Repopulation 0.0.4.7 Build Notes
by J.C. Smith · 04/17/2009 (8:13 am) · 3 comments
There's no new screenshots in this blog, just a list of the build notes since the last entry. You can find images and such in the previous blogs on our our web site.
Alpha 0.0.4.7 Build Notes
---------------------------
It was another major update for us with 0.0.4.7. This update introduces new Clan Features, Capturable Cities and Control Points, a new Trigger system, Vehicle and Robotic Upgrades, Player Owned Shops, the Hacking and Storage Object system, Trap Improvements, a new zone and the New Character Models and Armor System. The Control Point and Siege system will be expanded upon further in the next patch.
A key component of this update is the addition of the Contested Zone, The Wailing Chasm. This zone features a capturable city and two capturable control points. This zone is serving as our testbed for the siege, political and contested zone system. Our control and political system adds a new element of strategy to the world, where Clans and Factions can conquer regions, and improve those regions in various abilities, creating stranglepoints, and strategic advantages at various locations. This will be described in detail below.
Backend
- We set up separate servers for Dynamic Quests and Control Points. This should allow for better scalability and multi-server setups when the need arises.
- Made numerous Character Server enhancements to support the improved Clan system.
- Made a small but effective server side performance tweak.
Clan
- You may temporarily form a Clan with only one member. You can can do this by speaking to a new NPC at the City Hall in Plymouth or in Central Freedomtown, or by speaking to a Revolutionary outside of town for Rogue Nations. The limit has been reduced to one charter for the time being to make it easier for users to test the new guild features. In the future this will return to 3+ members.
- Clans must now choose a Faction to belong to when the guild is created. The options are OWON, FPR and Rogue Nation. OWON and FPR are well known in our game world by now, but we would like to take a moment to describe Rogue Nations. Rogue Nations are clans that do not offer allegiance to either OWON or FPR. They in essence have declared their Clan an independent nation. Rogue Nations can attack both FPR and OWON active military players, as well as any other Rogue Nation. Rogue Nation members are automatically declared as Active Military, and are viewed as outsiders by OWON and FPR. Rogue Nations are intended for Clans who would like to participate in Open PVP vs. one another. it should be noted that depending on the zone, you may or may not be able to attack Inactive military members from OWON or FPR.
- Implemented the concept of Control Points. Control points are important locations on maps that can be conquered and controlled by Clans. When a control point is controlled by a Clan it becomes property of their faction (OWON or FPR), or in the case of a Rogue Nation it becomes the property of their Clan. Most outdoor zones other than Freedomtown and Plymouth will feature numerous control points. In order to take control of a zone that is owned by another faction you must obtain the majority of the control points. Once that happens, the zone will switch control to your faction, and the laws of that zone will obey the laws of your faction or your Clan in the case of a Rogue Nation.
- You may now get some brief information about your clan, including which faction they belong to by typing /cinfo or /claninfo. In the future we will be moving most of the clan functions to a GUI based interface, but this works for now.
- Set up some new immortal commands to make clan testing and manipulation easier for immortals (Game Masters).
Control Points
- We have added in the Control Point system. Control points are primarily cities, bases or other controllable objects (towers, choke points, etc) in the world. There will be numerous control points in every map. There are currently only two zones that are forever unconquerable, Freedomtown and Plymouth. In those zones players from those factions are safe from enemy PVP. Other zones are controllable, however, and that control is determined by who owns the majority of the control points.
- When a player enters a capturable Control Point region, a status window will appear which lists the Damage Level of that Control Point. The color of the damage bar is an indication of the status of your character in that particular region. A green bar, means that you are allied and safe from attacks. Blue means that you are allied but succeptible to attacks. Yellow means that you are hostile but not attackable by enemy players, where Orange means that you are hostile and can be attacked by enemy players.
- Whichever faction owns the majority of the control points in a zone, will own that zone. Their laws will be the laws of that zone. If a Rogue Nation owns the majority of the control points in a zone, then their laws will be enforced in that zone.
- There are now new control panels inside of Control Point regions which players can click on to view the current technology and defense levels of that Control Point. These computers also allow you to declare residency in this city, or if you are a resident to cast a vote in the upcoming election. Residents will also be able to manage their Shops in that city. If you are the mayor of a control point, you will also have the option to upgrade the different structural and defensive settings.
