Sep 12, 2024

Into the M.A.W. - Moonrise Studios

Hey everyone! Captain, Pilot, and Engineer have all received plenty of attention in our previous updates, so now it’s time to give the Gunner some love—along with a host of other improvements. Here are the details:

Improvements

Cannon:
- Rate of fire increased from 1/s to 3/s.
- Overheat threshold raised from 5 shots to 7 shots.
- Cannon rounds are faster and easier to hit with.
- Improved visual indicators for round trajectory.
Laser: Damage increased from 15/s to 30/s.
Missile Pathing: Overhauled to make missiles faster and more direct.
Ion Lance: Damage increased from 50 to 150 across all regions it passes through.
Engineer: Repair speed has been significantly increased.
Pilot: Cloaking now charges faster (45s → 30s) but also depletes faster (30s → 20s).
Captain: Scan rate doubled.
Enemy Ship Balancing: Adjusted health across all enemy ships for better balance.
Dialogue Timeout: Dialogue options now have a timeout feature to prevent abuse; a random option will be chosen if none is selected in time.
Captain's Log: Now opens automatically for all other roles as a reminder that it exists.
AI Behavior: Improved collision avoidance and general behaviors.
Scrollwheel Control: Added scrollwheel icons for Gunner's Laser color and Engineer's Shield color, both of which can now be controlled via the scrollwheel.
Particle Efficiency: Improved for better performance.
Aether Eggs: Now available in all 3 demo levels.

Bug Fixes

Client Captain: Now has access to the correct dialogue options.
AI Fixes: AI no longer gets irrationally angry while in call with players and won't decide to fly off indefinitely.
Gun Vibration: Significantly reduced.
Pilot Log Scrolling: The W and S keys no longer scroll the Log for the Pilot.
Death Mission: Improved edge case handling.
Soft Shadows: Fixed on planets.
Pre-Mission Screen: No longer impacted by mission lighting and is now correctly scaled for all resolutions.
Captain’s Transmission Marker: Now correctly disappears in some unusual edge cases.
Dialogue Tweaks: A variety of small dialogue tweaks.
Miscellaneous Fixes: Several other small bug fixes.

As always, thank you for playing and for all your feedback! Now, it's time to get back to working on missions!

-Silenced Mage-

Sep 12, 2024

Quake Champions Season 24

Quake Champions - MortalEmperor | Bethesda

We're at ground zero for Season 24, and there will be a reckoning with some brand new weapon vanities inspired by the Quake II Mission Packs! Check out the full notes for today's fall season update:

New Battle Pass & Store Content

Added the PHALANX PARTICLE CANNON Tri-bolt from Q2: The Reckoning

Added the ETF RIFLE Super Nailgun from Q2: Ground Zero

Added the ION RIPPER Rocket Launcher from Q2: The Reckoning

Performance Optimizations

Code optimizations for CPU & Memory
Optimized sound events, reducing their CPU & Memory loads
Optimizations to Tri-bolt water impacts
Fixed two memory leak fixes
Marked several effects as low priority and renamed the 'Weapon Effects' option in Adv Video to 'Low Priority FX'

Sound Updates

Improved the volume and mixing of the footstep and falling sounds
Elevation sound balancing is now only for third-person steps and jumps
Improved the firing sounds for the Freezegun (1st & 3rd) and the Disruptor Plasmagun (1st)
Teammate Volume now defaults to 10
Marked unnecessary first-person weapon sounds as ambient for Gauntlets, Q4 SNG, and Q2R Tri-bolt (PPC). These will now be affected by the Ambient Volume slider and from the silent-walking ambient stun.
Project is back to 44.1k instead of 48k to address some mixer performance issues
Resampled some of the legacy 22k sound sources to 44.1k
Enemies once again have 3 pain sound ranges (1-25, 26-50, 51-75)
Reduced the 1st person volume of Slash's skating sounds
Reduced the chance of Anarki & Slash's long VO from playing

