GearStormers! We have a big new release today! Our developers are hard at work making GearStorm as good as we can make it before it is released on the market.
You can join our discord server (https://discord.gg/wdGnzYe) and on our corporate server to welcome our new players.
On to what is new in this release:
With this release we have moved to a new Engine version, Unreal 4.22.1. The big difference is the 60% graphics draw speed, that has improved GearStorm performance to the point where we can include another level of graphics quality and maintain our frame-per-second performance. 4.22.1 also includes numerous bug fixes and performance enhancements.
After community feedback, we have engaged with some new resources to help us with a complete graphics overhaul of the game, the surface of our objects, many building materials have been redone to show more detail and light better. We have also redone our lighting and fog in our world to look more realistic. Next, we plan to redo some models of plants, grass, and trees, the surface of some of our terrain, and some effects.
We added a new category of quality settings for graphics of “Cinematic” for those of you with video cards that can deal with that level of performance (it runs fine in our testing on a Nvidia GTX 1060 or above).
We added a new hit indicator after some player feedback that shows the direction of where you are being hit from when you take damage.
We added options to our weapons for fire modes, you can set rockets to explode at a certain range, change your rate of fire, change your velocity, all in the field.
Our Droppod flight system was also revamped and it is much more responsive, however, it does consume fuel now, so watch you fuel gauge!
For our new players we added “help tablets” in the world and some additional text to help people understand the quests.
Respawning chests have been added that automatically respawn loot when the loot is taken after a delay. Admins can create these on their servers and place them wherever loot drops are desired!
A new type of enemy was added (the Sentinel) and several of our advanced AI got a re-skin.
We also added a map legend for our map to make it more clear for new players what is where!
In addition to a directional pointer to the center of the Minimap to show you which direction you are facing.
Of course, our usual bug squashing is moving along with terrain drawing bugs, chat window bugs and
Complete Changelog:
Fixes for Chunk Count bug and Chat Window
Added Legend to In-game Map
Added Arrow at center of Minimap, Added Support for multiple Grass Meshes in map
Merging in mods for configurable dedicated server, changes for loading graphics settings on startup!
Submitting MRAO texture
second atlas now supports detail texture, added roughness and Ao , got rid of the flickering
Added mask texture, removed tri planar blend on Sci Fi base material
Added Sentinel Character & Weapons, Replaced EDI soldier Meshes with new Combat Suit model
NPCs now have a Respawn Delay (Configurable in INI), Buildgun Chest now respawns buildguns
Updating quality settings for shadows and foliage, applying foliage settings on ShooterGameInstance Init(), changing default editor settings to vs2019, building campaign map lighting.
Corrected some NPC Animations, Mesh Weights
Added TriPlanar Detail to M_Scifi_Base. Fixed NPC materials and mesh attachments.
Changing dynamic shadow cascades to "3"
tweaked two-sided material
Rebuilding map for new textures and lighting.
Added detail texture, modified material to support this, packed ambient occlussion into the M texture
Fixing Quality Settings Bug on foliage and on cancel for resolution scaling.
Added "cinematic" level for graphics quality settings. Added extra foliage settings not in the .ini for cinematic foliage level.
Fixed new Function Delay Bug, Removed Floating Base Name Text, Added Help tablets and lights to ICA HQ, added additional text to Welcome Quest
Weapon options now work!, Can set Rocket Self-Explosion Range, NPCs now have random dialog when nothing to say, Fixed Droppod Fuel Consumption (again?), Scopes now hidden when zooming with a Scope Mask, Removed Weapon component indicator
Expanding quality settings for foliage
Updating quality settings.
Adding Hit Indicator Texture and Adjusting Campaign Map Start for 4.22
Adjusted Start Position to line up with Display on Campaign Map
Editing DefaultEngine.ini to open up bandwidth.
Hit Indicator - Colorcoded for Shield/Health
Implement Dither Blend for Terrain
Fixed Bugs ( Items not retaining Quest Tags, Very short build Range on Base Core) Added "Alt [e]" indicator in Hud
InfoStorm Indepth Help for Menus - Help Text can be edited in Docs\MenuHelp.xlsx
Added Config buttons for Weapons in Player Inventory, Fixed Inventory Offset for Tanks
Fixed Civet Gas Mileage, VTOL & Foosa Turret, Improved Thrust/Jumping on some vehicles
Fix for Stationary Turrets, Large Turret Materials support Camo now
Fixing Droppod Client Fuel problem - Droppod can now land on a dime :)
Fixed Laggy Control System on Droppod - Still has Client Fuel problem
Fixing Fuel Consumption in Multiplayer, Switched from Stamina to Power usage for Vehicle Fuel, Added Fabricator interface to VehicleLab
Fixing Replication of Ammo for Turrets
Fixing Spawning of Vehicle Turrets. Fixed Turrets still broken.
Added Vehicle Lab Sockets and Inventory Items for weapons/ammo, Fixed Aiming problem on Vehicles, started code for Default Inventory Loadout for new vehicles
Submitting QuadTest map to test Quadrupeds.
Resubmitting QuestDataAsset
Fixed bug where Mobs spawn in the wrong biomes, added flag to quests to set Save/Persistence, Fixed bugs with Slope overrides & Core Access due to ISMs
Activated VOIPTalker, rework audio classes. Make sure to set correct USoundClass for all sound assets otherwise it won't be affected by audio settings.