Beta Test 2.8.8
Patch notes

Beta Test 2.8.8

Patch notes

What is up awesome Depthians! A new beta test is up on Steam, please remember that beta updates are for testing new features and changes before they hit stable! I will set up a detailed post once this beta test hits stable.

Additions

Weapon sync

  • All weapons got a new tab on their Q menu: Synchronization
  • Each weapon can be assigned a parent on the synchronization tab, and will try to fire at least X seconds, but at most Y seconds after the parent did
  • Each weapon can have a maximum waiting time. If only syncing stopped it from shooting for over Z seconds it’ll fire a shot without waiting for the parent
  • If 2 weapons are synced to each other with a 0 delay they will try to fire with a 1 frame difference between them
  • Missile controllers set to continuous mode, with a stagger between missiles will sync each individual missile
  • If a weapon is destroyed all other weapons depending on it will fire freely until it’s repaired. If the destroyed weapon was synced to something its children will sync to the grandparent
  • Weapons get an integer ID that’s persistent and unique on their craft. It is shown in their tooltip, and syncing can be set up based on that
  • Weapon firing delay setting removed (it was a trap silently decreasing rate of fire)
  • Weapons now hold fire for 3 seconds when they are put into play

UI

  • Fuel engine UI replaced, it now matches the style of the particle cannon one.
  • Custom jets, dediblades and all powered propulsion now have the same cost/volume over time breakdowns fuel engines use.
  • Stat tab for all weapons now has the same cost/volume over time breakdowns fuel engines use.
  • Supply dumps are now rendered in game to show you where they are (previously only visible on fleet control UI or map). Color and size show how much material they contain.
  • Updated the avatar respawning UI and added a ‘spectate’ tab to it.
  • Various UI improvements.

Avatar

  • The avatar drop pod can now track the target vehicle to help it land on target.

Campaign

  • Quest for Neter campaign now has 4 unique starting positions and background stories, one for each difficulty level.

CJE

  • Added small intake piping capability to small CJE system.
  • Added exhaust piping.

Map Editor

  • An ‘all rambots of X faction are dead’ victory condition type has been added.

Multiplayer

  • A 1 vs 1 player vs player map has been added.
  • Adventure mode can now be played multiplayer.

Texture

  • Damage decals now appear as you take damage. (As well as regular block discolouration.)

Aimpoint selection

  • Added a below water toggle.
  • Added a block cluster aimpoint type that attempts to avoid selecting isolated blocks (e.g. masts).
  • Added a hot blocks aimpoint type.

Changes

AP

  • Armor damage reduction is now AP / AC, instead of AP / (2 * AC). AP values halved across the board (the 3 pdr simple cannons got their damage halved instead)
  • Ricochet chance went from COS(ANGLE) ^ (AP / AC) to COS(ANGLE) ^ (4 * (AP / AC) ^ 0.5). Ricochets are less common, and the angle is now more important/AP less important
  • Projectiles that ricochet only do 75% damage to the block hit (on top of armor and angle reductions)
  • Projectiles that ricochet still lose damage potential as if they did full damage, and their damage is reduced to 75% after that
  • Frag base damage up by 25%
  • Frag angle damage modifier from (2.5 + ANGLE^0.5) / 16 to (2 + ANGLE^0.5) / 16. Paired with the damage buff this means high angle is slightly better

APS

  • Max penetration HEAT damage up from 30% to 40% of a frag warhead with the same 30° angle
  • Flak base damage up from 1/3 of HE to 1/2 of HE
  • Flak base radius down from 3.5x of HE to 3x of HE
  • Default special factor setting for HE bodies is now 1, instead of 0.8
  • Base kinetic damage up by 5%
  • Gunpowder casing kinetic energy and recoil up by 25%
  • Firing piece builtin recoil absorption capacity up by 25%
  • Firing piece builtin recoil recovery up to 4/3 the old value
  • Maximum rail charge for any given shell is up by 25%
  • Hollow point head kinetic damage modifier is down from 1.5 to 1.2
  • Low caliber kinetic damage boost reduced from (500 / MAX(CALIBER, 125)) ^ 0.25 to (500 / MAX(CALIBER, 125)) ^ 0.125
  • For barrel traverse multiple barrels no longer set effective caliber to the diameter of the cylinder around them. Each barrel beyond 1 increases effective caliber by 20% instead
  • Shell speed penalty from 2m muzzle break no longer stacks
  • Barrel length needed for full GP burn is now 2.2 * GP_COUNT * (DIAMETER/100)^0.55, instead of 5 * (GP_LENGTH * DIAMETER/100)^0.75. Medium-high cal and low cal without too much GP generally needs shorter barrels. Low cal with 10+ GP needs noticeably longer barrels
  • 150mm casemated simple gun barrel length up from 6.56 to 7m
  • 130mm casemated simple gun barrel length up from 4.25 to 5m
  • APS cannons on turrets now start elevating their barrels even when the target is out of their azimuth arc

