Jun 8, 2020

From the Depths - BaconsTV

Strategic AI update.

What is up depthians!
It is that time again where I say “It is finally here, the update many of us have been waiting for and talking about” The strategic AI MORE SLOPES AND THE REAL 4M CORNER! Done by yours truly coz I am awesome and all that. (You may need to restart Steam if your game has not updated)

We also have another massive list of bug fixes and tweaks and many new features, such as Area Erase in prefab mode, which will remove all blocks inside the prefab capture box.
Block Group Erase activated with Shift-Del, which will remove all blocks in the selected connected block group, brought to us by Weng from a request made on our request tracker REQ-35.

Weng also picked out a few more requests REQ-1150, a roll option for the Tractor Beam. REQ-176, a new chair that doesn't raise the height of the character.

REQ-1112 Added an option to disable pumps when the vehicle is frozen. What this means is, if you have the construct with capslock on and you have also enabled this option in Options > Build Options “Disable pumps calculation when the vehicle is frozen” which is on by default, this will improve performance as buoyancy calculations are made each time you place or remove a block when you have air pumps or helium pumps installed and active.

Weng has also implemented a search function as you can see at the lower right corner, which will be of help to a number of us and we have resolved over 250 bug fixes, changes and additions!

When it comes to Wengs’ awesome additions...behold the “Erase Block Group”. No more must we delete things block by block xD Love it!

But wait there's more! “Delete by area”

And if you thought that was all, well you are wrong ;p Weng has created a method to show us which mimicked block is tied to a mimic.

We can now dedicate steam power to only spin our steam propellers by setting the Gearbox power output to 0 in our Gearbox Control. What this means is that it will stop power production on the steam gearbox that is only intended to power propellers.

As some of you know, boilers turn material into 'steam energy'. Pistons turn that steam energy into rotational energy of the crankshaft, pistons etc (energy-rpm ratio depends on the mass of the spinning assembly). Max power output and propeller thrust depend on the rpm (and thus on the energy in the system). Using power or using steam props removes energy from the system, depending on how much you use them. Friction also always removes energy from the system and removes more energy if rpm is higher. So using power or using steam props removes rotational energy from the spinning assembly and thus slows it down

Keeping on the topic of power distribution, we can now set up priorities on our power generators. As you can see with the snippet above, we can set the power priority of that steam setup and with the fuel engine pic below as well as electric engines.

High priority engines are used first. Lower priority engines only produce power when higher ones are not enough.

Another sweet addition is that we can right click our mousy while in any submenu in the build section which will exit the current submenu.

As a number of you good people know, there are also a number of new blocks in the game now. We now have Offset Slopes which will help out our slope stacking builders.
Before the new Offset Slopes, some of us made hulls stacking slopes like this pic

And now you can slope stack with these 1m Offset slopes leaving you a much smoother hull :D Look how happy it is, as it's now smoking hot!!

Read lots of comments with builders needing to mimic a 1m square corner and stretch it out to 4m. Well not anymore!! :D

A pic of a rare real 4m square corner!

All sizes are included 2m to 4m
There are also transitions from one slope to another.
Slopes transitioning from one to another size up.

The 1 to 4m transition and the 2 to 4m

We also have inverse transitions which work the same as transitions however, they line up from the tip of the slopes.
Beastman/Sean the Noob, has also been doing some stuff and things, like rearranging our build menu and adding some colouring to sections :D

The idea with the new layout is set with a build order in mind. First, you would state what construct you are making (Vehicle, Fort or Structure). From there you would start your build and that means structural blocks, then manoeuvre components and control to engines, spin blocks and the turret components etc…

There are also numerous prefabs ready to help you with your builds to speed up the process, or if you feel that you are a little too green still in some aspects, this update “should” have you covered. Most prefabs were sent to us from community members. We have hulls, fuel engines, steam engines, lams, lasers, APS, CRAMs, missile setups including antimissiles, AI setups, Dediblades and CJE’s too! Big thanks to all that sent us prefabs :D

Another awesome addition is the APS customiser now has a module which can hold 4 components! :D

We also have new wing shapes which will allow us to nail most replica wings or any shape that tickles your fancy. There will be more wing additions implemented later on, and I believe we may see some flaps that actually move :D. However, I think I should go over a few things first.

If you do plan on making large wings, you may find that your construct is continuously gaining altitude and ending up in space. This is not a bug, it's simply the fact that we are now using more wing parts as they just look awesome and therefore we end up with more upwards push. If this does happen to you, simply take away some of the middle wing parts and replace them with the universal surface and set them to “hover”. This should look after your altitude, ofc don't forget to add some pitch, roll wing parts and the PID’s.

Stuka Junker JU.blueprint

CRAMs have also been tweaked and we now have this awesome UI, thanks to Draba, which will help us builders tune up our CRAM system. This is a handy UI for us to set ratios of what we want the CRAM to use. You will find the specific changes to the blocks further down in the change logs.

The screenshot above is the UI where you can set the sliders to the pellet ratios you want to use, and it switches out pellets/compactors to be close to that.
So you have a CRAM with 100 total connections and set up 20 compactor (previously known as ammo box) /100 hardener/100 HE
Total of your weights is 220.