- Players can declare residency at a Control Point by purchasing a home in that region. Whe you purchase a new home you relinquish your old home, but all of your furniture will automatically be transferred to your new home. This is also true if your city of residence is conquered and you are evicted.
- Each control point has one representative who is in charge of that, a mayor. The mayor of that region is voted on by anyone who has declared themselves a citizen of that Control Point. You can only be a citizen if you are of the proper faction, or in the case of a Rogue Nation, the proper Clan. Votes are tallied once per week. Anyone who is a citizen of that Control Point can cast their vote by visiting the Poll Official in that area. If your citizenship is changed, then you will lose your vote at that location. At the end of the voting period (once per week), all votes will be tallied and a mayor will be elected. The results will be broadcast to any residents of that region when it does.
- If a control point is captured all votes will be reset, and an election will take place that tallies votes within 3 hours. This is to allow the new controlling faction to elect someone quickly, so that they can make adjustments.
- The mayors responsibilities are to allocate the resources of that region. Each city has a wide variety of different upgrade options, and each control point has a maximum value for each of these. For example a military base may allow for high Military Coverage and Military Training, but may not offer much in other areas. Each game day the Control Point will receive a number of Structure Points, which fluctuates by the region. The Mayor's job is to determine where to spend those points. This is a scaling system. For example if you have a level 1 hospital and want to increase it to level 2, it will only cost 2 structure points. But to increase a hospital from level 49 to level 50 will cost 50 structure points. The available city upgrade options are listed below:
Armory - Grants a bons to all armorsmithing in this city
Artillery - Grants a bonus to artillery skills.
Barracks - Increases the city defense bonus and the number of guards who spawn in the city at normal times
Cloning Facility - When a city is under siege and a player will respawn with a greater percentage of their health and power.
Construction Yard - Grants a small increase to the amount of city structure points accumulated per day, as well as to the number of structures which can be created in that area.
Electronics - Grants a bonus to all robotics creation in this city
Hospital - When this city is under siege, players who respawn inside of it are granted a regeneration bonus.
Industrial Zones - This determines how many shops a player can open in this city. A value of over 50 allows the players to have one shop. Values over 100 allows 2 shops. Over 150 allows 3. Over 200 allows 4, and a 250 allows 5 shops.
Library - Any quests completed in this city will have a bonus chance to receive a training sim upon completion of a quest.
Military Coverage - How far the cities guards will patrol away from the city. This provides some protection outside of the city for players hunting.
Military Training - Increases the strength of the guards defending the city and of the city defense
Temple - Grants any player who respawns during a siege a defensive bonus, due to their faith.
Textiles - Grants a bonus to all tailoring structures in this city
Vehicule Engineering - Grants a bonus to all vehicle creation in this city
Walls - Increases City Defense
Weaponry - Grants a bonus to all weapon crafting shops in this city
- Added in some immortal commands to allow us to tweak or force certain Control Point actions such as simulated takeovers and adjusting of values.
Crafting
- If you are crafting in your control point of residency then you will gain crafting bonuses based on the technology levels of that region. The technology levels can be permanently increaseed by the mayor at the cost of resources.
- Added in three Trap Knowledge recipes that are used for creation of the tools used to disarm traps.
- Added in six new Hacking recipes for use in hacking storage containers.
- Added in several new Robotics crafted Robotic upgrades. More information on these upgrades can be found in the Robotics section. There are currently 8 new crafted upgrades as a result of Robotic Engineering, as well as a number of new components to create those items.
- Added in several new Vehicle Engineering crafted vehicle upgrades. There are currently 4 new crafted upgrades as a result of Vehicle Engineering, as well as a number of new components to create those items.
- Hackers can now create Targeting Software, which is used in Robotics Engineering.
General
- Implemented a new Storage Object system. Storage Objects can be crates, dressers, caches, chests, etc. These can be locked, and if they are you will need to use the Hacking skill to unlock them. This is implemented in a mini-game type approach where you will receive a window with a puzzle of numbers. You can use the Hack ability, along with some crafted hacking tools to partially solve the puzzle backed on your hacking skill. You can do this up to three times and then will be forced to guess the combination. In the future we will be plugging in a trapping system to these objects, as well.
