Infinitode 2 - Major Update 1.9.0 and Season 3 with lots of balance changes

The update which took a year of development is finally here!
It focuses on a much better balance and some new gameplay features. Modding support has also been improved and we are steadily moving to something big.

Season 2 ends Jul 29 and the server will stop accepting new replays. Next season starts in a couple of days after and will require the game to be updated if you want to participate in the leaderboards.

It will take some time for the iOS and Android builds to be verified by the app markets, but Steam version of the game will be available immediately. This should not give any advantage in the next season, but Steam players will receive a joy of competition in an almost empty leaderboards.

Season 2 rewards and badges will be issued shortly after Season 3 starts - I need to make sure everything will work correctly and you won't miss a well deserved reward. Another announcement will be made later with the list of Season 2 winners.

Update 1.9.0 changelist

TL;DR;

• New map editor features
• Damage numbers
• Boss HP bars, bosses became slower and harder
• New music and a proper mysic synthesizer on iOS
• Email is not requried for sign up, account screen and forms became better
• More hints and explanations in tower menus, new Gem menus
• More than a hundred of new research nodes, new free research
• Up to 16x faster resource farming in some scenarios (level farming bonuses + new ability + improved Mining speed mod)
• New Bonus system
• Towers can be manually disabled
• Steam Cloud and Linux support
• New item market in the Shop
• Much higher Bit dust drop rate, up to 12x on max difficulty and research
• More quest slots
• Removed days-in-row reward, increased daily quest rewards
• New ability, new level, many new tower mechanics and a massive rework of towers
• Better modding / scripting support
• Lots of bug fixes and performance improvements, improved text fields on mobile devices
• More colors in labels, better icons

Gameplay, new content and features

• Added 96 new passive, tower-specific, free research that are being unlocked simply by using a tower. These new research upgrade specific towers and give bonuses for farming
  
  
  
  
• "Extended statistics" research now adds a new column to the Statistics screen, which calculates damage per coin for each tower
  
  
  
  
• Per-tower in-game statistics (DPS, kills and bonus coins in the tower's menu) are now always visible - no research required. Added a total damage counter into the tower menu
  
  
  
  
• Miners now have more item slots, which allow them to farm more items per game. Adjusted item mining rate - the chance to get an item is now higher on average
  
  
  
  
• Miners now have a single mining speed which does not depend on a resource type - for example, Infiar miner will now mine Scalar and Infiar at the same speed
  
  
  
  
• Completely reworked the level I will not talk about, because there's no such level
  
  
  
  
• Gems on levels 6.1 and 6.2 now can be selected and have a proper menu, which shows detailed info about them (their effect / immunities / their HP etc)
  
  
  
  
• Added level 6.6
  
  
  
  
• Added a Bonus system, which is available on level 6.6 and in the daily maps. Currently it has more than 40 different powerful bonuses you can choose from during the game, featuring many new gameplay mechanics. Bonus system is deterministic, making leaderboard competitons fair for everyone
  
  
  
  
• Amount of prizes in the Lucky wheel has been increased, and x2/x3 segments appear more frequently. Added a new research which increases a chance for an extra x2 segment to appear in each wheel
  
  
  
  
• Completely reworked map editor - now it allows multiple selection, which can be moved or used as a "brush" for painting. Map editor now also has a history (you can undo last changes using Ctrl+Z or UI buttons) and it backs up your map in case you manage to crash the game somehow. Tile-sepcific menus and inventory has been slightly redesigned too
  
  
  
  
• Pathfinding will now never fail - enemies will always find a path to the base, even if there are no tiles along the path. This makes it easier to create custom maps and makes pathfinding less buggy. This also allows to create new crazy custom maps where enemies move right through the void (do not report it, that's intended)
  
  
  
  
• One-time gift is given for unlocking Stage 4, which includes a temporary Double Gain or Accelerators if DG is already enabled. This should make stage 4 progression much more enjoyable, as at this stage many players start to struggle due to an increased difficulty
  
  
  
  
• Towers can be manually disabled by clicking on their title in the tower menu
  
  
  
  
• Local save files are now stored in the game's folder on PC, which allows to have multiple installations of the game with a separate progress. These save files are now synchronized through the Steam Cloud, serving as a fourth backup storage (along with local files, Infinitode cloud and Infinitode auto-backup feature) for your saves and making it much easier to continue playing on any other Steam-powered platform
  
  
  
  
• It is now possible to write a note on your cloud saves. Premium access allows to have up to 7 cloud save slots
  
  
  
  
• Regular levels now can have random bonuses for a specific resource type / green papers / bit dust, which allows to farm up to 4.5x more of that specific item in a single run
  
  
  
  
• Bosses now have more HP and move slower. Difficulty of bosses has been adjusted
  
  
  
  
• Source tiles were changed on some of the regular levels, which makes levels more equal in terms of farming
  
  
  
  
• Only 20% (instead of 25%) of quests are required for the first stage of quests Prestige. Increased Prestige token rewards given for resetting the quests
  
  
  
  
• Added a small inventory to the research screen, making it much easier to see all your items at a glance. Clicking on the items will show the amount of items still needed for a full research tree and the amount of research currently requiring the item. Colored dots near the items show how much some specific item is needed at this moment
  
  
  
  
• Map editor allows to select music track files directly from the disk drive and save them back to the disk. It also allows to download music by URL - simply search for .xm/.s3m/.mod file on the Internet and paste its URL into the game
  
