Whew, a stressful weekend for us at Carbon! While the servers were "up" the whole time, a series of hangs and restarts would leave chat and other systems with embarassing delays or problems. There is a whole cluster of servers that handles different parts of the game, which is why different things would be affected in odd ways.
All weekend fixes were attempted, additional logging added, and the programmers would sit right on top of things to catch what was happening. It was never a hardware capacity issue, just a bug in how some of the databases worked with one another.
Finally, Sunday night, what is believed to be the key fix was implemented. Observations so far indicate we are in the clear--what would have taken 15 minutes to appear has not happened in the last 3 hours, and we are still at the same activity/capacity levels. This is great news!
Unrelated, the Hong Kong server has a problem (it actually started before we launched) and we are working to bring it back online. Just bad luck/timing unfortunately. I don't have an ETA but now that the other issues are solved it is high on the priority list.
Thank you so much everyone for your patience! We've turned on Double XP and Double Kudos and will leave them on for the coming week to try and make up for any inconvenience. Any specific problems, just reach out to the dev team in chat or Discord and we'll try to help!
Lastly thank you to all the veteran players once more--as you know the core dev team is quite small, so the community mods and helpers are key into communicating things to new players and just generally being helpful.
We are all super excited to start testing the Tournament system next week!
Whew, a stressful weekend for us at Carbon! While the servers were "up" the whole time, a series of hangs and restarts would leave chat and other systems with embarassing delays or problems. There is a whole cluster of servers that handles different parts of the game, which is why different things would be affected in odd ways.
All weekend fixes were attempted, additional logging added, and the programmers would sit right on top of things to catch what was happening. It was never a hardware capacity issue, just a bug in how some of the databases worked with one another.
Finally, Sunday night, what is believed to be the key fix was implemented. Observations so far indicate we are in the clear--what would have taken 15 minutes to appear has not happened in the last 3 hours, and we are still at the same activity/capacity levels. This is great news!
Unrelated, the Hong Kong server has a problem (it actually started before we launched) and we are working to bring it back online. Just bad luck/timing unfortunately. I don't have an ETA but now that the other issues are solved it is high on the priority list.
Thank you so much everyone for your patience! We've turned on Double XP and Double Kudos and will leave them on for the coming week to try and make up for any inconvenience. Any specific problems, just reach out to the dev team in chat or Discord and we'll try to help!
Lastly thank you to all the veteran players once more--as you know the core dev team is quite small, so the community mods and helpers are key into communicating things to new players and just generally being helpful.
We are all super excited to start testing the Tournament system next week!
We could probably stop the patchnotes right there. It feels surreal to be finally getting ready to push that button to leave Early Access on Steam. I believe we will go down in the record books as the game in Early Access the longest, and absolutely the one that had the biggest evolution and active development in that phase. Update number 266, build 73025 was pushed this morning.
During these almost 6 years, the definition of Early Access has changed. When we started, it was the only way to do an open beta as F2P was just becoming a thing way back then. And while the game has changed, we have not wiped player data, and only very rarely had any downtime. We have put a lot of effort into operating the game as if it were fully released--because it was fully released.
So why stay in Early Access? As Carbon's first game as a studio, and our first shot at F2P, we had no idea what we were doing. We know a lot more now, not sure how much of it is useful, but we immediately saw how tricky it is to find a good spot where a F2P game can survive. When we started out, the goal was simply to make a good game, and we figure the money stuff will just work out. But designing from a traditional point of view was not a great fit for F2P. The goal evolved into "make the best game you can AND try to earn enough to pay the dev team to keep working on AirMech".
We found this incredibly difficult, and in fact found the most success in partnerships to help continue to move AirMech forward. Working with Ubisoft to create AirMech Arena for consoles, then working with Oculus and Valve to bring AirMech Command to VR. Working on these projects was our way to bring resources back to the core AirMech game.
The addition of the Warzone map series to AirMech was a significant investment and a new approach to what the game would offer. More PvE content, to see how that would be liked. Feedback was very positive actually, but it further reduced the PvP player pool. We gained new players, but lost old players, and while the player population was stable we found the revenue was significantly reduced. We spent a ton of money making a lot of new content for the game which ended up killing revenue for the game. Oops.
This was the inflection point. AirMech either gets "released" at that moment, and probably never touched by us again (because we can't afford to based on what it was making), or we double down and go back to AirMech's PvP roots--in a way, AirMech 2.0. This is AirMech Strike. We gutted lobbies, groups, stripped out progression based power, every aspect was inspected and considered if it was interfering with fair and balanced PvP in any way--and removed if so.