CIWS

  • Anti missile cannons aim at the attached mainframe’s first possible target when idling
  • Diameter of missile colliders is 2.5x the diameter of the actual missile against cannon projectiles and frags
  • Anti missile cannons got a slider, increases or decreases priority of missiles depending on their diameter
  • Anti missile cannons got a target type selector, missiles + CRAMs/missiles only/CRAMs only
  • CIWS damage multiplier down from 8x to 4x
  • Anti missile cannons can now target and damage CRAM shells. Max diameter slider up from 1000 to 2000mm

Interceptor

  • Interceptors can now target and damage CRAMs
  • Interceptor CRAM damage multiplier goes from 0.4x against 1000mm to 0.8x against 2000mm (damage multiplier against S/M missiles is 0.5x/1.0x)
  • Interceptors can target missiles and CRAMs, only missiles or only CRAMs
  • ACB got a new condition: enemy CRAM shells within X-Y range band
  • Interceptors do not target CRAM shells more than 5m underwater

LAMS

  • LAMS nodes got a slider, increases or decreases priority of missiles and shells depending on their diameter
  • LAMS nodes start checking for targets again when the distance to their locked one starts to increase
  • LAMS node targeting improved

Missile

  • Missile damage up by 25%
  • Missile base health down to 5/6 the previous value
  • Missile interceptor damage down to 3/4 the previous value
  • Added minor visual explosion effect to all missiles (missiles with no HE or frag payload simply disappeared when shot down)

CRAM

  • Non-kinetic payload damage up by 20%
  • Flash suppression barrel reduces detection range to 50%, instead of 20%
  • Fuses reduce health by an additive 10% each, instead of 5%
  • CRAM cannons on turrets now start elevating their barrels even when the target is out of their azimuth arc

Projectiles

  • Size-based detection range for projectiles reduced to 72% of the original value (CRAM shells have 396-792m base detection range)
  • Shell trails are now shorter and color for APS/CRAM is fixed orange-ish (tracers work the same as before). Length scales with shell speed less, CRAM trails are thicker and still scale with payload
  • All fragment trails are shorter and width scales with damage. HEAT particles are closer to yellow, HESH particles are red now
  • Visible tracer trail is twice as long as the trail of a standard shell. Tracer width is a multiplier now, default is 2 (value range is still 0.5-10)

PAC

  • Particle cannon damage down to ~73.33%

Shields

  • Shield projectors now spawn fully charged to their target strength

Tactical nuke

  • Tactical nuke base damage up from 80 000 to 500 000. Radius uses standard scaling now, up from 50m to 51.2m
  • Tactical nuke cost up from 100 to 2500 materials, weight from 40 to 400

Grenade launcher

  • Personal grenade launcher base damage up from 200 to 1500. Radius uses standard scaling now, from 3m to ~8.97m

UI

  • CRAM barrel tooltip now also shows shell health.
  • Q menu for turrets now doesn’t have the mostly empty stats tab.
  • Laser colourer function is now built into the standard laser combiner. If the combiner has a colourer the colourer’s settings will be used.
  • Various tooltip improvements.

Weapon durability

  • APS barrel armor up from 25 to 35, health up from 700 to 800/m
  • APS heavy barrel armor up from 40 to 50, health from 900 to 1000/m. APS heavy barrel cost down from 70 to 60 material/m
  • APS bore evacuator and muzzle brake armor up from 30 to 40. 2m muzzle break now has 1600 health, instead of 800
  • APS 1x1x1 mantlet healths up from 600 to 1000
  • APS non-1x1x1m mantlet healths up from 1000 to 1500/block
  • APS rail magnet and attaching fixture armor up from 30 to 50, health down from 600 to 500
  • APS laser targeter armor up from 25 to 50
  • APS recoil absorber armor up from 10 to 20, health from 125 to 150/m
  • APS firing piece armor up from 20 to 30, health up from 350 to 500
  • CRAM barrel armor up from 30 to 50, health from 900 to 1000
  • CRAM heavy barrel armor up from 40 to 60
  • CRAM firing piece armor up from 25 to 30, health up from 500 to 800
  • CRAM gauge increase armor up from 30 to 40, health from 400 to 500
  • CRAM laser targeter armor up from 25 to 50
  • Laser combiner armor up from 4 to 30, health from 100 to 400
  • Laser optics armor up from 10 to 40, health stays 250
  • Laser armored optics armor up from 20 to 60, health stays 600
  • LAMS node armor up from 10 to 25
  • Short range laser combiner armor up from 15 to 50, health from 600 to 1500
  • Missile standard launcher and gantry armor up from 20 to 30
  • Missile rail launcher and gantry armor up from 20 to 40
  • Missile ejector addon armor up from 3 to 30 (health is still 100)
  • Missile controller armor up from 12 to 30. It is now susceptible to EMP, takes 10% damage from it
  • Missile connector armor up from 3 to 30 (health is still 100)
  • Missile hatch armor up from 40 to 50
  • Missile winch armor up from 3 to 40, health up from 100 to 200

