Adam Clegg @Arclegger talks Weapons
Most of the things listed are in early design. Details haven't been hashed out and everything is subject to change.
Infiltrator
Decoy grenades are being made more useful.
New ability: Stalker Cloak. Bar drains while moving, fills while standing still. No primary weapon is allowed to be equipped. No final decision on visibility of stealth while moving or stationary.
Motion sensor: A placed object like a spawn beacon. Unlike the recon tool which pulses, the motion sensor will continuously display movement. After a certain amount(couple of minutes) of time, the motion sensor will show up on enemy's minimap so they can hunt it down.
New suit slot: Shows explosives(c4, mines, tank mines, etc.) on HUD through walls.
Vehicle hacking: A lot of code support and art support to do at this point. Been talked about a lot, but not willing to invest time on implementation right now.
Bolt action attachment slot: Straight pullback attachment for bolt-action sniper rifles, allowing a second shot without scoping out. Will have a downside, but not finalized yet. Which slot it goes in to has not finalized yet.
Recon Drone: REK making a return. Infiltrator places drone, gets a camera to control like a phoenix. Can fly the drone around. Drone counted as a vehicle. May have weapons, may just be used for spotting. Once spotted by enemy, easily shot down. Will have a range limit, time limit or deploy limitations(ex. not in spawn rooms).
New infiltrator weapon(s). Not sure what yet, but more weapons will come. NS sniper rifle a possibility.
Sunderer
Different sunderer deploy types: Dome shields, aoe cloak, pre-equipped gun ports for passengers to shoot out of, radar. Situation specific stuff.
Looking for more ideas, send them to roadmap/twitter/etc.
ESF Update
"Very soon."
UI hit direction feedback improvement
Want to make Air to Air what pilots want to do. Ex. EXP rewards and more engaging gameplay through better A2A weapons
Random stuff
Medic update will be the next class after Infiltrator.
Want to have more inter-class play and reliance between classes, like MAXes and Engineer.
GU13
With GU13 coming up really soon, I figured I'd give you guys a small peek into what's going to happen with it. I told Hamma at MLG I would give him the scoop on what I was working on, so here it is:
Imagine you're a pilot and you're gunning down a rival pilot. To your dismay, you see your victim hop out and fall to his death, robbing you of the satisfaction of killing him, but more importantly, the kill xp.
With the new changes, these dishonorable pilots will be no more. Such a move will grant you the kill and the XP. It will keep track of the last enemy to do damage to them, and will grant it if a suicide happens within X seconds. (X to be determined by design and is not up to me.)
This also applies to infantry and logging off. Shoot a guy and then he jumps off a cliff? XP and a kill for you. Pilot logs off after taking damage? XP and a kill for you.
See you in the skies,
Muldoon
ESF (aerea e antiaerea) update (un listone tremendo).
The following is a list of upcoming changes for ESF (Empire Specific Fighter) update.
Please remember everything listed here is just the current plan and everything is subject to change. Also note that some components may be split up into other updates, so they may not all be added at once.
Lock-On Adjustments
We’re making some adjustments to anti-air based lock-on weapons with the goal of making lock-on weapons less frustrating and more interesting for both those using them and those on the receiving end.
Mechanics Changes:
All anti-air lock on weapons will become maintained on lock. The shooter must keep the target locked for the duration.
The closer a lock-on target is, the faster it will acquire a lock.
Lock-on missiles will travel faster
Lock-on missile lifespan will be reduced to around 5 seconds (down from 8 or 10 seconds depending on the weapon)
The above changes are intended to create a more interesting risk vs reward dynamic for lock-on missiles. For example, at point blank range, the weapon may lock on instantly and the projectile be too fast to dodge, while at 300 meters it may take 2.5 seconds + maintaining the lock.
The shorter life span is also intended to remove some of the extra frustration when attempting to dodge a missile only to have it hit you seven seconds later.