- Implemented a new Trigger system that gives us more freedom and more features for dynamic spawns, allows for more spawnpoints, as well as providing a new set of options such as cooldown timers and proximity locations
- You can now relog back in instantly, instead of having an artificially imposed one minute wait.
- The region you are now in is tracked internally and used for various functions such as dynamic quest matching or control point locations.
- Another round of code cleanup. We removed a decent amount of vestigal code that had existed from Minions of Mirth and was no longer used.
- Fixed a bug that was causing armor to absorb more damage than it should have been.
Graphics
- Introduced the new male and female models. These come with a wide range of new animations, and graphics options.
- Armor is now plugged into the new model system and will alter your characters geometry as well as textures when equipped or unequipped.
- Added a new set of desert themed buildings
- Added in a new theme of dungeon graphics and pieces.
- Gave a number of weapons new models.
- Added several new inventory icons related to Hacking and Trapping items.
Items
- Added hundreds of new items across multiple tiers in weapons, armor and shielding.
- A soft skill cap has been placed on weapons based on their tier. Players can still equip weapons that are beyond their skill cap requirement, but they will not be able to get the full potential out of those weapons until they reach that skill level.
- The level at which a damaged item will begin to have diminished capabilities has been adjusted to 40%.
- Adjusted the cost of weapons and armor across the board. These are in accordance to the most recent design specifications and should be more evenly distributed. For the most part the cost has been dramatically reduced.
- Reclassified the rarity of a good number of weapons and armor pieces.
- Added in an Improved Composite Armor set. This armor is similar to composite armor but lighter and offers improved protection.
- Injection weapons should now do greater damage, but attack at a slower rate than previously.
- Disease should now do much greater damage over a shorter period of time.
- EMP weapons will now do damage over time, in addition to instant damage.
- Flame throwers and flame launcher now cause a number of debuffs on a player while they are on fire, and have had their fire duration doubled. There are also now multiple grades of the flame thrower effect.
- Aerosol weapons have had their range and AoE radius increased from 5 to 7 meters.
- The scatter radius on shotguns has dramatically been increased.
- Sniper rifles have had their damage increased.
- Slightly increased the firing rate of automatic weapons, but also increased their damage to compensate.
- Adjusted teh stats on crafted armor to meet recent specs.
- Brute-hide armor is now considered Medium armor.
- Crafted grenade launchers now have a larger damage radius.
- Added seven new items that are used for disarming traps.
- Added in a variety of new Robotic upgrades. These are primarily crafted items and can do things from increasing your robotic pets armor, to firepower, targeting or movement speed.
- Added in a variety of new Vehicle upgrades. These allow you to boost up your engine speed, armor, etc.
NPCs
- Added 5 new skill set configurations to NPCs. Skill sets were something that we introduced in a previous patch but didn't really go into. They allow NPCs to be assigned a certain set of combat skills. This basically is like adding new classes to NPCs, as it is giving them a different set of skills.
- Beware when entering an area owned by your rival faction, as they will now attack you on sight.
- Dozens of new items have been added to mob loot tables, as well as added the multiple loot chains.
- Different types of mobs will now drop specific types of armor.
- The PC/NPC race system has been expanded to support multiple meshes.
- Added a large number of new FPR, OWON and Rogue Nation soldier types to accomodate the scaling city and siege system.
- NPCs now have the ability to scale in power based on their parent control point's technology settings.
Player vs. Player
- The Player vs. Player combat system is now implemented. If you are within the region of a Control Point, the laws of that Control Points are used. If you are outside of a Control Point Region then the laws of the zone are enforced. The laws of the zone are determined by who owns the majority of the Control Points in that zone. For zones controlled by OWON or FPR (all zones at the start) the laws are the same. Reserve Military is protected from combat unless they initiate it, in which case their immunity drops until they have been out of combat for 15 minutes. If a Reserve Military member dies, then they are returned to Reserve Military status. OWON and FPR may not attack members of their own faction. Active Military can be attacked anyplace by other active military or by Rogue Nation members. Rogue Nation members are always flagged as Active Miltiary and can be attacked by anyone else, including other Rogue Nation members who are not in the same Clan. There are some regions which are flagged as Battefield areas, and within those regions Reserve Military is treated as if were active, and everyone is free to be attacked by those of other factions.
