From The Depths News

What is up Depthians!
We are back with another monstrous update as this one incorporates five beta test builds, so we have a lot to cover.

If you want to dive straight into the massive changelog / dissertation Click

We should probably start with the biggest change to From The Depths in this update and that is the change of fuel and ammo storage.
Quoting Nick, our lead developer

Originally posted by Developer

The change is quite simple: "remove ammo and fuel as separate resources. Weapons will consume materials directly, fuel engines and CJEs will burn materials directly".
Before I dig into why I think this is the right thing for FtD, I'd like to explain a few details.
Energy, fuel and ammo are still needed for your constructs.
We have changed the "ammo barrels (etc)" and "fuel tanks" so they are just alternative material storage containers, but with the following properties:
--"ammo barrels" now increase the maximum possible rate of usage of materials as "ammo" for reloading guns. They still explode.
--"fuel tanks" increase the maximum possible rate of use of materials as "fuel" for fuel engines and CJEs, with the future stretch goal of fuel tanks being flammable.
--So ammo racking is going to remain a feature of the game- vehicles that need to reload a large amount of materials may need additional ammo barrels

Ammo and oil processors are replaced ship-wide with existing material storage containers of the same size. They'll be made decorative blocks so you can still use them decoratively in future if you want to.

The oil refinery will be repurposed (described later in the patch notes)

There are two main reasons why I think this is the right move. Why it's right for the business and why it's right for the player.

Let's start with why I think it's right for the player:

Ammo and fuel containers are currently purchasable as either "empty or full". This is confusing when considered in the context of the campaign, story missions, custom battles, multiplayer matches...how do empty and full tanks behave in these modes? I'd need an hour to study the code and a small essay to explain it. That's not good game design.

Localised resources, when considering just the moving of material (and energy, if you want), becomes infinitely more manageable. The supply group system and the transit fleet system are not intuitive and for a lot of situations, their usage becomes fiddly and too complicated. We've replaced these systems with a new supply system that is much more intuitive for moving materials and energy around.

The UI is less cluttered now that ammo and fuel bars are not shown. This is not a minor point...it'll reduce the amount of data on screen by about 40% in a lot of the different views. It'll be so much easier to know at a glance if a particular fleet is running low on "materials" or doing fine. Is a transport ready to leave, or does it need to pick up more materials? Will a set of vehicles have enough materials for the next fight...this is so much easier with just one main resource type per vehicle.

When you or an enemy run out of ammo or fuel in a battle it's just frustrating. By combining fuel, ammo and materials for repairing you can guarantee that if someone runs out, the fight is going to be over quickly.

I imagine that deep down the majority of players would rather not have to create, stock and resupply fuel and ammo. I know that personally, the requirement to do this puts me off playing the campaign. By using a single material it still focuses the game on making efficient war machines, maintaining supply lines and growing your economy, but without the extra confusion of mat->ammo and mat-> fuel conversion.

Being able to assess weapons, engines and vehicles in terms of material cost and running cost is elegant.

Most grand strategy games and RTS games don't have localised resources, and many don't have more than 2 resource types to handle. Very few combine localised materials with multiple types.

Why it's right for the business:

The ammo and oil processors were created about 8 years ago. Boring single blocks that don't add much to the game. It's been our intention to add something similar to the oil refinery but for ammo creation. That's a lot of work and adds to the complexity of the logistical part of the game, which we feel is already a burden.

Making the localised resource supply system more user friendly to make it easy/natural/pleasant to move ammo, fuel and material around the map would require a lot of effort and, quite frankly, I'm not sure we'd ever manage it.

The complexity of the UI scares off a lot of our customers. The barriers to getting a gun firing or a boat moving will be lowered if a single material container can theoretically get everything working.

Running out of ammo/fuel in combat is a problem for our players. We want to find a solution to that, but it would take a lot of effort to do so. We also want the strategic AI to always enter a battle with enough ammo and fuel for the fight- that's another massive bunch of work.

The campaign's strategic AI has to work hard to get materials where it wants them. It's a bundle of work and added complexity to get NPC fleets to restock ammo and fuel as well.

We had proposed work to make resource dumps (from dead ships) contain ammo and fuel...again, that's more work, more bugs, more testing.

Certain game modes such as story missions, tournament mode, and multiplayer maps should theoretically allow the player to choose the amount of ammo or fuel stocked into their vehicles before the match begins. That's another bundle of work and added complexity we'd like to avoid.

Currently out of play units on the map can run out of fuel and will still continue to move "for free". It's exploitable and we don't have a solution to that...but if all the different out of play movement calculations are burning material, there will be no avoiding the cost.
The development effort can be much better spent polishing up other features that I actually believe in, rather than flogging the dead horse of logistical complexity in an attempt to make it interesting, approachable and fun for everyone (which I fundamentally don't think it would ever be).

Fundamentally I think that by winding back this feature we tie up a large number of loose ends and it results in a far more finished and enjoyable product.

