Hey everyone, so here it is 3.7.2 stable! It has over 6 months of fixes from the alphatest branch and also plasma weapons!
Going to do this a little differently than normal and break it down into systems and list what is different than doing genetic fixes, changes etc.
There will be another patch in a few weeks that’ll have updates to collission detection between vehicles; We want to go through that more thoroughly before releasing.
PLASMA WEAPONS
– Weapon parts are very dense, roughly on par with missiles. Running cost is ~halfway between non-rail APS and particle cannons, depends on projectile speed.
– System uses both energy and ammo.
– Projectiles aren’t affected by gravity, can’t be shot down. Damage is reduced by planar shields (reduction range is 3-30%.)
– Projectiles are fast: speed range is 85-2404 m/s, only a small energy investment is needed to reach 1000-1500.
– Relatively accurate: inaccuracy range is 0.03-0.35° before instability.
– Shots lose low amounts of damage with distance, lots of damage in water.
– Effective against dense clusters of blocks, big plasma shots are very efficient against thick walls of armor.
– Fixed armor piercing value of 100.
– Fired with a CIWS controller can hit CRAM shells and missiles (APS is generally better though.)
– Plasma generators fill chambers with plasma, collectors get it from the chambers and send it to the mantlet, mantlet sends it through accelerators and possibly an emitter.
– Each cubic meter of chambers can hold exactly 1 charge. Shots can use multiple charges to fire a stronger projectile.
– Accelerator length determines how much energy can be used to speed up the projectiles.
– Each charge and energy used for acceleration heats up the accelerator. Higher temperatures increase inaccuracy, above 1000°C the cannon must stop firing.
– Energy can be used to cool the accelerators, or relatively expensive heatsinks installed on them can add passive cooling.
– Cooling is less effective below, and more effective above 500°C.
– Single big shots with a low RPM are more accurate than multiple small ones.
– If plasma damage destroys the block initially hit a plasma explosion is created.
– Plasma explosions spread cell by cell in the 6 cardinal directions, can’t move into air (but can spread through the hole left by blocks destroyed in the same explosion.)
– With each 1m radius increase the explosion looks at the cells affected, divides damage equally between them.
– Each destroyed block generates more plasma and gives 50% of the damage spent on it back to the explosion.
– After blocks are destroyed remaining and regained damage are summed.
– If the next 1m radius has less affected cells than what would be expected on hitting a flat wall the total damage is reduced.
– Damage is increased with more blocks.
– 3 special emitters that modify the cannon’s behavior: destabilizer, stabilizer, splitter. Only 1 can be installed at the end of the accelerators.
– Destabilizer: removes the ability to use multiple charges/shot and reduces AP from 100 to 20. Can fire 2 shots for 1 charge, total raw damage/charge is 2×100% of a standard shot.
– Stabilizer: reduces damage lost with range by 30%.
– Splitter: adds 0.2-3° inaccuracy and 15-60% damage, fires 10 projectiles/shot. If there isn’t enough maximum charge capacity it fires as many projectiles as possible with the current charge/projectile setting.
– Debug visualisation option added for plasma damage.
– New debug character item added for creating plasma damage.
APS
CHANGE All APS damage up by ~4.5%.
CHANGE Hollow point head AP modifier up from 1.15 to 1.2.
ADD Resting azimuth added to APS firing pieces/mantlets along with a warning about when a mantlet is misaligned with a firing piece. The warning appears on the firing piece.
ADD Added an option to the APS UI to invert barrel spin direction.
PAC
CHANGE All particle cannon damage up by ~4.5%.
CHANGE Durability of PAC lenses improved.
MISC.
FIX Youtube, Youtube videos are working again [BUGS-4189].
FIX Core, No more memory leak when loading images/audio from a file (the hologram projector for example) [BUGS-4197].
FIX Scuttling, ‘Maximum distance’ rule fixed, it will now work fine when closing toward a vehicle which is not the closest one while the closest one is too far away [BUGS-4141].
