Hi all,
This update's for the 0.2 alpha, you'll have to opt-in to play it:
Fields Rework
Fields has been reworked using the new scenario tech to intensify its long-range big-battle feel, and to generally make it more of a challenge.
The map has been expanded westwards by about 500m (50% wider) to make it less of a corridor and promote different ways of tackling it.
Spoilers ahead, so skip this section if you'd like to do the scenario blind:
Heavies at the back changes
- They're now a much tougher design, requiring the best AT guns of the period to pierce the frontal armour.
- They'll no longer charge at you. Instead, they'll hold the hill and fire down on you.
- They spawn at the start of the scenario, so you'll have to fight them and the light tanks simultaneously.
- If you charge them with greater numbers or they take heavy losses, they'll fall back.
Aggressive lights changes
- There's now AT variants scattered amongst their ranks.
- They split up into two groups to form a crossfire.
- If you avoid engaging them, they'll turn around and chase you down.
Profile now matters more than ever due to the shallow hill cover from the enemy heavies while you engage the enemy lights.
You can head west to avoid a close quarters fight with the light tanks and use a hill as a shield from the heavies.
Doing so opens you up to flanking fire from the lights.
The scenario can now be completed by reaching an exit point, providing a way for mobility focused designs to succeed.
Should you break through a flank, the enemies on the other flank will relocate to fire at you from the side.
Changes
- Reimplemented Fields map.
- Added a 'None' powertrain option to remove the powertrain and tracks entirely, allowing you to make stationary AT guns.
- Reimplemented camera shake.
- Camera shake no longer affects the position of your crosshair.
- Camera shake now affects your view rotation as well as its position, instead of only affecting camera position.
- Camera shake now affects scope view.
- Added an impulse-based camera shake which adds more weight to sudden events (cannon fires, received hits, vehicle collisions).
- Greatly improved AI handling of mission and player orders. They should no longer get confused and sit around doing nothing.
- Reimplemented bot formations.
- Bots now follow their adjacent vehicle in formations, instead of following the lead vehicle directly. Improves turning and makes formations feel more organic.
- Taking control of a member of a formation and driving off will break the formation into two separate formations.
- Bots now halt until the slot in front of their assigned formation slot is filled, instead of all bots trying to immediately rush to their assigned spot.
- Greatly improved the driving precision of bots. Allows tight enough manuvering for urban maps.
- Bots now zero-in their shots when not moving, getting more accurate over time.
- Allies on Dunes no longer charge in by default. Instead, they'll advance until they see an enemy and then stop while they engage.
- Reimplemented the 'Move to' bot command. It's more reliable now.
- Disabled the dip to black when switching vehicles below 100m.
- Reimplemented the ability to control the vehicle you're aimed at ('C' by default).
- Vehicle cycling now favours non-immobilized vehicles.
- Lowered ignition rate of flameouts, slowing down how quickly they ramp up.
- Flameouts now need to build up enough pressure to blow the hatches and become visible.
- Charging an enemy you outnumber will cause them to fall back in reverse.
- Added stall prevention to driver AI. Below a certain RPM, drivers will ease off the throttle to let the engine get up to speed. Stops bots getting stuck on hills.
- Separated turret rings and baskets from the 'Exterior' category in the overlay settings.
- Allies on Fields now start in a convoy.
- Added 1 decimal place to roller array angle property.
- Shrunk the size of bushes on fields.
- Added flowers to fields.
- Moved the building area closer to the action on fields.
- Disabled red tint take damage effect until it's better implemented.
Fixes
- Fixed mirrored addon structures not adding the mass of the mirror.
- Fixed vehicles not colliding with each other and the environment.
- Fixed crash when switching wheel layout to grouped on old blueprints converted to 0.2.
- Fixed decals flickering. More noticeable at high speeds.
- Fixed bots not accounting for their vehicle speed in their aiming. Allowing bots to actually hit things while moving.
- Fixed bots never applying full throttle when driving up slopes.
Known issues
- AIs do not avoid one-another
- AIs do not check if another ally is in their line-of-fire.
- Formation of large formations now takes too long.
The remaining features before 0.2 is feature complete and at feature parity with 0.127, in order of highest priority:
- Better crew posture manipulation controls
- Improved freeform selection tools
- Saving and loading of individual parts
- Radios
- Turret and part decoupling
The scenarios will be returning over time when their respective tech is updated.
After that, 0.2 enters beta. The beta will only receive fixes, optimizations and iterations on existing features.
- Hamish