And what's-more everyone on the development team agrees that we enjoy the game for fighting, looting and creating...not staring blankly at dozens of resource bars trying to figure out who needs to head back for more fuel and how long we need to wait for ammunition to process.

We've also simplified the resource transfer system. "Supply groups" and "Transit Fleets" have been replaced with a simple but comprehensive three-tier system. You can mark a vehicle as a "Creator", a "Cargo" or a "User". Creators fill up Cargos (and Users), Cargos give to Users (up to procurement levels). Users equalise their material with their neighbours, so do Creators, and there are a few handy transfers from Users back to Cargo and Creator to make sure they maintain their procurement levels as well. This system covers 95% of the way people were using the resource system and does it all semi-automatically. This simplification is much more possible now that materials are the only resource, as they invariably just need to flow from the resource zones to the front line, with everyone (Creators and Cargo) keeping what they need and passing the rest on. This new resource system also facilitates the long-range transport of materials from refinery to refinery, which is neat. The system also has an option, for Creator and Cargo types, to set their "supply chain index", so if you want to relay materials from output to output in order to accumulate them at a central location you can set the supply chain index to determine which way along the chain the materials will flow. It's all explained in the game.

After spending a lot of time with this new system from adventure to campaign and designer mode, the gameplay feels a little faster to get going and a little simpler for fleet management. As if you didn’t already know, you can shift+right click (with your supply construct selected) on the target construct / flagship of a fleet to keep supplied, keep holding down shift and right-click where you want to pick the resources up from and once again while not letting go of shift, shift+right click on the target construct/flag ship to finish the loop.

This would be done of course after setting up the settings Creator, Cargo and User.
Creator as an example is the harvesting construct, Cargo which would be the supply ship, User which would be a single target construct that uses the mats.

This will keep the supply ship target waypoint updated and therefore your supply ship will always head to the target construct no matter where it has moved to after setting up the loop.

You still need ammo and fuel boxes on your constructs, as these are governing the transfer rate / the speed that stock your turrets and fuel engine with the materials needed for them to run. You can run a construct without fuel or ammo boxes, however, once your APS clips are empty you will see a drop in your rate of fire as the material is not being transferred fast enough, this is the same for fuel engines and CJE.

Another change that goes hand in hand with resource management is the changes to fuel refineries.
In short:
[Quote]
Refineries on a force with greater than 1 million materials on it will begin refining the material into 'commodities' that are stored centrally. Commodities (AKA centralised materials) can be added by the player to any vehicle in allied territory, at any time.

Resource zones have a new feature too, and that is the ability to deactivate a resource zone on your owned tiles and if you own enough territory as you can see from the UI when double clicking on the resource zone “Zone Deactivation”.



Custom Jet Engines, have had some additional parts and new features.

We have the new ducted air intakes which as you can see have different attachment points



These ducted intakes allow you to have your CJE enclosed inside your construct enabling you to pass ducting through to access airflow outside.





And as you can see in the pic below they are enclosed and making use of the air duct intakes.



You can also funnel the exhaust of your CJE's that would be under the waterline by using the two new connector blocks, a 90-degree corner and an extension piece which allows them to work as long as you funnel the exhaust out above the waterline.



PACs have also had a rework and new additions.
We now have the long range lens which has a circular 10° field of fire, the close range lens which has a circular 35° field of fire, the scatter lens which has a circular 30° field of fire, and the vertical lens which has a 10° horizontal / 60° vertical field of fire (good for AA). The other differences between them is the percentage of damage drop off at certain ranges, which is marked in their UI.





One other awesome change to the PAC system is that melee lenses do not need to be hooked up to the now called long range lens. Simply setup your melee head and snakey noodle PAC tubes with a terminator on the end, then link up to your other melee lens via Q in the drop down menu. The scatter lens also deserves some attention here, as it can double up the number of beams if we increase the charge time max x4 at 30 seconds. The PAC system has had many tweaks which you should check up on in the change logs.

Shields have also had some love. Projector shields reflect and laser scatter modes are now merged and have also had a slight buff to ricochet chance. Ring shields armor bonus has also increased by 50%.


We also have some new additions to APS in terms of coolers.

From left to right we now have an L shape, 4 way and a 5 way cooler.




We now have some new wide wheel additions too for all you land vehicle lovers.



The next biggest change would be steam engines even though other changes will be implemented in this update. We are once again rehashing the whole system, which will be released in the following updates.

I had asked Weng a number of questions as to why the change was needed, why are the parts expensive, when and why would you use steam over fuel, and this is what he had to say:

Reason why steam changes are needed:

• Steam was previously totally unbalanced and arbitrary. For example, 9 small boilers with 1 small piston was the optimal steam setup, which was more efficient and denser than almost all other engines; and turbine power generation only depended on its pressure, so compact turbines were always optimal.
  
• It lacked many critical info in its UI.
  