  
  
  
• Increased daily map rewards
  
  
  
  
• Removed item cases from the shop - they did not scale with Green Papers properly and Cyan chests were too pricey
  
  
• Added an Item Market to the shop. Most of the items you'll need can be purchased there, and it allows to exchange the resources you do not need for item cases, bit dust, blueprints and other good stuff. Item offers are updated every 1h of in-game time and are scaled according to your progression. Clicking on an offer also shows how many of this item you already have and how many of them are currently needed for research
  
  
  
  
• Pressing Enter on the research screen installs the currently selected research
  
  
• Multiple tile packs and item cases can be selected in the inventory. It is now also possible to open 4x more packs and cases at once by long-pressing the Open button
  
  
  
  
• Bit dust drop rate increases according to the difficulty of the Endless mode, now up to 6x more Bit dust per run
  
  
• Bit dust drop rate research became twice as powerful and no longer costs Bit dust
  
  
  
  
• Game website has been improved, new features were added to the account page. It is now also possible to enable two-factor authentication if you want to secure your account (will go live in a couple of days)
  
  
  
  
• Cake trophy now gives +1 Quest reset (basically +1 quest slot) and increases bit dust / prestige dust drop rates instead of giving gameplay-affecting bonuses, which should not give advantage on the leaderboards
  
  
  
  
• Email is now completely optional for signing up. Signing up with Steam has been greatly simplified
  
  
  
  
• Levels of stage 6 require resources to be unlocked. You won't have to purchase these levels if you have already played on them
  
  
• Endless leaderboards are now limited to the first 45 minutes of in-game time
  
  
• Added dozens of new research
  
  
  
  
• Level 1.3 trophy now requires more waves to be defeated
  
  
• Enemies are now considered "in range" even if they touch a tower's range (previously the center of an enemy had to be in range). Same goes for the Flamethrower's flame
  
  
• New "Slipping" debuff, which reduces enemy's speed by 30% and stacks with any other debuff or effect. Applied by Blizzard
  
  
  
  
• First level of ability research is now always free on the research tree
  
  
• Added Invulnerability buff, used by some bosses
  
  
• Added NoBonusSystemPoints and NoDamage buffs, used by the bonus system
  
  
• Abilities won't start if they will cause zero damage
  
  
• Added a new research which increases the amount of quests that can be completed in a single run
  
  
  
  
• Removed days-in-row reward from daily rewards. You should receive a compensation if you have at least 3 days of a streak. Increased daily rewards instead
  
  
  
  
• Added a new "Loop" ability
  
  
  
  
• It is now possible to receive the "Developer" trophy without installing the Developer mode research - unlocking the research is enough. This trophy still does not give any gameplay-related effects but now your trophy collection will finally be complete without enabling the Developer mode
  
  
• If enemies are allowed to walk over platforms or if their path is blocked, they will prefer to move through modifiers and, only if there's no path through modifiers - they'll start to move through towers
  
  
• Only in Russia - the game will now show short ads between the runs on mobile devices for the players with no Premium access
  
  
• Easy difficulty mode has became even more easy

Visuals, audio and UI

• GameValue icons were redesigned and now are more colorful. They are used in a Core upgrades, Boost tiles and research icons
  
  
  
  
• Added modifier and ability icons to the effect names (research menu and Boost tiles)
  
  
• Fixed: snowballs and ball lightning units appear more smoothly from the Freezing and Tesla towers
  
  
• Added damage numbers with a different visuals depending on a type of damage (more / less effective, critical, special etc). Can be configured through the settings screen
  
  
  
  
• Added boss HP bars
  
  
  
  
• Coin particles now depend on a real time and stop moving if the game is paused - same goes for damage particles. Can be useful if you want to check the efficiency of your towers at a specific moment
  
  
• Statistics screen has been updated and now features a better per-tower statistics table
  
  
• Swapped music on some levels, added new tracks. Use in-game music player or this great playlist by Cinex to listen to new tracks: YouTube
  
  
  
  
• Slightly rearranged in-game buttons in the bottom-left corner of the screen, for convenience
  
  
• Redesigned Miner menu, which explains the final mining speed better and is more invormative overall
  
  
• Game loads more smoothly on a slow devices
  
  
• Added a new "CVD-friendly colors" option, which should make it easier for colorblind players to distinguish some graphics. Research tree colors has been adjusted to be CVD-friendly by default. Added some details to the textures of some items to make it easier to distinguish them. It is now possible to click on an item icon in the research menu to enlarge it and view some info about it
  
  
  
  
• Updated Account screen UI, added more info to the sign in / sign up screens and made form fields more visually consisting
  
  
• Loading screen now has a completely black backgroud and transitions more smoothly into the main menu
  
  
• Using a case key in the inventory now opens the shop, highlights the key exchange button and scrolls the screen to it. If there are 10+ keys in the inventory, a hint bubble will be shown on the inventory button
  
  
  
  
• Fixed descriptions of many music tracks - added authors, real track names and links to the official websites. A notification will appear each time a track starts to play, and you can click on the links in it to visit the author's website
  
  
• Music track files can now store a global volume configuration. Reduced music volume on some levels
  
  
• Fixed "game over" slow motion effects
  
  
• Added missing translations
  
  
• Added a proper live music synthesizer for iOS, music spectrums now work properly on this OS
  
  
  
  
• Added a list of community translators to the settings screen
  
  
  
  
• Translations can now contain conditional blocks which improve the quality of translations
  