- When encountering other players, or when enountering NPCs of an enemy faction, their PVP status vs. you will be color coded. The color coding is as follows:
Orange: Not allied, and able to attack you.
Yellow: Not allied, but can not attack.
Green: Allied
- If a player has not been killed within the past 10 minutes the killing player will receive credit for killing them. In the case of PVP kills the group shares the kill, but only gets partial credit. For example if a group of 4 kills a player, then they only receive credit for 1/4th of the kill. We hope that this helps to balance out zerg tactics. Player deaths are also tracked, and both will eventualyl be available along with a leaderboard.
- When players are killed the killers will obtain a Insignias from their faction, so long as the victim has not been killed in a PVP death in the past 10 minutes. This can be turned in to Bounty Collectors for military experience and to open up military perks.
- When a player zones into a new zone, or after a player dies they are granted a 45 second PVP immunity. During that time they can not be attacked by, nor can they attack any other players. They are able to buff and heal themselves but can not buff or heal anyone else. This time period is intended to prevent spawn or zone campers.
- A players pets and any traps or objects that they lay onto the ground will obey the same PVP rules as that player.
- When entering a region within a zone the rules of engagement and who controls that region will be indicated in the new Control Point Window. Rules are documented above.
- A slew of PVP related additions came with the Control Point changes. Read above in the Control Points section for more information.
- When entering a new zone the rules of engagement and controlling faction will be posted in your chat window.
Robotics
- Robotics now have their own inventory slots. You can apply these to Robotics to improve a certain aspect of their performance, similar to adding an item to your player inventory. The available Robotic upgrade slots are: Armor, Engine, Targeting, and two Weaponry slots.
- If your pet dies, these items will be salvaged and automatically used on your next pet. It is basically a fire and forget option. You equip the item and it will be used for all future pets until you replace it with something different.
Quests
- The Urgent Delivery quest will now fail if you attempt to con the NPC and fail the diplomacy check.
- Removed the text that informs you when you have been sent a work order request. You will instead receive notification when the mail arrives.
- Bounty Collectors will now accept Rogue Insignias, as well as OWON or FPR Insignias. .
Skills and Abilities
- Trapping and Trap Knowledge have been merged into a single skill. This skill is used to create traps, set traps, detect and remove traps.
- Trap filtering is now done server side.
- Traps now have levels that allow for varying damage and varying degree in disarming difficulty.
- If you detect a trap not only will it appear on your Tracking device, but its firing radius will be reduced to three feet, for the detector only.
- There is now a Disarm Trap ability which can be used to disable traps. This has a range of 6 feet. If you fail to disarm the trap then it may backfire and cause the effect to trigger. Success will remove the trap.
- Implemented the Hacking system to unlock computer controlled locks.
Vehicles
- Vehicles now have their own inventory slots. You can apply these to Vehicles to improve a certain aspect of their performance, similar to adding an item to your player inventory. The available Vehicle upgrade slots are: Armor, Brakes, Engine, Jets, and Weaponry slots.
- Resolved a bug that was allowing players to use non-vehicle abilities while in a vehicle.
- Resolved a bug that was causing players to maintain slippery vehicle controls after they had exited their vehicles.
World
- Added the contested zone: The Wailing Chasm.
- NPCs who spawn inside of control points now have a variety of new spawning options that determine if they will switch factions when the control point is taken over, if they will only spawn when a certain faction is in control, or if they will only spawn when a region is under siege.
- Zones now keep track of neighboring areas, for quest assignment purposes.
UI
- Added the following new UIs: Storage Container, Robotics Inventory, Vehicle Inventory, Control Panel, Structure Window.
- The character creation screen has been undergone some improvements to support mesh hiding and our new character models. There is now a wider variety of appearance options, including new hair, faces, facial hair, as well as the traditional skin and hair colors.
- We have moved the local Character Creation and Login screen models from a saved file system to a database system.
- Made some minor changes to the Zone Loading screen.
Alpha 0.0.4.7 Build Notes
---------------------------
It was another major update for us with 0.0.4.7. This update introduces new Clan Features, Capturable Cities and Control Points, a new Trigger system, Vehicle and Robotic Upgrades, Player Owned Shops, the Hacking and Storage Object system, Trap Improvements, a new zone and the New Character Models and Armor System. The Control Point and Siege system will be expanded upon further in the next patch.
