Update 20 is live!

Hey there AFF Community!

This patch brings a few new features and a ton of fixes. Our rhythm of updates got a bit thrown off this year but not without a bloody good reason - there's a whole lot of exciting stuff we've been busy with. DX11 renderer, lag compensation, maps, guns and more, all nearing completion.



We're releasing the following fixes and features now to make way for more content in the very near future so stay tuned. Some pretty significant changes to gameplay elements this month too:





Corvettes get selectable equipment options now, just like fighters, ground vehicles and infantry. The choices are pretty basic for now but we’ll keep expanding the loadout system until all the ships have interesting and varied selection of weapons and support items.





Your incapacitated teammates will not only be highlighted on the HUD now, the downed player can also reach out in a visible “Help me!” gesture by hitting the jump key or broadcasting a “Need a revive!” callout.





We figured that the defensive gameplay needs shaking up a bit so here’s an experiment - all the deployable turrets (MG, plasma and flamer) will only detect enemies from the front. You can rotate the turret when placing it with the right mouse button.

Full changelog:

• Players are now able to respawn directly as the last used friendly fighter type (but only after death and assuming the carrier launching that fighter is still operational). The spawnpoint will be visible on the TacMap like any other infantry spawnpoint.
  
• Hitting jump while incapacitated (space by default) or broadcasting the "need a revive" callout now triggers a "help me!" animation
  
• Added a few new camouflage options
  
• Vehicle's passengers now visible on the HUD
  
• Bots now hop out of vehicles to get to the nearby enclosed objectives in a sensible manner
  
• AI fighters have been taught to avoid incoming missiles by manoeuvring
  
• Capship cost subtracted on start of core breach instead of end in Territories matches
  
• Corvettes now have configurable loadouts and now use fighter-grade missiles, at least for the moment, so they have the selection.
  
• Upgraded the vehicle queue info and rearranged the TacMap a little
  
• Middlemost of a set of warp beacons should be flagged as the rearm warp-out location, rather than some arbitrary one, if there's more than two
  
• Moved the vehicle info to crosshair for now for better visibility and to not be hidden when weapon-switching
  
• Added the ability to assign groups of units to quick-select number keys on TacMap with CTRL+ like in RTS games
  
• Added a "vote to kick a player" button
  
• Added infantry loadout quick-select option to TacMap
  
• Constrained deployable turrets' scan rotation to forwards-facing - pay attention to how you place the turrets now and keep in mind they can be rotated with right-click!
  
• Refactored carrier core lockouts. 1 or 2 lockouts to open shields blocking bridge access.
• Lockout on bridge to open shields on engineroom to access the core. Keeps pilot and engines alive for longer into the breach attempt and focusses the action a bit.
  
• Fortress Territories updates:
  - Added a tunnel for players to use to breach the outer wall
  - Relocated objective A to take about as much time to reach from spawn for ULA as it takes for AIA to reach objective B
  - Slightly moved the radar dish (objective D) and the warehouse (objective C) to reduce travel time bias
  - Ensured that walkway near warehouses along outer wall was properly supported
  - Covered up missing geometry near warehouses, fixed some floating grass, added some lights to dark areas, added more cover near ULA drop pod
  - Fixed recently-noticed missing wall collision in one of the buildings
  - Fixed missing pathing and adjusted collision for one of the buildings
  
• Irega Incursion updates:
  - Opened up a car park below where Objective C was previously located and moved Objective C to that location
  - Relocated one of the end objectives and opened up some pathways near there
  - Corrected some minor collision issues
  
• In Fortress moved the vehicle drop locations further in Phase 3, moved last spawn back a bit and fixed some collision issues
  
• Adjusted spawnpoints in Lacroix and enlarged some of the objective radii in Yin Tao Shan Territories
  
• Added missing team-blocking volumes to a spawnpoint in Anubis and a few boarding tubes
  
• Amended the fighter launch direction from the station in Meudeverre to not be pointed into the wall, reorganized the internal pathways a bit, rebalanced defense platforms
  
• Squads get reordered by command XP as players join, up to match start. Let's see how this affects squad composition and balance online.
  
• Squad members take on squad leader's stripe colour again
  
• Culled several vehicles from the roster on land territories maps to better constrain map duration
  
• Mechs can now equip the C30 cannon
  
• Tweaked the balance of medium plasma and chainguns in space and ship HP between AIA and ULA
  
• Buffed frag mines a bit, nulled out meaningless grenade/mine stats in the loadout menu
  
• Disabled defunct vehicle weapon optics mods and now-empty bomberbay weapon mod slots
  
• Added a squad leader announce message just after commander's
  
• Tab key closes scoreboard immediately with no fadeout so as to not block the mouse unnecessarily
  
• Bots now only deploy medkit and ammo as a response to callouts from each other and humans, if one is within 50m at the time, and better understand the conditions under which they should run to an ammo pack or medkit
  
• AI hate deployed turrets slightly less
  
• Reinforced AI aim vs apparent aim (less "bots firing sideways" caused mostly by lag)
  
• Halved Heimdall's spinal ion cannon's damage but increased its range and the range of its passenger-operated ion lances and gave it long range missiles, fullfills the same long-range role as the Chons now
  
• Gave Javert heavy missiles, lowered the lock-on for them (on all ships that use those) by 7% for less annoying experience
  
• Switched Khamun to chainguns only
  
• Removed captain’s rockets from Rejkhart
  
• Fixed Chons' missiles coming out asymmetric
  
• Fixed MNL hurting through shields on direct hit
  
• Fixed the settings menu navigation getting stuck for some players
  
• Fixed completed objectives flashing as if still under attack in match status module
  
• Significantly reduced AI infantry getting perma-stuck out of the navigation grid by widening the scope of when they try to jump out of problems
  
• Fixed squad module (in HUD and TacMap) showing incorrect armour class icons
  
• Fixed some unnecessary material instancing in sensor stations
  
• Fixed mechs not registering hits on their legs/middle sections
  
• Corrected lead indicator for attached external breach modules
  
• Fixed some interpolation issues in the launch cameras
  
• Fixed some discrepancies in ion cannon damage type configuration and Ranger's railgun consoles
  
• Fixed AI separation on "move to" orders
  
• LAN games discovery much more reliable now
  
• Fixed some issues with player authorization when multiple people with different Steam accounts join and quit from behind the same router
  
• Fixed the progress bar visibility on the "exit gunship" prompt
  
• Fixed magazine size on the Turtle's main gun to make sense in the context of 4-rocket bursts
  
• Fixed the "prestige" prompt not showing the correct camo award
  
• Fixed commander not becoming a target of unprompted revive attempts
  
• Fixed AI stalling after rearming fighters or dropships
  
• Fixed boarding status messages showing in briefing, for real this time
  
• Fixed some pathing issues inside the fighter bases
  

For feedback, or just a lovely chat with the devs, post on AFF's Steam forums or contact us directly through our Discord!

Onwards and upwards!