Weapons

Machinegun
- Spread reduced from 0.02 to 0.01
Shotgun
- Is 16 pellets, rings of 1, 3, 5, 7 - 5 damage each. A total of 80 damage.
Super Shotgun
- Is also 16 pellets, rings of 1, 3, 5, 7 - 5 damage each. A total of 80 damage.
- However, the SSG now gains bonus damage based on range. The range damage, is up to 40 additional points, bringing the total possible damage to 120. Full bonus granted within the first 5 meters and then falls off linearly until there is no range bonus at 10m.
Shotgun & Super Shotgun
- Falloff distance is 1 point of damage every 19.2m. Falloff is now greatly reduced due to the above changes.
- Decreased nearspread from 0.6 to 0.25 m
Nailgun
- Damage increased from 12 to 15
Super Nailgun
- Damage increased from 15 to 20
Nailgun & Super Nailgun
- Nail projectile collision reverted to a point trace, for performance (and balance)
Tri-bolt
- Projectile collision reverted to a point trace, for performance
Rocket Launcher
- Reverted rocket projectile collision reverted to a point trace, for performance
Lightning Gun
- Damage increased from 6 to 7

Champions

Clutch
- Air-Dodge reduced from 9.02 to 8 m/s and to 7 m/s during shield usage
DOOM Slayer
- Berserk mechanics improved to make it more reliable, including hit detection and jump-punch physics
- Can no longer double jump during Berserk

Maps

Cursed Soul
- Lighting improvements
- Quad and Protection now swap locations each spawn
- Fixed collision on sand patch at the top of the water well
- Fixed a seam right of the doorway from the NG room to the MH room
- Fixed a seam below the pillar at vista hallway
- Fixed spectator camera orientations
- Fixed entity visibility issue at dungeon staircase entrance
- Fixed entity visibility issue at 2x25hp staircase
- Improved collision at SNG pillars
- Reworked the collision on the lava pillar ramp
- Added an additional broken pillar at lava pillar ramp to better hint at the clipped wall
- Fixed a seam in a doorway near upper crypt
- Improved collision at stone to health jump in throne room
- Improved collision at lava teleporter dropdown
- Minor skybox updates
Citadel
- Fixed bots to getting stuck on the soul obelisk in Sacrifice
Lockbox
- Item layout changed a lot; have fun!
- Trap updated, now deep and deadly

Miscellaneous Updates

Permanently unlock Ranked if you've ever reached Level 25
Fixed on-screen FX during Picmip (so that they no longer get mipped), ex: sorlag spit, dk fire, health damage, ghostwalk fx
Fixed Peeker drone HUD when using Picmip
Fixed the missing Aquamarine shader for the Q2 Malediction Railgun
Fixed Anarki Striker beard shaders

Sep 12, 2024

State of Dev September 2024

Watch Out For Goblins! - Roy_Rock_On

Happy September Goblin Gang! NextFest looms, and we’ve been hard at work preparing the WOFG! demo. In fact, our demo build is now in our open playtest. If you want to help us polish it up by trying it out and giving us your honest feedback it would be greatly appreciated. You can sign up for the open playtest on the store page. If you’d rather wait until it’s out, you won’t have to wait long. We are planning to release the demo in early October.

If you’d like to know what we’ve been working on for the past month and a bit, read on for this month’s State of Dev report:

Milestones Reached in the Last Month

Level Design - The WOFG! demo will be set on the Skrimble Iles. We’ve been shaping the level to try to find a balance between guided progression and open exploration. We think we’ve managed that.
Goblin NPCs - We’ve created a “quest line” system for our NPC goblins that lets them change behaviors/dialogue based on things the players do on the map. We feel it gives the goblins a lot more personality and we are excited to expand on this system in the future.
Mechanisms! - We have a lot of things to collect, but we had nothing to spend them on. Mechanisms are our solution. Now you can place a Power Cog into an Energy Widget, which will activate any attached mechanisms. Some mechanisms (like the vending machines) are activated by spending your hard earned mud and bolts. We like the idea of slowly bringing life to Gobland as you explore and are happy with how the mechanisms system supports this.

Dev Goals for September

Get Ready for Next Fest - The WOFG! demo is going to be in Steam’s October NextFest! The goal now is to focus all our effort on making the demo as polished and ready as it possibly can be. As I said above: we are currently running an open playtest of the demo content through Steam. We will be running this palytest until the end of September. Any feedback helps us learn what is working and what isn’t. Playtesting is what makes games good.