FIX Rendering, Disable terrain no longer causes an intermittent flicker.
FIX GBG GBS, GBG/GBS could cause memory leaks when copied between blueprints when components no longer existed by logging excessive errors, now fixed.
FIX Blockcounter, Fixed the blockcounter incorrectly calculating subsubconstructs.
FIX Null ref caught when rehoming overlapping fleets.
FIX Null ref caught by checking subconstruct lists are valid before trying to access GBG properties.
FIX Loading, [BUGS-4220] Fixed an issue loading old designs.
ADD Modding, Added the ability to tint and scale the intensity of emission colors.
ADD Modding, Item duplicators can now define a class name override for the duplicate block.
FIX Building, Fixed ability to delete blocks on subconstructs from the Build Mode Tools UI (SHIFT+E).
CHANGE, Manual, Updated the helicopter guide so that it doesn’t reference dediblades anymore.
FIX Fixed a case where shield projectors could stop the heartstone from working. [BUGS-4220].
FIX Fire control, The old firerate controller used by low RPM weapons is more consistent.
FIX Munition Warner, Fixed a small bug where an exception could be thrown during initial dictionary calculations.
FIX Munition Warner, More thread safety and null ref fixes.
AI
ADD Ram behaviour, The ram behaviour now has a dropdown with 3 options for 3 different types of guidance. Direct, APN and Predictive. Direct is the old ram behaviour where it goes direct to the target.
CHANGE Ram behaviour, The various sliders in the ram behaviour UI now have larger values available in some cases to allow for things like disengaging the adjuster further away on very fast things. Traveling further away before reengaging etc.
CHANGE PointAt behaviour, New slider added for configuring the view cone to decide when to turn and face away to retreat. Set to 180 for reverse only.
CHANGE AIO LWC, Now accept physical connections as well as wireless connections.
FIX Fix to ship & tank maneouvre to allow ‘reverse’ when ‘point at and maintain distance’ behaviour is selected and the adjuster is set to ‘air mode’ and the vehicle needs to retreat to maintain distance.
FIX Fix to encourage reversing land-surface and sea-surface paths to be formed when ‘point at and maintain distance’ behaviour is selected and the adjuster is set to ‘on land’ or ‘on water’ and the vehicle needs to retreat to maintain distance.
CHANGE New models released for the AI components.
BREADBOARD
ADD Added delay pulse countdown timer to breadboard. Can be manually reset with a button. Outputs a 1 when the countdown reaches 0.
CHANGE/FIX Stopped behaviour and manoeuvre select from activating on values less than 0.
World Editor
ADD You can now edit resource zone values in the world editor for adventure mode.
CRAM
ADD Resting azimuth added to CRAM firing pieces.
FIX Corrected the spin direction of CRAM Cannon shells.
MISSILES
FIX Fixed a bug for a rare cases where a rotation could be zero and therefore do nothing.
FIX Fixed a null ref instance relating to launch speed in the missile components list.
LAND
FIX Added feet and anti-roll-bar physical force demands into the correct thread which improves physics behaviour and removes silent error logging which was using up RAM.
MULTIPLAYER
FIX Large blueprints can now use a larger buffer and transfer successfully.
FIX Save files should now transfer all blueprints successfully.
FIX Inbuilt shells should now sync properly between players.
FIX Ringing the adventure bell on a client now works.
SUBOBJECTS
FIX Turrets and spinBlocks shouldn’t be ‘stuck’ when trying to rotate at max speed and free to move when rotating slowly, the collision check with the mainConstruct is now more permissive [BUGS-4146].
BLOCKS
FIX Plate, Alloy and metal plate triangles now mirror correctly on a horizontal mirror.
CHANGE Poles, Pole hit calculations now use a perfect cylinder to calculate intersections rather than the quantised cylindrical mesh of the pole.
ADVENTURE
CHANGE Now a 10% higher chance for air portals to spawn.[BUGS-4126]
CHANGE Adventure has been entirely rebalanced, this is still a bit of an ongoing process past 50. Abyay and kotl are dealing with it in the adventure channel on the discord if you want to help.
