Welcome to SEASON 04 – CRITICAL CORRUPTION! Though we have gained great ground against the rampaging Lithophage in the past months, it remains a constant threat – and to make matters worse, reports of alarming new mutations are starting to come in.

Let’s get right into it!

With Love,
The Ghost Ship Crew

The Plague Hearts you have encountered previously have evolved. They will now turn into Lithophage Corruptors – ravenous, fully mobile abominations that spread Rockpox wherever they go. They appear impervious to normal gunfire, so you will need to use the Cleansing Equipment to get through their exterior shells and expose their soft, inner core.

A result of increased Rockpox infection of airborne fauna. The infection has changed the internal workings of its host to allow for Rockpox Larvae to sprout and thrive within its body.

As if the Goo Bomber wasn’t bad enough already: The lithophage has spread to the volatile excretion this critter is so loved for, expanding the reach of the disease at a high rate.

The Rockpox Acid Spitter has turned its already impressive bio-projectiles into a highly infectious Rockpox vector, and with a suppressed pain response and high dose of combat pheromones the Rockpox Spitter poses a far greater threat than before!

The Rockpox Exploder has had profound mutations to its body, thickening its skin and reducing its volatility in turn of being filled to the brim with highly contagious Lithophage spores. Being caught in the blast zone will instantly infect any dwarves nearby, so stay clear of them at all costs!

A powerful, heavily armored beast with a grasping tail, capable of pulling in any enemy and goring them against its massive horns. Take care around this one!

The malicious cousin of our old friend, the Glyphid Spitter. This one fires heavy globules of rancid biomatter, which spread out in a wide area around impact. Mind your step and try to ignore the smell!

You will now be able to recover crates of high powered jet modules in the caves. Attach these to your boots and turn them into fully functional jet boots, giving you a much-needed leg-up during any hardships you may encounter!

Back home, a bit of redundant machinery has been cleared out, opening up the Space Rig a bit more – which handily allows plenty of space to install a training terminal for the coded locks you will encounter on the Jet Boot crates. It would appear some smart-aleck has even seen fit to build an arcade cabinet to fit it into. Bring lots of credits!

This potent ale reportedly instills a sense of adventure and lust for challenge in whoever drinks it, randomizing all equipment and cosmetics for the duration of a mission. Drink it at your own leisure!

At the Loadout Terminal, a new option to randomize all your gear and upgrades has also become available, enabling you to quickly set up challenges for yourself. Why would anyone do this? Well, never let it be said we do not wish to enable our employees!

Additionally, you can now copy and paste loadouts for a smoother experience when experimenting with new weapon and mod combinations, without the hassle of redoing everything from scratch!

Some of your armors now come with a new option: Toggle between sleeveless versions of most of your owned sets! This does not count for DLC Armors or armors that are already sleeveless.

A new track called “Journey of the Prospector” has been added to the game as mission background music. We hope you enjoy it while prospecting the depths of Hoxxes.

Thanks to the hard work of the folks at R&D, all semi-automatic weapons now come with fancy input buffering. This will make it easier to consistently maintain a high rate of fire, especially on weapons like the Subata, M1000, and EPC.

The Subata has long been in need of an update. As always if you unlocked any of the removed upgrades their cost will be refunded.

• Increased base weakpoint damage bonus (from 1.2 to 1.25)
• Reduced base ammo (from 160 to 144)

• Reduced the bonus of the T1 High Capacity Magazine upgrade
• Moved the T1 Reload Speed upgrade to T3
• Increased the bonus of the T2 Ammo upgrade
• Increased the bonus of the T2 Damage upgrade
• Removed the T3 Damage upgrade
• Added a new 2-Round Burst upgrade on T3
• Moved the T3 Ammo upgrade to T4 and increased it’s bonus
• Increased the bonus of the T4 Hollow-Point Bullets upgrade
• Removed T5 Acid Coated Bullets upgrade
• Added the Neuro-Corrosive Catalyst upgrade to T5
• Added a Blowthrough Rounds upgrade to T5

• Added a “slow” effect to help with enemies that are immune to stun
• Changed the rate of fire penalty from a flat value to a percentage

Hipster OC

• Reduced the RoF bonus to compensate for the RoF boost from the input buffer.

Double Barrel OC

• Replaced the small pellet damage bonus with a large bonus to Blast Wave damage
• Added a shot spread penalty
• Made both shots fire simultaneously and updated the weapon stats and ammo display to clarify this
• Changed OC type from Clean to Unstable

Spinning Death OC

• Reduced the ammo penalty

Snowball OC

• Reduced ammo cost
• Affected targets cannot warm-up for a short time after getting hit

Shield Battery Booster OC

• Removed overheat recovery time penalty
• Added a significant shield regeneration bonus

• Replaced the clean Manual Guidance Cutoff OC with the new unstable Rocket Barrage OC

Plasma Burster Missiles OC

• Guidance system update prevents missiles from hitting the ground while swarming around a target
• Increased the number of hits a single missile can deliver before expiring

