Change all the things! We've had an extended time between patches because we have been working on adding new things and balancing them in the AirMech Canary build. We'll touch on the changes to the Power System, Tech Tree and Weapon/Armor calculations here, and then explain more in a blog post on our website.
The Power bar is gone! Oh noes! And Unit Cap is back...what happened?
We've listened to feedback from everything from high level players to new ones, and it's quite clear: the Power system was confusing. But, many high level players liked how it helped balance things, and were nervous when we talked about removing it. So, we have put a simpler Unit Cap system back in place, but it actually uses the foundation of the Power system.
Want to raise your Unit Cap? Capture Outposts, or build Generators, same as with Power. You'll find most units count 1 towards the Unit Cap, some zero, and some super units might cost 2 or more.
How to add the depth of a Tech Tree, but keep it simple and fast paced?
It's been a long time coming, and now we're also introducing our own version of a Tech Tree in this build. Instead of having build restrictions tied to your AirMech level, you need to have a Tech Unit built. But wait, does this mean you need to use a loadout slot to build these things? No, that's the simplicity of it--you will see any build restrictions in the build menu. Also keep an eye near the top of the screen, since your teammate might be building the Tech Unit already.
Once the Tech Units are built, it would be a really good idea to put them on a Socket. They function anywhere, but get a huge boost to their Armor when on Sockets. If your Tech Units are destroyed or recycled, you would need to build them again to build more super units.
Why are Weapon Type and Armor no longer Light, Medium, Heavy?
We always liked the idea of having different weapons and armor to balance weaker vs stronger units, and our first instinct was to keep it super simple. Unfortunately we didn't realize that this would limit us so much later. We wanted to do things like have Parts or Auras that made your Armor better, but jumping from Light to Medium or Medium to Heavy was too extreme for balance. Buffs and debuffs were not compatible with the Light/Medium/Heavy system.
We haven't finished it yet, but the basics are in. Armor now indicates the quality of the material used for protection, and Weapon indicates how good that attack is at punching through things. (it will be renamed to Piercing or Penetration later) These numbers range from 1 to 99, and if the Weapon is less than the Armor, damage is reduced by the difference. If the Weapon is greater than the Armor, there is no bonus--yes that Goliath will tear up the Zipper and needs no bonus to to so.
Further polish and balance of this system is needed, and we'll be adding visual feedback to show when something is doing less damage, probably one for less than 33% and another for less than 66%. We're excited to next look at doing things like making the Flamer lower the Armor values as a debuff, so units can work in teams to bring down heavy targets.
Where did the Orbs in V2 go, and why is Duel on V2 rules by default?
We've made some changes to V2, such as changing the Orbs to bars, porting over more of the Outpost types, and removing limited resources. We're continuing to experiment as we promised, and not keeping anything that doesn't add to the game in a positive way. We'd rather see huge armies fighting it out instead of players being choked off from building things.
Duel was converted to the new V2 rules, and we're happy enough with it that we want to make sure more players play the new rules and can give us feedback. We believe that soon we will finish our experiments and merge V1 and V2 together, and have one final set of rules for the core game. So check it out, and give us your feedback on the forums!
As always, full patchnotes are listed ingame.