That’s all for now. I’d better get back to it. Exciting times. Thanks for reading all the way to the end, you always impress me when you do. We will see you in the playtest if you want to help (you can find it on our store page). Otherwise, we hope you are excited to play the WOFG! Demo during NextFest next month. As always, until next time, remember - Watch Out for Goblins!

Sep 12, 2024

Small Update v1.6.0.6 Optx6

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts - DARTIS

Hello all,

We have some new additions that further improve the game. You can read below:

*v1.6.0.6*
- Fix of the bug that caused ships to freeze aiming and movement due to a code exception (very old bug) caused in campaign rarely when players saved a refit design which involved a change of guns and those ships participated in a battle the same turn. Hopefully this is the definite fix . Please report if you anticipate it again.
- Fix of another rare bug that could cause overweight ships due to a wrong save of engine data.
- Adjusted the ship damage model to make "All-or-Nothing" armor schemes more viable. Taking damage out of the citadel will have smaller impact so well protected ships will distinctively endure more damage.
- Gun accuracy improved slightly at all ranges.
- Shell dispersion logic optimization, addressing issues that could be caused at the edge of range for large caliber guns,which previously would not be able to find a firing solution.
- Ship maneuverability mechanics’ optimizations and fix of the reverse bug, that could make ships in division to not be able to complete their reverse movement. These changes also improve the way that ships maintain their division formations.
- Fixed auto-refit mode reducing too much the speed of the ships.
- Further auto-design optimizations, making it faster and more effective.
- Minor other fixes.

Uploaded optimized build including:
- Auto-Design further optimizations.
- Armor penetration thresholds fine tunings. In short, armored ships will be even more durable in combat but full penetrations will result in an even more catastrophic damage.
- Battle AI adjustments to exploit more effectively the advantages of its ships.
- A minor camera fix in campaign map.
You need to restart Steam to get the update.

Uploaded optimizedx2 build including:
- Auto-Design further optimizations.
- Increased ammo replenishment in campaign.
- Fixed FPS limit not being saved in settings.
- Fixed some problems in camera scrolling in campaign map, being either too sensitive or not fast enough.
- End techs improved to not cause overweight ships.
- Fixed remaining issue of shell ballistics not being able to find a fire solution sometimes. Gun ranges and accuracies have been adjusted accordingly.
- Adjusted further the armoring logic and damage model, addressing cases where some ships with very high endurance were too hard to sink plus other fixes.
You need to restart Steam to get the update.

Note: There will be a new beta shortly introducing a radical change in the game, making a new campaign to need only a few seconds to start, and overall to greatly reduce the loading times. Mainly this update will improve the number one issue of the game, as stated by the community.

Uploaded optimizedx3 build including:
- A further improvement for the FPS limit in settings. You should notice also a slight fps increase.
- Battle AI fine tuning.
- Tension slight tone down.
- Other minor.
You need to restart Steam to get the update.

Note: In about 2 hours, we will provide the promised beta.

Uploaded optimizedx4 build including:
- Auto-Design further optimizations.
- Further shell dispersion optimizations.
- Further ship movement optimizations.
- Rudder options became more distinct in their effect.
- Aiming became more persistent when hitting the enemy.
- More aggressive Division AI logic for Screen/Scout commands (passed the change from the current beta)
You need to restart Steam to get the update.

Uploaded optimizedx5 build including:
- Fixed issue in Campaign forcing the AI to design ships too often, delaying the turns.
- Further optimizations for auto-design.
- Further improvement on how snapping works in the ship constructor, fixing previous problems causing difficulties to add guns on barbettes.
You need to restart Steam to get the update.

Note: The beta version of the game will be updated soon, most probably today.

Uploaded optimizedx6 build including:
- Possible fix for minor nation ships not cleaning up after being sunk in battle.
- Optimization in ship movement at sea mechanics.
- Optimizations in shell ballistics (affects penetration due to different shell physics applied).
- Optimization in environment lighting for battles.
- Optimization in auto-design.
- Optimizations in Battle AI.
You need to restart Steam to get the update.

Note: This version aims to be stable and good enough as a safe build to revert if you have any issue when we make the beta version finalized and released. We will offer a release candidate of beta tomorrow.