• It was hard to control the usage of steam
  

What's good with new steam:

• A bit more of realism and complexity
  
• Larger steam now generally have better efficiency and density than equivalent smaller steam
  
• More useful info such as total power production, performance over time
  
• Possibility to regulate steam usage with valves
  

Pros of steam compared to injector fuel:

• More dense and more efficient
  
• Even more dense with turbines
  
• Easier to fit into irregular space
  
• Provides a buffer with flywheels or steam tanks
  
• More efficient when used for propellers
  
• Doesn't require fuel containers, uses material directly from any type of storage
  
• Computationally less intensive
  

Cons of steam compared to fuel:

• Still hard to regulate, so it's only useful when the power usage is constant or there's a buffer energy storage
  
• Turbines waste energy when batteries are full
  
• Crankshafts waste energy when reaching speed limit
  
• More susceptible to damage (injector engines can often still run fine even when half of it is gone, steam can stop working when a single pipe is destroyed)
  

Why cost of parts is hilariously high: Steam engines have better efficiency and density (many players seem to forget that one) than injector engines. So a higher initial costs makes it less overpowered.

(In my opinion, the potential waste of energy is a major drawback of steam and justifies for its high potential power. But iirc Draba said that injector engines would be useless on designs that require a lot of power if steam doesn't have higher initial cost, which also makes sense.)

Problem with new steam that can't be fixed:

• Many old designs are broken due to low power output
  
• More complexity
  

Problems that can probably be fixed but I don't have a solution:

• Inefficient steam engines are ridiculously bad (a bad steam engine is like 30 PPM and 50 PPV, while a good one is around 600 PPM and 110 PPV) (I tried to fix this and spent like 40 hours on that, but I only managed to make it easier to build a mediocre engine)
  
• Cannot be simulated to calculate a stable power output, like fuel engines do (actually it's easy but would take a lot of time to do and I don't think it's necessary)
  

Another massive change is the detection rework which I also left a few questions for Ian AKA Blothorn to explain the system and how it works.

Why a change was warranted:

• Different types of detection weren't well balanced--for instance, visual components had better accuracy than IR and vastly better range.
  
• Detection autoadjust used an incorrect formula, so optimizing adjustment was both mechanical and tedious.
  
• Trackers having much better detection ranges than search sensors meant that detection was very binary--if you could see something at all you could usually get a precise lock (barring ECM, which was only counterable by large numbers of components).
  
• Needing both sensors and munitions warners made reactive missile defense difficult on small vehicles.
  
• There were a number of other inconsistencies/imbalances, e.g. some visual/IR sensors working through water, steam engines producing no heat, etc.
  

Overview of the new system:

On the offensive side, each sensor type now has a role in which it is optimal, and large vehicles are best using a variety to cover their weaknesses. Visual probably remains the default for above-water detection--it remains impossible to reduce visual signature other than reducing size. IR is better against fast vehicles, as they have trouble avoiding high IR signatures from thrust and drag. Both visual and IR are weak in rangefinding (although coincidence rangefinders are adequate for most purposes); radar is correspondingly strong in range and weak in bearing, although it often offers better detection chances against vehicles that don't pay attention to radar stealth.

On the defensive side, there are two approaches. Most obvious is signature reduction--while it is deliberately difficult to avoid detection entirely, reducing signature reduces detection chances and thus degrades opposing accuracy. At short ranges, however, this doesn't work well--detection chances are likely high regardless, and low errors at short range mean even sparse detections can give a good fix. Smoke and chaff can be useful here: they increase detection chance while adding a distance-independent error to opponent's visual and radar sensors, respectively.


ECM, buoys, and radar guidance have also been reworked. Buoys are more powerful, becoming more accurate as they get closer to the target. While their base error is high, at long ranges a buoy at close range can beat the accuracy of any onboard sensor. If you worry about opponents’ buoys, ECM can now intermittently jam them--except if they are connected to their parent vehicle by a harpoon cable, in which case they don't need the vulnerable wireless connection.


Most blueprints should need no modifications under the new system, although a few may want a few more or less GPP cards. The one exception is water interactions--IR cameras, laser rangefinders, and retroreflection sensors can no longer work through water, so submarines that used them underwater or vehicles that used them to detect submarines will need to replace them (likely with buoys). Vehicles that predominantly used visual detection should also consider adding a greater variety of sensors--in particular, visual camera trackers tied to AA mainframes should likely be replaced with IR cameras. Also, radars and cameras can take over missile and projectile detection (radar is required for projectile detection), so munitions warners can be removed/replaced with additional sensors.

Last but not least a sweet little addition to our build menu prefabs.


Please do make sure you go through the Changelog we did not post the logs here as they would need multiple posts xD

What is up Depthians!

A quick little update.