Multiplayer

  • Assault on Eyrie co-op multiplayer map has been re-balanced and tweaked and is now Assault on Conger.
  • Co-op campaigns can now be customised before you launch them in multiplayer.
  • The multiplayer lobby UI has been designed.
  • The tower defence map has been fixed and adjusted.
  • There is a 5 second count down before a match is started in multiplayer during which changes to the configuration are locked.
  • Tournament of Kings multiplayer map now includes the Rambot avatar.

Neter

  • The Neter map has been redrawn and Quest For Neter faction areas have been moved around.

Detection

  • Detection can no longer be clipped through hulls using spinblocks. Detection tests line of sight against all subobjects.
  • Further tweaks to visual, IR, radar, sonar and passive sonar signatures.
  • Most detection components AC now 30; costs standardised.

Physics

  • Custom control surfaces now move a lot faster.

Fixes

Laser

  • 4Q lasers can now fire a single shot (1 fire command always triggered at least 2 pulses before)
  • Fixed pulsed laser fire rates being lower than intended. 4Q fired ~6.67 shots/s, 3Q ~3.63, 2Q ~1.9, 1Q ~0.975

PAC

  • Fixed manually fired particle cannons sometimes shooting in the wrong direction

APS

  • Cannons using fire rates below 2400 are using the proper fire rate again (previous fix was put on hold to sort out some timing issues)

CRAM

  • Fixed CRAM cannons counting EMP payload twice in shell power and firepower calculations.

Missiles

  • Fixed missile firepower readout showing old values that counted S warheads/second (only visual, firepower displayed was ~75% of the real one)
  • The turning thrusters trail will now be removed properly when destroying the vehicles [BUGS-2077]

Laser

  • 4Q lasers can now fire a single shot (1 fire command always triggered at least 2 pulses before)
  • Fixed pulsed laser fire rates being lower than intended. 4Q fired ~6.67 shots/s, 3Q ~3.63, 2Q ~1.9, 1Q ~0.975
  • Laser transceivers now re-connect correctly when on an elevation-only turret with an angle of more than 60 degrees [BUGS-2335]
  • Laser transceivers visible laser is now correctly displayed even when the elevation of a 2-axis or elevation-only turret is modified

Custom Jets

  • Custom jet exhaust particles exit the right way on jets using 90° connectors”

Jets

  • The ‘Spread to’ feature will now spread either to the small or huge jets, not both [BUGS-2544]

Explosions

  • Explosions not doing any damage after a while [BUGS-2238]

Collisions

  • Fix to collision damage that makes damage spread more evenly in all directions.

Fuel Engines

  • Ducts (in the air tab) will not block fuel engine exhausts anymore [BUGS-2534]

Copy Paste

  • When copy/pasting a block, any empty string in it wasn’t pasted to the destination, now it is [BUGS-2543]

Modding

  • The simple weapons variables ‘ExplosiveDamage’ and ‘ExplosiveRadius’ are automatically modified to automatically balance the weapons, you can now use ‘OverloadedExplosiveDamage’ and ‘OverloadedExplosiveRadius.’

Hit detection

  • Fixed explosion damage teleporting through intact non-cuboid structural blocks
  • Fixed a problem causing explosions triggered from certain directions to sometimes spawn inside(and teleport through) blocks in certain positions/orientations
  • Fixed a problem causing shells to sometimes explode inside targets moving towards them
  • Blocks and shell racks exploding on the main construct can no longer jump through blocks at high speeds
  • Explosions are less likely to jump through blocks on subconstructs moving towards them
  • Fragments are less likely to jump through blocks on constructs/subconstructs moving towards them
  • Fixed a problem causing fragments from ricocheting projectiles to be spawned facing the wrong way
  • Frags spawn at the speed the projectile moved at right before impact (so frags from fast shells hitting the back of fast vehicles will still usually connect)
  • Missile hit detection improved
  • Fixed a problem causing armed missiles to bounce off constructs