This is a patch of tweaks and systems. The main balance tweaks are nerfs for Shieldbots and Hovers, while Crab and Lobster have been buffed in the form of fixes. Sea battles are easier to track with much more visible torpedo effects. Bolas is in the campaign and can be found on planet Falloway.
The patch boasts two new systems. The first is a battle proposal system which aims to solve many of the coordination issues involved with hosting a game. The second is a terraform keybinding system to make terraforming easier than ever. To counterbalance it there are some tweaks that make it easier for units to shoot into holes.
Battle Proposals
Sometimes you may want to organise a battle but find the public hosts a bit chaotic and the matchmaker a bit impersonal. To address this there is a new battle proposal system that combines the coordination of a matchmaker and customisation of a room. If there is enough interest we might even write a proper UI.
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Type '!proposebattle' anywhere in the lobby to propose a battle.
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Other players can click the text to accept the proposal.
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When enough players accept the proposal a game is hosted and the other players automatically join.
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'!proposebattle' can be followed by the parameters minelo, maxelo, minsize and maxsize. For example '!proposebattle maxelo=1600 minsize=6 maxsize=6' would propose a six player game for players with rating (maximum of teams and MM) below 1600.
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The host of the battle can use commands as usual. '!password' can be used to make the game public and !type' can be used to select different game modes.
Balance
Glaive:
Thug:
Outlaw:
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Damage 30 -> 25
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Slow damage 90 -> 75
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No longer fires underwater.
Recluse:
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Speed 48 -> 45
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Turn rate reduced by 12.5% (still 5% more than pre-Superfluid)
We are leaning into the low-manoeuvrability aspect of Hovercraft now that there is more room at the low end of the scale.
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Dagger turn rate reduced by 20% (still 28% more than pre-Superfluid)
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Scalpel turn rate reduced by 20% (still 28% more than pre-Superfluid)
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Mace turn rate reduced by 6% (still 7% more than pre-Superfluid)
Dagger:
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Range reduced by 1.4%
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Reload increased by 1.2%
Crane:
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Health 240 -> 260
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Build Power 4 -> 5
Normalised constructor vision ranges.
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Crane 380 -> 375
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Wasp 350 -> 375
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Mariner 325 -> 375
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Weaver 380 -> 375
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Quill 325 -> 300
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Mason 273 -> 300
Other changes:
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Lobster now lobs units directly upwards and adds the horizontal velocity over half a second. This prevents Lobster lobbing lobs into itself.
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Crab no longer stops shooting under heavy fire. It can now fire while curling and uncurling (this was always the case yet nobody seemed to notice).
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Drones now heal at 10 hp/second after 10 seconds of inactivity.
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Metal Extractors and Caretakers are a bit taller and units aim at them higher up.
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Metal Extractors can no longer be built on steep cliffs.
Terraform
Terraform tends to be more common after interface improvements. Some issues with the current system have been fixed:
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Most units, including vehicle raiders, can shoot into terraformed holes.
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Walls that block particular unit types (bots or vehicles depending on height) are more expensive and look more substantial.
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The area to be terraformed is now marked while constructors spend the base cost of terraform.
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Unburrying enemy units is feasible with overwhelming buildpower.
The details of the fixes are as follows:
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Terraform near an enemy is now 20x slower instead of 50x slower. A bug that caused enemies to fully block terraform has been fixed.
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The angle of terraform supports is now 74 degrees (from 75 degrees).
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The angle of the outer edge of the terraform supports is limited to 22.5 degrees. This raises the height required to block vehicles.
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The angle of the inner edge of a subractive terrafom support is limited to 45 degrees. This rounds the base of terraformed holes, giving units the space to peer into the hole and shoot whatever is at the bottom.
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A small amount of terrain deformation occurs while the base cost of the terraform is being spent.
Interface
There is now a keybind system for issuing Level and Raise terraform commands with preset heights.
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Navigate to Hotkeys/Construction/Level or Hotkeys/Construction/Raise in the ingame menu.
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Set the parameters (height and culling) for one of the ten terraform presets.
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Click 'None' and press a key combination.
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Press the key combination to issue a terraform command that is executed after the drawing step - no height selection required.
Ctrl-Click can now be used on the selected unit panel to filter selections in a new way. To use it:
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Select some units.
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Hold Ctrl.
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Left click on some unit potraits (Shift+Click to select all units of a type).
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Release Ctrl.
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The units clicked on while Ctrl was held become the new selection.
Graphics
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Underwater wreckages bubble instead of smoke.
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Torpdoes and depth charge projectiles are now much easier to see. Hunter was feeling particularly lackluster due to the difficulty in discerning its targets.
Fixes
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Fixed some technology descriptions in the campaign.
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Fixed Placeholder overkill prevention.
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Djinn no longer teleports units to terrain with an impassible movement modifiers.
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Removed Seawolf impulse. This prevents it from pushing ships out of the water and carrying them on its back.
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Tweak collision volume for Minotaur wreckage and Tidal Generators.
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Envoy and Emissary avoid shooting into terrain (this was intended, the theory being that their cratering was sufficient to break down walls).
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Optimised some parts of healthbar drawing. Fiddled with the settings and made the text fade out at lower zoom levels.
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Fixed Scylla firing more than one tacnuke when the intention was to only fire one.
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Fixed cloak ranges widget crashing when an unseen enemy unit is selected.
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Fixed a crash in the construction height widget related to clicking outside the map.
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Fixed areamex construction ghost positions in the sea.
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Fixed Crane nanospray.