Carpet Bomber OC

• Changed the explosion radius bonus from a flat to a percentage to significantly expand it when taken together with the AoE Range upgrade
• Changed the damage bonus from a flat to a percentage for an increased maximum when taken together with the AoE Damage upgrade

Neurotoxin Payload OC

• Reduced the AoE size bonus
• Added an ammo penalty
• Removed the direct damage penalty
• Increased the AoE damage penalty slightly

• Fixed E priorities to prioritize reviving a down dwarf over shield boosting him
• Fixed an issue where the dwarf would talk about getting more canisters when inserting the 2nd fuel canister in the Drilldozer
• Made Patrolbots stand still while you hack them
• Centered a Rockpox particle that was unaligned in a M.U.L.E on the Spacerig
• Made it so Exploders only explode once in missions with Volatile Guts, instead of twice
• Fixed a bug with changing languages that made it so not everything changed when it should change
• Fixed the wrong mission control progress shouts playing during the Lithophage Meteorite event.
• Fixed a bug that caused scouts flare gun to not damage small enemies such as shredders, maggots and rockpox blisters
• Fixed a bug that caused Breeders to become invisible when frozen
• Fixed a bug that caused cave leeches to sometimes be silent for clients
• Fixed a bug that caused leeches to not look frozen when frozen
• Put the red light on the leeches back where it should be (not floating like a weird orb outside its mouth)
• Mactera corpses now dissolve like other enemies instead of just popping out of existence
• Fixed a terrain bug that caused swarmer hole debris to show up in rooms without any actual swarmer holes.
• Tweaked the terrain generation around the caretaker to improve variety and allow biomes and cave generation to have a greater impact on the area
• Made it so Rock Cracker pods can’t land inside each other
• Fixed that drop pod would sometimes land inside the walls
• Fixed that the grappling hook would sometimes cancel its shot and have to recharge when you shoot and sprint or land while sprinting.
• Fixed a bug that caused rejoining clients to not be able to see the blast sphere on previously active and still active C4
• Removed the little IFG label from the IFG that could be seen by other players but not the person throwing it
• Fixed a bug that caused the Nishanka Boltshark X-80 Broadhead bolts to not apply the correct amount of radial damage
• Fixed a crash caused by host getting grabbed while holding a grenade
• Fixed a bug that caused sounds to loop when triggering ‘Today’s special’ beer effect
• Fixed a bug that caused the ‘Show network stats’ option to reset
• Fixed some incorrect visual stats for the Warthog Auto 210: Magnetic Pellet Alignment OC
• Fixed a small skinning issue with the mk5 armor
• Fixed a skinning issue with the Waster weapon framework
• Fixed a bunch of typos
• Bosco now makes a sound, and has improved visuals when vacuuming
• Rockpox waves now have a small chance to spawn during normal missions
• Increased the difficulty for spawned enemies near plague towers and during cleaning
• Everyone can now be dead for 0.5 seconds longer before a mission fails
• Mission control should no longer mention sending down drop pods on salvage missions
• Sabotage missions can now have mutators – like they were supposed to
• The core infuser now carves the terrain around it when you complete the machine event
• The LithoVac and the LithoFoam now have a shiny hologram above them when dropped
• Thrown objects will now carry some of the player’s momentum
• Changed the cleaning pod placement, now they can only be placed on terrain
• Added some extra breach effects to Heartstone after the final break
• Fixed Flying rocks appearing in phase 3 of the Heartstone fight
• Improved streamer mode, and made ambient space rig music controlled by each client instead of the host
• Barrels that do not go through the Hoop now explode instead of just popping out of existence
• Added game version and mission seed numbers to cave HUD
• Loadout UI in the escape menu now also shows armor and pickaxe modifications
• Fixed an issue where the pop-up for Color Vision Deficiency options in the options menu would appear beneath other option UI bits
• Fixed a bug that caused perk tooltips to sometimes not show in the equipment terminal
• Updated the credit list to include new community translators
• Changed driller monochrome armor paint job to yellow tones instead of blue
• Changed the ordering of DLCs in the DLC menu. Now newest is first on the list.
• Optimized the drop pod dice
• Improved shadows on the space rig
• Optimised weapons and devices when not in use
• Added more newsticker messages on the trade terminal
• Added a new fire sound for the Subata 120 when using the 2-round burst modification
• Changed Armskore Coil Gun OC Hellfire description to make it reflect the fact that it increases charge time, not reduces it
• Fixed the Boomstick T2 Rate of Fire upgrade also reducing the reload speed
• Hexawing now dies instantly when frozen.
• Fixed goo cannon only consuming 1 ammo every other full charged shots if done consecutively
• Fix for bug where breaking one armor plate on some enemies, would make some other armor plate unbreakable
• Fixed enemy armor sometimes still being breakable when it shouldn’t be (ex. when frozen)
• Made the praetorian(normal, ice, rockpox) spit particles better match the attack hitbox
• Fixed Thermal exhaust feedback overclock for plasma carbine not staging damage upgrades correctly