Game Version 3779 (21th of January, 2024)
A new year combined with new mechanics and behavior/bug fixes!
With gratitude to all those who took the time to report issues,
Happy holidays to those that celebrate them,
Jip
Balance
- (#5815) Adjust the target priorities of the Percival
The Percival now prioritizes firing at structures over tech 1 units. Its targeting priorities are now similar to Snipers.
Improved the behavior of tactical missiles across the board.
Targeting behavior now considers the full orientation of the unit, enhancing accuracy against units on slopes.
Adjusted zig-zag behavior to reduce last-minute zig-zagging before impact, making Aeon tactical missiles more accurate.
- (#5790) Re-design the Deflector ability of the Loyalist
The deflector weapon of the Loyalist allows it to take ownership of incoming tactical missiles and return them to the unit that fired it. With the new implementation the missiles that are send back have switched army and can therefore be intercepted by Tactical Missile Defenses (TMDs) and shields.
The deflector weapon can now deflect the Billy again.
The deflector weapon is unable to deflect tactical missiles that are incoming from directly above the Loyalist.
- (#5794) The Cybran Cruiser is now equipped with a Deflector instead of a Zapper.
The deflector weapon is unable to deflect tactical missiles that are incoming from directly above the Cybran Cruiser.
- (#5794) The Cybran Aircraft Carrier is now equipped with a Deflector instead of a Zapper.
The deflector weapon is unable to deflect tactical missiles that are incoming from directly above the Cybran Aircraft Carrier.
- (#5806) Modify the economy behavior of the Scry ability of the Eye of Rhianne.
Now behaves similarly to other economy-consuming abilities.
- (#5667) Adjust the movement behavior of the Seraphim sniper
The movement reduction of the sniper mode is now only applied when the main weapon is on cooldown. This reduces the amount of micro that is required to use the sniper.
- (#5805) Buff standard resource allocation of Seraphim SACUs
Increased standard resource production to 3 mass/second and 200 energy/second for Seraphim SACUs.
The Seraphim faction lacks a Resource Allocation Subsystem (RAS) for the SACU. We understand that players may feel disadvantaged when playing Seraphim in the very-late game phase where RAS SACUs can play an important role. With these changes, we preserve the faction diversity while providing the Seraphim faction with an alternative approach to generate mobile resources.
This is an experimental change that is subject to future tweaks.
- (#5795) Reduce the collision shape of landed air units.
Landed air units now have a smaller collision shape, matching the size of the mesh.
- (#5785) Fix projectiles being unable to impact the water surface.
Notable for UEF tech 2 Destroyer projectiles and various tactical missiles.
- (#5827) Allow SACUs to have the COMMAND target priority.
Allows SACUs to target an ACU while moving in snipe mode.
- (#5834) Fix a bug with the salvo of the tech 3 submarine.
Corrected a bug reducing damage per second to 327 instead of 363.
- (#5834) Fix Aeon anti-torpedo defenses firing two anti-torpedoes at a single torpedo.
The Aeon Destroyer and Submarine hunter are now better at defending against torpedo’s.
- (#5836) Fix intel ranges being inaccurate
This is a complicated but interesting change. For the player, intel is visualized as a perfect circle. However, for the engine, intel is processed in a grid. The grid is coarse - the size of a cell for vision is 2 walls, and for all other types of (counter) intel, it is 4 walls.
This has consequences. Imagine four units with a radar radius of 28, 29, 30, and 31. Visually, it appears that the last unit with a radar radius of 31 provides more intel than the unit with a radar radius of 28. For the engine, however, because the size of a cell in the intel grid is 4 walls large, it doesn’t matter - the units with 29, 30, and 31 radar range provide as much intel as the unit with 28 radar range.
With these changes, we reviewed all intel radii to ensure the value aligns with the value that the intel grid actually applies. As a result, the intel radius of units may appear smaller, but for the engine, they are the same. Therefore, the intel radii that you see now are more accurate.
An extensive test suite is also introduced to keep the intel ranges of units accurate as time passes.
- (#61) Increase the intel update frequency from 3 seconds to 0.5 seconds
In the average case, intel would only update every 3 seconds (or 30 ticks). With thanks to an assembly patch, intel now updates every 0.5 seconds (or 5 ticks). This impacts not just what you see as a player but also how quickly the weapons of your units may react to blips that suddenly pop up in their range.
- (#5836) Revert of the 15% global vision range increase as introduced by game version 3761
The vision range of various units was increased because of the slow update frequency of intel. With thanks to the assembly patch, the update frequency of intel is increased with 600%, and therefore, we’re reverting the global vision range increase.
The Billy no longer explodes in the first 2.5 seconds of its lifespan. The damage of the Billy no longer pierces shields, reversing an accidental change.
Bug Fixes
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(4c9b6b) Fix a bug that only triggers in the Nomads featured mod.
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(#5818) Reduce the maximum attack radius of the Aeon Tactical Missile Defense (TMD).
The Volcano could try to intercept missiles that it would never be able to. Given that TMDs try not to overshoot their target, the behavior would cause other TMDs to ignore the missile.
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(6f3244) Fix a bug for the AI where the threat-based pathing would return an incorrect result.
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(#5809) Fix a bug for the AI where it would confuse the type of expansions, overspending significantly because of it.
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(#5804) Fix the Shard being able to evade beams.
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(#5795) Fix air units losing essentially all water vision once they have landed once.
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(#5820) Fix a bug where the assist-to-upgrade feature would not pause the structure due to network lag.
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(#5831) Fix a bug that would break achievement progression.
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(#5829) Fix a bug when the Salem makes landfall.
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(#5841) Fix a bug where units on the sea floor would not have the mass value of their wreckages reduced.
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(460fcda) Fix a bug where players would be able to cheat units in co-op when playing alone.
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(#5817) Fix a bug where the shared armies lobby option does not take into account random spawn positions.
As a result, the ‘shared’ armies would be scattered across the map.
Features
- (#5821) Add additional context-based templates
Involves templates for the Soothsayer, the Eye of Rhianne, and the Salvation.
- (#5820) Add additional assist-to effects
You can now assist a tech 2 mass extractor with some adjacency to start an upgrade to tech 3. You can now assist a radar to start an upgrade. Requires some adjacency for a tech 2 radar.
You can enable/disable the behavior at the ‘Commands’ header of the ‘Gameplay’ tab of the game options.
- (#5832) Wrecks now warp back onto the map when units crash outside of the map
Other Changes
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(#5826) Show decimals of the damage radius of weapons.
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(#5816) Show decimals of the build rate of units.
As an example, the build rate of a tech 3 engineer would previously show as ‘32’ while it is actually ‘32.5’.
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(#5736) Fix the intel hotkey not showing for the Scry ability.
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(#5802) Add a silo hatch animation to the UEF ACU when it fires a missile.
There’s a standard reload time that applies. This is most notable for the Billy. The hatch animation acts as a rough indication for this reload time.
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(#5811) Clarify the distinction between user-created templates and context-based templates.
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(#5828) Fix various English descriptions of units.
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(#5830) Rework the frames per second counter to update less frequently
It now updates four times per second. The frame counter is moved from the left side to the right side of the screen.
Contributors
With thanks to the following people who contributed through coding:
- lL1l1
- Jip
- Basilisk3
- KionX
- Relent0r
With thanks to the following people who contributed through binary patches:
- Hdt80bro
And, last but certainly not least - with thanks to those that took part in constructive discussions:
- Apofenas
- Deribus
- HintHunter
- Eternal
- Balthazar
- hdt80bro