Compactor will be 20/220 so ~9%, hardener and HE both 100/220 so ~45.4% each
Since you have 100 total connections it will try to get:
9 compactors
45 hardeners
45 HE
The way this works is that it would look at all the pellets on your CRAM, and it starts to replace the ones with the lowest amount of packer connections with compactors (since compactors are the cheapest).
Once it has 9 or more compactor connections it moves on to hardeners, then HE-Frag-EMP.
So if it can't get the exact ratios (because there are only pellets with 2 and 4 connections, can't get 9) then it will use the topmost slider.

If there are any rounding errors leftover (9+45+45 is only 99) it will dump the last few slots into HE-Frag-EMP-hardener, it chooses the first from that list that has a weight over 0.

If a cell (the area where a pellet can be placed) only has 1 connection to its own cannon's packers but is shared between 4 cannons, it will count as a 4 slot one, so will get an expensive pellet, but the cannon that owns it will only get 1 connection from it and does not look at its neighbours.

So if a cannon has 40 own pellets + 20 HE ones shared from a neighbour and is set to 100% hardener, it will end up with 40 hardener + 20 HE

Be sure to have pellets installed in your cram as this will not add pellets for you, it only swaps them out!

Draba has also given our fuel engines and CJE’s a bit of an overhaul too.

Custom jet engine basics

mechanics were reworked, should be simpler with more options
they are much more compact than powered jets
efficient CJEs give more thrust/fuel than powered jets
durability went up, now they can tank some hits
price went up

Custom jet efficiency

shorter ones are more viable, custom jet thrust no longer scales with the square of length
small custom jets are more powerful for a given volume, but have a lower fuel-efficiency than the full-sized version
choice is between being compact (combustion chambers, injector addons) or efficient (lots of compressors, intake addons, full intake clearance, exhaust)

Custom jet addons

they are now slightly more expensive (both in materials and volume) than base components
using addons means you need lower volume in base components, losing those usually cripples the engine so addons make same thrust a bit more durable

Fuel engine basics

mechanics reworked, volume-efficiency went up and fuel-efficiency down
all components should be useful for some purpose now, turbos aren't just better than anything else above a certain size
propulsion fuel cost for fast things is noticeable
old engines should keep working and generally give more power, but use more fuel

Fuel engine efficiency

an engine is now either compact or fuel-efficient
from dense to efficient: injector, 1 turbo/carburettor, medium RPM supercharger, 2-3 turbos/carburettor, low RPM supercharger
radiators are much stronger now, but are somewhat expensive relative to other fuel engine components

Fuel engine exhausts

exhaust gas from a given source now looks for pipe exits with no turbochargers between the exit and the source
if it finds some it distributes the exhaust gas evenly between the clear exits
if it finds no unobstructed exits it'll distribute the gases evenly between the turbos with the least amount of chained turbos behind them
gas pressure is now used up by turbos up to a cap, excess above that cap passes through them.

Exhaust demo I

gas from green section is divided evenly between yellow section turbos
yellow section has a clear exit so red turbos get no gas

Exhaust demo II

gas from green section is divided evenly between yellow turbos
leftover gas from yellow section is divided evenly between red turbos
leftover gas from red section is divided evenly between red exits

Engines, from left to right fuel-efficiency increases and power/volume decreases (see attached blueprint)

injector
injector with extra cooling
1 turbo/carb
2 turbos/carb
Medium RPM supercharger
2 turbos/carb, chained
3 turbos/carb
Low RPM supercharger

example_engines.blueprint

With all that out the way, we shall now go over the main focus of this update, the Strategic AI and how this AI will work and how the change to the resource zones are working.

The Strategic AI assigns numerous jobs to constructs, such as capture territory, build forts on resource zones to mine up materials, defend / attack / repair, transport materials to the HQ and build constructs. We shall be seeing more AI jobs in future however we wanted to get the basics laid out and working.

The AI is building and transporting materials just like us when we are playing From The Depths.

Force strength on tiles has been removed, however, there are territory boundaries. Territories will grow or shrink as the factions battle it out taking territory from one another. The AI will attack other factions HQ or forts on resource zones to capture and then build their fort and use as well as attacking constructs.

To stay on topic regarding territory, a faction will set up fleets to counter, intercept and pursue any invading forces. It will gather and group up constructs to form a fleet or build new constructs if it thinks that the current constructs are not up to the task, or if the current fleets already have orders such as attack, defend or intercept/pursue.

As we have mentioned force strength we should also discuss how the difficulty is set up and how the AI will determine what is best suited to put against you depending on how well your constructs are doing + the selected difficulty level

The campaign still has four difficulties: easy, medium, expert and godly but these will not be tied to fixed design difficulties. Design difficulties will instead be automatically generated by assessing the firepower to material cost ratio. The AI will build using materials and will bring out the efficient killing machines when the player is doing well.

To explain the “doing well”. Firepower to material ratio is split into “containers”, with each container holding easy, medium, expert and godly constructs. The system would be tracking how much of the last million (example number) materials that were destroyed belonged to the player and how much the opposing faction did.

