V1.4.2.5

The core of this release is the dynamic commanders system - commanders with customization ingame instead of pregame. Drone carriers received a nerf intended to make them worse at sustaining a battle when covered by AA, they will want to retreat and re-stock. This release took a while so there are also many miscellaneous fixes.

Commanders

Commanders can now be configured during the game.

• Pick the modules for each level upon upgrading your commander (with the cog command).
• Use site profiles to store and name your favorite loadouts.
• Decorations are also applied through the site. Ordinary unlocks will be removed.

We have finally removed the Strike and Battle commander models. The models were reasonable but unfortunately they were too close to OTA. The Arm Commander is the iconic face of OTA and Core is not far behind. The Strike chassis received a new model and the Siege and Battle chassis were merged into one.

The commander morph design received a shake-up in the process, some due to design changes and some for technical reasons. The changes are not balanced but they aim to be balanced eventually. Here are some changes:

• Support → Engineer (Support is too generic as a word, could be confusing).
• Engineer and Recon can only equip one basic weapon. It makes sense as they only have one gun. They should be made powerful in other ways.
• The weapons allowed for each chassis have changed. Some weapons have been removed or modified. There are some new weapons.
• Some conversions have been removed, mostly the 0-choice ones (those that increase range).

A few experimental features are already possible with the new system. These includes:

• Commanders have no upgrade limit (base cost increases though).
• Base commanders can be built from Strider Hub (1000 metal, no economy).
• Stackable drone modules.

This is just the initial implementation. Once this system is tested we hope to add more interesting features and balance, things not seen in the previous commander system. Each chassis should be able to fulfill a few roles so pregame RPS will not be as worrying as it was before.

Balance / Mechanics

• Disarm no longer destroys wreckage and map features (trees, rocks etc).
• Resurrecting now decloaks.
• Resurrecting now costs 200% of the original energy cost (was 125%).
• Jumping with jetpack (Pyro, Jack, Freaker, Recon Commander) now decloaks.
• Defender reload time obeys status effects (EMP, slow, disarm)
• Trident, Flail and Racketeer now home onto radar dots.
• Reef:
  • time between starting a new drone: 3 → 5 s (can build 4 in parallel)
  • drone build time: 15 → 25 s
  • drone max wander range: 1600 → 1000 elmo
• Funnelweb and Commander Companion Modules:
  • time between starting a new Firefly (light drone): 10 → 15 s
  • Firefly build time: 3 → 6 s
  • time between starting a new Viper (heavy drone): 20 → 25 s
  • Viper build time: 3 → 9 s
• Quill less annoying to use through manoeuvrability improvements:
  • turn rate: 81 → 90 °/s
  • time from max speed to full stop: 1 → 0.1 s (Deceleration 90 → 1350 elmo/s², max speed = 84 elmo/s)
• Tremor can damage itself with stray shots.

UI / Misc

• LoS view is no longer enabled in the pregame setup.
• Added time display to spectator panel.
• Added Unit Shapes highlighting to units under the cursor (colour-coded blue for own, yellow for allies, red for enemies) and inside a selection box.
• Added option to Unit Shapes to show ally selections with each player's colour while spectating.
• Selection: renamed "DGun" reload timer to "Special".
• Added an option to hide command panel when spectating.
• Improved Blastwing explosion effect.
• Reduced Claw missile hit sound.

Fixes

• Fixed some cases where late spawning commanders spawned outside their start box.
• Cloaker and shield jitter now disable during morph (these are effects high graphics settings).
• Control groups are maintained through morph.
• Nanoframes leave the correct debris.
• Tidal generator wreckage has the correct tooltip.
• Fixed Numpad Enter not working for chat.
• Fixed a crash caused by resigning during "Wait or Win".
• Fixed spec panel crashing on AI games.
• Fixed an UI crash when using build hotkeys with an Athena.
• Unit selection shapes and unit outlines effects now respect depth.
• Healthbars are no longer shown for dying units, EMP is drawn correctly.
• Fixed music sometimes not playing while messing with the volume slider.
• Most hovercrafts no longer create dust when cloaked (this is so they don't give away their position).
• Improvedstartbox rendering performance.
• Teleportation noises are no longer audible in the fog of war.
• Jumpers which die in mid air now have appropriate velocity for their wreck.
• Morph no longer resets shield charge.
• Crabe has minor model and animation improvements.

Content creation

• Startboxes exposed to Game Rules Params.
• Skirmish AI can now ask whether a start position is valid.

Game rules params for boxes:

startbox_max_n → highest box number (boxes are numbered from 0!)

startbox_n_0 → how many polygons in box #0 (polygons numbered from 1)
startbox_polygon_0_1 → how many vertices in polygon #1 of box #0 (vertices numbered from 1)
startbox_polygon_x_0_1_2 → X coordinate of vertex #2 in polygon #1 of box #0
startbox_polygon_z_0_1_2 → Z coordinate of vertex #2 in polygon #1 of box #0

startbox_recommended_startpos → whether recommended startpositions are available (1 or 0)
startpos_n_0 → how many recommended start positions in box #0 (positions numbered from 1)
startpos_x_0_1 → X coordinate of recommended startpos #1 in box #0
startpos_x_0_1 → Z coordinate of recommended startpos #1 in box #0

To have an AI ask about startpos validity of coordinates XXX/ZZZ (Y is irrelevant), send a Skirmish AI Message:

ai_is_valid_startpos:XXX/ZZZ

and receive "0"/"1" as the return value.