Beacon's final major Early Access patch is here including Freja’s final batch of mutations, dozens of arena and enemy improvements, and various UI and gameplay tweaks!

The new mutations added fill out mutation sets that were missing a slot before, as well as adding a couple new full sets and miscellaneous mutations. Many mutations have had their abilities and effects improved as well, making the mutations more visually noticeable in game and more fun to use. 

A handful of new enemies and champion mods to pair with them have been added as well! Uncharted has a new set of 3 champion mods that allow them to reach Tier 3 champions, giving more variation and challenge over multiple runs. Other faction's champions have been updated as well including a new type of champion mod that has a chance to release an explosive cluster with each hit, making high fire rate weapons more unfavorable to use against them. 

Another main feature of this patch is improved arenas. Dozens of Act 1 levels have been edited to improve the combat spaces and add more strict arenas that require nearby enemies to be killed to proceed. New monitors have been added to many arenas as well, displaying the amount of enemies left before the arenas unlock. This is something we’re testing this patch, so if you dislike the monitors or enjoy having the enemies left displayed let us know! 

Many new UI improvements have been made as well, including a brand new Item Notification that appears when new items, mementos, and enemy logs are discovered. The new notification should be much more noticeable and informative of what you've been collecting. All items have been updated as well to display new Rarity particles that make items much more noticeable and exciting when rarer items are looted. 

With this being our final major Early Access patch, we're transitioning our focus to the final release patch now. A few minor patches will release before Patch 3.0 is ready, but we're planning to save most additional content for 3.0 to make it an appropriately exciting release patch. If you have any final suggestions or requests for Patch 3.0 let us know on the message boards or Discord! 

Last Vestiges

UI

• Added new Notification system that pops up on the bottom of the screen when Items, Mementos, and Bestiary entries are collected. The new Notification displays the Icon of the item as well as the rarity, and fixes the bug with the text disappearing from the old Notification. 
• Added new Rarity effects to all items and weapons, making it easier to tell what rarity of item is dropped and making them more appealing to acquire.
• Updated Heal and Lifesteal effects
• Added Rarity and Faction to the Item codex screen
• Added Level Titles - New Titles have been added for all 6 levels, displayed on the Beacon Locator loading screen and when the level is loaded.
• Updated Level Transition Screen to pause when the level is loaded, allowing you to choose Continue or Save & Quit
• Level Transition now mutes ambient sounds in the background while loading
• Added new improved screen fades to Level Transitions and at game end
• Improved performance when switching between Codex tabs

Mutations

• New Mutation: Holo Head - The player's skull is replaced with a Droid Holo Head, giving them increased Accuracy and Resistance for each 5 HP lost.
• New Mutation: Nerve Cluster - The player grows a Nematode head, giving them a chance to release a burst of Nematode Cysts when they land a Critical Hit.
• New Mutation: Ethereal Shell - The player grows a Telemite shell, giving them a low chance to teleport and gib an enemy when damaged.
• New Mutation: Shard Cluster - The player grows an Effigy crystal cluster on their back, giving them a chance to release a cluster of freezing crystals when damaged.
• New Mutation: Shard Flinger - The player grows an Effigy crystal arm, allowing them to quickly toss out a freezing crystal with each melee for a low Stamina cost.
• New Mutation: Crystallized Skull - The player's head is replaced with an Effigy's Skull, giving them a chance to release a cluster of freezing crystals with each Critical Hit.
• New Mutation: Crystal Heels - The player's legs are replaced with a large crystal chunk, giving them low gravity and replacing their dodge with a Crystal Dash that spits out freezing crystals behind it.
• New Mutation: Infernal Touch - The player's hand is replaced with a Flauros Bloat sack, giving them the ability to release a giant Flame Wave with their melee attack every 8 seconds.
• New Mutation: Ashen Chalice - The player grows giant Flauros cysts on their hips, giving them the ability to regenerate stamina while on fire.
• New Mutation: Hexagoth Tentacle - The player's arm is replaced with a Hexagoth Tentacle, giving them the ability to fling enemies back with their melee hit.
• New Mutation: Meaty Cranium - The player grows Crab Head, giving them a chance to release a cluster of Crab Meat every time they land a critical hit.
• New Mutation: Acidic Mandibles - The player's skull merges with Solus Alpha DNA, giving them a chance with each Critical Hit to gain an Acidic Surge buff granting them 100% acid bullets and max resistance for 8 seconds. 
• New Mutation: Gas Bladder - The player grows a Solus Prime's Gas Bladder in place of their legs, giving them a swooping dodge that leaves Globules behind.

Bosses

• Added Act 2 Uncharted Ultra Icosatron Boss Fight - The largest evolution of the Icosatron, its energy projectiles leave energy trails on the ground after exploding denying more of the arena every time it attacks.

