Contents: Additions
Balance/Tweaks
Fixes
Known Issues
Additions:
Gameplay
Respawn penalty has been applied for situations where a pilot would intentionally destroy the ship to either reload missiles or prevent another player from getting a kill
Reworked the server, instance, and matchmaking service from the ground up
Lobby system and game servers now talk to each other about the teams that a client is on in the lobby and in game
Lobby system will now remove players from a lobby if the instance system crashes rather than letting a group remain in a broken lobby
Game Instances are able to transition from completed matches to hosting a new match more quickly
Ships Vanduul Scythe is hangar and combat ready (shows as captured vanduul fighter in lobby)
P52-Merlin is hangar and combat ready Due to being a snub fighter, the Merlin does not have intakes. As such, it does not replenish fuel while flying. In the PU, it would do this by docking with a Constellation
Accounts that have constellation variants that come with a snub fighter will be given a Merlin loaner ship to use in Arena Commander
Like other loaner ships, loaner Merlin’s cannot be placed in the hangar
Placing a Constellation Andromeda in the hangar will also spawn a Merlin
Components Added support for spray patterns to weapons based on weapon mount type
Added new attenuation for missiles explosions
Added weapon names to Vanduul armaments
Added blade extension for captured Vanduul Scythe. It is activated by turning the item on in the weapon UI
Human engineers have increased the weapon lethality for the ship for the captured version of the scythe
User Interface Added a HUD effect to the Vanduul Scythe where the alien ship HUD will appear in some situations
Electronic Access button has replaced the Arena Commander button in the main menu to help with indicating that Arena Commander and Star Marine and simulations within the game fiction
Arena Commander and Star Marine icons have been added for each game module
Game module icons will be grayed out for accounts that do not have access to them (Star Marine is grayed out for all accounts)
Game modes and maps will have a red overlay for accounts that are invited to lobbies which contain game modes they can’t play
Lobby host will receive an error if a player in a lobby doesn’t have access to the selected game mode
Match ID’s have been put back into the game to make it easier for players to report issues with specific instances
Match ID length and complexity has been increased to ensure that they’re always unique
Environment Transitioned the audio system for all game content over to new cross-platform sound engine
Added additional ambiance to the VFG Industrial hangar
Added new splash screens when initially logging into the game
Balance/Tweaks:
Gameplay
Battle Royale and Squadron Battle have had their maximum player count increased to 16
Updated how ships calculate their mass when in the hangar Points that are earned for doing damage to ship hulls has been adjusted due to the changes in ship health Tweaked REC rewards due to changed in ship score values Increased amount of REC rewarded from Capture the Core to better incentivize the game mode Rebalanced Vanduul Swarm to be in line with desired difficulty due to the balance changes made to ships Vanduul are much more aggressive and will keep the player under pressure
Vanduul are more than likely going to tail you when they can
Speed for all types of Vanduul have been reduced to prevent them flying away from the player as quick
The difficulty of the first boss on wave 3 has been reduced
Ships Boost consumption has been rebalanced so that it involves more decision making for when to use it and involves less attrition
300-series hull health increased x2
Aurora hull health increased x3
Aurora top speed increased to 175
Avenger hull health increased x2
Avenger wings upsized from size 1 to size 2
Gladiator hull health increased x2
Gladiator adjusted to drift more when turning so that it handles appropriately for its size and role.
Gladius hull health increased x2
Hornet family hull health increased x2
Hornet rotational velocity increased
Hornet rotational acceleration decreased (not as much as the first PTU build)
Tightened up Hornet lateral strafe
M50 hull health increased x3
Mustang hull health increased x3
Restricted missile hardpoint sizes from size 1-3 to size 3 only to restrict possible missile racks on the Hornet Series
Old Merlin models have been removed from the constellations
Cutlass hull health increased x3
Decreased Cutlass boost angular velocity from 3x normal to 2x normal
Components Weapon damage increased by about 25%
The weapon damage disparity between sizes increased to 75%. Helps to make fixed weapons vs gimbaled weapons a more valuable decision.