All the things that were "removed" of course became quite a large collection of things--enough to make a game out of. The 7 Warzone maps would become the foundation of AirMech Wastelands, which is over 40 and counting, as it is still in the middle of development. Just like Strike was no longer held back by PvE, Wastelands was no longer held back by PvP, which meant we were free to go full RPG with everything becoming about leveling up and getting sweet loot. Parts are "balanced" in the same way they would be in any loot based RPG, where later missions are harder, so you need to level up, find better gear--and reset to the next heroic difficulty level if you make it all the way through. It's really exciting stuff, but I don't want to get too distracted talking about it here.
And here we are. So many things not done, yet things are in a pretty stable spot making this a great time to slip out of Early Access ahead of the next big features coming to AirMech--key among them is a new automated Tournament system. We have been working on this for a while, and it's not something we want to turn on if we have a bunch of new players flowing in, but after things calm down we will immediately start running these automated tournaments for players. It is safe to assume that in every region there will be at least one tournament a week, and we may even open up this system for player or Faction created tournaments. Prizes are setup when you create them, along with the conditions to enter, the size and mode, with built in tools to track your status and get you into your matches. I feel this is the crowning component to make AirMech fulfill its PvP promise.
Veterans, I cannot say thank you enough for your support to get us to this point. Your feedback, encouragement, and financial support have made AirMech possible. Half of the funding from AirMech has come from the players, and without that it is unlikely we would have been able to continue to spend so much time working on it. AirMech has never been in danger of being shut down--to me the danger is always that we can't put enough developers on it to make it as great as I'd like it to be. Revenue from AirMech will continue to be invested back into AirMech--and there is no limit to what I would like to improve or expand with sufficient revenue.
And to newer players, it is great to have you join us. I hope you have a good time and enjoy our community and game. We really appreciate feedback from everyone more than you realize. Either using the ingame tool, Discord, or the forums, all feedback is an equal voice here.
We could probably stop the patchnotes right there. It feels surreal to be finally getting ready to push that button to leave Early Access on Steam. I believe we will go down in the record books as the game in Early Access the longest, and absolutely the one that had the biggest evolution and active development in that phase. Update number 266, build 73025 was pushed this morning.
During these almost 6 years, the definition of Early Access has changed. When we started, it was the only way to do an open beta as F2P was just becoming a thing way back then. And while the game has changed, we have not wiped player data, and only very rarely had any downtime. We have put a lot of effort into operating the game as if it were fully released--because it was fully released.
So why stay in Early Access? As Carbon's first game as a studio, and our first shot at F2P, we had no idea what we were doing. We know a lot more now, not sure how much of it is useful, but we immediately saw how tricky it is to find a good spot where a F2P game can survive. When we started out, the goal was simply to make a good game, and we figure the money stuff will just work out. But designing from a traditional point of view was not a great fit for F2P. The goal evolved into "make the best game you can AND try to earn enough to pay the dev team to keep working on AirMech".
We found this incredibly difficult, and in fact found the most success in partnerships to help continue to move AirMech forward. Working with Ubisoft to create AirMech Arena for consoles, then working with Oculus and Valve to bring AirMech Command to VR. Working on these projects was our way to bring resources back to the core AirMech game.
The addition of the Warzone map series to AirMech was a significant investment and a new approach to what the game would offer. More PvE content, to see how that would be liked. Feedback was very positive actually, but it further reduced the PvP player pool. We gained new players, but lost old players, and while the player population was stable we found the revenue was significantly reduced. We spent a ton of money making a lot of new content for the game which ended up killing revenue for the game. Oops.
This was the inflection point. AirMech either gets "released" at that moment, and probably never touched by us again (because we can't afford to based on what it was making), or we double down and go back to AirMech's PvP roots--in a way, AirMech 2.0. This is AirMech Strike. We gutted lobbies, groups, stripped out progression based power, every aspect was inspected and considered if it was interfering with fair and balanced PvP in any way--and removed if so.
All the things that were "removed" of course became quite a large collection of things--enough to make a game out of. The 7 Warzone maps would become the foundation of AirMech Wastelands, which is over 40 and counting, as it is still in the middle of development. Just like Strike was no longer held back by PvE, Wastelands was no longer held back by PvP, which meant we were free to go full RPG with everything becoming about leveling up and getting sweet loot. Parts are "balanced" in the same way they would be in any loot based RPG, where later missions are harder, so you need to level up, find better gear--and reset to the next heroic difficulty level if you make it all the way through. It's really exciting stuff, but I don't want to get too distracted talking about it here.
