Vextraction 0.9.6 — ghost rigs, salvage and cargo

Optional update. 0.9.5 still works; this fixes a few things from the first real sessions.

Your rig no longer haunts the desert

A pilot who extracted or died left their rig standing where it was. Only an actual disconnect removed it, so an extracted pilot's car sat there as a ghost other people could still shoot at and drive into. Extracting, dying and being destroyed now all take the rig out of the world.

The Desiderator keeps what you lose

Blocks shot off your rig used to simply cease to exist. They now collect inside the Desiderator, with the damage they had when they broke. You cannot get them back mid-run — that is the point.

If you die or abandon, they come out: the wreck now drops the blocks you lost during the run, the Desiderator shell itself, and any whole packs of ammo still in your racks, on top of what it already dropped. There is a great deal more worth salvaging from a dead rig than there used to be.

The core slotted into your Desiderator is still destroyed with you. That has not changed.

Cargo, not a backpack

Your car does not wear a backpack. It has a cargo hold.

Vextraction 0.9.5 — dedicated server, required update

This update is required, and it changes how you launch. Vextraction now has a dedicated server, and deployments are played on it.

Download two files, not one

Each platform now ships an executable and a .pck next to it. Keep them in the same folder — the game will not start without both.

This is why: the Godot engine is 70 MB and the entire game is 1.8 MB. Until now every update shipped 106 MB to deliver under 2 MB of change. From 0.9.5 onward, updates are the 1.8 MB .pck, and the game downloads and verifies it in place instead of asking you to reinstall. A damaged install can now repair itself the same way.

One world, one server

Every deployment connects to the official Vextraction server before you drop. Loot, the Vault, the weather and the events are now the same world for everyone, at the same time. Nothing can be banked from a run nobody else could see.

If the server cannot be reached, the drop does not start and the reason is shown. The server is dedicated: it runs the world, it is never a player in it.

The training ground is unchanged and still works offline. It is for learning the rig, so it never needed anyone else.

Everything from 0.9.4 is still here

Visible sandstorms you can watch roll in, a Crimson Vortex that is actually a tornado, wind that moves your rounds more than gravity does, DROPS that fall out of the sky instead of appearing, forked lightning that scorches the ground, the dead red sun, heat haze, the world map on M, and the graphics quality setting.

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Builds are unsigned: Windows shows a SmartScreen warning, macOS needs right-click then Open, Linux needs chmod +x.

Vextraction 0.9.4 — required update

This update is required. Builds before 0.9.4 shipped without the licence and terms documents inside the pack, so their legal screen came up blank. 0.9.3 and older now stop at the update gate.

The desert has weather you can see

The sandstorm and the Crimson Vortex were both invisible from outside themselves — the sand only rendered once you were already inside. The Vortex was running at full strength the whole time; it just had no body. Both are now real things you can see coming:

• A wall of sand crosses the map and you can watch it come. It rolls in and out over a soft edge instead of appearing around you.
• The Crimson Vortex is a turning funnel of red dust standing over the centre, readable from a kilometre out. Circular wind up to 85 m/s at its rim. Light rigs leave the sand well before the eye; at the eye it will pick up a heavy one. Anything already airborne gets thrown. Dry lightning strikes inside it on a 1% roll.
• The storm drags the wind with it: about 11 m/s in calm air, 34 m/s at its heart.

Wind beats gravity

Reading the crosswind is now the ballistic skill. A light round takes roughly 54 m/s² sideways in a storm against 15 m/s² of drop. Heavy metal still barely cares. Lead your shots.

DROPS and lightning rebuilt

• A DROP is a munition that falls. You see it come down from 700 m trailing smoke, hear it coming, and it lands a second and a half later with a shockwave, a scorch mark and real debris. It used to be a flash that appeared out of nothing.
• Lightning is a forked, kinked bolt that leaves burnt ground and crawling static behind it.

New

• World map on M — every loot node by type, the evac pads, the Vault, where the sandstorm is and which way it is rolling, and how far the Vortex reaches. It does not show other pilots.
• Graphics quality (Low / Medium / High) in Settings, driving particles, heat haze, shadows and anti-aliasing. It never changes vision distance, so it is not a competitive advantage.
• Heat haze shimmering off the sand.
• A dead red sun with an eclipse edge: the disc is dark at its centre, the rim burns.

Fixed

• The licence and terms now actually load.
• Evac pads can no longer spawn on top of each other — they are kept at least 200 m apart so two ramps never touch.
• Events reach full strength in 90 seconds instead of five minutes.
• Rain DROPS drops a real volley now, not one round at a time.
• The Godot splash no longer shows before the game's own boot screen.
• The map zone and loot-tier labels are gone from the HUD.
• Sunder Basin and Iron Spire no longer snap to Rusted Grounds' sky at nightfall.

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Builds are unsigned: Windows shows a SmartScreen warning, macOS needs right-click then Open, Linux needs chmod +x.

Vextraction 0.9.3

Testing aids. Optional update.

• Report a bug: in the run menu (Esc twice) with an optional note, or from the main menu. It saves a zip with the last logs, a snapshot of your run and rig, and a screenshot, opens that folder, and opens a prefilled issue here. Attach the zip to the issue.
• The game keeps eight logs, so a crash on the previous launch is still in the report.
• The version is shown on the main menu, the HUD corner and the results screen.

Vextraction 0.9.2

Required update for 0.9.0.

Fixes rigs sinking into Sunder Basin's rock: sand diving is sand-only now, and a rig that ends up inside a stone face is lifted back onto the surface. Terrace ramps are gentler.

Reverse: tap S, then hold S. Plain S still brakes.

Also new since 0.9.0: robotic arm, booster, flamethrower, grenade thrower, ranged launcher, grappling hook, piston, lights and siren, spikes and guards, punctures and spare tires, decor blocks, visible block damage, run inventory (Tab) and the update gate.

Vextraction 0.9.0 (LAN test build)

First LAN bug-testing build. One player hosts from Multiplayer and shares the LAN IP; everyone else joins with it. Same version required on every machine.

macOS: universal (Intel and Apple Silicon), not notarized: right-click, Open the first time. Linux: chmod +x before running. Windows: unsigned, SmartScreen will ask once.

Report bugs as issues with platform, version, steps and what happened.