[h3]AI[/h3]

• Added a number of inputs to the projectile avoidance routine, particularly bearing, closing velocity, and closest approach/deviation from intercept course
  

[h3]APS[/h3]

• Beltfeeder loading cycle tooltip accounts for intakes being almost always ready when the cycle starts (so displayed cycle time is shorter)
  
• Beltfeeder minimum reload delay down to 1 sec
  
• Beltfeeders need at least a 2 x SHELL_RELOAD_TIME delay after the last shot before switching from loading to firing cycle again
  
• Bore evacuator cost up from 30 to 40
  
• Muzzle brake and bore evacuator armor up from 40 to 50
  
• Muzzle brake cost up from 20/40 to 40/80 for the 1/2m variants
  
• Muzzle brakes increase inaccuracy by 5%, instead of reducing shell speed by 5%
  

[h3]DETECTION[/h3]

• Missile/projectile warnings are now shared among mainframes. This mainly affects CIWS and projectile avoidance routines; LAMS/interceptors/ACBs already checked all mainframes. Mainframe parameters removed from Lua functions dealing with missile warnings; the old invocations will continue to work, but will access the global pool.
  

[h3]WORKSHOP[/h3]

• Updated the planet and mod workshop interfaces for easier uploading and downloading of planets and mods
  

[h3]APS[/h3]

• Cannon controller by multiple LWCs still obeys the fire rate limit
  
• Fixed a problem causing cannons to damage their own barrels
  
• Performance of aiming/barrel handling logic improved
  

[h3]DETECTION[/h3]

• Tracker assignment mode now saves correctly
  

[h3]LASERS[/h3]

• Laser couplers now clear up sides that do not have any connections to cavities/doublers/destabilizers
  

[h3]MULTIPLAYER[/h3]

• Locked the game world origin for multiplayer maps (not adventure/campaign) so that host and clients don’t end up too far from the origin (which creates graphics issues)
  

[h3]NETER[/h3]

• Fixed starting resource values in land and multiplayer designers.
  

[h3]NUKE[/h3]

• Tactical nukes on subconstructs now do their explosion damage in the right location
  

[h3]PROPELLERS[/h3]

• Propellers currently spinning backwards no longer instantly provide a forward force when target thrust changes towards the forward direction
  

[h3]REGRESSION[/h3]

• Fixed a bug where lasers would crash client machines
  

[h3]PERFORMANCE[/h3]

• There’s now a per-light ‘shadows’ option, by default all lights will not cast any shadows, and it can be activated per-light (each light casting a shadow will greatly reduce the FPS)
  

[h3]APS MODULE COUNT[/h3]

• Beltfeed modifier scaling changed from 0.75
• DIAMETER_IN_M ^ 0.4 to 0.75
• DIAMETER_IN_M ^ 0.45. Paired with module count cap means optimal low cal beltfeeders fire significantly faster
  
• Maximum module count of APS shells capped at 20. Customizer parts that would get above this won’t connect
  

[h3]LIGHTING[/h3]

• Lighting blocks now use low resolution shadows and per vertex lighting. Explosions have smaller lighting radii and use per vertex lighting. The sun now uses per vertex lighting. This is to improve performance.
  

[h3]PROJECTILE ARMOUR[/h3]

• All projectiles have 20 armor, instead of 1
  
• Explosions do their full nominal damage to missiles/CRAM shells within their radius. Doing damage to a projectile no longer reduces the explosion’s strength
  
• Laser AP without frequency doublers is now 20/30 for pulsed/continuous. AP bonus of a frequency doubler with 1 pump is 180/270, instead of 200/300
  
• Missile interceptors now have 20 AP
  

[h3]SAILS[/h3]

• Sails are now affected by air density
  
• Sails now have a soft speed limit of 50m/s
  

[h3]SIMPLE WEAPONS[/h3]

• Armour of age os sail guns up from 10 to 15
  
• Armour of casemated guns up from 30 to 50
  
• Armour of modern guns with a gunshield up from 25-30 to 40
  
• Armour of modern guns without a gunshield up from 20-25 to 30
  
• Armour of ram up from 20 to 40
  
• Armour of revolving blast gun up from 15 to 20
  
• Armour of simple laser up from 10 to 20
  
• Cost of 50mm AA gun down from 200 to 150, AP up from 5 to 6
  
• Damage of 30mm assault cannon up from 250 to 300, shell velocity from 250 to 450
  
• Shell velocity of 60mm autocannon up from 300 to 500
  

[h3]TURRETS[/h3]

• 2m piston health up from 800 to 1600
  
• All 1x1x1m turrets and pistons have 800 health (up from 400 for piston, 500 for elevation only turret)
  
• All turret and piston blocks have 50 armor, up from 12 for pistons and 25-35 for turrets
  

[h3]UI[/h3]

• Various UI improvements
  

[h3]WORKSHOP[/h3]

• Added the ability to change item name, description and tags of a workshop item
  
• Added the option to in the workshop UI spawn a workshop blueprint item into designer, where you can view it and save it as you wish
  
• Made it essential that a screenshot is present before the blueprint can be submitted to the workshop
  
• Revamped the steam workshop for vehicle blueprints.
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
[h3]ACB[/h3]

• The GPID ‘set to’ action will now be loaded correctly [BUGS-2612]
  

[h3]APS[/h3]

• Ammo intakes attached directly to a firing piece can always load a shell if there is space for it, no need to wait for the intake time
  
• Fixed a problem causing explosions from shells clipping through slopes/triangles and similar structural blocks on subconstructs
  

[h3]CJE[/h3]

• Changed cost of connectors from 800 to 20, 800 was an unintentional value.
  