And here we are. So many things not done, yet things are in a pretty stable spot making this a great time to slip out of Early Access ahead of the next big features coming to AirMech--key among them is a new automated Tournament system. We have been working on this for a while, and it's not something we want to turn on if we have a bunch of new players flowing in, but after things calm down we will immediately start running these automated tournaments for players. It is safe to assume that in every region there will be at least one tournament a week, and we may even open up this system for player or Faction created tournaments. Prizes are setup when you create them, along with the conditions to enter, the size and mode, with built in tools to track your status and get you into your matches. I feel this is the crowning component to make AirMech fulfill its PvP promise.
Veterans, I cannot say thank you enough for your support to get us to this point. Your feedback, encouragement, and financial support have made AirMech possible. Half of the funding from AirMech has come from the players, and without that it is unlikely we would have been able to continue to spend so much time working on it. AirMech has never been in danger of being shut down--to me the danger is always that we can't put enough developers on it to make it as great as I'd like it to be. Revenue from AirMech will continue to be invested back into AirMech--and there is no limit to what I would like to improve or expand with sufficient revenue.
And to newer players, it is great to have you join us. I hope you have a good time and enjoy our community and game. We really appreciate feedback from everyone more than you realize. Either using the ingame tool, Discord, or the forums, all feedback is an equal voice here.
Below is a catchup of the recent patches from the last couple weeks. We always post patchnotes ingame, but as we have been super busy preparing to leave Early Access we have let posting here lag a bit behind. Post-Early Access, updates will always be posted here along with ingame.
As we move into the home stretch toward leaving Early Access, we wanted to give the Player Market one more chance of being opened up. The game has changed a lot in what items are desireable and what affects gameplay, so our concerns about keeping the Player Market restricted to VIPs may no longer be needed. We will definitely be keeping an eye on all things related to the Player Market since we would love to have it open to everyone again if we can avoid the headaches that came along with it.
Please be aware that for convenience we allow items that are intended for AirMech Wastelands to be shown in AirMech Strike. As the new Player Market was originally supposed to be exclusively for Wastelands players, this was fine, but it does have the potential to cause confusion. If new players are confused a bit about things which have the Wastelands icon, try to help explain how it works and be patient as we give this a shot.
Changes
update saucer deathray AOE damage to council numbers (25%, 2->4 range)
allow saucer deathray to target airmode airmechs and air units
adding pulsed AOE damage to Saucer Deathray ability
prepare market for non-VIP use
add market chat tab
add Rumble 3 promo banner and billboard
merge selling dialog into main market window
add more use tips for how to sell on market window
make mail close buttons like others in the UI
add dedicated Market chat channel
add icon shortcuts for inventory/market/friends to info tab
Enable PiDay items on Strike/Wastelands
don't mark books as wastelands content, since they aren't anymore
Added sfx for when unit configuration ui slides open
Added sfx when market ui open/closes
add 'Collection' and 'Market' ui nav links
Updated AirMech class buttons in customization ui
Make it rain Diamonds during a Diamond Roll
make chat window not dragable
improve spectate hud layout
fix display of recalibrated airmech parts in strike
animate lobby tree
add proper art for Rumble 3
testing game event cards
reduce keypress influence to switch from gamepad back to mouse keyboard input. So you can more easily play with gamepad, and use the keyboard for some commands
Added springtime lobby tree
More sound effects hookups for ui
FollowMech: Tighten up the moving target, increase the range where it will settle for when stopped.
FollowMech: units more likely to stay put once they get into position.
Add Wind sfx to Training level, to break up some of the quiet spots when no action takes place
Add additional Sets for missing holidays
Add additional themed content sets
Move holiday Sets and put them in calendar order
Add missing and new items to existing Sets
Remove pre-placed stasis mines on lower pathway of Storm, council request
reduce helix missiles activated buff to 2x charge speed (down from 3x)
move color chooser above units in lobby
Fixed crash bug in the editor related to dragging a tile quickly.
