Empires 2.8.0 "Asymptote" April 6, 2016 * Bugfixes: Crash when spawning an APC, if you fire the MG immediately after constructing it Comm crash fix Commander can once again place buildings near enemy walls, engineer cameras & radars, and unbuilt buildings Reverted unintentional change, so that vehicle weapons aim towards the crosshair again, rather than parallel to your aiming direction (dual cannons still work) Fixed exploit building through the walls of emp_canyon, by reinstating a check from 2.6.9 that was missing Reverted unintentional change; you can now build through ammo crates again (and multiplayer physics props) The squad popup back in your face every round, because we just can't trust you to remember Fixed building underwater and through world, found in 2.8.0 beta Fix vehicles not being forced out of vehicle factory on creation. Removed emp_gauntlet descriptions since that map is gone Map description file for emp_noreturn * Balancing changes for "Asymptote" For years, there have been only 1~2 usable armors. We would like each armor to have its own special trait that makes it a decent option to research under different circumstances; to that end, we've modified capacitive, absorbant and reflective, as well as bio MG and plasma MG, to better suit the strategic commander. We've also buffed railguns and nerfed walls to make for a faster endgame. Artillery is back, baby! The new 180mm Artillery Cannon packs a much better punch than before. See the full changelog below. * Other code fixes: 8 traces in cilinder to establish evenness of terrain; draw traces that fail No more building placement on top of buildings/players/vehicles. Arty Max Weight 870->855 Health 150->125 Reduced collision radii of all buildings to fit snugly around the model, allowing the ramps on all buildings to stick out and overlap. Added OffsetZ of 10 for all buildings to enable placement on not quite even terrain (except for walls, those weren't touched) Added building_flushscript cheat, to allow you to keep the game running while adjust building collision bounds Added con command to give a team resources, only usable by server admins; "emp_give_resources" Added cl_mute_all_comms to mute chat as well as voice. Don't count player dropped buildings towards the max turret limit. Disabled stripping symbols for server for better sourcemod support Rename Assault class to Scout. DefaultLightmapScale is now 64; this is a setting for new brushes created in hammer, and was requested by DocRabbit; it does not change how existing maps will compile A player's ticket usage is also incremented for first spawn, as they use a ticket anyway. Save player stats when they spawn and are killed. Re-added building hints, reimplemented much simpler than the old ones, and properly scaling to screen size Updated the Source SDK with the latest code from the TF and HL2 branches. (now on 0d8dceea431 in the Source SDK, latest commit) * Non-code fixes: New models for Brenodi engineer camera and radar, courtesy of Smithy. emp_streetsoffire: Fixed misaligned overlay outside BE main. Change contributed by D.D.D. Destroyer. emp_district402: Fixes flag model for be 3rd flag using the wrong emp_cap_point Add a template map for new mappers: SteamApps\common\Empires\empires\mapsrc\emp_template.vmf Change starting armor in emp_glycencity to absorbant instead of budget. Replaced the broken "test microphone" textures. * Semantic versioning: We're now using semantic versioning as described on http://semver.org/ The major version number is 2, and is bumped whenever we change so much that the game is fundamentally different. The minor version number is 8, and is bumped for any change that requires both server and client to update The patch version number is 0, and is bumped for any change that does not require an update to remain compatible - so, only crash fixes. See the forums for more discussion on our versioning system. In addition to semantic versioning, which is useful for server owners and devs mostly, each future version will maintain a name for the current balancing (or "scripts"), with an optional suffix to indicate small tweaks or (potentially major) bugfixes. This also helps for beta testers to know what balancing they are testing. * More detailed balancing changelog: HEMG Damage 11 -> 10.5 Reflective->Deflective (thanks Mr.X), also corrected a typo (absorbant). Bio MG rework, more single shot dmg, longer cycle time, much shorter bio dmg interval. Plasma