Feedback Changes:
The following list are changes we are considering. Some may become standard UI feedback, some may get rolled into certifications:
Players who lock-on to you and fire, will be spotted for you
The lock-on display will show a number indicating how many different sources are locking on to you
The lock-on display will indicate what type of weapon is locking/locked-on
Missiles that are locked-on to you will display on the mini-map
Lock-on indicator will display in third person camera
Other Changes:
We are fixing some lock-on missile bugs and making improvements for lock-on missiles being represented more accurately to remote clients.
Flares: Based on how the above changes work, flares may be adjusted.
The bug with stealth certifications not always granting the lock-on reduction buff will be fixed
Experience Changes
Players will be awarded kills and assists for players that suicide or log out.
The kill will be awarded to the player who last inflicted damage, whether that damage was done to their vehicle or to the player themselves.
New ESF Weapons
Reminder, all the below weapons are works in progress and subject to change.
The weapons below are designed to be air combat options for the secondary (wing mounted) slots. They are intended to supplement the nose cannons.
NS-50 Mass Drivers
Current Description: "Mass Drivers are capable of launching two 50mm rounds accurately and at a high speed. The Mass Driver must reload after each shot."
The intent of the mass driver is to create a long range air to air weapon. Although a single shot is high damage, by itself its damage over time is low compared to a nose cannon. It will have limited usefulness against ground targets.
Coyote Missiles
Current Description: "Coyote Missiles are compact, short range missiles that lock-on to enemy aircraft and inflict light damage. Coyote Missiles can lock-on to targets quickly, but have a short lock-on range and lose established locks quickly."
Coyote Missiles cannot damage as quickly as a nose cannon as it takes several seconds to unload a full volley of missiles.
Locust Cannons
Current Description: "Locust cannons are high velocity machine guns that boast a high bullet spread and increased magazine size, allowing it to engag Safari/537.36
Content-Type: apracy but still score hits. The fire rate ramps up for a short period when it begins firing."
The Locust inflicts comparable damage to a nose cannon and can sustain fire for a longer period. The spin up time is intended to limit its usefulness in a high speed dogfight.
External Fuel Tank Certification Line
We want to make the fuel tanks a more competitive option for the wing mount slot. A certification line is being added that increases the top speed of the vehicle. This stacks with the high speed racer chassis.
Existing Balance Changes
A tuning pass is being done on the default and rotary nose cannons.
Default Cannons
Normalizing Cone of Fire to be the same across each empire
TTK (against other ESFs) between the empires has been brought closer together
Clip Sizes have increased to allow for longer sustained fire
Fall off damage has been added starting at 200 meters
Rotary Cannons
All Rotaries, regardless of empire, can now kill an ESF in a single clip without having to get magazine size upgrades
TTK (against other ESFs) between the empires has been brought closer together
Fall off damage was added starting at 150 meters
On top of that, we’re adjusting the empire distinctions.
Scythe weapons used to just be in between the Reaver and Mosquito weapons and have a slower projectile. Instead, they will have the quickest projectile (instead of slowest) and will reload faster.
Reaver weapons retain a higher damage and faster TTK. They also suffer less from the added fall off damage.
Mosquito weapons retain the quickest fire rate but also receive a larger clip size increase for longer sustained fire/fewer reloads.
Stealth Certifications
We’re planning, for all vehicles, to adjust each rank of stealth so that the final rank removes you from the mini-map while the previous ranks lower the range.
We’re also fixing the bug where stealth would not always slow lock-on times.
Lowering the engine audio is still planned, but not as part of the ESF update.
Fire Suppression Certifications
We’re planning, for all vehicles, to adjust fire suppression so that when activated it will apply a small heal over time for the vehicle. This works at anytime and not just when critically damaged. When activated while in critical damage, it will now set your health to above critical, instead of adding a flat amount to your current health pool
Galaxy Repair & Ammo Supply Certifications
We’re considering Galaxy repair and ammo supply certifications. Giving ESFs and Liberators more locations to re-arm from and more objectives to attack/defend in the sky.
La storia dei sunderer mi garba assai!
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