STEAM
FIX Now checks node governing blocks and stats to make sure they are not null preventing a null ref.
CAMPAIGN BLUEPRINTS
[Neter]
All designs are currently undergoing in-depth reviews of their spawn rates and parameters, material allocation, scuttling, and adventure difficulty. DWG, OW, and WF have been reviewed and updated, hence the large amount of BP committals. Going forward, here are the objectives:
- Compress the spawn distance of most designs to 800-1700m. Designs have been found with as little as 300, up to 3000 spawn distance.
- Adjust spawn multipliers and limits to more sensible levels (some designs had a 20x multiplier.) Larger designs will have a somewhat-higher spawn chance to work with the AI.
- Review and adjust scuttling for designs as necessary (updating old/missing values). Reviewing subconstructs of will happen later on as reviewing these is time-consuming.
All designs have now been updated with new adventure difficulty parameters. Some have had their scuttling and spawn parameters, such as limits and ranges, adjusted.
Most designs have a spawn range from 800-1700m, with larger designs being on the higher end the spectrum. Exceptionally large designs or large carriers go above this limit but are very few number.
Most average-sized designs have a spawn limit of 3 with smaller ones being 4 or more, and larger ones being 2. Larger designs have a somewhat-higher spawn multiplier to accommodate the AI but no longer at absurd numbers such as 20x and 50x. Cargo craft have a spawn limit of 10.Every design should have proper scuttling but some designs with subvehicles may have been missed.
Updated material reserve limits for adventure mode.
Marlin (DWG): Applied connection rules, adjusted terrain prediction time. Transient (SD): Completely remade; now classified as a spacecraft, retains its cargo carrier status; when attacked, broadsides from afar with a long-distance laser. Deimos (SD): Updated with interceptor decos, minor evasion tweaks, EMP-proofing. Anguish (TG): Redesigned; it’s now a melee mech with a large sword using a laser cutter core. Removed “comment” annotation from Neter Adventure raft. Sirius (SD): tl;dr rebuilt from scratched and downsized. Patchwork (DWG): Overhauled; still retains its original identity but has been modernized. Wanda (DWG): Updated cannon to be APHE, weakened missiles. Slight difficulty balancing tweaks to Adventure for some designs that could spawn as the first enemy when they shouldn’t have. Removed LH Current and GT Weaver from spawning in Adventure (cargo craft)
Albatross (SS): Now uses the bp named “Albatross”, not “Albatros”. Will delete old version in a later commit.
Wolin (SS): Updated power priority to ensure sufficient power is delivered to the heartstone.
Adventure Raft: Now spawns with full energy.
Sunfish (DWG): Now has a target prioritization card.
Ripper (WF): Minor scuttling adjustments.
Jacob’s Folly (DWG): Overhauled, now has an AA gun on it with stronger mortar cannons. Still easy difficulty, adventure difficulty unchanged.
Gravitas (TG): Connected some disconnected CRAM parts.
Rectifier (LH): Filled up some gaps, improved beaming.
OW designs: Resaved to update spawning fleet colors.
TG designs: Scuttling updated while adjusting adventure difficulty.
Iron Maiden, Victoria (SS): Rudder/stabilizer ailerons rebuilt, beam improvements, AI adjustments
Felix Flieger B5 Geier (DWG): Overhauled to appear as a seaplane. Fires a volley of missiles and drops a large bomb. Expert difficulty. Original version converted to SM version for story missions.
Flying Squirrel (DWG): Overhauled; now spawns as a group of 3 with a new, more squirrel-like design. Godly difficulty.
Scoundrel (DWG): New DWG ship, swift with CRAM firepower. Regular difficulty.
Bastion, Buttress, Telemachus (OW): All have been overhauled, same general size and difficulty as the originals.
Scourge (WF): Improved recoil absorption of main gun.
