



GoogleFrog 18 months ago

This version addresses a few problematic units, has further refinements to the commander income change, and includes engine-related fixes. Flea is more expensive, Shieldbots have been buffed, and players now have innate base income. Keeping up to date with the latest engine version has allowed us to coordinate and incorporate some performance improvements.



Balance

Each player now generates some base income that is not tied to any unit or structure. This makes commander sniping a little less lucrative and ensures players can always rebuild from one constructor in a FFA.

Each team receives +2 base metal and energy income per player (technically, per spawned commander).

This base income is split evenly between the active, non-resigned, players on the team.

Commander income reduced +6/+8 -> +4/+6.

Factories and Strider Hub no longer produce +0.5/+0.5.

Flea has good interactions but is a bit too cheap for its overall power. Instead of trying to make it individually weaker, we simply reduced the number of Fleas that players can field.

Cost 20 -> 25

Redback is a bit bad for a riot, and should also see more use with the weaker Flea.

Cost 250 -> 240

Bandit has trouble raiding due to its low speed, however, it has too much range for a speed buff to be feasible. Instead, we buffed Bandit within the Shieldbot theme by increasing its survivability.

Health 250 -> 265

Outlaw was more powerful years ago, but was nerfed down to the level of other riots. Many other riots were subsequently buffed, but Outlaw missed out and is now considered to be a relatively poor riot.

Damage 20 -> 35

Slow Damage 75 -> 105 (multiplier 3.75 -> 3)

Buffed explosion speed by 9% because it seems to match the graphics better.

Felon aim delay has been removed, although it appeared to be non-functional previously.



Racketeer now has improved targeting AI. It is now able to keep high cost units permanently stunned against mixed armies.



Mace is a little too good at catching skirmishers and is by no means a weak riot.

Range 350 -> 345

Duck gained an arc in the previous release, but also gained the ability to miss raiders in some situations. This has been fixed.

Halved arc angle.

Increased missile turn rate by 12.5%.

Ronin now moves a little faster while reloading.

Reload movement speed modified 75% -> 80%.

Zenith now has few, more powerful, meteors to help with performance.

Damage 1000 -> 2000

Meteor rate 0.7s -> 1.2s

Maximum capacity 500 -> 300

The Commander Disintegrator damage has been increased by 42% to match the Ultimatum buff from the previous release. Previously the Commander Disintegrator dealt more damage than Ultimatium.



The terrain smoothing fall-off exponent of weapons such as Quake and Tremor has been reduced from 2 to 1.5. The effect is that weapons with a smoothing effect now create smoothed areas with gentler slopes around the edges.



Features

Added a depth of field shader.

Added/improved start boxes for Anteer Strait and Server.

Added reload time to Dominatrix ingame stats window.

Fixes

Fixed a recently introduced engine bug in which constructors would sometimes walk around their construction order without starting construction.

Fixed a bug in which constructors building spaced lines of buildings could become stuck deciding how to move out of the way of their own construction.

Fixed a texture crash on old hardware.

Fixed some crashes on launching Speed Metal map variants.

Fixed an method of circumventing bonus objective unit losses in the campaign missions via reclaim.

Fixed a shield merge crash related to using a non-default shield link setting.

Fixed a transport error related to picking up floating amphibious units.

Fixed AI memory usage, which should fix a few crashes.

Potentially improved performance in various ways, introduced bugs. This version addresses a few problematic units, has further refinements to the commander income change, and includes engine-related fixes. Flea is more expensive, Shieldbots have been buffed, and players now have innate base income. Keeping up to date with the latest engine version has allowed us to coordinate and incorporate some performance improvements.Each player now generates some base income that is not tied to any unit or structure. This makes commander sniping a little less lucrative and ensures players can always rebuild from one constructor in a FFA.Flea has good interactions but is a bit too cheap for its overall power. Instead of trying to make it individually weaker, we simply reduced the number of Fleas that players can field.Redback is a bit bad for a riot, and should also see more use with the weaker Flea.Bandit has trouble raiding due to its low speed, however, it has too much range for a speed buff to be feasible. Instead, we buffed Bandit within the Shieldbot theme by increasing its survivability.Outlaw was more powerful years ago, but was nerfed down to the level of other riots. Many other riots were subsequently buffed, but Outlaw missed out and is now considered to be a relatively poor riot.Felon aim delay has been removed, although it appeared to be non-functional previously.Racketeer now has improved targeting AI. It is now able to keep high cost units permanently stunned against mixed armies.Mace is a little too good at catching skirmishers and is by no means a weak riot.Duck gained an arc in the previous release, but also gained the ability to miss raiders in some situations. This has been fixed.Ronin now moves a little faster while reloading.Zenith now has few, more powerful, meteors to help with performance.The Commander Disintegrator damage has been increased by 42% to match the Ultimatum buff from the previous release. Previously the Commander Disintegrator dealt more damage than Ultimatium.The terrain smoothing fall-off exponent of weapons such as Quake and Tremor has been reduced from 2 to 1.5. The effect is that weapons with a smoothing effect now create smoothed areas with gentler slopes around the edges. +14 / -1