Updated Saucer Abduct tool-tip with activated ability information
update saucer abduct activated ability per council input +100% rate (base and percent) for 5s on 45s cooldown
TankFlak/Gorgon hp 5000->3500 per council decision
remove activated spinup ability (resets cooldowns) per council discussion
Remove Activated Ability text for Warthog Spin Up ability
make 'spectator' UI time controls work in replays
fix uplink quest promo display
attach email quest used a promo which was in the promos file with stopparse at the top, started a new Common.txt
add activated state for saucer's abductability per Council discussion. 30 second cooldown +1000% base HP rate for 1 second
call 'gfx refreshMinimap' from 'onRenderChangeViewport' script
white minimap state should be fixed after window resize operations
new lobby promo for Pepper (rocket turret)
Add JungleRain sfx
Allow you to unlock colors from color chooser ui
update the generation of the excluded servers list
update gun activated ability buf to 25% damage (from 50%) normalize all cooldowns to 45 seconds and increase duration from 5 seconds at all levels to 8,10,12,14
Display units stats when hovering over the icon in the mini inspect/unlock dialog
Adding AES Icon for Saucer
Added activated state reveal for saucer abduct ability
Bugfixes
clear bishop menu on match loading screen, which is only an issue because of promote to top stuff, meaning for almost a year we haven't been clearing it properly...might be unintended consequences from this "fix" so watch out
remove tax book popup from clicking on tax rate (causes problems)
fixes to various windows focus/close states
fix not being able to create market listing
Updated "turret drop" in Strike tutorial so that it works better (can be dropped on any socket now to continue)
Fix transition when exiting out of a match
small fixes to shop background
fix some ability trigger input not respecting cooldown buffs
Saucer teleport
Added different diamond roll effects based on graphics quality
Added video option to disable diamond roll effects
Added a button to clear the diamond roll effects early
Comment out UseScript for GVIPCube7 and GVIPCube30, since these are no longer consumable items
Make "tab" button only cycle loadouts when ui open
Make "tab" cycle chat tabs if loadouts ui is not open
Fix team slot when in custom room and switching to a 1v1
Mark TruckRatters as noTrade to be consistent with other units
Hide more chat ui elements when using a gamepad
potential bugfix for Angel being locked out of sniper rifle after in air ability activation of loop
fix jerky camera transitions when watching different players as a spectator
update spectators to be able to see player cards w/ carried units all the time
fix unit pickup/drop scripts to correctly update carry unit UI tab states for update of spectator seeing them all
bug fix for collection sets stat display/counts
comment out Gorgon's "MeleeDPS" so it doesn't show DPS vs Ground on the stat card
Stubbed in faction kudos/xp boost indicators in the lobby ui
Hide 'EventDoubleTitleXP' and 'EventDoubleTitleK' if unit customization ui is open
Fix unlock dialog not displaying the right icon on the endgame screen
Fix unlock dialog and menu3d overlapping on the endgame screen
Fix 'TryOutQuit' button placement
Fix assert when unlocking heads on endgame screen
update attempt for player status cards for everyone when spectating
WIP
this is much more work than originally thought
Some cleanup for settings/pause menu
Small tweak for showing stats in mini inspect ui
Remove local build speed display in spectate ui
quick and dirty potential 'fix' for stuck special stance state req
on market filter change, reset the page count to 1 so you see the top of the list
increase get market data defer delay from 0.7 seconds to 2.5 seconds so you are less likely to see the game system notify full screen popup when re-requesting market data, and the backend has to regenerate the universe
if there are team 1 bots, do 2P pvp style listing in watch tab rather than '1v1 pvp'
remove some old icons from AMS game watch listings (infinite no overtime symbol and ultimates allowed symbol)
Hook up 'Market' chat link
Fixup some naming inconsistencies with Player 0-6 in the Editor
Fix tryout/try me button hidden state not getting set correctly
Fix for unit stats not showing up when hovering over icon in mini inspect/unlock dialog
fix decoupling of rendering state for helix grenades targeting. Add display position slewing. Moved from SimTickPlayer to VisTickPlayers
probably some other rendering in there that should come out..
Updating LobbyEventSpring
Update text for "Communication Uplink" Quest, now that reward is back to Diamonds
Sword and Snake pets link in chat
Some minor fixes for when going in/out of "the pit"
Some timing tweaks for map preview ui
Pull IntroCam2 on Thar down slightly, so it doesn't display the north-eastern map edges during pans
Move starting cameras in a bit on Twin Peaks, to fix seeing level bounds
Move starting cameras in a bit on Crater, to fix seeing level bounds
Move northern starting camera on Vale in, to fix seeing level bounds
Move northern starting camera on Sandrim down slightly, to fix seeing level bounds
Hide 'PromoLobby' if in lobby menus
Hide 'DailyRewardMaster' if in a simple group
Hide "LobbyIconSimpleGroupMembers" if AirMech customization ui is open
Fixed going into "the pit" from ranked 1v1 using play sub button
Fix gamepad focus for map preview/pregame loadout selection
Fix gamepad command press after clearing pregame loadout selection ui
Fix editor issue with pets flickering across the map.