During each battle damage is done to the player’s construct by an enemy construct, and the firepower to material ratio is added to the player side of the appropriate container and damage to said enemy construct is added to the faction side of the same container.
The enemy faction would build from the containers where the KD ratio is somewhat equal, less than or greater than, depending on the difficulty level. As an example and imaginary numbers, with godly difficulty, the AI would build preferentially from containers where the KD ratio is 1. However, in easy difficulty the AI will choose constructs from containers where the KD ratio is 10 or more in the player’s favour.

The AI can also reposition constructs during battle setup and also add constructs that are within x range to the lineup.

As you all probably know by now, resource zones have also changed.

The material value of the campaign is calculated at the start of the campaign. It is the sum of the resource zone material, the blueprint costs and their stored ammo and fuel. As the campaign progresses materials may be lost or used up in combat and causes the material value of the campaign to drop. Every second the game will pump fresh materials into the resource zones so that the total material balance of the campaign remains constant. This means that in order to grow your material economy you'll need to take it from other factions by destroying their fleets, scavenging the dropped material and conquering the resource zones that will be replenished with any spent materials lost in the combat.

Unfortunately Steam, has a character limit xD and I could not leave the change log, so please check that out here on the main forum Strategic AI update thread.

Dec 12, 2019

2.5.2.11 [Stable]

From the Depths - BaconsTV

Welcome back to another round of bug fixes and tweaks.

We are pushing this small update to stable since we will be setting up the ammo overhaul in a devtest branch soon(™) and for now, we will be using the ammo processors to produce the ammo in that devtest branch only!

This update, as well as our previous update, brings a number of changes to faction craft. A number of constructs were cut, meaning the spawn chance is set to 0. However, you can still find them in the world editor tagged retired after the name.

The idea is to prepare for future AI changes and campaign overhaul. Some changes that we wanted to see was not having numerous designs that were very similar to each other as we wanted constructs to be specialised in certain tasks and probably classes.

Currently, we have removed 15-20 constructs from the DWG, OW, LH, and WF from the spawn lists and removing more from other factions in future.

DWG has had many designs made to do strange some strange things or fight in different ways.
OW has a number of new classes of ships which were conversions of older designs. They now have 4 new Missile ships with slow large missiles, 3 “Tank” ships that have heavy armour that move faster and get up close to fight, and the Warden has been converted to Artillery.
WF has had significant changes to many designs making them more aggressive in melee. Their aircraft have been removed if they did not specialize in melee attacks. Check out the old Gnumura, now known as “The Last Rite” its a scary beast. The Old priest ships are being rebuilt to be better looking and specialize in certain things.
LH has had their small laser designs changed to either Short-range lasers or Missiles to compensate for their lack of damage. All small designs have been increased in speed, some by a lot. The Battleship Terrawatt is now a 100 m/s Hydrofoil battleship.
SS has started their update process, some designs have been improved or fixed. Not many big changes yet, but in the future, all shark ships will be replaced.
Currently, DWG and OW are finished, WF is 95% done, LH 90% done, SS 15% done.

This update brings a few bug fixes and changes to steam

<Steam engine>: Starting pressure in the pipes is now 0.1 time the pressure of the connected boiler with the highest pressure [BUGS-1640].

<Steam engine>: Target pressure set to 100k max [BUGS-1624].

<Steam engine>: Formula changed for the material burned ratio, it is now

<Internal Volume> * ((x+0.3) * (x+0.3) - 0.09) / 8.0 where 'x' is the burn rate [0..1]Missile fix (I’m sure Borderwise is happy with this :D )

<Missiles>: Fixed issues with cluster missiles causing them not to fire under AI control and to calculate the size of the container incorrectly depending on the placement of the container controller.

Lastly some UI tweaks and changes to Cram

<UI>: Weapons and LWCs now show how much materials they have destroyed, and how much ammo and energy they have expended. <UI>: Local weapon controller updated. <UI>: Double ended sliders with a min and a max value have been added to the game. <UI>: The display block is now fully customisable <UI>: Docking station UI updated <UI>: Anti missile cannon controller UI updated <UI>: CRAM Fusing box UI updated <UI>: Decoy UIs updated <UI>: Belt fed autoloader UI updated <UI>: Signal jammer UI updated <UI>: Enemy simulator UI updated <UI>: Laser colorer UI updated <UI>: Laser warner UI updated <UI>: Missile stagger UI updated <UI>: Poster holder UI updated <UI>: Smoke generator UI updated <UI>: Steam release valve UI updated <UI>: Teleport pad UI updated <UI>: Wireless camera UI updated <UI>: Vehicle spawner UI now has path selection and testing features <UI>: Simple laser UI now has option to change laser beam color <Breadboard>: [BUGS-1595] Fixed being to remove inputs from the PID component <Breadboard>: [BUGS-1554] Fixed errors caused by removing the input of a printer component. Also added the button to add the an input after deleting it. <Custom battles>: [BUGS-1543] The settings in the 'Environment' tab of the options menu now also apply to custom battle. Making the avatar immortal now also applies to custom battles. <CRAM>: CRAM cannons set to 'prefer high' or 'prefer low' if the actual arc used to aim is the high one. <CRAM>: CRAM shell guidance for high arcs now also compensates for weapon inaccuracy. <CRAM>: CRAM shell lifetime is now increased if the flight time of the shell is expected to be very long. <CRAM>: Added a configurable maximum muzzle velocity to CRAM cannons.

