For October's minor update we're rolling out enhanced data and statistics to help players dive into the intricacies of their battles and figure out where they need to improve.
Enhanced Battle Report
The largest addition for this update is a major overhaul to the post-game Battle Report. This new report tracks over 50 different statistics, many down to the individual weapon or missile level, and presents a detailed summary of each ship's performance.
The performance of each ship is summarized in five "warfare areas" with a rating score between Terrible and Excellent. All of these scores are calculated based on the statistics grouped under each area, which can be seen in detail by scrolling down further in the report.
You can even export your battle report to XML to save it for posterity. We have no data collection mechanisms in the game currently, but if you feel so inclined you can upload a ZIP of these XML files periodically (no more than once a week please) to a special thread on our official discord under #neb-discussion so that we can do statistical analysis on these reports to help us make more data-driven balancing decisions.
If you worry you'll miss the old report that showed ship status displays and basic damage numbers, don't worry because it is still in the game and will be shown if a battle ends before a victor is declared. This is because the sheer volume of statistics being collected is prohibitive to synchronize continuously, so they are downloaded from the host at the end of the game. Be sure not to quit before the download is complete!
Debriefing Chat
We have a really great community in this game and many of our experienced players are more than happy to help our newbies in our official Discord through the #post-game channel, but it can still be difficult to get a discussion going in the first place. When a battle is declared over and the battle report is successfully downloaded, all players who are still connected will be taken to a debriefing lobby where they can view the battle report and continue to chat with each other and give feedback.
Track References in Chat
Continuing on the communication front, I've expanded the "Hook Track" feature to take advantage of the text chat. When you enter any series of 4 digits into the in-game chat, everyone on your team will see it automatically converted to an orange link. Clicking that link will perform the same function as hitting Q and typing it in manually, bringing your camera to the location of the track and highlighting it for you. These numbers will be automatically picked out of any chat, so you can send them along with other text like "Everyone primary 1234", and 1234 would be converted to a track link.
Power Hogs
Power logic has gotten a small improvement which should have a huge impact. Previously, components consumed power based on their priority. That means that if you had a radar drawing 4000 power and only 3500 available, that radar would consume the 3500 and still not operate, starving every other component in the process. With the changes in this patch, if a component can't draw enough of a resource to operate successfully it will not consume it and leave it for other less demanding components down the priority line.
Spectator Overlay
And finally, it's about time to give some love to our amazing streamers and tournament casters (and also to those of you who just like to spectate for fun). This patch unlocks a ton of information that was previously unavailable to spectators such as information bars and damage control boards for all ships on both teams, as well as a special new overlay HUD which allows them to see an at-a-glance summary of all ships in the battlespace.
We hope you all enjoy the update for this month, and stay tuned for a new devlog coming soon! There are a few other minor improvements and bug fixes, so be sure to read the full patch notes below:
Changes/Features:
- Added a detailed post-game Battle Report showing performance breakdowns for every ship.
- Multiplayer games will now exit to a debriefing lobby where players can discuss the outcome and review performance.
- Missile salvos now distinguish softkill counts from simple misses in their tally counts.
- Renamed the former battle report to Battle Summary, which will still be displayed if a multiplayer game was not completed before exiting.
- Added a new overlay for spectators showing all players, ships, and their statuses at a glance.
- Spectators can now select ships and see their information bars and damage control boards, but cannot interact with them.
- Spectators can now see all active electronic warfare areas of effect.
- Total battle count and win/loss record now appears in the tooltip showing progress to the next rank.
- Missiles with HEKP warheads but not enough velocity to penetrate armor will now turn the "0cm" text red and display a reason.
- Sensor tracks on the HUD now show a closing/opening rate in meters per second next to the range when a ship is selected. Positive numbers indicate increasing distance.
- Any 4-digit numbers entered by a teammate into the skirmish game chat will be automatically converted to a clickable link which will provide the same functionality as Hook Track.
- Added icons for chaff and flare decoys in the munitions select list.
- Comms jamming area of effect is now yellow to distinguish it from sensor jamming.
- Parts in the damage control board and ship status display (the small one) will now flash white for 1/5th of a second when receiving damage.
- Components attempting to consume a resource will no longer actually pull the resource if less than the requested amount is available, preventing them from starving less demanding components with lower priority.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed fleet list folders not being able to be created in the lobby.
- Fixed dragging a fleet item in the lobby causing it to vanish.
- Fixed withdrawing ships with a locked heading order not playing the animation properly.
- Fixed Curve Shot achievement not being unlockable.
- Fixed some debuffs having references to old stat names.
- Fixed hybrid missiles staging early in some cases where the target was approaching quickly and the cruise stage was not at max speed (i.e. just after launch).