Fix challenge continue button bringing up the pause menu
Fix being able to see level bounds on both side of Nesthorn during intro camera pans
Fix AirMech selection not saving when swapping class/skins
Don't swap loadouts when holding down right shoulder to bring up the ability upgrade ui
Another fix for going into "the pit" when in a 1v1 ranked lobby
use emission start offset on guardians spawn to fix stretched initial spawn (was noticable on the blade guardian)
update autoexecsrv for 72028 (desync testing patch)
Some tweaks for gamepad build menu
Some more tweaks for ability upgrade ui for gamepad
Some cleanup for 'SwitchToPad' scripts
show/hide correct server locations
Possible fix for missing unit name in mini inspect/unlock dialog
Fix selection outline in loadout customization ui
only transport the low byte of iparam on PadStartGlide input action
move t99 missile fire smoke puff up a bit
[HEAT] use M_HashStringCased instead of 'HeatHash::StringCaseSensitive' on literal strings to hash them at compile time instead of run time
[HEAT] pfx system clamp 'maxparticles' to 'stopafterparticle' count if it's <
More cleanup of description text for Units (AM-9345)
misc nonsense looking at saucer abduction stuff
Make left shoulder always bring up the build menu on gamepad
Make gamepad build menu show up after a delay
Don't swap loadout if gamepad build menu comes up
local action state blocking ofr Pad Start/Stop SelfDestruct input actions
If brining up the build menu with left shoulder on gamepad, don't do a loadout swap
Fixed clipping geo on green sea bomber
Fix 'MinimapViewboxSm' size for spectators
Fix gamepad ability upgrade ui not clearing when swap loadouts is mapped to right shoulder
fix for unit shot leading against other units
fix 'DetailQuality' to account for the last quality level now being '4' rather than '3'
Fix '_OrderMode' not getting reset when using gamepad to swap loadouts
Don't show "GamepadHintDpadIconUpgrade" if not using gamepad
add action request blocking state for recycling units m_isRecyclingUnitReq so we don't spam start/stop input actions while we are waiting for a delta action to occur. Might clean up some issues that occur w/ net game action rescheduling
Below is a catchup of the recent patches from the last couple weeks. We always post patchnotes ingame, but as we have been super busy preparing to leave Early Access we have let posting here lag a bit behind. Post-Early Access, updates will always be posted here along with ingame.
As we move into the home stretch toward leaving Early Access, we wanted to give the Player Market one more chance of being opened up. The game has changed a lot in what items are desireable and what affects gameplay, so our concerns about keeping the Player Market restricted to VIPs may no longer be needed. We will definitely be keeping an eye on all things related to the Player Market since we would love to have it open to everyone again if we can avoid the headaches that came along with it.
Please be aware that for convenience we allow items that are intended for AirMech Wastelands to be shown in AirMech Strike. As the new Player Market was originally supposed to be exclusively for Wastelands players, this was fine, but it does have the potential to cause confusion. If new players are confused a bit about things which have the Wastelands icon, try to help explain how it works and be patient as we give this a shot.
Changes
update saucer deathray AOE damage to council numbers (25%, 2->4 range)
allow saucer deathray to target airmode airmechs and air units
adding pulsed AOE damage to Saucer Deathray ability
prepare market for non-VIP use
add market chat tab
add Rumble 3 promo banner and billboard
merge selling dialog into main market window
add more use tips for how to sell on market window
make mail close buttons like others in the UI
add dedicated Market chat channel
add icon shortcuts for inventory/market/friends to info tab
Enable PiDay items on Strike/Wastelands
don't mark books as wastelands content, since they aren't anymore
Added sfx for when unit configuration ui slides open
Added sfx when market ui open/closes
add 'Collection' and 'Market' ui nav links
Updated AirMech class buttons in customization ui
Make it rain Diamonds during a Diamond Roll
make chat window not dragable
improve spectate hud layout
fix display of recalibrated airmech parts in strike
animate lobby tree
add proper art for Rumble 3
testing game event cards
reduce keypress influence to switch from gamepad back to mouse keyboard input. So you can more easily play with gamepad, and use the keyboard for some commands
Added springtime lobby tree
More sound effects hookups for ui
FollowMech: Tighten up the moving target, increase the range where it will settle for when stopped.
FollowMech: units more likely to stay put once they get into position.
Add Wind sfx to Training level, to break up some of the quiet spots when no action takes place
Add additional Sets for missing holidays
Add additional themed content sets
Move holiday Sets and put them in calendar order
Add missing and new items to existing Sets
Remove pre-placed stasis mines on lower pathway of Storm, council request
reduce helix missiles activated buff to 2x charge speed (down from 3x)
move color chooser above units in lobby
Fixed crash bug in the editor related to dragging a tile quickly.
