It's here! The long awaited weapons overhaul! This massive update brings with it a whole slew of new weapons, defensive options and balance changes!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDqnjoR2xyg&feature=youtu.be
First up we have our new light arsenal. The way weapons work has been altered quite a bit.
Weapons now require CPU power. Which means players will now have to install a weapon CPU onboard their ships in order to make use of their weapons.
The weapon CPU determines how many offensive and defensive systems can be active at any given time, and thus also determines how many weapons can be fired at once. Players will need to consider whether they want to have more firepower or more defense. Weapons, shields, and the new armor generator among other devices, requires weapon CPU power.
The new weapons we have added are all of the gimbal weapon variety. Which means they aim at where your mouse cursor is pointing while in the cockpit. This makes it so hitting fast moving targets is easier and should make combat a lot more fun and engaging.
The new weapons we’ve added are the light autocannon, the light pulse laser and the light missile launcher.
The autocannon is similar to the old forward facing autocannon but it does less damage. It does however use the same ammunition. The light pulse laser fires a short laser beam. This weapon has no projectiles which means that it can hit what it is aiming at directly. And thus players will not need to lead the target. The pulse laser also does extra damage against shields.
And lastly the light missiles launcher fires small missiles in rapid succession which track the target. For this we’ve introduced the new missile locking mechanic. When the missiles are active when you hold on your mouse cursor over your currently selected target you will see a the missile lock indicator start to lock. Once missile lock has been acquired you will be able to fire the missiles. The torpedo launcher has also had this mechanic added.
One of the new devices we’ve added is the armor generator. These devices determine how many hitpoints your ship has. They also slowly repair your ship over time if you supply them with nanobots. The armor generator was added for balance reasons so that ships are no longer virtually immortal. They provide an upper limit to how many hit points any ship can have so that we are not balancing against infinity. We feel this will make combat much more engaging and fair.
Lastly we have also added new countermeasures, the EMP generator allows you to disable missiles. Also if another ship is within an 800 meter radius the EMP will damage their shields and partially drain their batteries. Once fired the EMP needs to recharge for a bit before it can be fired again.
These are some of the changes and new things in this patch. For all the changes please see the patch notes.
As always, we’d appreciate any feedback you’re willing to provide, it will only help us make the game better. We have a discord server which you can join!
Feel free to drop by and have a chat, we’d love to hear your opinion and feedback!
Thank you all for playing and see you starside!
-The Split Polygon Team