[h3]CRAM[/h3]

• Fixed CRAM barrels sometimes not extending back to 100% length after reloading
  

[h3]MULTIPLAYER[/h3]

• Fixed Rattle Boyale multiplayer map as LH had a broken starting vehicle
  
• Spawning of resource zones in adventure mode is now synched over network-sorry about that!
  

[h3]RENDERING[/h3]

• Fixed a unity rendering glitch that was causing low frame rates when lights and explosions mixed
  

[h3]SHARD CANNON[/h3]

• Fixed collider to better match the model.
  

[h3]VIDEO BLOCK[/h3]

• Better MP synchronization when selecting a new camera
  

[h3]WHEELS[/h3]

• Fixed costs and hp of 1m wide wheels and mock wheels.
  

[h3]WORKSHOP[/h3]

• Fixed a bug where entering the Vehicle Workshop would re-activate Steam cloud for FTD. You should probably disable Steamcloud for FTD as it can cause issues.
  
• Fixed the loading of very legacy workshop entries. They should pretty much load OK now, but don’t expect them to be too functional
  

Hey all :)
Hopefully this BetaTest will be available later today or tomorrow.


[h2]MULTIPLAYER[/h3]

• For simplicity we have added a blueprint transfer interface to the strategy tab selection of player made designs. So you can transfer and select in the same interface.
  

[h3]STEAMWORKS[/h3]

• Upgraded to Steamworks version 1.48 and brought the Steamworks.Net wrapper inside the FTD codebase- will refresh the Steam workshop UIs soon.
  

[h3]UI[/h3]

• The debriefing screen (mission won/failed) has been updated
  

[h3]AI[/h3]

• Target prioritisation now use the real firepower for weapons, it’s not just counting weapons anymore (all weapon types, armor cost percent and nukes -as melee- have been added) [BUGS-2368]
  

[h3]APS[/h3]

• Fixed unfused APS shell explosion visuals spawning in the wrong place on a mainconstruct hit
  
• Fixed unfused APS shell explosions possibly spawning in the wrong place on a subconstruct hit
  

[h3]BLOCKS[/h3]

• The resource gatherer / oil drill now check against wave height not mean sea level
  

[h3]MULTIPLAYER[/h3]

• Host’s setting for team selection mode is now saved, and defaults to host->client->auto
  
• Loading an adventure mode/campaign save will no longer incorrectly adjust team commodity level
  
• Lobby now shows the victory/failure options on the Rules tab as it should.
  

[h3]REGRESSION[/h3]

• Fixed the rotation of turrets on clients in multiplayer
  
• Music player exception spam hopefully fixed now
  
• Player team on Neter Land Designer now has infinite materials again, a bug reset it to 1000 materials
  

[h3]UI[/h3]

• Factions ‘not present in instance’ are no longer shown on diplomacy interfaces’
  
• The join our discord button now actually does something
  
• Weapon sync tab label fields are wider
  

What is up awesome Depthians! A new beta test is up on Steam, please remember that beta updates are for testing new features and changes before they hit stable! I will set up a detailed post once this beta test hits stable.

