The Ability Update is out!

This update completely revamps rocket abilities, adds lots of polish, squashes large amounts of bugs, and more!

Here is a complete changelog of what has been done in this update:

• All abilities regenerate infinitely, just some have a shorter cooldown than others
• New Space Shuttle ability - release a satellite from the cargo bay that automatically collects money for you
• New Delta IV ability - lit yourself on fire to make yourself invincible until the rocket's built-in fire extinguisher extinguishes said fire
• All abilities (except the Space Shuttle ability) now have indicators for whether you can use it:
  • The Delta IV drips when you can't light on fire
  • The Saturn V's first stage falls off when you can't go turbo
  • The N-1 does not have its first stage after it explodes
  • SLS and the Falcon Heavy do not have their boosters after they are used up
• The Saturn V has been revamped:
  • You can now move from side to side faster
  • The Saturn now has a new sprite
  • New engine exhaust for the Saturn
• The N-1 has some new engine exhaust
• A much, much better movement system, taking into effect inertia and other laws of physics
• The lighting engine has been upgraded - performance should be a bit smoother and the game should look a little better
• UI and the title screen now have post processing (bloom, vignette, etc)
• The hearts are actually alive now - they fill up, fill down(?), and beat
• The version checker now uses undepracated code, and can destinguish between a full release, pre-release, and snapshot
• Lots of minor changes that no one can remember since they're so minor
• Many, many bug fixes:
  • Boosters being active even when they're not supposed to be
  • The Saturn V always setting the level music to Satellite Skirmish instead of your specific area
  • The money text needing to be updated in order to say "Ad" instead of "Bn"
  • Abilities being able to be activated when they're not supposed to be able to, such as the launch sequence
  • The N-1 having some layering problems and always being on the very top
  • Lots of screenshake (eg from boosters) desynching the level progression timer from the music
  • And many, many more! However, my brain is returning 404 errors right now and needs a break from searching all my inefficiently placed memory racks. Sorry!

Aaaand... that's it! The largest update yet has arrived and the game is out of Early Access and now in Beta! This means that, except for versions 1.0 and beyond, there will not be huge content updates, and instead more minor bugfix and polish updates. I'm planning to release the full version (version 1.0) of Direct Ascent on October 1.

Have fun with this version, mark your calendars for October 1 (That update's gonna be a big one!) and comment your first impressions of this update below.

Have a good one!

HoneyFun