  
• Added a 8xMSAA anti-aliasing option for graphics settings and an experimental full-screen borderless screen mode on desktops
  
  
• Added many hints to the tower stats in a tower menu
  
  
  
  
• If auto-saves are disabled on the account screen, a warning icon will be shown in the main menu to prevent a progress loss
  
  
  
  
• Desktop version of the game starts in a full screen by default. Use F11 to switch between windowed and full-screen mode. Holding Ctrl/Alt/Shift with F11 will switch to a different resolutions of a windowed mode
  
  
• UI scale is adjusted automatically in a full screen mode of a desktop version of the game
  
  
• Improved visuals of the developer console
  
  
  
  
• Added copy / paste buttons that will appear over text fields, just like on Android or iOS. Android and iOS versions of the game no longer open a default OS UI with a single field
  
  
  
  
• Text fields will be shifted on Android and iOS to the visible area if they are being covered by a software keyboard
  
  
• Fixed: tower menu will no longer show hints for stats and tower's range for the next upgrade level of the tower if tower can not be upgraded further
  
  
• Switching game speed now works more smoothly
  
  
• Size of some projectiles and projectile trails had been adjusted slightly. Venom projectiles got more juicy particles
  
  
• Music Spectrum can be turned off in settings
  
  
• UI elements that can be scrolled automatically receive focus when you hover over them with the mouse
  
  
• Source tiles with a very low density now always render at least one colored polygon
  
  
• Adjusted mouse zoom, now it works like in a Photoshop and makes sure to zoom to some precise numbers / avoids blurring
  
  
• Gamebreaking: Script tile can no longer be selected during the game
  
  
• Fixed quest list
  
  
• New Epic rarity sound (took me a day to create, please tell me you've noticed the change)
  
  
• More sounds for Lucky wheel
  
  
• Some minor fixes related to the safe zone UI
  
  
• Large prices in Cores are now being shown as a compact number
  
  
• Trophy viewer now also has an anti-aliasing enabled on the PC version of the game
  
  
• Rearranged star research branch, should now be easier to follow
  
  
• Added music spectrums to the music player for your enjoyment
  
  
  
  
• Notifications no longer queue up if many notifications are being shown, instead new notifications show immediately and make the oldest ones disappear
  
  
• Added "how to obtain" hints to the trophies that are not unlocked yet
  
  
  
  
• Added a timer to the live leaderboards in an endless mode

Balance

• Fast enemies - HP reduced by ~10% and number of enemies by ~5%. Poison debuff slows down Fast enemies by 5% -> 7%
• Icy - shield logic has been simplified. All damage first goes into the shild - HP is not reduced if Icy has any amount of shield. Shield receives reduced damage from anything except bullets and fire
• Strong - reduced number of enemies spawned by ~10% in a later waves
• Starting XP level research removed, towers always start with L1. Research replaced with a bonus PWR per level till L10
• Rotation speed research (global) - effect reduced by ~25%
• Bonus XP research (global) - effect reduced by ~20%
• Poison debuff - now deals at least 15% of damage when stacked
• Stage 5 star requirements were adjusted
• Levels 1.1, 1.2 are now less "difficult"
• Storyline research now give new effects
• Tower XP requirements for leveling up were adjusted - now they require a bit more XP for L1-10 and less for L11-L20+
• Disoriented enemies and Air fall explosions do not affect MDPS
• Powerful ability of all towers now give 15% instead of 10% PWR. PWR calculation is now multiplicative
• Boss waves delay the wave that comes after them even more
• Minor balance changes in Research: global damage / attack speed and some other things were nerfed a bit and corresponding per-tower research has been buffed greatly. Overall tower efficiency has grown by ~25% on max research tree compared to the previous build and now per-tower research should feel more rewarding
• Slightly adjusted the difficulty of a different enemy waves, Regulars should not dominate now and Jets became a bit stronger
• Adjusted difficulty of levels 1.1-6.1 (including the bonus levels) for a more smooth progression and a better challenge
• Base piercing of explosions increased - Fireball ability, Cannon, Missile, mines and air fall explosions became stronger

Balance - Abilities

• Blizzard - now also covers 8 random roads with ice, which debuffs enemies with a Slipping debuff
• Windstorm - has increased range, doubles bonus coins for the next forced wave
• Magnet - lasts longer, projectiles fly towards the first enemy and affect MDPS. multiple instances of this ability can not be active at the same time. Colliding projectiles (Splash / Multishot etc) can now fly further if affected by this ability
• Bullet wall - if some bullets do not hit any enemy and fly outside the map, they will return back aiming at random enemies. Each bullet can return for up to 3 times
• Overload - lasts permanently, until an enemy reaches the Base. Only affects mining speed and enemy toughness, scales with endless mode difficulty
• Loop - new ability, which doubles damage of towers and doubles mined resources of miners
• LOIC - now also boosts Bounties, making them give 30% more coins next time

Balance - Modifiers

• Balance - upgrade XP requirements reduced, each of its upgrade levels now also give +1 Max XP level to the neighboring towers - up to +40 MAX XP levels if you surround a tower with this modifier. Selling a modifier will reduce max XP level of the towers but will not revert abilities
• Search - bonus range +5% -> +7%
• Power - effect is multiplied by Power platform bonus, making this modifier more useful
• Attack speed - speed bonus 22% -> 21%, same as in the Damage modifier
• Mining speed - increases miners mining speed by +35% -> +60%. The modifiers are connected to a miner, the less effective each of them becomes. Added modifier efficiency table to the Modifier's menu
• Experience - gives 30 XP -> 21 XP per resource