A key component of this update is the addition of the Contested Zone, The Wailing Chasm. This zone features a capturable city and two capturable control points. This zone is serving as our testbed for the siege, political and contested zone system. Our control and political system adds a new element of strategy to the world, where Clans and Factions can conquer regions, and improve those regions in various abilities, creating stranglepoints, and strategic advantages at various locations. This will be described in detail below.
Backend
- We set up separate servers for Dynamic Quests and Control Points. This should allow for better scalability and multi-server setups when the need arises.
- Made numerous Character Server enhancements to support the improved Clan system.
- Made a small but effective server side performance tweak.
Clan
- You may temporarily form a Clan with only one member. You can can do this by speaking to a new NPC at the City Hall in Plymouth or in Central Freedomtown, or by speaking to a Revolutionary outside of town for Rogue Nations. The limit has been reduced to one charter for the time being to make it easier for users to test the new guild features. In the future this will return to 3+ members.
- Clans must now choose a Faction to belong to when the guild is created. The options are OWON, FPR and Rogue Nation. OWON and FPR are well known in our game world by now, but we would like to take a moment to describe Rogue Nations. Rogue Nations are clans that do not offer allegiance to either OWON or FPR. They in essence have declared their Clan an independent nation. Rogue Nations can attack both FPR and OWON active military players, as well as any other Rogue Nation. Rogue Nation members are automatically declared as Active Military, and are viewed as outsiders by OWON and FPR. Rogue Nations are intended for Clans who would like to participate in Open PVP vs. one another. it should be noted that depending on the zone, you may or may not be able to attack Inactive military members from OWON or FPR.
- Implemented the concept of Control Points. Control points are important locations on maps that can be conquered and controlled by Clans. When a control point is controlled by a Clan it becomes property of their faction (OWON or FPR), or in the case of a Rogue Nation it becomes the property of their Clan. Most outdoor zones other than Freedomtown and Plymouth will feature numerous control points. In order to take control of a zone that is owned by another faction you must obtain the majority of the control points. Once that happens, the zone will switch control to your faction, and the laws of that zone will obey the laws of your faction or your Clan in the case of a Rogue Nation.
- You may now get some brief information about your clan, including which faction they belong to by typing /cinfo or /claninfo. In the future we will be moving most of the clan functions to a GUI based interface, but this works for now.
- Set up some new immortal commands to make clan testing and manipulation easier for immortals (Game Masters).
Control Points
- We have added in the Control Point system. Control points are primarily cities, bases or other controllable objects (towers, choke points, etc) in the world. There will be numerous control points in every map. There are currently only two zones that are forever unconquerable, Freedomtown and Plymouth. In those zones players from those factions are safe from enemy PVP. Other zones are controllable, however, and that control is determined by who owns the majority of the control points.
- When a player enters a capturable Control Point region, a status window will appear which lists the Damage Level of that Control Point. The color of the damage bar is an indication of the status of your character in that particular region. A green bar, means that you are allied and safe from attacks. Blue means that you are allied but succeptible to attacks. Yellow means that you are hostile but not attackable by enemy players, where Orange means that you are hostile and can be attacked by enemy players.
- Whichever faction owns the majority of the control points in a zone, will own that zone. Their laws will be the laws of that zone. If a Rogue Nation owns the majority of the control points in a zone, then their laws will be enforced in that zone.
- There are now new control panels inside of Control Point regions which players can click on to view the current technology and defense levels of that Control Point. These computers also allow you to declare residency in this city, or if you are a resident to cast a vote in the upcoming election. Residents will also be able to manage their Shops in that city. If you are the mayor of a control point, you will also have the option to upgrade the different structural and defensive settings.
- Players can declare residency at a Control Point by purchasing a home in that region. Whe you purchase a new home you relinquish your old home, but all of your furniture will automatically be transferred to your new home. This is also true if your city of residence is conquered and you are evicted.