Enemies

• Added Enemy: Solus Ultraprime - A new tankier evolution of the Solus Prime, globules grow off of its body and are released when it attacks and is damaged.
• Added Enemy: Void Entity - A mysterious Uncharted lifeform, the Void Entity is a sentient black hole that can suck nearby body parts in to give it a temporary armor. When its armor shell is broken, it explodes off and attempts to regenerate with nearby gibs after a few seconds.
• Added Enemy: King Crab - The largest crab on Kovus-18, meat and baby crabs continually fling off of it when damaged.
• Added Uncharted Champion Mod: Flauros Inscription - The enemy is put under a Flauros spell giving them a repeating heatwave and causing them to burst into a group of Flauros on death. 
• Added Uncharted Champion Mod: Nematode Cysts - The enemy is infested with Nematode Cysts, giving each attack against it a chance to spawn 1-2 Nematode Cyst grenades
• Added Uncharted Champion Mod: Energy Overload - The enemy is overloaded with Icosatron energy, exploding into a large sphere on death that leaves a circular energy discharge on the ground.
• Added Native Champion Mod: Nightshroud Cluster - The enemy has nightshroud clusters growing off of them, giving them the chance to toss off a bouncing Nightshroud grenade with each hit on them.

Levels

• Level 5 - Set final Laser Node to require the player to activate it one time, giving it permanent power.
• Act 1 - Updated all Level 1 and Level 2 intro tiles with improved arenas and layouts
• Act 1 - Updated all Level 1 and 2 middle level tiles with improved arenas and layouts
• Act 1 - Updated all Level 1 and 2 end trap level tiles with improved arenas and layouts
• Act 1 - Added Crab Nest Cap Tiles
• Act 1 - Added Chilopod Nest middle arena tile
• Level 1 - Added Solus Trap Field trap tile
• Level 1 - Added Prism Mine Pit trap tile
• Level 1 - Set to spawn a trap tile 100% of the time
• Level 3 - Updated and improved layouts of Level 3 Intro tiles
• Act 1 - Added new secret spawns and more secret variants
• Act 1 - Added more Solus loot and stockpile spawns to secrets and other loot areas
• Act 1 - Updated and cleaned up Secret Cavern bonus loot pocket worlds

Items

• New Grenade: Sonic Mod - Replaces your grenades with Sonic Grenades, exploding on impact and releasing 3 consecutive Sonic Waves that will force the player outwards. 

Misc

• Added new Arena Monitors to most Level 1 and 2 Arenas. When an arena is active, the monitor activates and displays the amount of enemies remaining before the arena ends.
• Added new Mega Tritoraptor Egg equipment cache, giving a more reliable loot spawn for Tritoraptor items. Passives and Auxiliary items removed from Giant Tritoraptor Egg crate.
• Added new Mega Rotspore Mound equipment cache, giving more reliable spawns for Rotspore loot. Passives and Auxiliary items removed from Engorged Rotspore Mound.
• Added new Mega Palier Mound equipment cache, giving more reliable spawns for Fungi items. Passives and Auxiliary items removed from Palier Mound crate.
• Added Scavenger, Void Entity, and Crab King enemies to Containment Chamber trap spawns
• Updated challenges to include new mutations if they fit into a mutation set

