Our most recent patch mostly focuses on a handful of weapon changes, new weapons, AI tweaks, and match length adjustments. The patch introduces 3 new weapons: Laser Rifle, Pulse Pistol, and Pulse Rifle. The laser rifle is a two-handed version similar to the laser pistol that uses a continual laser to damage the target. The new pulse weapons are fast moving projectile weapons that shoot out a pulse round that can damage the target if hit directly and has a short blast radius so can be shoot near the target as well to do damage.
To go along with the new weapons we introduced a handful of changes to the existing weapons. Rifles now have a sight on top, shotgun now has a laser aiming guide making it much more useful than before, quite a few of the guns received reloading sound adjustments that better match their reload times, projectile code updates under the hood to make them more accurate, and ammo pickups received an adjustment (mostly reducing their counts down).
To go with the weapon changes we adjusted the bot code improving the AI in a few ways. Bots will now crouch to make them a bit harder to hit, they will advance to the next stage better than before as many of them were dieing in the process once the doors closed, they should rotate better when moving and cleaned up rotating when they are in place, improved seeking cover, and they will at times flee when low health.
Lastly we adjusted the round durations from 5 minutes to 3 minutes. There is still a warning at the 1 minute mark, but the matches should move a bit quicker as a result. This will change the maximum match time from 15 minutes to 9 minutes.
Not mentioned in the notes is the continued work on the new outdoor map, it is still in the process of being fleshed out and we will have some more news on it soon.
Ammo
- Reduced ammunition pickup to 50.
- Reduced sniper pickup to 12
- Reduced shotgun shell pickup to 12
- Reduced rocket pickup to 3
Artificial Intelligence
- Bots do a better job of seeking cover.
- NPCs do a better job of transitioning between stages.
- Bots can now crouch.
- Occasionally bots will flee when low on health.
- NPC reloading is visible to players.
- NPCs rotate more smoothly than was previously the case.
- Optimized existing AI code.
Audio
- Laser Pistols, Rocket Launchers, Grenade Launchers, Shotguns, and Sniper Rifles have new reload sounds.
Graphics
- Bots now support crouching animations.
- Optimized muzzle flashes, impacts, and explosion effect LOD ranges which has improved performance.
- Introduced quite a few new particle effects.
Maps
- Adjusted some of the positions of pick ups on the Royale map to make them easier to grab.
- Many new cover locations were added to the Royale map.
- Added Battery spawners and Pulse Weapons/Ammunition to the Tutorial.
- Changed each round from 5 minutes to 3. The warnings still kick in with 1 minute remaining.
User Interface
- Removed the image next to the ammo count
Weapons
- Added a new weapon: Laser Rifle. It uses the same ammo as the pistol, but it requires two hands to operate. It does 7 damage, where the pistol now does 5.
- Added a new weapon: Pulse Rifle. It fires pulse projectiles that explode on impact. They have a short damage radius, but can hit a target if you shoot near them. The pulse rifle also has a laser that helps with aiming like the one added to the shotgun.
- Added a new weapon: Pulse Pistol. Smaller version of the pulse rifle.
- Adjusted the projectile weapon code, there was a few issues that were noticed. It should make things far more accurate on the server after the changes.
- Added pulse rounds that are used with pulse weapons.
- Reduced pushback recoil on sniper rifle and projectile weapons.
- Rifle now has a sight on top of it along with a targeting dot near the end to help with aiming.
- Shotgun now has a laser sight that should make it much easier to use.
- Shotgun distance was doubled. It should cover the tutorial room now as a reference.
- Laser Pistol damage reduced from 6 to 5.
- Rocket Launcher has a slightly longer reload and a new reload sound.
- Mine Launcher has a slightly longer reload and a new reload sound.
- Adjusted the reloading code on projectile weapons to match the instant weapons. They still work the same as before, but the code was changed.
- Shotgun now has 4 shells versus 3 when fired, damage was reduced from 30 to 24.
- Adjusted the secondary grip for both the laser pistol (which did not have one before) and the regular pistol. They both now have a two handed grip around the pistol grip.
- Fixed an issue where a gun was instantly ready if you did a flick reload, it should properly wait now.
- Fixed an issue where projectile weapons were not adjusting ammunition properly when you did a flick reloading.
- Fixed an issue with the spread code, shotgun spread should be a bit better now (or worse for hitting things).
- Fixed holstering of the laser pistol, it was rotated and placed in a not useful way.
- Reduced ammo of laser pistol. It now has 30 rounds.