Alarmed (WF): Overhauled; updated mech style, assembles and launches nuclear drill missiles. Devastating against large singular targets. Godly difficulty.
Audacious (TG): New design; a large plane with strong APS and missile firepower. Regular difficulty.
Aangstrom (LH): Further fixing of “sinking when spawned in combat.” Still sinks without a combat target but this is mainly just a designer issue.
Craftsman (SS): Re-added a missing ACB.
Iron Maiden (SS): Fixed CIWS ammo. Further update pending review for rudder fixes/optimizations.
Glaukos (GT): New design, replaces Dreadnought which has now been retired. Easy difficulty.
Onslaught (GT): Missiles changed from TPG to APN.
Hellfire (SD): Bug fixes
OCPLAC (SD): Overhauled; a beautiful and menacing BFSG (Big Friggen Satellite Gun). Expert difficulty.
Contingency (SD): Updated laser optics to make it fire more consistently. Expert difficulty instead of godly as intended.
Wintersday (OW): Overhauled; same general design as its predecessor but packs a bit more firepower. Still medium difficulty. Adventure difficulty slightly increased.
Allegiance (SS): Removed vestigial dediblades, reworked rudder and foils. added camo.
Excalibur (SS): Hull smoothing, deco work, and paint updates, added camo.
Hydra (SS): Fixes to tail rudder behavior.
Kitakami (SS): Reworked rudders and hydrofoils.
Lako (SS): Reworked rudder, deco and paint adjustments, added camo.
Mobula (SS): Updated chairs to be the correct 1m versions. (Very important obviously!)
Spectre (SS): Added CIWS turret to the bow. Rudders/foils reworked.
Stralsund (SS): Overhauled entirely; still on the same size/power level as the original with an improved look.
Contingency (SD): Overhauled and reintroduced; it’s now a spacecraft with a potent laser array. Godly difficulty.
Walrus – Adjusted material/energy allocation for the story mission data.
Steamworks (DWG): Increased spawn distance from 300 to 1000.
Obelisk-MP (GT): For some reason it was classified as a ship with a chance to spawn in adventure. Now classified as an installation and removed from adventure.
Sunfish (DWG): Added target prioritization card.
Bastion (OW): Small tweaks, detection improvements.
Buttress (OW): Small tweaks, detection improvements.
Telemachus (OW): Internally rebuilt, should be about the same as it was.
Thrasher (WF): Rebuilt; same general concept but much stronger. Expert difficulty.
Alacrity Swarm (TG): Possible bugfix to a rare and unusual issue.
Havoc Swarm (TG): Rebuilt; 5 drones that organize on a target to bombard with missiles. Updated to a thrustercraft, medium difficulty.
Gannet Squadron (SS): Deco updates.
Peregrine Squadron (SS): Deco updates.
Spirit (SS): Adjusted scuttling to include max distance.
Damacy (GT): New Rusted Ram thrustercraft; a dedicated broadsider with a potent APS gun. Expert difficulty.
Endeavour (GT): Retired, replaced by Damacy.
Felix SM replaces original version for story missions.
Minor fix to a mission where the wrong design was used.
[AotE]
Copperhead (DWG): No longer spawns in adventure mode. Designs that have Copperheads as subspawns will still spawn them.
Desert Boa (DWG): Redesigned, now serves as an HQ for the Gutter Rats corporation. These have not been implemented yet so this design will not see action in campaign yet. This uses the “Desert_Boa” bp name, the other one will be removed eventually.
Landlubber (DWG): New mast-style land vehicle; a small sailship turned tank filled with CRAM firepower and a rear-facing APS turret.
Cleric (TG): Updated bp pathing for spawner to actually spawn additional Guardian drones if necessary. Guardian drone bp itself added.
Longhorn (OW): Temporarily retired, a rework is in progress.
Overseer (OW): Temporarily retired, a rework has been requested.
The player’s RZs to the north and south of main spawn have been centralized to the tiles. The AI capture point for these tiles has been adjusted accordingly.
Minor grammar/spelling fixes in a few RZ names.