- Each control point has one representative who is in charge of that, a mayor. The mayor of that region is voted on by anyone who has declared themselves a citizen of that Control Point. You can only be a citizen if you are of the proper faction, or in the case of a Rogue Nation, the proper Clan. Votes are tallied once per week. Anyone who is a citizen of that Control Point can cast their vote by visiting the Poll Official in that area. If your citizenship is changed, then you will lose your vote at that location. At the end of the voting period (once per week), all votes will be tallied and a mayor will be elected. The results will be broadcast to any residents of that region when it does.
- If a control point is captured all votes will be reset, and an election will take place that tallies votes within 3 hours. This is to allow the new controlling faction to elect someone quickly, so that they can make adjustments.
- The mayors responsibilities are to allocate the resources of that region. Each city has a wide variety of different upgrade options, and each control point has a maximum value for each of these. For example a military base may allow for high Military Coverage and Military Training, but may not offer much in other areas. Each game day the Control Point will receive a number of Structure Points, which fluctuates by the region. The Mayor's job is to determine where to spend those points. This is a scaling system. For example if you have a level 1 hospital and want to increase it to level 2, it will only cost 2 structure points. But to increase a hospital from level 49 to level 50 will cost 50 structure points. The available city upgrade options are listed below:
Armory - Grants a bons to all armorsmithing in this city
Artillery - Grants a bonus to artillery skills.
Barracks - Increases the city defense bonus and the number of guards who spawn in the city at normal times
Cloning Facility - When a city is under siege and a player will respawn with a greater percentage of their health and power.
Construction Yard - Grants a small increase to the amount of city structure points accumulated per day, as well as to the number of structures which can be created in that area.
Electronics - Grants a bonus to all robotics creation in this city
Hospital - When this city is under siege, players who respawn inside of it are granted a regeneration bonus.
Industrial Zones - This determines how many shops a player can open in this city. A value of over 50 allows the players to have one shop. Values over 100 allows 2 shops. Over 150 allows 3. Over 200 allows 4, and a 250 allows 5 shops.
Library - Any quests completed in this city will have a bonus chance to receive a training sim upon completion of a quest.
Military Coverage - How far the cities guards will patrol away from the city. This provides some protection outside of the city for players hunting.
Military Training - Increases the strength of the guards defending the city and of the city defense
Temple - Grants any player who respawns during a siege a defensive bonus, due to their faith.
Textiles - Grants a bonus to all tailoring structures in this city
Vehicule Engineering - Grants a bonus to all vehicle creation in this city
Walls - Increases City Defense
Weaponry - Grants a bonus to all weapon crafting shops in this city
- Added in some immortal commands to allow us to tweak or force certain Control Point actions such as simulated takeovers and adjusting of values.
Crafting
- If you are crafting in your control point of residency then you will gain crafting bonuses based on the technology levels of that region. The technology levels can be permanently increaseed by the mayor at the cost of resources.
- Added in three Trap Knowledge recipes that are used for creation of the tools used to disarm traps.
- Added in six new Hacking recipes for use in hacking storage containers.
- Added in several new Robotics crafted Robotic upgrades. More information on these upgrades can be found in the Robotics section. There are currently 8 new crafted upgrades as a result of Robotic Engineering, as well as a number of new components to create those items.
- Added in several new Vehicle Engineering crafted vehicle upgrades. There are currently 4 new crafted upgrades as a result of Vehicle Engineering, as well as a number of new components to create those items.
- Hackers can now create Targeting Software, which is used in Robotics Engineering.
General
- Implemented a new Storage Object system. Storage Objects can be crates, dressers, caches, chests, etc. These can be locked, and if they are you will need to use the Hacking skill to unlock them. This is implemented in a mini-game type approach where you will receive a window with a puzzle of numbers. You can use the Hack ability, along with some crafted hacking tools to partially solve the puzzle backed on your hacking skill. You can do this up to three times and then will be forced to guess the combination. In the future we will be plugging in a trapping system to these objects, as well.
- Implemented a new Trigger system that gives us more freedom and more features for dynamic spawns, allows for more spawnpoints, as well as providing a new set of options such as cooldown timers and proximity locations
- You can now relog back in instantly, instead of having an artificially imposed one minute wait.
- The region you are now in is tracked internally and used for various functions such as dynamic quest matching or control point locations.
- Another round of code cleanup. We removed a decent amount of vestigal code that had existed from Minions of Mirth and was no longer used.