Nov 29, 2019

Update 2.5.2.7 [Stable] Cluster missiles, Steam tweaks and fixes.

From the Depths - BaconsTV

We are back with another CLUSTER of bug fixes, tweaks and new features which we hope you will all like :D

A quick note before we get to the goodies. We have turned off Steam cloud sync as it has been causing some upsets and issues, this will remain off for the foreseeable future. :(

To continue with steam but the steamy type.
Gladyon has tweaked up our steam systems so that we can run them more efficiently. We can set the steam pressure to start with when spawning/pulling the construct into play/battle, and we can also set the material burn rate or use the auto-regulate function so that we reach the given pressure. This can be done via the boiler controller UI or ACB.

We can also use ACB’s to check the steam pressure of the closest boiler on the same construct, spin block and piston. Material consumption has also been tweaked such that the consumption is more efficient at low burn rates and less with high burn rates.

Gladyon has also increased the volume that large boilers have to 10% more volume than 9 small, and huge boilers to 20% more volume than 25 small ones.
Steam engines now consume material in out of play while the vehicle is moving using steam jets or steam propellers, however, constructs will not consume material out of play for power generation if there is no turbine or generator.

Next, we have Nicks Cluster missiles, a new feature in From the Depths which I have covered here:
https://youtu.be/LmQtViNwqz0

In that upload, I go through how we create the parent missile that will fire off the child missile and also parent to fire parent+child to fire a child, and we can also use flares with missile interceptors inside them. What I did not cover is that we can have a small missile carrying small missiles or medium carrying medium and large carrying large.
We have three new components, the Cluster container controller, which allows us to set how our missile will behave and fire off any child missile.

The Cluster container extension which gives us length and volume to hold our child missiles and the Cluster ejector which goes on any child missile or parent which is also a child missile eg: L holding M holding S the M missile is the parent and child at the same time in this case. You can find the stats on volume and size at the very bottom of the stats window, in the picture above you can see the stats and this L missile can hold 11m in length and 2.16m cubed volume. We will also see these stats on a missile which has the Container ejector installed, informing us how long in terms of Container extension length we need and volume on the parent missile.
A “small” example of a large missile that would fire 4 medium missiles which they would then fire off 4 small missiles each.

There will be some tweaks coming to cluster missiles in terms of ammo costs for the extensions etc. We may also have a method to spread out the child missiles from the parent missile in future (like the ejector setup for missiles).

Nick has also started work on the achievements. The first step towards us unlocking achievements is the authoring of constructs and subobjects/prefabs.
As you can see from my most epic life-like sculpture of Beastman our business manager, in the top box we have Name and author. This is where all the details will go in regards to who made this and how many blocks were added by others.

Draba has made a whole lot of changes ranging from ammo use, elevation, range, mat costs and a number of other stats to our simple weapons, you can see the list in the patch log section below.
He has also tweaked up the Signal Jammer and replaced this with a Sensor Scrambler ECM. This will use power and reduce the bearing/range accuracy of enemy sensors, however, the strength falls off with distance 80/67/50/29% at a range of 500/1000/2000/5000m, their strength stacks with each other.

Other changes to detection are: Visible, radar and sonar detection range is reduced to 30% for subconstructs.
Being close to the ground or sea surface decreases the radar detection range. Radar signature change increase from 75% at 0m to 100% at 50m.
Being high above the ground increases the radar detection range. Radar signature change increase from 100% at 50m to 135% at 400m.

Fav pick of pics. These were created and posted by Tourist in our discord channel. Very well made, so much detail has been put into these tanks its unbelievable. Well done!!

