MAIN CHANGES
Sorry about the extended delay in getting this update out, but other matters took precedence over the last couple of weeks (and sadly, no, I wasn’t sunbathing on a tropical beach).
There should be enough new things in this update to keep you busy for a while. Of course, the downside of cramming so many things in is that it increases the chance of things going pear-shaped. So, fingers crossed.
Looking at the changelog, two things stand out:
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Challenges rework: New rules have been implemented for challenges that should provide a more even ground for competition (random drops are now nailed down to the same enemies for all players), as well as suppress exploit/abuse very effectively (excessive dis/reconnections will result in disqualification from the leaderboards).
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Weapons rework: Manual clicking now confers no heat benefits. Un-boosted firing rates have generally remained the same (as the old ‘auto’ values). Due to this, you may notice less simultaneous projectiles on screen, but observe that their damage has been buffed accordingly to keep your total destruction unchanged.
Certain weapons (currently, only Ion/Neutron/Laser/Utensil – Corn may join the group if/when I figure out how to handle the never-overheat aspect) are able to boost their firing rate (this boost is configurable per-weapon). Note that this isn’t quite the “Overdrive” mechanic I originally had in mind, because here your clicking rate actually determines the firing rate, i.e., exactly how manual clicking worked up until now (in the original proposal, the boost would be unvarying and would kick in independently of manual click rate). For now, think of it as a simplified beta version of Overdrive. Let’s collect some data and see where we go with this.
Also, some changes were made to existing weapons to address their most egregious shortcomings (or, equally, overpowered’ness).
Due to the fundamental nature of these weapon changes, I consider any past comments to be outdated. If you play around with the new weapons and discover that previous problems persist, please post again in the v.50+ thread (even if it’s just a link to your previous comments), because I won’t be looking at older posts from now on.
Bug/Idea medals will be awarded later in the day (even after your medal is awarded, you’ll need to re-connect to see it). 
Your medal cannot be awarded if your in-game callsign doesn’t match your forum name (send it to me in a private message).
COMPATIBILITY
You will lose:
- any in-mission progress
- any graphics options you have configured (under particular circumstances, all menu options could be lost)
CHANGELOG
New features – 
Tweaks – 
Bug fixes – 
Internal changes
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Deleted users that haven’t logged in in the past 4 weeks and have less than an hour of playtime.
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Hypergun rework: Applied overlooked v.49 changes: Projectile damage is now 150/300
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Updated “save for later” icon.
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Vulcan Chaingun: Recolored gift blue/white.
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Mission pause screen now shows mission codename/type/waves/difficulty (@xXmlgDiegoXx @trueuser @Doge1
Idea) -
Top-10 messages now include information about which top-10 list you made it into (@Jasnah_Kholin Idea)
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Hall of Fame screen: Added “Top Squadrons”.
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Inbox scrollbars are now properly affected by color theme (@trueuser Bug)
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Inbox: changed icon for squadron-related messages (events category).
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Improved “save for later” message for once-only already-flown missions (@minasam123 Idea)
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Color themes: Added “highlight” color (highlights your name/squadron in top-10 lists).
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Back-ported UveDX changes since 2019-01 to UveXX.
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HUD equipment now has unique icons (@trueuser Idea)
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Boron Railgun: Sound pitch no longer changes with increasing heat levels (@Sufi Idea)
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Key Rush mission backgrounds now have golden glows (@Kylo-Hen
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Store: Corrected capitalization of “victory music” (@Marcossanches Bug)
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Darkness missions: Starfield brightness reduced to 50% (@OneWingLunarian Idea)
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Inbox now correctly selects an initial category to display, even if there are no unread messages (@harakat @SA-GoldenBoss128 Bug)
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Boron Railgun now has 11 (0-10) power levels to match Vulcan Chaingun.
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Replaced “Planetary Egg City” quip.
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Fixed “starting with only one life” quip appearing even when lives have been lost (@harakat Bug)
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Bonus Challenge chests can now drop keys (@Fractorial Idea)
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Camera zooms in one more level to already-explored (or trip destination) star systems, so that a disabled “Travel to star system” button (“Already here”) should no longer ever be seen (@SA-GoldenBoss128 Bug)
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Mission screen: “Recents” now only displays a single entry (the latest one) if the same mission has been played many times consecutively (@harakat Bug)
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Retro missions base tier requirement is now 30 (was 40) (@OneWingLunarian Idea)
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Fixed bug: Berserk chickens appearing at (0,0) for a single frame if turned berserk on the exact frame they spawned on (@harakat Bug)
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Database upgrade: Inactive players are now deleted en masse (much faster).
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Moved “120th Anniversary” from Profile screen to Heroes Academy campuses.