Updated Saucer Abduct tool-tip with activated ability information
update saucer abduct activated ability per council input +100% rate (base and percent) for 5s on 45s cooldown
TankFlak/Gorgon hp 5000->3500 per council decision
remove activated spinup ability (resets cooldowns) per council discussion
Remove Activated Ability text for Warthog Spin Up ability
make 'spectator' UI time controls work in replays
fix uplink quest promo display
attach email quest used a promo which was in the promos file with stopparse at the top, started a new Common.txt
add activated state for saucer's abductability per Council discussion. 30 second cooldown +1000% base HP rate for 1 second
call 'gfx refreshMinimap' from 'onRenderChangeViewport' script
white minimap state should be fixed after window resize operations
new lobby promo for Pepper (rocket turret)
Add JungleRain sfx
Allow you to unlock colors from color chooser ui
update the generation of the excluded servers list
update gun activated ability buf to 25% damage (from 50%) normalize all cooldowns to 45 seconds and increase duration from 5 seconds at all levels to 8,10,12,14
Display units stats when hovering over the icon in the mini inspect/unlock dialog
Adding AES Icon for Saucer
Added activated state reveal for saucer abduct ability
Bugfixes
clear bishop menu on match loading screen, which is only an issue because of promote to top stuff, meaning for almost a year we haven't been clearing it properly...might be unintended consequences from this "fix" so watch out
remove tax book popup from clicking on tax rate (causes problems)
fixes to various windows focus/close states
fix not being able to create market listing
Updated "turret drop" in Strike tutorial so that it works better (can be dropped on any socket now to continue)
Fix transition when exiting out of a match
small fixes to shop background
fix some ability trigger input not respecting cooldown buffs
Saucer teleport
Added different diamond roll effects based on graphics quality
Added video option to disable diamond roll effects
Added a button to clear the diamond roll effects early
Comment out UseScript for GVIPCube7 and GVIPCube30, since these are no longer consumable items
Make "tab" button only cycle loadouts when ui open
Make "tab" cycle chat tabs if loadouts ui is not open
Fix team slot when in custom room and switching to a 1v1
Mark TruckRatters as noTrade to be consistent with other units
Hide more chat ui elements when using a gamepad
potential bugfix for Angel being locked out of sniper rifle after in air ability activation of loop
fix jerky camera transitions when watching different players as a spectator
update spectators to be able to see player cards w/ carried units all the time
fix unit pickup/drop scripts to correctly update carry unit UI tab states for update of spectator seeing them all
bug fix for collection sets stat display/counts
comment out Gorgon's "MeleeDPS" so it doesn't show DPS vs Ground on the stat card
Stubbed in faction kudos/xp boost indicators in the lobby ui
Hide 'EventDoubleTitleXP' and 'EventDoubleTitleK' if unit customization ui is open
Fix unlock dialog not displaying the right icon on the endgame screen
Fix unlock dialog and menu3d overlapping on the endgame screen
Fix 'TryOutQuit' button placement
Fix assert when unlocking heads on endgame screen
update attempt for player status cards for everyone when spectating
WIP
this is much more work than originally thought
Some cleanup for settings/pause menu
Small tweak for showing stats in mini inspect ui
Remove local build speed display in spectate ui
quick and dirty potential 'fix' for stuck special stance state req
on market filter change, reset the page count to 1 so you see the top of the list
increase get market data defer delay from 0.7 seconds to 2.5 seconds so you are less likely to see the game system notify full screen popup when re-requesting market data, and the backend has to regenerate the universe
if there are team 1 bots, do 2P pvp style listing in watch tab rather than '1v1 pvp'
remove some old icons from AMS game watch listings (infinite no overtime symbol and ultimates allowed symbol)
Hook up 'Market' chat link
Fixup some naming inconsistencies with Player 0-6 in the Editor
Fix tryout/try me button hidden state not getting set correctly
Fix for unit stats not showing up when hovering over icon in mini inspect/unlock dialog
fix decoupling of rendering state for helix grenades targeting. Add display position slewing. Moved from SimTickPlayer to VisTickPlayers
probably some other rendering in there that should come out..
