heat.

Content:

Added new achievement: Katana Carnage: Kill five enemies with a katana in a single turn (not bound to a GOG achievement). I am aware that the total number of unlock points is bigger than the amount of stuff that is unlockable at the moment.

Balance changes:

Gunter's "loner" trait is even more effective (increased damage and defence bonus).
Hair trigger upgrade now refunds a single AP.
Silas: stress cost of Push the Limit now stays at 4 on its max level.
Silas: "Gallows Humour" skill now can be used multiple times in the shelter.
Silas: Pat your gun increases damage in general, not just the max damage. Reduced the allies’ stress gain from that skill.
Reduced the number of free shots for Mycroft's heavy weapon boost action (2/4/6 => 2/3/4).
Enemies should now spawn slightly less often in the 1st mission if you are not playing the tutorial level.

Hotfix 1.0.24 (21/04/2023)

Fixed an issue with the game behaving broken if somehow a character has entered the shelter while still being affected by the support bot's support aura. Prevented such a situation from happening from now on. The faulty game state will still have characters in combat showing the “affected by bot’s support mode” trait, but it will disappear after the next combat or after the next time they leave the bot’s aura.