Balance

• Falling now removes debuffs when the drop drone resets you.
• Champion Mod: Solus Egg Sack - Updated Egg Sack champion mod to more consistently spawn hatchlings when the enemy is damaged
• Champion Mod: Solus Globules - Updated Globule champion mod to give a chance to spawn 1-2 globules when the enemy is damaged.
• Champion Mod: Prism Tesla - Increased lightning interval to every 1 second, improved effects and added radius to make it clear when you're near enough to the enemy to be zapped.
• Champion Mod: Prism Pyro - Added explosion ring notifier when enemy is at low health, showing the range of the Pyro explosion on death.
• Removed Uncharted Alpha champion mod (Only increased health, new champion mods replace it)
• Drones - Player and Enemy orbiting drones are now immune to debuffs
• Enemy: Containment Droids - Replaced grenade with Sonic Grenades now that they are added. Increased Holoshield health slightly, and gave Holoshield an Energy weakness so it will instantly break from Energy damage.
• Enemy: Tesla Droid MK3 - Removed Tesla Dome's reflect ability to prevent weapons bouncing from inside unnecessarily. The dome now traps the player in and zaps continuously as before.
• Enemy: Solus Warden - Removed Shell Fragments that needed to be killed to damage the main enemy. Fragments now disappear at low health, and hatchlings have a chance to spawn every time the Warden is damaged.
• Enemy: Chilopodrae - Decreased Max Health by 40
• Mutation: Rotspore Heels - Updated the Rotspore Jump to be more vertically focused, allowing free movement of the player instead of being locked into a curve.
• Mutation: Spore Mound - Increased chance to spawn rotspore cloud when hit, added ambient particle, updated spore cloud effects.
• Mutation: Engorged Palier - Increased chance to restore stamina when hit, added ambient particle.
• Mutation; Pyro Boltfeet - Updated so dash follows the movement direction instead of the aim direction, as most other dodges do.
• Mutation: Floating Abyss - Fixed camera jerking when transitioning to floating.
• Mutation: Reactive Flesh - Changes in size caused by the mutation now change Resistance and Speed by 300 instead of 50.
• Mutation: Overcharged Circuits - Fixed not reliably releasing energy wave when stamina is emptied and updated effects
• Weapon: Riot Shotgun and Brass Beast (Variant) - Increased amount of projectiles on both weapons, reduced pellet damage slightly, updated muzzle effects
• Passive: Nourishing Yolk - Increased Speed and Resistance stats to +20 each from +10
• Passive: Developed Yolk - Increased Speed and Resistance stats to +40 from +30
• Passive: Midgut - Decreased Health and Stamina stats to +20 each from +25
• Passive: Rotspore Heart - Increased Health stat to +40 from +20
• Passive: Vascular Midgut - Decreased Health stat from +80 to +60. Stamina and Resistance remain at +40
• Passive: Heart of the Forest - Increased Health and Stamina stats to +60 from +50
• Passive: Speed Boots - Decreased stat to +60 from +80
• Passive: Laser Sight MK-1 - Decreased stat to +20 from +25
• Passive: Laser Sight MK-2 - Decreased Accuracy and Critical Hit from +40 each from +50
• Pickup: Focus Injector - Decreased Accuracy and Reload Speed to +20 each from +25
• Auxiliary: Deployable Turret - Increased turret attack range for both variants, increased bullets per burst and spread of Assault variant

Fixes

• Set Map screen to generate during the level load, preventing a stutter when the level is entered
• Reduced amount of lights and fog planes in the background of many levels to improve performance
• Fixed many explosions using the incorrect Sphere model, making them more performant when many explosions spawn at the same time
• Improved garbage collection with Base Shot script (Used on most projectiles)
• Set enemy Wake Up to use a new layer, improving physics overlap performance
• Fixed a handful of Dodge mutations not correctly extinguishing fire after dodging
• Fixed Mainframe Mining Beam attack hurt trigger being active before the ability is activated
• Fixed Level 6 camera zoom not always correctly zooming out at level start
• Removed Swamp Ferns from spawning on lower water spires in Level 2, fixing fruit being unreachable
• Fixed Ammo Ring displaying after death
• Fixed tab navigation being reversed
• Fixed player model being shown on the New Game screen after a Challenge Run is completed
• Fixed Mirage and a handful of Droid enemies having an incorrect chance to drop a Holoshield item on death
• Fixed Hexagoth spin effect not working correctly when the enemy went off screen and back on
• Fixed Pyro SFG trap not correctly activating floor warning marker
• Added explosion notifier ring to Crystal Prism
• Fixed Prism Stockpile crate not having a collision
• Fixed Level 3 Reactor Prongs being offset slightly
• Fixed large/heavy enemies with rigidbodies being flung by launching explosives (Sonic Grenade, Onyx Emanators, etc)

2.9a Changes

• Fixed Challenge Runs failing to return to the menu on death
• Fixed Tutorial having no map generated
• Fixed Assault Rifle muzzle being offset

Patch 2.9A

Controller

• Controller detection is now fully automatic and will switch more accurately between Mouse/Keyboard and Controller
• Cursor now snaps to first menu item when switching to a controller
• Added Scroll Cursor icon for codex scrolls when using a controller
• Removed legacy controller check for virtual cursor
• Removed Use Gamepad setting in options

Balance

• MK-R Player Friendlies (Drone, Turret, and Barrage) - Set micro-missiles to not damage the player
• Trap: Onyx Emanator - Increased time between Onyx pulses to prevent drop drone being too difficult to recover from when thrown off

Fixes

• Fixed Mutations not loading correctly if they had been loaded in a previous life during that game session (For example playing a Daily, then Continuing after)
• Fixed Daily/Weekly runs being stuck on an incorrect Game End screen if game is fully completed in the challenge run
• Fixed cursor missing from Level Transition screen if a controller is plugged in
• Fixed Tab navigation hints showing when using a controller
• Fixed Tooltip Issue when Tab is opened using the Map
• Fixed codex scrolling being too slow
• Fixed codex tab not being selected first on the Main Menu
• Fixed collisions on bones in Native zones causing the player to get stuck from falls where they are near vertical cliff edges