Weapon accuracy for gatling weapons decreases/spread increases over longer sustained rate of fire
Decreased spool up time
Gatling weapons can now fire while weapons are spooling up
Increased range and velocity of ballistic weapons
Omnisky velocity reduced
Omnisky power consumption increased
Increased Suckerpunch range
Weapon mount and gimbal slew rates are now set based by size
Adjusted weapon mounts so that their IM and EM signature generation scales with mount size
Increasing cooling flow for weapons due to higher health and shield values
Chaff counter measures will now fire in bursts of 4 across a 120 degree horizontal arc, chaff counter measure ammo box sizes have been quadrupled to match the burst
Size and potency of chaff reduced
Missile damage raised x1.5 for all missiles to help compensate the increased ship/shield health and the raised Shield absorb for splash damage
Added distortion damage to missiles
Increased missile range
Tempest II reduced explosion radius and overall damage
Stalker V reduced explosion radius and overall damage
Shield values have been doubled
Shield splash damage absorb factor increased from 1 to 1.25 as a baseline. SECO-Splash shields raised to 1.5 and SECO-Drop shields raised from 0.8 to 1
Shield recharge rates have been reduced
Shield regen delay increased across the board for all sizes. Shortest delay is 9.5s for Size 1 and 19.5s at Size 4
Reduced amount of ballistic weapon damage that Shields absorb before applying damage to hull through the shields
Reduced armor energy absorption to make it less effective vs energy weapons
Environment Rotated the holotables and moved most of them next to a wall
Improved load times for ragdolls
Fixes:
(PTU) – denotes an issue from the PTU that was fixed
Gameplay
As a temporary fix to some instant cockpit kill issues, we’ve made the character invincible when sitting in the cockpit
Client and server performance for when ships are destroyed and respawn has been greatly improved
Clients that enter a team game mode from the same ranked lobby will now be on the same team
Fixed a server crash that was causing large amounts of players to disconnect (PTU)
Fixed an issue where game instances were turning into bottomless pits for specific game types and ate all the matchmaking requests without spinning the instance up (PTU)
Fixed one of the issues that was causing clients to get kicked back to hangar due to entering a state that would allow the client to connect to a match, but never finish the connection process (PTU)
Hard coded team values into the Generic Instance Manger to prevent a client from trying to connect to a match with a team size of 0 (PTU)
Spectator cameras are more stable when observing another ship (PTU)
Characters rolling while prone is now seen by other clients
Characters no longer spawn in as a pair of eyes
Fixed a few issues that were causing characters to spawn in a pilot seat standing up (some still exist)
Fixed an issue causing ships to sometimes sink into landing platforms in Multiplayer Free Flight when using automatic landing
Fixed a crash that would occasionally occur when landing in Multiplayer Free Flight
Fixed a crash that would occur when using the pistol after landing in Free Flight
Fixed several issues that would prevent tutorial completion (PTU)
Fixed several issues that were caused by reloading the tutorial (PTU)
Ships Fixed an issue where the ship name would appear as debug text for the tutorial Gladius’ ship AI
Front panels on the Mustang now animate when used
Fixed some thruster issues with the Merlin that would cause it to jerk around when boosting (PTU)
Fixed an issue where the Andromeda loaner Merlin wouldn’t be accessible unless the Andromeda was in the hangar (PTU)
Fixed an issue where the loaner Merlin granted by the Andromeda would get stuck on a permanent load screen (PTU)
Mustangs no longer float in the air after landing with damaged or destroyed wings
Fixed the mustang turret showing debug text in the holotable
Fixed an issue where swapping turrets in a constellation would cause character animations to malfunction
Killing a Cutlass now gives proper credit
Components Delta Rocket pods no longer display their name as debug text
User Interface Fixed an issue that caused cross-hairs and reticule to sometimes go missing upon respawn
Thrusters can now be deactivated in power management
Holding tab will no longer cause the score board to default to on
Toggling comstab wasn’t working for the first (PTU) version and has been fixed
Environment Large invisible collision blocks have been removed from the Aeroview hangar (PTU)
Murray Cup poster now appears in the VFG Industrial Hangar (PTU)
Cloud in race maps are no longer popping in and out
Fixed a crash that was being cause by the social module elevators in the hangar (PTU)
Fixed an issue that was causing some of the platform numbers in Free Flight to look like bubbles hovering over the landing pads (PTU)
Fixed some missing texturs that were causing red ‘replace me’ squares are under the ships in the tutorial (PTU)
Known Issues:
These are not representative of all known issues in the build. The following issues are bugs that were introduced with this version of the game that we feel are most impactful to play experience.
Gameplay
REC will sometimes not be awarded at the end of a match due to some server side issues
Error code 8 will happen occasionally when connecting to a multiplayer match which results in the client kicking back to the hangar after a load screen
Matchmaking isn’t differentiating clients based on map selection for race modes
Ships are rarely unable to respawn after being destroyed
The ability to send invites doesn’t recover if the Generic Instance Manager goes down due to the friends server not knowing when to rebroadcast its information
Respawning will rarely cause blood to appear on the characters visor
Missiles can fail to track their target in the third chapter of the tutorial and prevent the tutorial from being completed
Ships The Mustang Delta is loading in with the Mustang Alpha geometry, causing it to lose its rocket pods
Interior of the Freelancer variants are pitch black due to missing textures and lighting
Sections of some Constellations are pitch black due to missing textures and lighting
Central seat of the Constellation cannot be sat in
Retaliator bomb bay floor is missing collision
Components Motion blurr for some ship components is set too high, causing ships to often times appear more blurry than they should
User Interface There is no respawn timer for respawn penalties
Error code 8 isn’t displayed to a client when it’s kicked back to hangar. Sometimes it shows up if the client completely backs out of the lobby UI
Gladius is missing its HUD in the tutorial
The HUD for the P-52 Merlin cannot be interacted with
Client will black screen if the lobby service is not able to communicate with the instance manager
Force closing the client while readied up will break the accounts ability to ready up (workaround: become a host of a lobby and the accounts ready state will be flushed)
Environment Multiple kinds of audio will drop out in matches with large amounts of ships