Balance - Towers

• Powerful ability of every tower increases PWR by x1.1 -> x1.15. Powerful platforms multiply tower PWR instead of simply adding up a percentage to it, which makes them much more... powerful! LVL 10 towers with Powerful ability now have 28.7% -> 39.7% PWR
• Towers scale much better with PWR and XP level, all towers should be useful on a higher waves. Some stats now benefit from PWR much more to compensate for the lack of damage-affecting stats in some towers
• Due to "Starting XP level" research replacements, L20 PWR of towers increased from 17% to 21.5%
• Range of all towers reduced roughly by 5%
• (i) Stat differences are compared to XP level 20, upgrade level 10 of towers in v.1.8.10

Basic

Now much more useful on a later waves - higher upgrade levels increase its damage much more and cost more coins. L4/L7 abilities became much stronger. 

Stats

• Damage +500%
• Attack speed +16%
• Upgrade cost to LVL 10: +45%

Abilities

• "Double gun" - attack speed +25% -> +36%
• "Large caliber" - damage +31% -> +43%
• "Foundation" - ricochet chance 18.2% -> 24.5%, ricichet projectile speed 80% -> 85%
• "Valuable experience" - now also equally shares 20% of its PWR with the neighboring towers
• Ultimate - XP transfer rate slightly reduced and fixed (Basic - Gauss bug fix)

Sniper

Critical hits now have a more meaningful chance, stats were slightly adjusted to make this tower fit its role.

Stats

• Damage +74%
• Attack speed -6%
• Rotation speed -20%
• Aiming speed +4%. New hint: "Reduced by 4% for each other enemy in range of 1 tile from the target, minimum x15%"
• Crit chance 44.2% -> 14.8%
• Crit multiplier 331% -> 566%
• Upgrade cost to LVL 10: +20%

Abilities

• "Penetrating bullets" - damage 75% -> 70%
• "Heavy weapons" - damage x1.32 -> x1.35
• "Long barrel" - replaced by "Short barrel" - range x0.8, rotation speed x1.9, critical hit chance x1.44
• "Killshot" - HP treshold 40% -> 29%
• Ultimate - Damage 157% -> 152%, explosion damage 13% -> 20%, explosion trigger range 2 -> 2.5 tiles

Cannon

Increased explosion piercing makes this tower more effective, mines throw enemies back, Foundation turn tower's weakness into its strength.

Stats

• Damage +43%
• Attack speed +6%
• Explosions piercing increased

Abilities

• "Long barrel" - now also increases explosion range by 20%
• "Foundation" - now also deals +0.7% damage per degree it rotates between shots
• Ultimate - mine damage 460% -> 310%, now also throws enemies back

Freezing

Its special ability is no longer harmed by an increased range of the tower, and now it can focus at a single enemy to slow it down even more.

Stats

• Freezing percent +8%
• Freezing speed, poison prolongation and lighnting length bonus slightly increased

Abilities

• "Monitoring system" - now also targets one enemy, slows it instantly and 15% harder, ignoring max freezing percentage cap
• "Snowball" - now has a fixed range and does not depend on tower's range. Snowball accumulation time increases the more snowballs there are on the map

Antiair

Burning damage now increases with tower's XP level, "Aimed drop" explosions now also damage flying enemies and can cause chain reaction kills of flying enemies.

Stats

• Damage +33%
• Attack speed +7%
• Burning time -60%
• New special stat: "Burning damage". New hint: "Limited by 3% of enemy's max HP per second"
• Upgrade cost to LVL 10: +8%

Abilities

• - "Fast mechanism" - now also increases the chance to ignite by 20%
• - "Foundation" - now also increases burning damage by x1.5
• - "Aimed drop" - explosions now also damage flying enemies. Damage 48% -> 26% of killed enemy's max HP
• - Ultimate - mines now have a larger explosion range, damage increase +26% -> +46%

Splash

Can attack Regular enemies (again), no longer has the unclear "Accuracy" stat, projectiles pierce enemies by default.

Stats

• Damage to Regular enemy 0% -> 10%
• Damage +108%
• Attack speed -30%
• No longer has the "Accuracy" stat
• New stat: "Piercing" - defines the amount of damage a projectile preserves after hitting an enemy (43.3%)
• Upgrade cost to LVL 10: +12%

Abilities

• "Penetrating bullets" - damage penalty removed, increases the default projectile piercing by x1.52
• "Fast bullets" - damage x1.31 -> x1.26, enemies now also receive a 50% Bonus XP debuff
• "Riffled barrels" - damage x1.12 -> x1.24
• Ultimate - amount of spikes 5 -> 3, spike damage 162% -> 187%. Now also has a 2% chance to be triggered on any regular hit

Blast

Stun mechanics were reworked to make multiple Blasts more useful. Now has a default "Quake" ability, which stuns every enemy in range and makes the tower more consistent.