Updating LobbyEventSpring
Update text for "Communication Uplink" Quest, now that reward is back to Diamonds
Sword and Snake pets link in chat
Some minor fixes for when going in/out of "the pit"
Some timing tweaks for map preview ui
Pull IntroCam2 on Thar down slightly, so it doesn't display the north-eastern map edges during pans
Move starting cameras in a bit on Twin Peaks, to fix seeing level bounds
Move starting cameras in a bit on Crater, to fix seeing level bounds
Move northern starting camera on Vale in, to fix seeing level bounds
Move northern starting camera on Sandrim down slightly, to fix seeing level bounds
Hide 'PromoLobby' if in lobby menus
Hide 'DailyRewardMaster' if in a simple group
Hide "LobbyIconSimpleGroupMembers" if AirMech customization ui is open
Fixed going into "the pit" from ranked 1v1 using play sub button
Fix gamepad focus for map preview/pregame loadout selection
Fix gamepad command press after clearing pregame loadout selection ui
Fix editor issue with pets flickering across the map.
Fix challenge continue button bringing up the pause menu
Fix being able to see level bounds on both side of Nesthorn during intro camera pans
Fix AirMech selection not saving when swapping class/skins
Don't swap loadouts when holding down right shoulder to bring up the ability upgrade ui
Another fix for going into "the pit" when in a 1v1 ranked lobby
use emission start offset on guardians spawn to fix stretched initial spawn (was noticable on the blade guardian)
update autoexecsrv for 72028 (desync testing patch)
Some tweaks for gamepad build menu
Some more tweaks for ability upgrade ui for gamepad
Some cleanup for 'SwitchToPad' scripts
show/hide correct server locations
Possible fix for missing unit name in mini inspect/unlock dialog
Fix selection outline in loadout customization ui
only transport the low byte of iparam on PadStartGlide input action
move t99 missile fire smoke puff up a bit
[HEAT] use M_HashStringCased instead of 'HeatHash::StringCaseSensitive' on literal strings to hash them at compile time instead of run time
[HEAT] pfx system clamp 'maxparticles' to 'stopafterparticle' count if it's <
More cleanup of description text for Units (AM-9345)
misc nonsense looking at saucer abduction stuff
Make left shoulder always bring up the build menu on gamepad
Make gamepad build menu show up after a delay
Don't swap loadout if gamepad build menu comes up
local action state blocking ofr Pad Start/Stop SelfDestruct input actions
If brining up the build menu with left shoulder on gamepad, don't do a loadout swap
Fixed clipping geo on green sea bomber
Fix 'MinimapViewboxSm' size for spectators
Fix gamepad ability upgrade ui not clearing when swap loadouts is mapped to right shoulder
fix for unit shot leading against other units
fix 'DetailQuality' to account for the last quality level now being '4' rather than '3'
Fix '_OrderMode' not getting reset when using gamepad to swap loadouts
Don't show "GamepadHintDpadIconUpgrade" if not using gamepad
add action request blocking state for recycling units m_isRecyclingUnitReq so we don't spam start/stop input actions while we are waiting for a delta action to occur. Might clean up some issues that occur w/ net game action rescheduling
Sorry for the servers being down everyone, a combination of issues has the AirMech shard offline but the programmers are working to fix it along with help from our server host.
We expect things to be fully restored tomorrow--could be sooner or later, hard to tell right now.
When things are back online, we'll do what we can to make up for it--double XP, double Kudos, and the new unit Pepper (scheduled to come out Friday) will be awarded FREE to everyone who signs in over the next few days.
Sorry for the servers being down everyone, a combination of issues has the AirMech shard offline but the programmers are working to fix it along with help from our server host.
We expect things to be fully restored tomorrow--could be sooner or later, hard to tell right now.
When things are back online, we'll do what we can to make up for it--double XP, double Kudos, and the new unit Pepper (scheduled to come out Friday) will be awarded FREE to everyone who signs in over the next few days.
The Gangster is now available! With wheels in stead of treads, this heavy truck chassis has a lot of mobility, decent armor, and a nasty gattling gun. Sounds pefectly OP--be aware it isn't cheap to build and requires level 6 to build, so don't think you'll be Fort rushing using these out of the gate. But once you can build them, they are quite a threat to infantry and AirMechs alike.
We have another new unit coming next week, however our primary focus is on bugfixes right now, next up being a deeper balance pass to prepare for finally hitting that "release" button and leaving Early Access! There are always a ton of things we want to do but the game is in a nice stable spot where it makes sense to leave Early Access.
A feature we have been working on but probably won't be finalized for leaving Early Access is our new automated Tournament system. Inspired by Bloodline Champions, we wanted to make it much easier to host weekly tournaments all around the world on a regular and automated schedule. More info on this soon, and we might be running some small and quick tournaments over the next week for testing. This is intended to replace the previous weekly leaderboard race for PvP rewards. It's also possible (but not yet confirmed) that players or Factions will be able to create tournaments specifying their own rules and prizes. We see a lot of really cool things that can come from this.