<Add><Steam engine>: Pressure when spawned can now be configured (it will be the 'auto-regulated one'). <Add><Steam engine>: It is now possible to auto-regulate the material burn in order to achieve the given pressure (configurable using the boiler controller UI or an ACB). <Add><ACB>: It is now possible to check the pressure of the closest boiler controller (on the same construct, spinBlock, piston, etc.). <Add><ACB>: New 'Clear shells' action for the APS firing pieces. <Change><Steam engine>: Material consumption is more efficient at low burn rates, and less efficient at high burn rates. <Change><Steam engine>: Large boilers now have 10% more volume than 9 small ones. <Change><Steam engine>: Huge boilers now have 20% more volume than 25 small ones. <Change><ACB>: The minimum distance is now '1' (as it will select no block, there's no need for '0') [BUGS-1620]. <Fix><Steam engine>: Steam engines now consume material in out of play when the vehicle is moving using steam jets or steam propellers. <Fix><Steam engine>: Steam do not consume material out of play for power generation if there's no turbine or generator. <Fix><Propulsion>: All non-water-only propulsion will now work fine in a closed room with an air pump [BUGS-1537]. <Fix><Blocks>: Turbo-charger buoyancy fixed [BUGS-1487]. <Fix><Blocks>: Winch description now indicates that it must be connected to the launchpad [BUGS-1438]. <Fix><UI>: [BUGS-1460] fixed an issue with mainframe naming on the AI interface. <Fix><Missiles>: Removed the velocity estimate of the aim point for sea skimming mode and one turn mode to stop conflicts <Fix><UI>: Fixed an uncommon issue with the deletion of a blueprint potentially breaking the UI. <Fix><Regressions>: [BUGS-1565] Fixed a bug in the left click place, right click place build mode options when left mouse is held down. <Fix><UI>: [BUGS-1614] UI line overlays are no longer affected by ambient lighting levels.", <Fix><APS>: [BUGS-1484] barrel placement when 5 or 6 barrels is now perfectly symmetric/spaced. <Fix><Game>: [BUGS-1497] Reduced some garbage allocations and moved some large calculations to background threads to make game run smoother in adventure mode and other modes. <Fix><Graphics>: [BUGS-1570] Tweaked the way the water clarity slider works and how the underwater shader looks. <Fix><Regressions>: [BUGS-1566] Building mode free paint issues corrected. <Add><Added>: authoring details to vehicles/structures/fortresses placed in 2.5.2 and beyond. This will be used to help with the unlocking of steam achievements. <Add><Missions>: Added a quick edit button to save a copy of the suggested vehicle and open the designer ready to edit it <Add><Missions>: Added a 'tag' system for story mission arcs to allow the automatic assignment of a player edited blueprint from mission to mission. <Add><Map editor>: Added a firepower estimate adjustment for each design so that the AI will be able to better select units to match the player skill in future. <Add><Missiles>: Added a Cluster munition system to the missiles. Cluster containers can fire missiles cluster ejector units that fit (length and volume) into the cluster container. <Change><Game>: When you launch designer with a default vehicle it no longer spawns the vanilla designer raft. <Change><Avatar>: The effect for dying in the absense of a heartstone has been changed and it's more clear what is going on. <Change><AI>: When the adjuster is set to 'on water' the altitude of the behaviour set point is no longer lost. <Change><Applique>: Applique has a new model and material to reduce vertex count. <Change><Blocks>: The display block is now fully customisable. <Change><UI>: Docking station UI updated. <Change><UI>: Anti missile cannon controller UI updated. <Change><UI>: CRAM Fusing box UI updated. <Change><UI>: Decoy UIs updated. <Change><UI>: Simple laser UI now has option to change laser beam color. <Add><Firepower>: Simple lasers and cannons show their firepower stats and ammo use in their tooltips. <Add><Firepower>: Particle cannons show their firepower in their tooltip. <Add><Firepower>: The total firepower and the firepower breakdown in the V menu now includes simple weapons and particle cannons. <Add><Laser combiners>: Combiner and short range combiner got a slider: only fire if cavities are at least X% charged. <Add><Laser combiners>: Combiners now display on their tooltip if they are waiting for burst charge, or if total cavity energy is stopping them from firing. <Add><APS kinetic>: Non-hollow point kinetic damage gets a boost at lower diameters: KD_MULTIPLIER = MAX(2, (500/DIAMETER)^0.25). <Add><APS kinetic>: Kinetic base AP increased by 20%. <Add><APS kinetic>: Heavy head AP goes from ~30 to ~36 with 5GP/2 solids. <Add><APS kinetic>: AP head AP modifier down from 1.8 to 1.65, AP goes from ~60 to ~65. <Add><APS kinetic>: Sabot head AP modifier down from 3 to 2.5 (AP unchanged), kinetic modifier from 0.75 to 0.85. <Add><APS kinetic>: Hollow point head AP modifier from 0.5 to 0.45. <Change><Particle cannon>: Explosive shock now uses the same damage scaling as missiles and APS. <Change><Particle