Stats

• Damage to Regular enemy 50% -> 100%
• Attack speed +13%
• Stun chance - new hint: "Stunned enemies receive a 100% immunity to stuns until they pass 3 tiles and then it drops by 20% per tile passed. Each enemy can not be stunned more than 6 times"
• Stun duration - new hint: "Decreases by 25% each time the same tower stuns an enemy again, down to 0%"
• New stat: "Quake charging speed" - once fully charged, the next attack is guaranteed to stun all enemies in range for x1.5 duration. Does not ignore enemy immunity. Quakes also disable towers standing close for 2s
• New "Quake charge" gauge in the tower's menu

Abilities

• "Heavy shell" - damage x2.3 -> x2.18
• "Sonic wave" - now also triggers a quake as soon as it is ready and stuns 1 random enemy outside Blast's range
• Ultimate - instead of making enemies more vulnerable while they are being thrown back (for a very short duration), debuffs them with "Vulnerability" for 2s, which makes them receive +85% damage. Since it is a debuff, it can also be spread by "Chain reaction" debuff to other enemies

Multishot

Now attacks flying enemies by default, can debuff enemies with a "Bonus coins" effect, back-shot projectiles can stack their damage.

Stats

• Damage to Heli 50% -> 100%
• Damage +111%
• Attack speed -24%
• Upgrade cost to LVL 10: +12%

Abilities

• "Second axis" replaced by "Buckshot" - deals up to 24% more damage the closer the target is. Enemies drop 30% bonus coins if they die withing 5 seconds, but bonus is halved if enemy is killed by this tower. Upgrades with the tower
• "Compact weapons" - new effect: each hit on an enemy makes it receive 1.1% more damage from this tower, stacks up for up to 36 times
• "Counter attack" - no longer gives more damage to an enemies with a high speed. Instead each enemy within 1 tile of the affected target increases damage by 3%
• Ultimate - damage 450% -> 600%. If projectile does not hit any enemy, its damage is preserved for the next shot and stacks up to 19 times. Adds a "Back shot damage" gauge to the tower's menu when ability is selected

Minigun

Bullets now collide with any enemy, not just with the target, which makes it differ from the Sniper. Bullets have a spread, which increases with acceleration. Tower now has a magazine and has to reload.

Stats

• Damage +6%
• Attack speed +19%
• Acceleration -11%. New hint: "Bullet spread increases with tower's shooting speed, up to 12deg on max acceleration". New "Acceleration" gauge in the tower's menu
• New stat: "Magazine size" - Minigun has a limited magazine size and has to be reloaded once it is empty, which takes 6s. Automatically, instantly reloads if does not attack anyone for 6s. New "Magazine" gauge in the tower's menu

Abilities

• "Heavy weapons" - damage x1.27 -> x1.3, enemies now also receive +30% vulnerability debuff for 2s
• "Heavy mechanism" - now also increases magazine size by 36%
• "Hot bullets" - duration 6s -> 4s, damage 20% -> 16.5%
• Ultimate - microguns now prioritize platforms to make it harder for the enemies to destroy them

Venom

Now prioritizes attacking every enemy a given tower didn't poison yet. "Fast shells" ability reworked and now allows the tower to stack multiple debuffs on a single enemy.

Stats

• Damage +51%
• Attack speed +11%
• Poison duration +14%
• Upgrade cost to LVL 10: +32%
• Poison debuff now deals at least 15% of damage when stacked

Abilities

• "Concentrated poison" - damage x1.3 -> x1.28
• "Hard shells" - damage x3.5 -> x3.4
• "Fast shells" replaced by "Potent poison" - projectile speed x2.1. Hitting the same enemy increases the Poison debuff damage by +36%, stacks up to 4 times. Tower will try to apply max poisoning to an enemy before switching to the next target.
• Ultimate - chain reaction chance 41% -> 56%, spread range 2.1 -> 2.4 tiles

Tesla

Its special ability is no longer harmed by an increased range of the tower, Ultimate ability now works more consistently.

Stats

• Damage +56%
• Attack speed -18%
• Lightning damage 93.4% -> 95%. New hint: "Amount of damage a chain lightning preserves after passing through an enemy, minimum 10% of the base damage"

Abilities

• "High current" - damage x1.3 -> x1.29
• "Increased voltage" - deals at least 22.5% -> 32.5% of tower's damage (much more effective vs many enemies)
• "Ball lightning" - now has a fixed range of 3.5 tiles and does not depend on tower's range. Ball lightning accumulation time increases the more ball lightnings there are on the map
• Ultimate - ball lightning appears every 40 shots, damage 25% -> 210% (not a typo)

Missile

Has increased efficiency vs many enemy types. LRM mechanic is explained better, is being triggered more consistently and deals more damage.

Stats

• Damage to Regular enemies 25% -> 50%
• Damage to Strong enemies 100% -> 150%
• Damage to Heli 100% -> 150%
• Damage to Jet 25% -> 50%
• Damage +99%
• Explosion range -5%, no longer caps at XP level 30
• LRM aiming speed - new hint: "Long Range Missiles are launched on a random target anywhere on the map when no enemies in range. LRM deal 300% of tower's damage"
• Upgrade cost to LVL 10: -11%
• Missile projectiles with no target will fly towards a random Spawn tile if there are no enemies on the map at the moment they've lost their target

Abilities

• "Vertical launch" - no longer increases min range, LRM starts to work even when there are enemies in range but with x0.5 aiming speed (still works with 100% speed if there are no enemies in range)
• "Anti-air system" - now also increases LRM damage by 100%

Flamethrower

Now needs some time to ignite an enemy, enemies can cover other enemies from fire. Direct fire damage is increased by default, multiple Flamethrowers work better together, Ultimate ability gives much more Green papers.