Small note CJE generators will produce force unless all of the thrust is used

v2.8.8 [Add] : The avatar drop pod can now track the target vehicle to help it land on target
v2.8.8 [Add] : Quest for Neter campaign now has 4 unique starting positions and background stories, one for each difficulty level.
v2.8.8 [Add] : Added small intake piping capability to small CJE system.
v2.8.8 [Add] : An 'all rambots of X faction are dead' victory condition type has been added
v2.8.8 [Add] : A 1 vs 1 player vs player map has been added
v2.8.8 [Add] : Adventure mode can now be played multiplayer
v2.8.8 [Add] : Custom jets, dediblades and all powered propulsion got a PAC-style stats tab
v2.8.8 [Add] : Fuel engine UI replaced, it now matches the style of the particle cannon one
v2.8.8 [Add] : Supply dumps are now rendered in game to show you where they are (previously only visible on fleet control UI or map). Color and size show how much material they contain.
v2.8.8 [Add] : Updated the avatar respawning UI and added a 'spectate' tab to it
v2.8.8 [Add] : Various UI improvements
v2.8.8 [Add] : All weapons got a new tab on their Q menu: Synchronization
v2.8.8 [Add] : Each weapon can be assigned a parent on the synchronization tab, and will try to fire at least X seconds, but at most Y seconds after the parent did
v2.8.8 [Add] : Each weapon can have a maximum waiting time. If only syncing stopped it from shooting for over Z seconds it'll fire a shot without waiting for the parent
v2.8.8 [Add] : If 2 weapons are synced to each other with a 0 delay they will try to fire with a 1 frame difference between them
v2.8.8 [Add] : If a weapon is destroyed all other weapons depending on it will fire freely until it's repaired. If the destroyed weapon was synced to something its children will sync to the grandparent
v2.8.8 [Add] : Missile controllers set to continuous mode, with a stagger between missiles will sync each individual missile
v2.8.8 [Add] : Weapon firing delay setting removed (it was a trap silently decreasing rate of fire)
v2.8.8 [Add] : Weapons get an integer ID that's persistent and unique on their craft. It is shown in their tooltip, and syncing can be set up based on that
v2.8.8 [Add] : Weapons now hold fire for 3 seconds when they are put into play
v2.8.8 [Change] : Added a below water toggle.
v2.8.8 [Change] : Added a block cluster aimpoint type that attempts to avoid selecting isolated blocks (e.g. masts).
v2.8.8 [Change] : Added a hot blocks aimpoint type.
v2.8.8 [Change] : Armor damage reduction is now AP / AC, instead of AP / (2 * AC). AP values halved across the board (the 3 pdr simple cannons got their damage halved instead)
v2.8.8 [Change] : Frag angle damage modifier from (2.5 + ANGLE^0.5) / 16 to (2 + ANGLE^0.5) / 16. Paired with the damage buff this means high angle is slightly better
v2.8.8 [Change] : Frag base damage up by 25%
v2.8.8 [Change] : Projectiles that ricochet only do 75% damage to the block hit (on top of armor and angle reductions)
v2.8.8 [Change] : Projectiles that ricochet still lose damage potential as if they did full damage, and their damage is reduced to 75% after that
v2.8.8 [Change] : Ricochet chance went from COS(ANGLE) ^ (AP / AC) to COS(ANGLE) ^ (4 * (AP / AC) ^ 0.5). Ricochets are less common, and the angle is now more important/AP less important
v2.8.8 [Change] : 130mm casemated simple gun barrel length up from 4.25 to 5m
v2.8.8 [Change] : 150mm casemated simple gun barrel length up from 6.56 to 7m
v2.8.8 [Change] : APS cannons on turrets now start elevating their barrels even when the target is out of their azimuth arc
v2.8.8 [Change] : Barrel length needed for full GP burn is now 2.2 * GP_COUNT * (DIAMETER/100)^0.55, instead of 5 * (GP_LENGTH * DIAMETER/100)^0.75. Medium-high cal and low cal without too much GP generally needs shorter barrels. Low cal with 10+ GP needs noticeably longer barrels
v2.8.8 [Change] : Base kinetic damage up by 5%
v2.8.8 [Change] : Cannons using fire rates below 2400 are using the proper fire rate (fix for that was suspended to sort out some timing issues)
v2.8.8 [Change] : Default special factor setting for HE bodies is now 1, instead of 0.8
v2.8.8 [Change] : Firing piece builtin recoil absorption capacity up by 25%
v2.8.8 [Change] : Firing piece builtin recoil recovery up to 4/3 the old value
v2.8.8 [Change] : Flak base damage up from 1/3 of HE to 1/2 of HE
v2.8.8 [Change] : Flak base radius down from 3.5x of HE to 3x of HE
v2.8.8 [Change] : For barrel traverse multiple barrels no longer set effective caliber to the diameter of the cylinder around them. Each barrel beyond 1 increases effective caliber by 20% instead
v2.8.8 [Change] : Gunpowder casing kinetic energy and recoil up by 25%
v2.8.8 [Change] : Hollow point head kinetic damage modifier is down from 1.5 to 1.2
v2.8.8 [Change] : Low caliber kinetic damage boost reduced from (500 / MAX(CALIBER, 125)) ^ 0.25 to (500 / MAX(CALIBER, 125)) ^ 0.125
v2.8.8 [Change] : Max penetration HEAT damage up from 30% to 40% of a frag warhead with the same 30° angle
v2.8.8 [Change] : Maximum rail charge for any given shell is up by 25%
v2.8.8 [Change] : Shell speed penalty from 2m muzzle break no longer stacks
v2.8.8 [Change] : The way NPC structures are placed, repaired,saved and synchronised in multiplayer has been made much more efficient
v2.8.8 [Change] : Anti missile cannons aim at the attached mainframe's first possible target when idling
v2.8.8 [Change] : Anti missile cannons can now target and damage CRAM shells. Max diameter slider up from 1000 to 2000mm
v2.8.8 [Change] : Anti missile cannons got a slider, increases or decreases priority of missiles depending on their diameter
v2.8.8 [Change] : Anti missile cannons got a target type selector, missiles + CRAMs/missiles only/CRAMs only