- Fixed a bug that was causing armor to absorb more damage than it should have been.
Graphics
- Introduced the new male and female models. These come with a wide range of new animations, and graphics options.
- Armor is now plugged into the new model system and will alter your characters geometry as well as textures when equipped or unequipped.
- Added a new set of desert themed buildings
- Added in a new theme of dungeon graphics and pieces.
- Gave a number of weapons new models.
- Added several new inventory icons related to Hacking and Trapping items.
Items
- Added hundreds of new items across multiple tiers in weapons, armor and shielding.
- A soft skill cap has been placed on weapons based on their tier. Players can still equip weapons that are beyond their skill cap requirement, but they will not be able to get the full potential out of those weapons until they reach that skill level.
- The level at which a damaged item will begin to have diminished capabilities has been adjusted to 40%.
- Adjusted the cost of weapons and armor across the board. These are in accordance to the most recent design specifications and should be more evenly distributed. For the most part the cost has been dramatically reduced.
- Reclassified the rarity of a good number of weapons and armor pieces.
- Added in an Improved Composite Armor set. This armor is similar to composite armor but lighter and offers improved protection.
- Injection weapons should now do greater damage, but attack at a slower rate than previously.
- Disease should now do much greater damage over a shorter period of time.
- EMP weapons will now do damage over time, in addition to instant damage.
- Flame throwers and flame launcher now cause a number of debuffs on a player while they are on fire, and have had their fire duration doubled. There are also now multiple grades of the flame thrower effect.
- Aerosol weapons have had their range and AoE radius increased from 5 to 7 meters.
- The scatter radius on shotguns has dramatically been increased.
- Sniper rifles have had their damage increased.
- Slightly increased the firing rate of automatic weapons, but also increased their damage to compensate.
- Adjusted teh stats on crafted armor to meet recent specs.
- Brute-hide armor is now considered Medium armor.
- Crafted grenade launchers now have a larger damage radius.
- Added seven new items that are used for disarming traps.
- Added in a variety of new Robotic upgrades. These are primarily crafted items and can do things from increasing your robotic pets armor, to firepower, targeting or movement speed.
- Added in a variety of new Vehicle upgrades. These allow you to boost up your engine speed, armor, etc.
NPCs
- Added 5 new skill set configurations to NPCs. Skill sets were something that we introduced in a previous patch but didn't really go into. They allow NPCs to be assigned a certain set of combat skills. This basically is like adding new classes to NPCs, as it is giving them a different set of skills.
- Beware when entering an area owned by your rival faction, as they will now attack you on sight.
- Dozens of new items have been added to mob loot tables, as well as added the multiple loot chains.
- Different types of mobs will now drop specific types of armor.
- The PC/NPC race system has been expanded to support multiple meshes.
- Added a large number of new FPR, OWON and Rogue Nation soldier types to accomodate the scaling city and siege system.
- NPCs now have the ability to scale in power based on their parent control point's technology settings.
Player vs. Player
- The Player vs. Player combat system is now implemented. If you are within the region of a Control Point, the laws of that Control Points are used. If you are outside of a Control Point Region then the laws of the zone are enforced. The laws of the zone are determined by who owns the majority of the Control Points in that zone. For zones controlled by OWON or FPR (all zones at the start) the laws are the same. Reserve Military is protected from combat unless they initiate it, in which case their immunity drops until they have been out of combat for 15 minutes. If a Reserve Military member dies, then they are returned to Reserve Military status. OWON and FPR may not attack members of their own faction. Active Military can be attacked anyplace by other active military or by Rogue Nation members. Rogue Nation members are always flagged as Active Miltiary and can be attacked by anyone else, including other Rogue Nation members who are not in the same Clan. There are some regions which are flagged as Battefield areas, and within those regions Reserve Military is treated as if were active, and everyone is free to be attacked by those of other factions.
- When encountering other players, or when enountering NPCs of an enemy faction, their PVP status vs. you will be color coded. The color coding is as follows:
Orange: Not allied, and able to attack you.
Yellow: Not allied, but can not attack.
