We interrupt your daily flight to bring you a new patch. It adds the Hel's Fighters section of the Story menu, and rebalances the final bossfight to a more reasonable level. It also fixes a variety of bugs and adds some QoL features.

The new Hel's Fighters lore entries include information on various topics. From its origins, to the staff that runs the show, the arenas, and the various Champions. There's a total of 20 entries to read. Feel free to give me your opinions!

Onto the next topic, the final boss of the campaign had multiple aspects changed to make the fight less difficult and more entertaining, especially at lower difficulties. Several bugs that made the fight harder than intended were also patched out.

Finally, several QoL changes were added. The Quick Map now remains open when you switch between rooms. This should make active navigation easier. The feature is built into the game, so no need to mess with Option settings this time around.

Here is a full list of patch notes:

Balance:

• Decreased the damage thresholds required to advance to the next phase of the final bossfight.
• Decreased the final boss's weapon range from (1000, 800, 500) down to (800, 650, 500).
  • The order represents (long range, medium range, short range) respectively.
• Decreased the amount of time the final boss uses Long Range loadouts from 15 seconds down to 10 seconds.
• Decreased the final boss's bullet dodge range for long range loadouts from (150, 200, 250, 300) down to (75, 100, 125, 150).
  • Due to a coding error, the bullet dodge range was locked to 300 acrosss all difficulties.
• Decreased the unshielded health regeneration of the final boss from (1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0) down to (0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0).
• Decreased the base turn rate of the Blue Disruptor Missiles from (3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5) down to (2.1, 2.9, 3.7, 4.5).
• The Blue Disruptor Missile Burst was replaced with a giant Disruptor Missile that explodes and releases 5 Blue Disruptor Missiles.
  • Should give players a heads-up to prepare for missiles, or to quickly destroy the big one with a Manual Detonation.

Visuals:

• Interface terminals now have an animated "..." when there's more text to display.
• Blue Disruptor Missiles now glow to make them stand out from other projectiles.
• Modified the impact particle of Blue Disruptor Missiles to better indicate when they impacted the player.
  • If they didn't directly impact the player, it will appear as a normal missile explosion.
  • If they hit the player directly, it will appear as a large, blue EMP explosion.

Audio:

• Added a sound to Carriers launching Sentries and Drones.

Campaign:

• Adjusted the barrier text in the R&D Admin Landing Pad to give better information.
• Slightly reduced the numbers of Knights and Hunters in one specific fight sequence in Chapter 3.
• Removed a wave of Hunters at the end of one specific battle in Chapter 3.
• Adjusted the A.R.I.A. help text for the final boss.

Demo:

• Slightly decreased the number of Wrestlers and Spinners that spawn in a specific fight on Area 3 of the Demo map.

Story:

• Added a new section for Hel's Fighters story.
  • It includes information on its origins, staff, arenas, and Champions.

Bugs:

• Fixed a bug where several objective markers in Area 2 triggered earlier than intended.
• Fixed a bug where an objective marker in Area 5 triggered earlier than intended.
• Fixed a bug where the Behemoth's turrets would not appear destroyed if killed during a phase swap.
• Fixed a bug where the Conqueror could get stuck inside the player when using the Energy Spike.
• Fixed a bug where the Conqueror's bullet dodge range was not adjusting for difficulty.
• Fixed a bug where no button would be selected while trying to browse the Rebel Ops menu with a gamepad.
• Fixed several Challenge typos.
• Fixed an issue where firing sounds did not correctly adjust based off distance to the player.
  • Sounds too far away for the player to hear were still being played.

Techical Changes:

• The Quick Map now remains open when switching rooms.
• Improved enemy projectile handling during specific phase switches during the final boss.

How to update the game on itch:

1. Download the new version.
2. Delete the old Aerostrike folder. All save files are stored in a separate folder, so it is safe to delete the old game files.
3. Create a new Aerostrike folder.
4. Extract the game files inside the new folder.

If anyone is met with any sort of weird bug, or simply thinks that the final boss should be tougher than before, feel free to leave a comment, send an email to the support address, or message me on any of my social media accounts (preferably Mastodon).

Stay safe pilots!