Howdy Agents (✿◕‿◕)

This is update 0.8.8. It comes with a huge rewrite to DDS’s AI, along with tons of refinements, tweaks, and fixes.

Today’s update is brought to you with artwork from Watari!! You can find more of their amazing work here https://twitter.com/nijimukiokuiro
Thank you to everyone who left a review since our last update. As always, be sure to join the discord!

The update is currently only available for windows, but will be up for Mac and Linux this weekend if no critical issues are found.

Here are da notes:

AI Rewrite

• AICode written from (almost) scratch, now much more performant and reliable.
  
• AI is more capable, since it is now actually working correctly.
  
• Agents now search for targets using a spatial hash grid. This means time-to-notice is very consistent. AI previously found targets with a time-sliced linear search, creating artificially long notice times in levels with lots of creatures.
  
• Agent melee attack pattern was reworked to make them more aggressive and capable.
  

AI is mostly the same, but much easier to code with on my end and a little more fun to play against in my experience.


Enemy Changes

• Agents can now refill their ammo by picking up an unused weapon off the ground.
  
• Probuscised Meatlords no longer materialize barb ammo out of nowhere, and have a new “balloon” attack.
  
• Umbral Squids no longer materialize orb ammo out of nowhere, and have a new laser attack.
  
• Turrets now have a laser sight. It was previously difficult to see where turrets were pointing when they spawned with short weapons.
  
• Turrets can now see farther and react faster, making it harder to “edge” hack them. Not sure how I feel about this change, definitely makes turrets more interesting but open to reverting it.
  
• Black knights have been completely reworked. The drop pod now pings the player location for them. Drop pods can be hacked to disable this effect, and gain access to the knights.
  
• The speedy agent from the PGD mission has been reworked. This was unintentionally a major F U moment that could insta-kill the player. The agent is now more forgiving to deal with, on top of being even sillier.
  
• All enemies in the “Zombie” faction can now be hacked. These enemies used to be unhackable to make them scarier (I think), but hard immunities aren’t in the immersive sim holiday spirit. Autohacking also works on these enemies too now.
  
• Mimics can now chain their laser attack rapidly.
  
• Acolytes are now trigger happy with they nades.
  
• Standalone hackers in the cloud office level now use the snipe hack attack.
  
• Grunts in the cloud office level can now use the Alcubierre Drive ability
  
• Dog enemies now use the bypass hack attack, making them more thematic.
  

Misc. Tweaks and Changes

• Gave some of the final climb levels a visual and mechanical makeover.
  
• Added some walls around the House level. This will prevent the AI from awkwardly wandering around into the void.
  
• Graph display will now show up the next level you load after you close it. Some players accidentally closed this thing and didn’t think to open it up again, making hacking a LOT harder. Virtually no one is gonna close this thing forever.
  
• Intro text scroll is now progressed with a next button for accessibility reasons. Many players couldn’t quite keep up with the speed of the text. You can still skip everything like before.
  
• Zombie teeth are now a proper weapon you can pick up and equip.
  
• Opening the temple of the worm now brings the chippy worm out sooner.
  
• Big concierge room received a visual makeover to fit the urgency of the situation.
  
• Added some new floor tiles to the acid rain office level.
  
• Improved love effects for Squirmy.
  

Bug Fixes

• Late game Mission BBS levels should no longer break. One of the computers was not hooked up to the spawner properly, causing the generator to crash.
  
• Fixed a bizarre bug causing a tiny piece of the player UI to collide with furniture, which would push stuff around offscreen without your knowing.
  
• Fixed a weird flash bug with Black Knight nades.
  
• Special ammo no longer clips through cover (except rod ammo as intended)
  
• Fixed an issue preventing train tracks from appearing
  
• Fixed a bug causing the blowable kiss to linger after hitting a wall, creating an invisible zone of love.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the silent skelly passive to make breakable walls non-breakable.
  
• Fixed visual issue with spike bubbles, causing them to grow a little too big.
  
• Fixed a bug where failing the Angel interrogation would complete the mission you originally selected.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the correct weapon panel not to show after purchasing one in the shop.
  
• Fixed a bug preventing certain land mines from detecting cyborgs.
  
• Fixed a bug allowing you to spawn infinite worms and worm chiplets from the worm temple.
  
• Fixed a bug causing melee shop panel to not update it’s price.
  
• Fixed typos.
  
• Many other tiny misc fixes.
  

That’s all for now! The next major update should wrap up the story content ahead of 1.0. Thank you all for playing and continuing to keep up with DDS

Time for 1000 years sleep (＿ ＿*) Z z z