This update adds fancy new flame effects, a Blastwing rework (it still sets things on fire) and a thermite bomb for Odin. It also has balance changes ranging from Metal Extractor to Disco Rave Party, and a bunch of features, fixes, and performance improvements from numerous contributors.

Hot Reworks

Blastwing always had a problem with chain exploding. The previous solution was low direct damage followed by high damage over time. This felt weak and niche. The new solution is to "safely" eject its bomb when it dies, rather than explode immediately.

• Cost 45 -> 55
• Increased deceleration rate by 60%
• Drops its bomb on death rather than exploding immediately.
• Direct damage 40 -> 320
• Explosion radius 144 -> 128
• Maximum unit-on-fire duration 1s -> 24s
• No longer creates area fire

Odin has its Disintegrator Bomb replaced with a Thermite Bomb. The disintegrator was prone to converting immobilisation abilities into delayed 1-hit kills, with too little counterplay. The new bomb deals damage over time in a small area, so a commander can be saved by preventing the second Placeholder shot, or with a nudge it if it is stunned. Thermite also hits shields, fully draining a few before it is blocked.

• Deals damage to everything in a small area around it over 30s.
• Damage ramps up over time, from 0 damage per second to 1000.
• Typical damage 8k -> 14k
• Its trajectory is blocked by obstacles, but continues on when they are "removed".

Balance

Claymore has a buff to fix the occasional distance-closing issue in sea,

• Seaborne depthcharge range 280 -> 300

Lobster is slightly less nimble.

• Relob time 12s -> 14s

Gremlin follows Toad by gaining enough vision to see the ends of its lasers.

• Sight range 660 -> 760

Jugglenaut and Detriment now decloak when they land, since they deal damage.

• Detriment already decloaked on launch, so this only really changes Jugglenaut.

Magpie hits more trick shots.

• Missile turn rate increased by 8.7%

Metal Extractor loses a bit of health so Blastwing can deal less damage.

• Health 600 -> 560

Picket is a bit cheaper to save us from Blastwing.

• Cost 100 -> 95

Disco Rave Party switches to comfortably outranging Zenith, but costs a bit more, and is much less accurate in high trajectory mode.

• Cost 42k -> 45k
• Range 7000 -> 9600 (Zenith is 8800)
• Projectile gravity reduced by 44%.
• Low trajectory spread at max range: Two Inferno diameters.
• High trajectory spread: Two Trinity diameters.

Features

• Units that are on fire now look more severely on fire depending on the remaining duration of the fire.
• Added a fancy animated flame effect (thanks Anarchid and engine devs) which has been applied to all flamethrower and napalm weapon effects.
• Antinuke construction is partially paid back from team overdrive, in the same way as the existing energy construction system. The first antinuke constructed by a team gives the builders 50% of its cost back over the next several minutes, with the proportion paid back dropping by 10% per previous antinuke.
• Moved the settings from "Settings/HUD Panels/Spectator Panels" and "Settings/Interface/Spectating" to "Settings/Spectating".
• Added an automatic action finding camera for replays and live spectating (thanks fiendicus_prime). Enable it under "Settings/Spectating/Action Tracking Camera".
• Added a widget to display player names over a unit on screen (thanks fiendicus_prime). Replaces commander nametags, but has a commander-only option. Enable under "Settings/Interface/Player Name Tags".
• The units that will be thrown by selected Lobsters are highlighted when the command is selected (thanks dyth68). Can be configured under "Settings/Interface/Falling Units/Lobster".
• Fire special weapon now shows range rings for all selected units, like Force Fire (thanks dyth68).
• Commanders spawned to the same location now spawn next to each other instead (thanks Shaman).
• Added a small drag threshold for terraforming to make Ctrl+Click surrounding buildings easier.
• Added an Alt modifier to the selected units panel to select/deselect half of unit group.
• Added the secret Ctrl modifier to the selected units panel tooltip.
• Added more descriptive short descriptions for missiles built in the Missile Silo.
• Changed the default self destruct hotkey from Ctrl+D to Ctrl+K. Only affects new installs.

Modding

• The new fire effects replace the existing cegs "napalmfireball_200" and "flamer". Mods that use these cegs as a base should get the new fire effects. Use "flamer_cartoon" for old style flamethrower fire.
• Exposed weaponDefID, projectileID, attackerID, attackerDefID, attackerTeam to widget:UnitDamaged. Spectators see everything, while players only see attacker stats if the attacker is visible, and don't get weaponDefID or projectileID.
• Removed the special techniques required to give weapons zero damage.
• GG.CheckStartBox returns true if startboxes are disabled. Set the 4th argument to true to read raw boxes.
• Added "/luarules battle <file>" to spawn preset battles. The system could be extended to ease mass preset unit spawning.

Blastwing Fixes

• Blastwings told to fly quickly after landing are no longer stuck in their landing animation.
• Blastwings now have collision, like other gunships, to prevent them stacking on one location.
• Blastwing no longer cloaks mid air if it happens to come to a complete halt.
• Blastwings are now possible to use with area cloakers, instead of constantly cloaking and recloaking under them for no reason.
• Blastwings with a Force Fire order on the ground now explode, rather than just hang around.
• Blastwings told to attack a unit now consistently approach the unit and explode, rather than sometimes hovering next to it.
• Blastwings told to attack a moving unit now update their heading more than once a second, making them able to fly at and hit notoriously mobile targets like Lance.

Other Fixes

• Starlight only deforms the map every 5th frame. It looks a little weird, but is better than people lagging out while we wait for an engine fix for the deformation performance issue.
• Fixed Paladin causing an unreasonable performance hit (thanks Porkch0p).
• More damage dealt by dead units, such as bomb damage, thermite and fire, shows up in the endgame graphs.
• Fixed spectators seeing the player-facing, hax free, unit damaged/killed midgame graphs, rather than the real ones.
• Fixed airpad exclusion orders with an even number of aircraft selected (thanks Helwor).
• Fixed giant Desolator death clone collision volume (thanks dyth68).
• Fixed bombers sometimes failing to automatically return to a pad when idle, especially after a Stop command.
• Fixed personal commander shield not having any regeneration.
• Flamethrower visuals no longer penetrate shields.
• Fixed the little generator ball effect on area shield generators not disappearing off when the unit is stunned.
• Fixed santa hat lighting.
• Fixed Storage XP.
• Fixed lighting on Small Divide Remake and LLTA Complex.
• Fixed passworded games of friends that exist when logging in sometimes not showing up in the battle list.
• Possibly fixed the occasional ghost or missing player in battle lobbies, often after returning from a game.

Relobing!

I can't say I'm a fan of changing self-D to CTRL + K since it makes the mechanic significantly less discoverable, and it's just not ergonomic as a default bind. In comparison BAR has a unique sound effect for self-D that should mitigate accidental inputs.

quote: SupCom's default is Ctrl+K.

Total Annihilation's default is Ctrl+D.

I think the point is to make self-destruct not ergonomic, in the sense that it is unlikely to be pressed accidentally.

It can, in any case, be re-bound.

Well that explains why Kingstad owned me with blastwings earlier. I didn't recall them exploding like that!