cannon>: Explosive shock now uses the same radius scaling as missiles and APS: RADIUS = DAMAGE^0.3. <Change><Particle cannon>: Explosive shock base damage is 50% of impact/piercing, instead of 100%. <Change><Short range laser combiner>: SRLC minimum range increased from 50 to 100, max is still 300 <Change><Short range laser combiner>: SRLC does 200% total damage at max focus, 400% at min. <Change><Short range laser combiner>: SRLC only has 75% AP at max focus, 50% at min. <Change><Short range laser combiner>: SRLC inaccuracy is 1° at max focus, 2° at min. <Change><APS clip explosions>: Explosive warheads used for HEAT/HESH now contribute to HE damage, as they should <Change><APS clip explosions>: Gunpowder casing damage for clip explosions halved (7.5 gunpowders are the same as 1 HE). <Change><LAMS>: LAMS nodes now display a warning in their tooltips if the laser has storage for less than 15 seconds of pumping <Change><Turret>: Armor for all turret and spinner block increased from 15 to 25. <Change><Simple AI>: Airplane maneouvre got an option to pitch towards the waypoint, instead of pitching to reach target altitude ASAP. Smoother and easier to use, this is the default. <Change><Simple AI>: Bombing run behavior got an abort distance and abort timer. It'll cancel the run that time after touching the abort distance. This helps to avoid getting stuck with short range weapons. <Change><Missiles>: M interceptor base damage from 10000 to 12000. <Change><Missiles>: Missile HE explosions now always originate 1m behind the nose. <Change><Missiles>: Remote guidance got an option, oldest one self-destructs when its launchpad fired a 2nd one(5th for quads). Default is off. <Change><Missiles>: Fixed a bug, remote guided missiles properly. <Change><Missiles>: Speed bonus at high altitudes reduced, speeds increased across the board. <Change><Missiles>: Missiles with fins can got a small lateral movement to increase hit rates. <Change><Missiles>: At high speeds IR seekers aim 1-3m ahead of the target block. <Change><Detection>: Visible, radar and sonar detection range is reduced to 30% for subconstructs. <Change><Detection>: Being close to the ground or sea surface decreases radar detection range. Radar signature changes increases from 75% at 0m to 100% at 50m. <Change><Detection>: Being high above the ground increases radar detection range. Radar signature changes increases from 100% at 50m to 135% at 400m. <Change><Detection>: Chaff emitters can't reduced radar detection range below 50% of the original. <Change><Sensor scrambler ECM>: Signal jammer replaced with Sensor scrambler ECM", <Change><Sensor scrambler ECM>: Sensor scrambler uses power and reduces bearing/range accuracy of enemy sensors. <Change><Sensor scrambler ECM>: Sensor scrambler strength falls off with distance: 80/67/50/29% at 500/1000/2000/5000m. <Change><Sensor scrambler ECM>: Sensor scramblers stack, their effective strength is summed to determine the accuracy reduction. <Change><Sensor scrambler ECM>: Sensor accuracy multiplied by: 10 + (MIN(SCRAMBLERS_POWER_SUM, 20000) / 20000) ^ 0.25. 76% for 100 power, 57% for 1000, 24% for 10000. <Change><Sensor scrambler ECM>: Remote guidance missile direct accuracy reduction from jammers removed(they are affected by worse detection. <Change><Sensor scrambler ECM>: Laser designator receiver inaccuracy from smoke halved, max 3.5m for 1000 strength smoke and 7m for 5000. <Fix><Remote missiles>: Remote missiles now properly use general purpose processing power again.<Fix><Simple AI>: [BUGS-1594] Point at and circling AIs now properly pitch/roll to match the target if it's above the craft. <Fix><Simple laser>: Damage/AP fixed, instead of 400 DPS with 35 AP they have 1000/8 as shown in their tooltip. <Fix><Short range laser combiner>: Fixed SRLC multiplying damage every time the beam kills a block. <Change><Simple .50 AA cannon>: Health from 350 to 500. <Change><Simple .50 AA cannon>: Armor from 15 to 20. <Change><Simple .50 AA cannon>: Damage from 30 to 100. <Change><Simple .50 AA cannon>: AP from 4 to 10. <Change><Simple .50 AA cannon>: Inaccuracy from 2.5 to 1°. <Change><Simple .50 AA cannon>: Ammo cost from 10 to 15. <Change><Simple .50 AA cannon>: Cost from 10 to 200. <Change><Simple 20mm AA cannon>: Health from 650 to 2500. <Change><Simple 20mm AA cannon>: Armor from 15 to 25. <Change><Simple 20mm AA cannon>: Damage from 150 to 200. <Change><Simple 20mm AA cannon>: Magazine reload time from 2.2 to 6s. <Change><Simple 20mm AA cannon>: Cost from 80 to 1000. <Change><Simple 30mm assault cannon>: Health from 840 to 800. <Change><Simple 30mm assault cannon>: Armor from 10 to 20. <Change><Simple 30mm assault cannon>: Damage from 220 to 250. <Change><Simple 30mm assault cannon>: Ammo use from 50 to 25. <Change><Simple 30mm assault cannon>: Cost from 60 to 100. <Change><Simple 60mm autocannon>: Health from 840 to 800. <Change><Simple 60mm autocannon>: Armor from 10 to 20. <Change><Simple 60mm autocannon>: Ammo use from 30 to 10. <Change><Simple 60mm autocannon>: Cost from 60 to 100. <Change><Simple Rokkits gun>: Armor from 10 to 15. <Change><Simple