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Added “vanish” effect to bombs (@Fractorial Bug)
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Plasma’s area-of-effect is now affected by damage amplifiers (@anon48763505 Bug)
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Store: Comparative stats no longer show “+0” if there’s no change from one upgrade level to the next (@harakat Bug)
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Added information/icons about mission environment (hot, frozen, electric) to UI (@trueuser Idea)
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Corrected capitalization of “Maneuvering Jets” (@minasam123 Bug)
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Color theme UI buttons now precisely inherit colors of their corresponding themes (@minasam123 Bug)
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Multi-kill bonus: Points now increase based on arithmetic series (base value=250, increment=25). (@Fractorial Idea)
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Satellites are now prevented from moving horizontally in missions where player can only move horizontally (Squawk block, Anniversary) (@SA-GoldenBoss128 Bug)
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Magnetic Manipulator wave: Corrected add() in createWave() to be an RPC (benign since it always executes on both client/server anyway).
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Added “screenshot” button on in-game pause menu.
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Removed (currently) unused notches from skill icon.
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Fixed wrong placement of balloon tips when sufficiently close to edge of screen.
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Renamed “Power-up Countdown” to “Countdown Insight” (@OneWingLunarian Idea)
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All equipment now uses Title Case.
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All inbox messages now use Sentence case (@minasam123 Bug)
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Implemented “competitive” missions (daily/weekly/space race) rework (@1galbatorix1 Idea)
- Enemy drop RNG (gift/power-up/coins) is now repeatable per-enemy (except dynamically-spawned enemies) – affects all missions.
- “Pointless” enemies no longer drop anything.
- “Mass Condenser” and “Speedy Recovery” are now disallowed in Space Race.
- Excessive number of disconnections now disqualify player from top-10 (max limits: daily=1, weekly=3, space race=2). Disconnections in-between waves do not count towards this limit.
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“Mysterious ship” boss: warning beam mesh now uses twice the vertices (both horizontally and vertically) (@minasam123 Bug)
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Riddler now repels only by 25% (@ZergurVorghiz Bug)
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Corn Shotgun now repels enemies only by 50% (popcorn: repels 0%, momentum transter 33%)
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Riddler impacts are now colored similarly to tracers (cyan-pink).
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Vulcan Chaingun: Projectile glow is now perfectly symmetric (@Enhawk Bug)
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Vulcan Chaingun: Impact flare is now colored similarly to projectile (@minasam123 Idea)
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Destruction meter: Meter now moves more smoothly and maxes out at 20000.
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Removed manual firing. All weapons now fire using their automatic rate.
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Ion/Neutron/Laser/Utensil: Buffed projectile damage to cancel out reduction of DPS.
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Absolver now has 10 power levels (was 20), power lv.10 multiplies damage x3 (was x4).
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Corn Shotgun: Fixed excessive DPS due to an improperly limited manual firing rate.
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Corn Shotgun: Popcorn projectile now deals 300 damage (was 400). Overheat time is 8s (lv.0) ~ 4s (lv.10). Firing rate is 0.650s (lv. 0) ~ 0.250s (lv.10). (@OneWingLunarian Idea)
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Positron Stream: More intuitive splitting: Split angle becomes narrower the more tangentially it impacts, or wider as it impacts towards the center (dead-on impacts result in a 180o split). Beam deals 1x100% + 2x35% + 4x20% damage (total damage 250%).
Damage progression: 200 280 360 440 520 600 680 760 840 920 1000 1240(@OneWingLunarian @GTTOP @1galbatorix1 Idea) -
Laser: Firing interval (rate) is now 0.3s (was 0.25s)
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Boron Railgun: Projectile damage +90% (133 228 304), max. heat boost is now +50% (was +150%), damage boosts smoothly with heat (was stepped) (@Sufi @Akemisora Idea)
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Moron: Projectile damage x2, no firing rate speed-up as power increases.
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All weapons: Replaced “heat generated per volley” with “time to overheat” for more precise overheat control.
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Due to change above, tweaked all weapons’ overheat times. Notably, Utensil now overheats at 12s (was 15s).
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Reworked manual firing: it now has no reduced heat benefits, it merely boosts (“overdrives”) firing rate by up to 100% (only for Ion/Neutron/Laser/Utensil). Heat generation goes up proportionately (=faster overheat). Long-term total destruction remains approximately the same as automatic firing.
BACKUPS
You are reminded that during Early Access you are responsible for backing up your own progress. Make a copy of everything under C:\ProgramData\InterAction studios\CIU (including all sub-folders). Never rename files or move them from one version folder to another. Simply make a copy and then later put it back exactly where you found it.
