Publisher and developer Frost Giant Studios has deployed Stormgate’s offline patch, disabling the real-time strategy game’s online modes while ensuring that its campaign and AI Skirmish mode remain playable as it seeks to implement peer-to-peer support.
Announced last month, as a result of server orchestration partner Hathora being purchased by an AI company, Stormgate’s offline update patch notes deliver a handful of other changes aside from ensuring the title remains playable.
Stormgate Offline Update Patch Notes
Overall performance should now be improved by 30%, thanks to continued optimization efforts, while using unit abilities should now feel smoother and more reliable.
In addition, a series of balance changes and bug fixes have also been deployed. Below, you’ll find the full Stormgate offline update patch notes, as shared by the developer on Steam:
Offline Transition
As a first step towards de-coupling from Stormgate’s existing server infrastructure, this patch disables live service Versus and Co-op modes, and adds offline support to the Campaign, AI Skrimish, and Custom game modes to prepare for the Hathora server shutdown.
A few of us have been hard at work adding Steam peer to peer support to the game, but the netcode is not quite ready yet – this means that this update disables multiplayer modes for a time.
We hope to deliver proper steam-powered P2P support with UGC map downloading as soon as the code is ready. UGC map makers will be able to develop and test your maps offline-only until that update. Once peer to peer is squared away it may be possible to bring back an improved version of the versus/coop ladders but no confirmed plans yet.
- Online game modes have been disabled (Versus, Coop).
- Campaign and AI Skirmish no longer require a server connection to play and persist user progress locally.
- STUB online services peer to peer implementation… Attempting to join another player’s peer to peer game will result in a placeholder error.
- Removed dependency on Hathora and Pragma platforms.
- Removed startup splashes and early access dialog.
Game Updates
Performance has been improved by about 30%.
We’ve optimized some expensive systems that were scaling poorly with large unit counts, and are better limiting updates from off-screen components and calculations. So FPS better reflects what’s actively on screen and is improved overall into the late game. These improvements are entirely unrelated to the offline transition, and are a result of optimized gameplay systems.
New QOL Feature: Ability push priority.
Now, when a unit that has been issued an ability command is on its way, it will gain temporary push priority to increase spellcasting reliability.
New QOL Feature: Ability Non-Interrupt
In conjunction with the above, the Prepare, Cast and channel stages of all abilities have been set to uninterruptible to avoid accidental cancels. Pressing Stop on individual units, for most abilities, will still force a cancel if desired.
Atlas & Hedgehog Targeted Deployment and Reposition are now uninterruptible by normal move/attack commands while they’re en-route, making it easier to set ‘em and forget ‘em. They also now display their hologram on the target location.
General
- Fog of war now visually fades in and out quicker. This doesn’t affect gameplay, only visuals.
- Previously, there was a long fade time as units gained or lost vision, which made things visually smoother, but didn’t as accurately represent where current vision exists.
Economy
- Celestial Luminite harvest rates have been adjusted to match the 10/10 saturation of Vanguard and Infernal.
- Collection Array harvest period changed reduced from 1.7 seconds to 1.515 seconds
- Recharge time for Prisms increased from 20 seconds to 21 seconds.
Production
- All HQ’s and structures that use charges to produce units have had their queue slots reduced from 5 slots, to 1 slot
- All units produced by charges have had their build time reduced from 0.2 seconds to 0.05 seconds
Editor
- New toggle added for uninterruptable stages: uninterruptable_ignores_stop.
- Setting this to false will allow the Stop command to cancel an “uninterruptable order”, while regular move commands will not. Certain abilities like Return to Hangar are intended to not be cancelable by the player, so this flag is set to True on that ability. While others, such as a Hexen Venom Trap channel can use this to allow that ability to be canceled.
Tooltips and Localization
- Fixed Brute upgrade tooltip to correctly reference the amount of HP and armor given.
- Updated Carnivex trait from “Vitals Leech” to “Shikari Venom” with a description of the new slow poison.
CONTROL / QOL STORMGATE REWARDS Darkthrone
- The 3 free workers provided from Darkthrone will now rally to whatever the placed HQ has decided to set its rally to. This will prefer Luminite over Therium for resources within nearby proximity of the newly spawned HQ.
Balance
Vanguard
Scrapyard
- Cost changed increased from 50 Luminite to 100 Luminite. (Therium cost is unchanged)
Infernal
Fiends
- Health increased from 60 to 75
- Damage reduced from 10 to 8
Celestial
Carnivex
- Base movement speed increased from 5.5 to 6.0
- Weapon attacks and Swipe apply a 25% movement speed slow for 3 seconds
Energizer Node
- Energy restoration increased from 2/sec to 3/sec
Prism
- Recharge time has been increased from 20 seconds to 21 seconds
Bug Fixes
- Archangel is now un-pushable by Magmadon Trample while Resilient in Avatar form.
- Shift-queueing Meteor Slam no longer accidentally clears the ability splat indicator from under your mouse.
- Enflamed Imps now use their all-fours run animation again
- Sentinel Stasis Drone now has 3 different size selection volumes making it easier to click-target on various units.
Although Storgmate’s offline update marks another low point in the troubled RTS title’s journey, knowing that its developer is working on implementing peer-to-peer support for online play acts as a silver lining.
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