v2.8.8 [Change] : CIWS damage multiplier down from 8x to 4x
v2.8.8 [Change] : Diameter of missile colliders is 2.5x the diameter of the actual missile against cannon projectiles and frags
v2.8.8 [Change] : CRAM cannons on turrets now start elevating their barrels even when the target is out of their azimuth arc
v2.8.8 [Change] : Flash suppression barrel reduces detection range to 50%, instead of 20%
v2.8.8 [Change] : Fuses reduce health by an additive 10% each, instead of 5%
v2.8.8 [Change] : Non-kinetic payload damage up by 20%
v2.8.8 [Change] : Detection components now test line-of-sight against all subobjects.
v2.8.8 [Change] : Further tweaks to visual, IR, radar, sonar, and passive sonar signatures.
v2.8.8 [Change] : Most detection components' AC increased to 30; costs standardized.
v2.8.8 [Change] : Personal grenade launcher base damage up from 200 to 1500. Radius uses standard scaling now, from 3m to ~8.97m
v2.8.8 [Change] : ACB got a new condition: enemy CRAM shells within X-Y range band
v2.8.8 [Change] : Interceptor CRAM damage multiplier goes from 0.4x against 1000mm to 0.8x against 2000mm (damage multiplier against S/M missiles is 0.5x/1.0x)
v2.8.8 [Change] : Interceptors can now target and damage CRAMs
v2.8.8 [Change] : Interceptors can target missiles and CRAMs, only missiles or only CRAMs
v2.8.8 [Change] : Interceptors do not target CRAM shells more than 5m underwater
v2.8.8 [Change] : LAMS node targeting improved
v2.8.8 [Change] : LAMS nodes got a slider, increases or decreases priority of missiles and shells depending on their diameter
v2.8.8 [Change] : LAMS nodes start checking for targets again when the distance to their locked one starts to increase
v2.8.8 [Change] : Added minor visual explosion effect to all missiles (missiles with no HE or frag payload simply disappeared when shot down)
v2.8.8 [Change] : Missile base health down to 5/6 the previous value
v2.8.8 [Change] : Missile damage up by 25%
v2.8.8 [Change] : Missile interceptor damage down to 3/4 the previous value
v2.8.8 [Change] : Lua missiles now require GPP.
v2.8.8 [Change] : Remote guidance missiles are immune to ECM as long as they have an intact cable connection, like sensor buoys.
v2.8.8 [Change] : Assault on Eyrie co-op multiplayer map has been re-balanced and tweaked and is now Assault on Conger
v2.8.8 [Change] : Co-op campaigns can now be customised before you launch them in multiplayer
v2.8.8 [Change] : The multiplayer lobby UI has been designed
v2.8.8 [Change] : The tower defence map has been fixed and adjusted
v2.8.8 [Change] : There is a 5 second count down before a match is started in multiplayer during which changes to the configuration are locked
v2.8.8 [Change] : Tournament of Kings multiplayer map now includes the Rambot avatar
v2.8.8 [Change] : The Neter map has been redrawn and Quest For Neter faction areas have been moved around
v2.8.8 [Change] : Tactical nuke base damage up from 80 000 to 500 000. Radius uses standard scaling now, up from 50m to 51.2m
v2.8.8 [Change] : Tactical nuke cost up from 100 to 2500 materials, weight from 40 to 400
v2.8.8 [Change] : Particle cannon damage down to ~73.33%
v2.8.8 [Change] : Custom control surfaces now move a lot faster
v2.8.8 [Change] : All fragment trails are shorter and width scales with damage. HEAT particles are closer to yellow, HESH particles are red now
v2.8.8 [Change] : Shell trails are now shorter and color for APS/CRAM is fixed orange-ish (tracers work the same as before). Length scales with shell speed less, CRAM trails are thicker and still scale with payload
v2.8.8 [Change] : Size-based detection range for projectiles reduced to 72% of the original value (CRAM shells have 396-792m base detection range)
v2.8.8 [Change] : Visible tracer trail is twice as long as the trail of a standard shell. Tracer width is a multiplier now, default is 2 (value range is still 0.5-10)
v2.8.8 [Change] : Shield projectors now spawn fully charged to their target strength
v2.8.8 [Change] : CRAM barrel tooltip now also shows shell health
v2.8.8 [Change] : Laser colorer function is now built into the standard laser combiner. If the combiner has a colorer the colorer's settings will be used
v2.8.8 [Change] : Q menu for turrets now doesn't have the mostly empty stats tab
v2.8.8 [Change] : Various tooltip improvements
v2.8.8 [Change] : Detection uses a different velocity compensation method for targets that have warped within the previous second in order to limit the usefulness of rapid, short warps in fooling detection.
v2.8.8 [Change] : APS 1x1x1 mantlet healths up from 600 to 1000
v2.8.8 [Change] : APS barrel armor up from 25 to 35, health up from 700 to 800/m
v2.8.8 [Change] : APS bore evacuator and muzzle brake armor up from 30 to 40. 2m muzzle break now has 1600 health, instead of 800
v2.8.8 [Change] : APS firing piece armor up from 20 to 30, health up from 350 to 500
v2.8.8 [Change] : APS heavy barrel armor up from 40 to 50, health from 900 to 1000/m. APS heavy barrel cost down from 70 to 60 material/m
v2.8.8 [Change] : APS laser targeter armor up from 25 to 50
v2.8.8 [Change] : APS non-1x1x1m mantlet healths up from 1000 to 1500/block
v2.8.8 [Change] : APS rail magnet and attaching fixture armor up from 30 to 50, health down from 600 to 500
v2.8.8 [Change] : APS recoil absorber armor up from 10 to 20, health from 125 to 150/m
v2.8.8 [Change] : CRAM barrel armor up from 30 to 50, health from 900 to 1000
v2.8.8 [Change] : CRAM firing piece armor up from 25 to 30, health up from 500 to 800
v2.8.8 [Change] : CRAM gauge increase armor up from 30 to 40, health from 400 to 500
v2.8.8 [Change] : CRAM heavy barrel armor up from 40 to 60
v2.8.8 [Change] : CRAM laser targeter armor up from 25 to 50