Rokkits gun>: AP from 20 to 10. <Change><Simple Rokkits gun>: Simple Rokkits gun", "Inaccuracy from 18 to 7.5°. <Change><Simple Rokkits gun>: Ammo use from 500 to 1000. <Change><Simple Rokkits gun>: Cost from 125 to 500. <Change><Simple 60mm grenade launcher>: Armor from 20 to 25. <Change><Simple 60mm grenade launcher>: Max shell length from 0.5 to 0.3m. <Change><Simple 60mm grenade launcher>: Inaccuracy modifier reduced to 30% the previous value. <Change><Simple 60mm grenade launcher>: Time between shots from 0.8 to 2s. <Change><Simple 60mm grenade launcher>: Magazine reload time from 30 to 60s. <Change><Simple 60mm grenade launcher>: Inaccuracy down to 30% the previous value. <Change><Simple 60mm grenade launcher>: Cost from 100 to 250. <Change><Simple 40mm twin AA gun>: Health from 1200 to 3000. <Change><Simple 40mm twin AA gun>: Armor from 15 to 30. <Change><Simple 40mm twin AA gun>: Damage from 150 to 300. <Change><Simple 40mm twin AA gun>: Ammo use from 200 to 80. <Change><Simple 40mm twin AA gun>: Explosive damage from 200 to ~157, radius from 0.5 to 4.6m. <Change><Simple 40mm twin AA gun>: Magazine reload from 3.5 to 9s. <Change><Simple 40mm twin AA gun>: Cost from 125 to 1000. <Change><Simple 40mm twin AA gun>: Weight from 150 to 200. <Change><Simple 40mm quad AA gun>: Health from 1500 to 3500. <Change><Simple 40mm quad AA gun>: Armor from 15 to 30. <Change><Simple 40mm quad AA gun>: Damage from 150 to 300. <Change><Simple 40mm quad AA gun>: Ammo use from 400 to 160. <Change><Simple 40mm quad AA gun>: Explosive damage from 200 to ~157, radius from 0.5 to 4.6m. <Change><Simple 40mm quad AA gun>: Magazine reload from 3.2 to 13s. <Change><Simple 40mm quad AA gun>: Cost from 275 to 1500. <Change><Simple 40mm quad AA gun>: Weight from 200 to 300. <Change><Simple 40mm octuple AA gun>: Health from 1700 to 3500. <Change><Simple 40mm octuple AA gun>:Armor from 15 to 25. <Change><Simple 40mm octuple AA gun>:Damage from 150 to 300. <Change><Simple 40mm octuple AA gun>:Reload time from 0.225 to 0.4. <Change><Simple 40mm octuple AA gun>:Ammo use from 1500 to 1000. <Change><Simple 40mm octuple AA gun>:Explosive damage from 200 to ~157, radius from 0.5 to 4.6m. <Change><Simple 40mm octuple AA gun>: Magazine reload from 12 to 30s. <Change><Simple 40mm octuple AA gun>: Magazine capacity from 1120 to 200. <Change><Simple 40mm octuple AA gun>: Cost from 575 to 4000. <Change><Simple 40mm octuple AA gun>: Weight from 260 to 350. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun>: Health from 1700 to 3000. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun>: Armor from 15 to 25. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun>: 1.5x damage multiplier removed. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun>: Fixed firerate changed, uses 15% of the last shell's reload time instead. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun>: Cost from 150 to 2000. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun with shield>: Health from 1600 to 3500. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun with shield>: Armor from 15 to 30. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun with shield>: 1.5x damage multiplier removed. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun with shield>: Fixed firerate changed, uses 15% of the last shell's reload time instead. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun with shield>: Cost from 175 to 2500. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun with shield>: Weight from 220 to 300. <Change><Simple 130mm casemate>: Health from 2500 to 4500. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun with shield>: Armor from 20 to 30. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun with shield>: 2x damage multiplier removed. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun with shield>: Fixed firerate changed, uses 20% of the last shell's reload time instead. <Change><Simple 3.7 gun with shield>: Cost from 275 to 2500. <Change><Simple 150mm casemate>: Health from 3500 to 6000. <Change><Simple 150mm casemate>: Armor from 20 to 30. <Change><Simple 150mm casemate>: 2x damage multiplier removed. <Change><Simple 150mm casemate>: Fixed firerate changed, uses 30% of the last shell's reload time instead. <Change><Simple 150mm casemate>: Cost from 350 to 3500. <Change><Simple 16 pdr cannon>: Ammo use from 10 to 5. <Change><Simple 16 pdr cannon>: Cost from 30 to 100. <Change><Simple 32 pdr cannon>: Inaccuracy from 2° to 1°. <Change><Simple 32 pdr cannon>: Ammo use from 30 to 15. <Change><Simple 32 pdr cannon>: Inaccuracy from 0.2° to 0.1° <Change><Simple 32 pdr cannon>: Cost from 100 to 150. <Change><Simple 64 pdr cannon>: Ammo use from 75 to 30. <Change><Simple 64 pdr cannon>: Maximum elevation from 15 to 20°. <Change><Simple 64 pdr cannon>: MAzimuth range from 11 to 15°. <Change><Simple 64 pdr cannon>: Minimum elevation from 0 to -10°. <Change><Simple 64 pdr cannon>: Ammo use from 75 to 30. <Change><Simple 64 pdr cannon>: Cost from 60 to 250. <Change><Simple laser>: Health from 1120 to 1200. <Change><Simple laser>: Cost from 100 to 150.