Stats

• Damage to Regular enemies 100% -> 75%
• Range -20%
• Damage +125%, scales better with a higher PWR
• Burning time - new hint: "Enemies start to burn if exposed to direct fire for 0.5s"
• New stat: "Direct damage" (185%) - damage to enemies in direct fire. Enemies can cover other enemies from direct fire if Cold Fire is not enabled
• Upgrade cost to LVL 10: +40%

Abilities

• "Plasma ignition" - multiplies direct fire damage by x1.53
• "Napalm" - booses Cold fire freezing from 17% to 30%, direct damage x0.8. If Cold fire is enabled, also makes it deal +75% damage to the burning enemies
• "Cold fire" - damage x1.31 -> x0.84, now also deals +75% damage to burning enemies, flame pierces through enemies
• Ultimate - burning enemies receive +8% damage for any other enemy in range of 1 tile. Amount of Green papers given has been greatly increased, instant kill is not required for this ability to trigger (a Burn debuff or a regular damage will do)

Laser

Deals more damage the longer it shoots, can now ignite enemies and debuff them with "Bonus coins", damage grows when no enemies die on the map.

Stats

• Damage to Regular enemies 25% -> 100%
• Damage to Heli 50% -> 100%
• Damage -14%
• Charging speed -42%
• Batteries capacity -32%, new hint: "Laser damage increases by 15% for each second it shoots continuously"
• Fixed incorrect Laser damage handling, which makes its Duration stat work properly

Abilities

• "High frequency" - no longer reduces damage, instead it ignites up to 7 enemies with a damage which depends on its barreries capacity
• "Ionization" - now also debuffs enemies with "30% bonus coins", but bonus is halved if enemy is killed by this tower
• Ultimate - damage 3.5% -> 2.8%, duration 16s -> 24s. Tower also receives one stack of bonus damage passively every 2s if no enemy dies on the map

Gauss

Still has the highest damage density per platform but has a reduced utility. Abilities and stats were adjusted in favor of the other towers to make it not required for a long runs. No longer reduces the amount of resources farmed.

Stats

• Damage -12%
• Resource consumption +72%
• Charging speed +27%
• Upgrade cost to LVL 10: +22%
• Increased Gauss's ray thickness, now it should not miss enemies on the sides of a road
• Damage research for Gauss now also increases its resource consumption by 1% starting with research level 10 (endless mode affected the most)

Abilities

• "Nanoparticles" - damage x2.2 -> x1.7, remaining HP 10% -> 15%
• "Self improvement" - XP consumption 4600 -> 2650, grows by 50 -> 100 XP per level
• "Superconductors" - no longer debuffs enemies with bonus coins (moved to Multishot and Laser). Resource consumption -30%, charging speed +29%
• "Overload" - stun duration 13s -> 10.4s, stuns even those enemies not hit by the projectile ("Nanoparticles" not required to hit multiple enemies)

Crusher

Now also deals an additional shared damage and scales much better with a higher XP level. Damage greatly increased.

Stats

• Range slightly increased
• Damage +275%
• Bonus experience - new hint: "Caught enemies get a debuff which makes all towers receive more XP for damaging or killing them"
• New stat: "Shared damage" - additional damage, which is multiplied by the regular damage and then split equally between enemies (97.8%)

Abilities

• "Heavy vice" - damage x1.55 -> x1.45
• "Careful processing" - XP bonus x1.6 -> x1.8