Green: Allied
- If a player has not been killed within the past 10 minutes the killing player will receive credit for killing them. In the case of PVP kills the group shares the kill, but only gets partial credit. For example if a group of 4 kills a player, then they only receive credit for 1/4th of the kill. We hope that this helps to balance out zerg tactics. Player deaths are also tracked, and both will eventualyl be available along with a leaderboard.
- When players are killed the killers will obtain a Insignias from their faction, so long as the victim has not been killed in a PVP death in the past 10 minutes. This can be turned in to Bounty Collectors for military experience and to open up military perks.
- When a player zones into a new zone, or after a player dies they are granted a 45 second PVP immunity. During that time they can not be attacked by, nor can they attack any other players. They are able to buff and heal themselves but can not buff or heal anyone else. This time period is intended to prevent spawn or zone campers.
- A players pets and any traps or objects that they lay onto the ground will obey the same PVP rules as that player.
- When entering a region within a zone the rules of engagement and who controls that region will be indicated in the new Control Point Window. Rules are documented above.
- A slew of PVP related additions came with the Control Point changes. Read above in the Control Points section for more information.
- When entering a new zone the rules of engagement and controlling faction will be posted in your chat window.
Robotics
- Robotics now have their own inventory slots. You can apply these to Robotics to improve a certain aspect of their performance, similar to adding an item to your player inventory. The available Robotic upgrade slots are: Armor, Engine, Targeting, and two Weaponry slots.
- If your pet dies, these items will be salvaged and automatically used on your next pet. It is basically a fire and forget option. You equip the item and it will be used for all future pets until you replace it with something different.
Quests
- The Urgent Delivery quest will now fail if you attempt to con the NPC and fail the diplomacy check.
- Removed the text that informs you when you have been sent a work order request. You will instead receive notification when the mail arrives.
- Bounty Collectors will now accept Rogue Insignias, as well as OWON or FPR Insignias. .
Skills and Abilities
- Trapping and Trap Knowledge have been merged into a single skill. This skill is used to create traps, set traps, detect and remove traps.
- Trap filtering is now done server side.
- Traps now have levels that allow for varying damage and varying degree in disarming difficulty.
- If you detect a trap not only will it appear on your Tracking device, but its firing radius will be reduced to three feet, for the detector only.
- There is now a Disarm Trap ability which can be used to disable traps. This has a range of 6 feet. If you fail to disarm the trap then it may backfire and cause the effect to trigger. Success will remove the trap.
- Implemented the Hacking system to unlock computer controlled locks.
Vehicles
- Vehicles now have their own inventory slots. You can apply these to Vehicles to improve a certain aspect of their performance, similar to adding an item to your player inventory. The available Vehicle upgrade slots are: Armor, Brakes, Engine, Jets, and Weaponry slots.
- Resolved a bug that was allowing players to use non-vehicle abilities while in a vehicle.
- Resolved a bug that was causing players to maintain slippery vehicle controls after they had exited their vehicles.
World
- Added the contested zone: The Wailing Chasm.
- NPCs who spawn inside of control points now have a variety of new spawning options that determine if they will switch factions when the control point is taken over, if they will only spawn when a certain faction is in control, or if they will only spawn when a region is under siege.
- Zones now keep track of neighboring areas, for quest assignment purposes.
UI
- Added the following new UIs: Storage Container, Robotics Inventory, Vehicle Inventory, Control Panel, Structure Window.
- The character creation screen has been undergone some improvements to support mesh hiding and our new character models. There is now a wider variety of appearance options, including new hair, faces, facial hair, as well as the traditional skin and hair colors.
- We have moved the local Character Creation and Login screen models from a saved file system to a database system.
- Made some minor changes to the Zone Loading screen.
#3
04/17/2009 (10:32 pm)
@Matt: Our plan is to port to Torque3D once it is released and becomes stable. So we're probably going to hold off on too much graphically until then. Our current time frame is to have all features locked down by June, so you can probably expect a lot of feature updates in the next two months. From that point on it will all be content and bug fixes. Our hopes are to have things ported to Torque 3D and the feature set locked by the start of July. At that point we'll probably start making a publicity push and start moving into larger scale testing and releasing new screenshots/videos, etc. For the next two months though the push is going to be on eliminating as many items from our Tracker as possible, while waiting anxiously on T3D.
Torque 3D Owner Matt Kronyak
RealmSource LLC