V0.21 Brings a couple of changes to make things a little easier on the player. We aren't adding multiplayer or co-op, yet, but we are adding a charge or 'ultimate' ability. As you accrue points and trigger special modifiers like head shots or killstreaks you will charge your ability as indicated by the icon on the right of the screen. When it's full you'll get an audio notification and it can be activated using the "Tab" key. 

What does the ability do? It'll call in 2 robots to fight on your side. So if you get into a bad situation, with far too many enemies and maybe an elimination mission, you can call this in to add firepower and take the heat off you. They'll follow nearby but the enemy will target them instead of you if it's more convenient. They also do damage at the same level as the player, so they have a higher output than enemy units. They have a little more health and a bit of armor as well. They will typically only stay with you for the current map as they aren't fast enough to get through the doors. You might get lucky though and have one sneak through. 

Wait...armor? Yes. A new pick-up has been added to this version. You'll see a pink floating cube with an armor symbol on it. This pick-up adds armor to your character in the form of a charged electrical sheath. This is different and separate from the energy shield. While the energy shield protects you from all damage for a short period of time, armor reduces your incoming damage by 50% for the durability of the armor. The armor durability is represented both by a visual effect on your hands as well as coloring of the word "Health" in the upper left corner. When you pick up an armor power-up the word will turn pink to indicate that you are protected. As you take damage and the durability is reduced, you'll notice the pink moving to the left to indicate how much you have left. 

There were also a few bug fixes and other things like that tossed in the back-end. AI navigation should be slightly improved on the maps and hopefully they'll be getting less hung-up on some things. 

The ultimate system isn't quite done yet, but it is functional. It'll be expanded and in the future we may allow players to customize by choosing from a selection of different ultimate abilities to use. As always, things like the AI for those helper bots will be improved going forward.