Oct 31, 2019

2.5.1.12 Stable release.

From the Depths - BaconsTV

What is up awesome FromTheDepthians!
We have released the current devtest build into stable, which brings you good people the following goodies and some new additions :D

Some minor changes to a few block types such as;
Munition warners can see through railings
Sheild projector UI has been updated
APS and Crams now have the option to aim straight at the enemy, ignoring gravity and movement, which can be found in the dropdown list when using Q on the turret and changing from Only low to Direct line.
Crams also have a tiny bit of guidance and built-in gravity compensator when using aim setting “Only High” this will give them a slightly better chance of hitting an enemy.

In terms of propulsion changes;
Dedi-blades are now more powerful when the blades are further away from the centre axis. This reflects the increased area of air swept
Helium pumps are now more powerful. Both air and helium pumps have changed the way that they leak to be more realistic.
Propellers now have a pitch adjustment so that they can be angled -15 to +15, so we can now “counter” wheelies or nose dives if we place a number of props under the or over the centre of mass for forwards push. This may be added to all propulsion types in future.

We have also created a patreon page and we have had two Patreon requests already which we have added to the game.
We now have a slider that changes the clarity of the ocean depth you can see through. This can only be used if you have GPU ocean enabled. This slider is also available in the planet editor too.
Spot the difference:

The settings for these two screenies were clarity factor 10 first pic and 0 second pic. Set this to 1 for default settings.

Our second Patreon request was to add gravity, drag, particle count and lifetime to the smoke generator for a more realistic smoke trail.

Nick has also added a new laser fire piece Short Range Laser, which can deal very powerful short-range beams for bombing runs, interceptors or melee style constructs.

The shorter the focus range is the higher the damage multiplier will be. 50m would have a x10 multiplier so you can indeed dish out quite a bit of damage! 300m is the max distance for this system, the multiplier would be x2.880665 which is still very good (imo) :D

As many of you already know during this latest devtest we have finally got our hands on the epic Undo Redo feature by Weng :D
So just in case you did not know, the Undo Redo feature is in stable!

Have you accidentally chopped your whole boat in half??
Fear not little Rambot! Smash that CTRL Z and bring it all back!! And if you are still not happy smash CTRL Y and lose half your boaty again :D rinse and repeat until content.

The Undo Redo feature does not have a limit as to how many blocks it keeps track of for you to undo, so you can manually delete 100 or 1000 blocks one by one and spam CTRL Z to bring them all back. However, once you save and exit the game that history will be lost!
The Undo Redo will also resolve misclicks like deleting the turret block by mistake or deleting the block under the turret block thus killing your turret. One CTRL Z and you have the block you deleted back again and also the turret :D Spin blocks and pistons, stacked or not, are also recognised by this feature and any blocks that were attached to them.

Our latest new addition is the Steam Jet, from our most awesome Weng :D

Steam Jets can use a maximum of 2000 steam per second, which will give us 2000 thrust.
You can also hit Q on the steam jet and lower the amount of steam used. As an example, I have a light flyer and using steam jets for yaw, I would set these around 500 to be on par with a small jet or even lower to 150. The minimum is 1. Currently the steam jet does not have a max speed, however, this is subject to change! You can find this awesome new addition in Steam Engines/Piping - Steam Jet at 50 material :D

To continue on this steamy subject, Weng has also made us a new drill which is currently quite deadly! As you can see below. I have attached the steam setup and drill on two telescopic pistons, just to help reach those parts that matter most :D and if you find people are making fun of your drill, feel free to extend your shaft much as you please with the shaft extension block.

The steam drill is made up of two parts the drill head 150 materials and the drill shaft 100 materials. Currently, the health and armour are the same for all 3 steam setups small/med/large at 1500 health and 25 armour.

We are also tweaking up tutorials to also have voice instructions, currently, the 1st tutorial has the voice of T3hJimmer.

Patch notes

<Change><Blocks>: [REQ-835] Munition warners now see through railings (and any other block transparent to IR light). <Change><Blocks>: The power of a dedi-blade is now more powerful the further away from the axis it is- which reflects the increased area of air swept. <Change><UI>: [FTD-7] shield projector UI updated. <Change><Blocks>: Helium pumps are now more powerful, and air pumps and helium pumps have changed the way that they leak to be more realistic. <Add><Blocks>: Propellers now have a 'pitch' adjustment so they can be angled -15° to +15° <Add><Lasers>: Added a short-range laser that can deal a very powerful short-range beam for bombing runs, fighter-interceptors or melee style laser units. <Add><Tutorial>: Added a voice over to the first tutorial. <Add>Controls>: You can now modify the pitch of water propellers. <Add>[Patreon request]: Added a slider for water clarity that affects the depth you can see through the GPU ocean. It's available in the planet editor for weathers but the player also has their own slider in the options menu for it. <Add>[Patreon request]: Added a gravity, drag, particle count and lifetime slider to the smoke generator to achieve more realistic smoke trails <Fix><Regressions>: [BUGS-1491] Fixed an issue existing since april '19 caused could be caused by repairing a mainframe with particular AI behaviours on it <Fix><Regressions>: [BUGS-1550] laser target data now saves for CRAM cannon laser target block. <Fix><Lasers>: [BUGS-1545] short range laser beam is now correctly colorable <Fix><AI>: [BUGS-1544] Circling Ship and Circling Tank simple AI cards now correctly configure the adjuster when freshly placed. <Fix><Building>: [BUGS-1464] some small fixes to sub object saving and loading <Fix><Game>: [Bugs-1463] Out of play repairing bug causing massive speed and altitude fixed <Add><Undo/redo>: Added in undo/redo functionality for building. <Add><Steam>: Added Steam Jet. <Add><Steam> : Added Steam shaft and steam head. <Add><Cannons>Added added to APS and CRAM to aim the cannon straight at the enemy, ignoring gravity and movement. <Add><CRAM>: Shells fired by a CRAM cannon set to aim using only high trajectories now have a tiny bit of guidance to give them some chance of ever hitting an enemy. They also get a build in gravity compensator.