Technical / performance and bug fixes

• Game sessions (instances of GameSystemProvider and everything related to a single game state) are now thread safe, which allows to run multiple game sessions in parallel on a multiple threads. May be used in the future to simulate the state on a separate thread and make FPS much higher and more stable
• Added a "dirty tile" mechanic, which allows to mark specific tiles for a cache update. For example, modifiers can mark tiles around them as "dirty" and will force the neighboring buildings to recalculate their stats - previously this had to be done manually and was error prone
• Updated LibGDX game framework and many other libraries to the latest version
• Particles are now updated on multiple threads if Multithreaded rendering is enabled in settings
• Pathfinding is now handled on multiple threads, which makes it much faster and less laggy on a huge maps with lots of portals
• Removed empty parts of textures to reduce the overdraw and improve rendering performance - barely noticeable but is still an improvement
• Damage is now queued instead of being handled immediately. All damage is handled at the end of each frame, which is much less error-prone and splits the damage dealt more fairly between all towers who have damaged and killed an enemy. The main benefit of this change - enemies are not being removed from the state until the end of the frame (no issues with dereferenced enemies in loops etc) and all debuffs are guaranteed to be applied before the enemy is killed
• Added a new RenderSystem, which handles all session-specific graphics and allows to use FrameBuffers / combine Batch with a ShapeRenderer / remove default graphics or rearrange the rendered layers
• Added a MultiReasonBool structure, which is used in a fields like Enemy.invisible/disabled or Tower.outOfOrder. This allows to combine multiple tags that affect these fields and make it easier to work with them. For example, a tower could be disabled by an enemy walking over it, a Metaphor and manually by the player, all at the same time - an extra data has to be stored somehow to make sure the tower will not be re-enabled only if some single factor has been removed
• All UI listeners update the actual graphics on the next frame after the event has been triggered (using new methods of the UiManager) to prevent some bugs and avoid unnecessary work if multiple events has been triggered in a single frame
• Mouse events and map hovering / selection has been moved into a separate systems which trigger new events, which makes input handling easier and less buggy. It also adds some flexibility, making it easier to write scripts which handle the input
• Fixed: 5.b2 sometimes did not give 3 stars for beating the last wave
• Save files are now saved to the disk on a separate thread and use an optimized file format, which reduces disk usage and FPS drops
• The game now uses a new map file format, which greatly reduces their size and makes them load faster
• Removed most of the pools - they no longer improve performance, harm GC timings and can even harm the performance in some cases
• Game ships with the controllers library. Controller support can be added by mods
• Lua VM has been optimized, scripts are now able to use the full spectre of Java's multithreading and utilize the whole CPU
• Greatly reduced RAM usage, some parts of the game now load faster than before
• Fixed: Indonesian locale should no longer crash the game
• Implemented a new asynchronous logger, which writes directly into the file and does not consume RAM
• Improved collision detection and spacial partitioning of the enemies, which should greatly improve the performance
• Optimized projectile trails
• Min range is now a tower stat but should not appear in menus
• New "difficulty curve generator" - removed specific waves from the levels config, replaced them with a single number
• 3D models are loaded asynchronously where possible
• Added an experimental support for Linux OS
• Optimized Path objects - they are now immutable, less error prone and have a better performance
• Optimized Healer and Armored auras
• Fixed formatting of strings with "short numbers" (in the form of 12.3K, 23.4...)
• The lucky wheel cannot be spun for some time after downloading the saved game from the cloud
• Cleaned up the ENEMIES_WALK_ON_PLATFORMS GV handling, should now work properly in every place / map editor
• Fixed many bugs related to text fields
• Fixed some bugs in the live leaderboards
• Fixed the speed of enemies on path corners
• Fixed a bug in the Basic tower's ultimate ability, which calculated XP incorrectly (Gauss-Basic bug)
• Many performance improvements in different places
• Increased Gauss' shooting range, to make it hit enemies even on the largest maps
• Gauss now stuns all enemies in line, even if its projectile had been stopped by an enemy
• Reduced replay file size
• Game logs now "rotate" - older logs will be archived instead of being overwritten
• All towers can now be properly disabled
• Fixed #1765 - ball lightning (tower ability) hit fighter
• Fixed #1797 - Basic ult cloned xp can provide much higher levels to gauss self improvement
• Fixed #2160 - Unable to complete daily quest
• Fixed #2214 - Loot tab still shows description of keys after using all of them
• Fixed #1623 - Ease of Access (low contrast / indistinguishable colors / size of UI elements) - main thread
• Fixed #1924 - Clarity problems
• Fixed #2245 - Pause menu's music player bugs
• Fixed #2241 - Softllock - 0.4 Missing a lose condition
• Fixed #2280 - Bugged real playing time statistic
• Fixed #2276 - Indonesian localization is not functional
• Fixed #2228 - Translation Issues
• Fixed #2163 - Permanent white circles in UI, again
• Fixed #2049 - Problems with Tesla's Ultimate
• Fixed #2272 - Crash on map restart using enter key.
• Fixed #2251 - Resources ui became invisible after using the new research button in the losing screen
• Fixed #1701 - Leaderboard % label glitches in-game
• Fixed #1836 - 2nd poison tower doesn't re-target to apply multiple stacks of poison
• Fixed #2244 - Ability tickets and endless research
• Fixed #2259 - Incorrect interface at startup
• Fixed #2270 - Laser 3rd skill makes charge longer than normal
• Fixed #2252 - Glitch: how to easily win the wave that comes after a boss.
• Fixed #2312 - Music slowed when picking section of music
• Fixed #2377 - Stars on equalizer tiles goes away when load from cloud saves
• Fixed #2376 - Music player text display error
• Fixed #2389 - Power V misleading name
• Fixed #2366 - "Watch Ads" description text is overlapped by item icons
• Fixed #2414 - Irritating music player panning issue
• Fixed #2453 - multiple packs of 90% quality tiles can coexist in inventory
• Fixed #2460 - Gem enemies are counted as enemies, making it impossible to end the game
• Fixed #2475 - Disabling developer mode
• Fixed #2298 - Sound device not changing
• Various other performance and stability improvements

Why the game shows ads in Russia

There are two reasons to that:

1. Russian players can not make purchases, still they consume lots of server time which has to be paid for somehow. Ads will be removed as soon as payments become available again (probably as soon as the war ends)
2. The game is made in Ukraine and most of the profit it makes is being donated to the Ukrainian army. All savings that I've made to hire people for a development of the next game were lost due to the war started by Russia - a much larger inconvenience compared to those ads, and I believe it is only fair to show them

Ads cost nothing for the russian players and act as a safe way to donate to Ukraine. If you are from Russia and do not want to help Ukraine - please understand that I have no reason to entertain you. 

I had two options - this, or making the game unavailable in Russia. If you prefer the second option - you can do that yourself by simply uninstalling the game.