v2.8.8 [Change] : LAMS node armor up from 10 to 25
v2.8.8 [Change] : Laser armored optics armor up from 20 to 60, health stays 600
v2.8.8 [Change] : Laser combiner armor up from 4 to 30, health from 100 to 400
v2.8.8 [Change] : Laser optics armor up from 10 to 40, health stays 250
v2.8.8 [Change] : Missile connector armor up from 3 to 30 (health is still 100)
v2.8.8 [Change] : Missile controller armor up from 12 to 30. It is now susceptible to EMP, takes 10% damage from it
v2.8.8 [Change] : Missile ejector addon armor up from 3 to 30 (health is still 100)
v2.8.8 [Change] : Missile hatch armor up from 40 to 50
v2.8.8 [Change] : Missile rail launcher and gantry armor up from 20 to 40
v2.8.8 [Change] : Missile standard launcher and gantry armor up from 20 to 30
v2.8.8 [Change] : Missile winch armor up from 3 to 40, health up from 100 to 200
v2.8.8 [Change] : Short range laser combiner armor up from 15 to 50, health from 600 to 1500
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Custom jet exhaust particles exit the right way on jets using 90° connectors
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Fix to collision damage that makes damage spread more evenly in all directions
v2.8.8 [Fix] : When copy/pasting a block, any empty string in it wasn't pasted to the destination, now it is [BUGS-2543]
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Fixed CRAM cannons counting EMP payload twice in shell power and firepower calculations
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Explosions not doing any damage after a while [BUGS-2238]
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Ducts (in the air tab) will not block fuel engine exhausts anymore [BUGS-2534]
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Blocks and shell racks exploding on the main construct can no longer jump through blocks at high speeds
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Explosions are less likely to jump through blocks on subconstructs moving towards them
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Fixed a problem causing armed missiles to bounce off constructs
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Fixed a problem causing explosions triggered from certain directions to sometimes spawn inside(and teleport through) blocks in certain positions/orientations
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Fixed a problem causing fragments from ricocheting projectiles to be spawned facing the wrong way
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Fixed a problem causing shells to sometimes explode inside targets moving towards them
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Fixed explosion damage teleporting through intact non-cuboid structural blocks
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Fragments are less likely to jump through blocks on constructs/subconstructs moving towards them
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Frags spawn at the speed the projectile moved at right before impact (so frags from fast shells hitting the back of fast vehicles will still usually connect)
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Missile hit detection improved
v2.8.8 [Fix] : The 'Spread to' feature will now spread either to the small or huge jets, not both [BUGS-2544]
v2.8.8 [Fix] : 4Q lasers can now fire a single shot (1 fire command always triggered at least 2 pulses before)
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Fixed pulsed laser fire rates being lower than intended. 4Q fired ~6.67 shots/s, 3Q ~3.63, 2Q ~1.9, 1Q ~0.975
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Laser transceivers now re-connect correctly when on an elevation-only turret with an angle of more than 60 degrees [BUGS-2335]
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Laser transceivers visible laser is now correctly displayed even when the elevation of a 2-axis or elevation-only turret is modified
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Fixed missile firepower readout showing old values that counted S warheads/second (only visual, firepower displayed was ~75% of the real one)
v2.8.8 [Fix] : The turning thrusters trail will now be removed properly when destroying the vehicles [BUGS-2077]
v2.8.8 [Fix] : The simple weapons variables 'ExplosiveDamage' and 'ExplosiveRadius' are automatically modified to automatically balance the weapons, you can now use 'OverloadedExplosiveDamage' and 'OverloadedExplosiveRadius' to override these modifications [BUGS-2459]
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Clients can see the laser beams and other effects from firing simple lasers and LaserCombiners
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Clients now see turrets facing the way they are facing on the server
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Faction vehicles spawned in the multiplayer designer now spawn full of material
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Nukes can now be detonated by the client by pressing Q on them
v2.8.8 [Fix] : Fixed manually fired particle cannons sometimes shooting in the wrong direction
v2.8.8 [Fix] : The volume of the sound when deleting a lot of blocks at once isn't too loud anymore (the fix will work for all other cases, such as placing a prefab, undo/redo, etc.) [BUGS-2517]
v2.8.8 [Fix] : The toolbar with shortcuts to blocks is now saved properly, and all settings are now saved even if using Alt+F4 [BUGS-2406]
v2.8.8 [Fix] : The 'DamageMultiplier' coefficient should now work as intended for kinetic damage [BUGS-2446]
v2.8.8 [Remove] : Avatar levels, experience and stat points have been removed as we don't feel they sit well with the engineering focus of FTD.