We love getting bug reports, balance feedback, and whatever is on your mind using the ingame reporting tool! While we can't reply to them, we do read them all and appreciate your feedback. Especially now as we are working down to our final short list of things to do before we fully launch AirMech Strike to the world!
NEW CONTENT
Gangster - fast attack vehicle with a chaingun. Level 6 build requirement.
Protectorate of Justice- pet designed by Liquidsnake3 (Shop variant, can be Gold plated)
Wisdom Guardian- pet designed by Liquidsnake3 (special reserve)
Disco Ball- pet designed by ProProProPro (Shop variant)
CHANGES
Local Player fog now focuses on the watch player, not the local player.
let allies, spectators and replays show cloaked units w/ a min clamp on the cloaking (0.75) as the local player sees themselves
Updated FAQs
increased Missile Silo Marker HP to prevent Striker Sword from destroying it without assistance 3500 > 4500
add even lower quality 4 level, no shadows (Wreckz mode)
reduce default quality for weaker GPUS to 3 and 4 respectively
reword shadow sampling logic for all shaders and quality levels
add gaussian blur passes and offset subpixel sampling in most shadow sampling
update Disco Ball icon
tournament UI work (in progress)
setting up tournament join commands
setting up brackets and qualifiers for tournament
preliminary gamepad support for main menu (work is being done, still not useable)
make invite list background size dynamic
Hide chat during map preview mode
Don't show map preview on tutorial map
Disable tournament billboard in lobby
Update Common Name for Gold VIP Cubes
Some more setup for faction boosts
Update some mini inspect buttons
on unit stealth, don't make completely invisible to spectators and replays
Adding crate sequence back into strike and fixing up timing
BUGFIXES
fix missing checkbox for central asia region
don't refund ability point on extra guardian removal, since this system has long changed and it's a bug/exploit
Fix overlapping "Leave the pit" button
Intro cameras adjusted / all rotation cams replaced
Changed lighting effects to start after intro cams
Some tweaks for for clearing the sample map fixed height when going into tryout/pit
Some misc updates for Wastelands promo
Some fixes for inviting players/adding bots while in "the pit"
Setup "map preview" before pregame loadout choice
put in extra check if spectator for bindings
move around leaderboard menu
Possible fix for loadouts getting copied and saved
fix conflict of activeloadout name for ingame (possible Loadout duplication/swap fix?)
more fixes for lobby slots with different game modes
fixes to lobby slot order, invites, teamswapping
Fix tooltip for sg member icons while in "the pit"
Fix chat in lobby
show ping info for Hong Kong server
Fix assert when scrolling in inventory ui
Disable late glow once crate opening sequence is done
change where backend disconnect messages are logged
change indexes of practice pilots to sync bot adding and training menu
Updating text for SYS_IsOnline and SYS_IsOffline, and adding game tags
updates for traditional chinese language usage
Updated "OpenCrate3D" so that it can be skipped and cleared correctly
Tweeks to the rocketeer to help not get stuck in the air, away from the land.
Some tweaks so that the ingame loadout stuff doesn't touch the "ActiveLoadout" symbol at all
Some more cleanup for ingame loadout stuff
some gnd/air SI force updates to reduce first time visual popping particularly when transforming down to ground mode for the first time
more state initialization to try to address debris position popping
Fix up overlapping text in quests ui
Fix up market listings ui after getting inventory
Some cleanup for mini inspect/unlock dialog
Fix repeat build name label being the wrong unit
Fix gamepad ability ui not clearing correctly
Fix mini inspect info when inspecting something from mail ui
Fix market ui after accepting the terms
Fix going into editor mode from pause menu
Fix "resume" button on pause menu
draw units in the stealth state so you can actually see them at clamped stealth amount for allies/spectators/etc this includes mines
use a ModelMatPresent material on the assassin/InfantrySpy so you can actually see it on the fort/outpost present platform
don't show HpWarnRing or HpCriticalRing when spectating, since these are LocalAM_ symbols which will be 0 index when spectating
Clear some dialog menus when using item from mini inspect dialog
add non-stealthed versions of mine materials so they don't disappear on the unit present platform in forts and outposts
That's all for now. Over the next week we'll be making more annoucements about the exact end of the free Founder's badge window, the end of the Beta Bundle, and the date we will be leaving Early Access. Thanks to everyone who helped along the way, you will find lots of benefits for being counted among those who played the game before the full launch!