Scripting / modding / development

• New event bus implementation with a single entry point - Game.EVENTS for a global and S.events for a game session events. Scripts no longer need to check if some system exists - they can subscribe to any event, even if it won't be triggered. Event listeners are now easier to implement and can contain additional meta data
• All default scripts were moved from maps into the scripts/ folder, making it easier to view them in a text editor
• Added "Simulation" into debug settings, which allows to benchmark game's performance, detect synchronization issues and simulate runs to collect statistics for a rebalancing. Sample Lua script is included, which allows to write custom simulations
• Added new debug options into the developer settings - things like dirty tile visualization, AABB grid, collisions and raycasting visualizations etc
• Added many new GameValues
• All GameValue icons were moved into Quads, which allows to modify them without touching the actual textures
• Cleaned up the scripts that come with the game, added some comments to explain what they do
• Removed the "binder", luajava and many other obsolete features from the scripts - they were replaced by a more convenient structures
• Static gem enemies script has been simplified, it is now easier to add gems to your custom maps
• Added many new events, some of which can be stopped or cancelled
• Event data is now passed as an object, and this data can be modified by the listeners / passed further - for example, it is possible to cancel a damage to the base or to modify any damage dealt to an enemy
• Added a couple of new buttons to the level configuration editor, which allow to dowload maps from an URL or from a clipboard and to store maps on the server. This makes it easier to share maps with other developers and to copy them from / to 3rd party text editors on mobile devices
• Map editor now uses an update / render pipeline similar to GameScreen (RenderSystem manages the actual rendering), which allows to add new functionality to the map editor. An example Lua script is included, which renders teleport connections right in the map editor
• Global, in-game and map editor scripts were split between multiple directories inside of the scripts/. This allows to run custom scripts automatically each time the game is loaded / a new run has started / the map editor has been opened, simply by putting a script file into one of those folders
• Max technical map size has been increased to 48x48 tiles
• Added windows to the UI
• Added a listeners debugger, which can be opened through the developer console
• All Java methods and classes can be stored in Lua variables and are serializable. Calling methods from a variable is usually more peformant, which is showcased in the matrix-background-optimized.lua script. This script also showcases render layers, frame buffers and shaders
• Added a whitelist for Java's classes, methods and fields which should be accessible to Lua scripts, also added in-game editor of this whitelist to allow mod makers to experiment with virtually everything. This is a huge step towards oficially supported mods and community maps
• Developer console now reads logs directly from the file, which also reduces memory usage and reduces lags. Default number of lines in dev console increased from 100 to 200, and can still be adjusted to the developer settings
• Added a simple autocompletion hints to the developer console, fixed console history
• Added the Lua definitions generator, which allows to write scripts for the game in VSCode with autocompletion, complete documentation and some other cool features
• All whitelisted classes can be accessed directly through the "C" global variable or by a full class path in Lua scripts. Binding / including classes is no longer needed
• Lua scripts now work just like Java in terms of multithreading - it is possible to create new threads and run parts of a script on multiple threads, with a shared variables and other stuff, but it also requires a knowledge of Java's multithreading
• Improved support for a custom Android keyboards - Tab, arrow keys and Enter now work just like on the PC version of the game
• Added a full screen script editor for Script tiles in map editor
• Added multiple simulation scripts, showcasing multithreading and new windows feature
• Added SFileHandle, which allows scripts to read and modify files in a specific folders and acts as a whitelist for the file system
• Custom values can be stored in the save files, which allows to write a fully featured gameplay mods with a progression. These values will also be stored on the cloud for a seamless experience
• Added many different scripts and test maps which may serve as an example
• Added Lua test suite to make sure Lua VM works properly - tests can be run through the console commands
• The game allows to insert music up to 1MB in size (previously 192KB)
• When editing maps through the game, they will be saved in a “pretty” json format (with line breaks)
• Abilities can be started with arbitrary MDPS
• Waves of enemies can be overwritten directly by a custom wave if they have not yet started
• Added global tower stat multipliers, separate from GameValues. These multipliers simplify the calculation of tower stats
• Abilities can be configured before they start
• Added Java functions for the standard string library: split, contains, replaceAll, replace, startsWith, endsWith, trim etc
• Added CachedRenderingSystem and a custom SpriteCache(Extended, which implements Batch)
• Updated Kryonet library, in case someone makes an attempt at implementing some kind of a multiplayer through Lua mods / scripted maps
• Added SoundSystem.setMusicPlaybackHandler()
• Desktops now have GLES3.2 support, may be useful for scripting
• Added NetworkManager.objectToBytes/bytesToObject which allow to (de)serialize any object registered in Kryo into an array of bytes
• Desktop modding mode now gives access to all basic levels
• Added level stages editor, now it is possible to add new stages
• Renamed many methods to avoid overloads and make Lua find them properly
• Max line length in the developer console has been increased
• Max technical XP level of towers increased to 999
• Tick rate can now be set to 10 <=> 300
• It is now possible to configure XP levels required for the towers to unlock individual abilities

Future plans

As you've probably noticed, there are lots of improvements for scripting / modding support - while there's still no official support for these things, I'm working hard to add it eventually. 

Further minor updates (1.9.*) will be mostly a bug-fixing updates, because I'm sure I've added a bunch of bugs along with all these changes.
There are some good things left on the TODO list, which were left there because this update already takes too long - things like rewards for reaching even higher waves, crafting and prestiging improvements, and even a (very enjoyable) feature from Infinitode 1.
We are very close to the point at which I'll consider the game fully complete, and you will know about it when level 6.8 appears in the game.

Another announcement will appear on this blog soon, I still need to thank players individually and congratulate Season 2 winners. Badges and gifts will be issued a bit later - I'm really running out of time now.

I hope you'll enjoy this update! It took lots of effort and many people have participated in designing and testing it - thank you guys, you've helped a lot!

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Oh, actually, it works the other way around - please tell your friends about the game and consider making YouTube videos playing it! I don't want to bring much attention to this topic, but friends of the game receive a premium feature for free (and that's the only way to receive it at this moment).

Thank you!