What is up Depthians!! xD
Before we set sail into the depths of this MASSIVE update list/post/wall of text, we feel that we need to point out a few things first.
If you start to see a black screen when you launch the game, please remove mods.Our merch is on sale with 50% off until the end of January !! Check out Borderwise upload here if you want to see the merch.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We updated to unity 2020.3.22 and due to this the FTD boot-up process now begins in the launcher and is more multi-threaded and concurrent, so it should take less time to boot the game up.
FTD now uses Steam Multiplayer and the Data Relay Network. The old networking system is no longer available. Joining friends is much easier now and NAT punch through and port opening should no longer be necessary.
We have fixed numerous multiplayer issues, however, there may be still some left, so as always feel free to poke us with them on our bug tracker page. https://brilliantskies.customercase.com/forums/bug-tracker
As we have updated to one of the most recent Unity engines, you may see that your lighting in-game has changed. This has confused some players that were on Beta into thinking the graphics/textures have changed which is not the case.
So if you can see that your lighting is duller or brighter in-game, you will have to pop back into your options and set the levels to your liking.
We have also released an alternative avatar, the Droid! This also comes with an animation block where you can animate him manually or through the breadboard. You can swap avatars by hitting Z and checking the avatar tab.
We have heard your prayers and added the full set of corner slopes for applique.
However, time to get to the bulk of this update... Diplomacy! As well as some more new features.
When you first set out on your campaign run, and pop into map view you will see a timer.
This timer will be running after each council meeting where you will decide who to go to war with or make peace with for the duration shown in this UI “until the next campaign season starts in X hours”. Each option lists out the changes in the relationship with the factions and all the options will be different each time while keeping in mind that the stronger you get the more factions you will be at war with! In this screenie, we can see that we can have total peace for 2 hours at the cost of 3,752 commodities.
Some options will have rewards like the second example below, we can go to war with the DWG, have peace with all the other factions, and have a sweet little reward in commodities. Commodity rewards/costs are affected by the difficulty level that you select. Please note that there may be some factions that simply do not want to have peace with you! So you cannot keep bribing them for world peace each meeting.
You will also see a mini-map showing you the territory where the factions are. In this case, it’s showing us our territory in yellow and the DWG territory in red as they will be our enemy should we choose this option.
So remember that with more enemies and fewer allies you will get more commodities and with higher difficulties, you will get fewer commodities.
The AI is has had another upgrade too, such that allied factions will be working together and better grouping.
You will also be able to have a secret meeting as your fleets will trigger a ‘secret emergency meeting’ when they stay near allied/neutral resource zones, or inside non-border tiles of neutral factions, for more than 120 seconds. In a ‘secret emergency meeting’, the offending nation and all their allies declare war against the player’s faction.
Another sweet addition to this update is the clampy feet, which will help us make mechs without the need for thrusters to assist.
We have also added new features to decorations that allow you to hide the block that the tether is created on. Let’s say you had a fancy pipe decoration, and you also set its color within the decoration UI which is also a new feature. However, it’s being covered by the block that it’s tethered to, as you can see in the first screenie.
Simply click “Hide original mesh” and poof that nasty block that was covering your beautiful spam of decorations is now gone, but not really gone as its collision mesh is still there and will ofc take damage, die, and fall off. We can also turn off that noisy wireframe too which is another sweet addition brought to you by our ever awesome Weng! (but it was all my idea I swear!)
The V menu / Construct information UI has had a few tweaks, and as you can see we can now swap block types. Select which material you want to change from EG Alloys with a specific color or “Any color” which would select all Alloy blocks and change them to all metal if you wish.
We have some new additions such as a suspension spring mesh for our wheels (visual only), and before you roll off your seats with excitement we also have anti-roll bars for our land constructs!
Note that the center attachment point of the wheels is in line with the roll bar.
If this has not got you all hot and steamy, yes you guessed the next poor pun is about steam fixes and tweaks xD
Before you decide to separate my hands from my keyboard, we have separation blocks 1x1, 3x3, and also a 1x1 docking station! xD
You will need to set a few parameters before attaching the drone via the separation block as the options you choose will be saved to the drone that is attached, and any future changes you would need to detach the drone first before they take effect.
Before we get into the settings we “should / could” use a docking station on the mothership per drone. This will help us align the drone’s attachment block to the mothership’s attachment block, and let’s not forget that most motherships may be on the move which is why the docking station would be needed as the separation block currently only has a 10m range. We may also need an origin block on the drone as the docking station pulls from the center of mass of the drone, so by installing an origin block the dock will use that as its center point. The origin block can be placed anywhere deep inside the hull, just make sure that it’s inline and behind the attachment (red blocks in pic).
Firstly hit "Q" on the separation block and choose how you want the drone to be detached. In order for our drone to have its attachment point flush with its hull and also for the mothership, we need to select "Attached and in front", else you will be notified that the drone cannot be detached.
You will need to decide if you want your drone to use its propulsion while attached, from "Extra". You will also need to state whether you want this to be rebuilt once detached or not by ticking "Permanently remove", this gives you the option to rebuild the “missing” blocks from the mothership allowing you to keep spawning multiple copies of the drone, which will be built by Rambot or repair drones, not tentacles. We also suggest giving the drone a name in the "Vehicle Settings" of the separator control UI.
Some things to note:
- Attaching a drone to the mothership be it fort or vehicle, the drone will inherit the paint job of the mothership. Therefore if you had two paint schemes one for the mothership blue slot 4 and another for the drone green slot 4 it would be overwritten.
- Remember to set the AI prioritisation in the AI tab, as only the AI(s) with the highest priority will try to control the vehicle.
We have also updated and basically redone the CIWS system, and before you panic, any old values from your previous constructs will be transferred to the new system.
The new system works with weights if a projectile is within a weight range that you specify or not within “Main ruleset”, we can also set weights for the target that is firing those nasty projectiles at your construct from the “Locked target ruleset”. However, I think the most epic part is that you can now visually see what your CIWS is prioritising from your settings.
The red circles mean they are the highest prioritised missiles, while grey is ignored, green has the lowest weight. Other projectiles have colors in-between showing their relative weight. The red line is the currently targeted projectile.
We have also integrated a mod from the Steam workshop by Cappycot, which tweaks up the cinematic camera and a few other things.
Now for the insanely long changelog!
As this covers 6 Beta updates Steam could not handle its immense and epic content so I'll leave a link to the main site which you can view here: https://fromthedepthsgame.com/stable-3-3-8/