MG rework, lower heat gen & heat to enemy, longer cycle time, higher damage. Angle modifier 1->0.95 & 10% shell/missile/MG resist for Deflective, 15% MG resist for Absorbant. HML dmg 45->52 clipsize 6->7 reload time 6->5 SHML lock time1.5->1.2 total clip 6->7 5% shell/missile resist for Deflective, 15% vehicle MG resist for Absorbant. Capacitive cost 15->20 Capacitive rework, more hp, no degen, negative angle modifer, increased bio dmg. Absorbant health 60->66 Explosion force 100000 -> 70000, less flipping. Artillery cannon rework, higher "alpha" damage, lower DPM. Higher radius except for ranged. (2.8.1 buffed the range for the small and medium arty) wall resist against kinetic/missile 0.95->0.925, everything else 0.97->0.94 (mortar and seismics unchanged); NB; effective strength against tanks halved Always spawn with max ammo for BEHR. Reactive weight 20->18 HMG Stamina drain decreased significantly, slight damage buff. Abs bio damage modifier 0->0.3 DUMG/DUHMG spread 0.04->0.03 Regen health 60->70 Regen 0.067->0.07 Composite cost 15->20, reason same as Deflective. Deflective cost 15->20, this is to make cheaper armor stands out. NFHR rework, damage buff, slightly increased cycle time, better standing acc, lower crotch/prone acc. BEAR rework, damage & accuracy buff, slightly longer cycle time. NF&BE ref now have same resists. Budget armor removal. Rail gun damage 45->50 Absorbant cost 12->4 DUMG damage 4->5 DUHMG damage 6->8 Coolant engine buff; +10% heat dissipation, -25% heat output at max
Right, thanks for noting it; I didn't copy from threads, I copied from Steam\steamapps\common\Empires\empires/releasenotes.txt, which has all releasenotes from all previous versions. Version 1 is especially informative: Version 1.0 Beta Changes: March 4, 2006 -Initial Release -Added: ALL
You know, even if that's true, that's just showing how bad the things were. At least we are heading the right way.
I did full bio tree on flat, got the diesel and regen and people said regen was working real nice. Of course flat also ended at like the 25 minute mark before either team got heavies due to no tickets but it shows promise at least. Seriously why does flat have 100 tickets? It's bad enough to not have a starting ref and only 100 res, but my goodness do people blow through everything fast. Though I did realize later that bio mg and bio ml is a pretty bad combo because bio mg kinda never really works(can't stack bio effects ya?). Not even sure bio mg did much, but at least my tanks seems to do alright. I was nf if this makes any difference to future comms looking for not mechanical first research... I think next time if I'm looking to combine regen with a fast engine for obvious reasons I think physics would be the way to go. I think plasma mg kinda has potential here, it almost gives enough heat to target to enemy tanks to make there engine effectively stop cooling at least until heavies, but this kinda feels like a gamble really, I have to see it in practice. At least with getting du you also get 50 cal which is just amazing on certain maps and it's right next to ranged which I would get anyway. It's hard because I can't judge how effective things are unless I use them, and other commanders aren't going to fiddle around with oddball research like plasma or bio mg so I have to be commanding to actually have the research done. This feels like a catch 22.
The bio armor in that game worked great, the Bio MG and Bio ML however did nothing for damage it seemed. We could always retreat and repair by the time we were even coming close to approaching a low health and the damage over time was minuscule enough that it didn't really harm us. The armor though was annoying...
Yeah, if you can't burst enemy regen tank down and/or he constantly out-maneuvers you, that's 5 extra hp/sec for him. I am more surprised that people didn't even try Absorbant(at least for the games I spec'd), I gave it a pretty decent buff. Researching old Abs = Griefing, old Abs sacrifices like 25~30% protection for maybe 10~15% lower cost. (compared with compo) I think now it's reversed, new Abs sacrifices just 15~20% protection and that's 30% lower cost for ya.
I think part of it is coolant doesn't really work for half the maps, it's too slow. The other armors that people like have a decent enough fast engine right next to them, and I don't think anyone noticed the cost changes yet. Though I played a game of slaughtered and commander got gas turbine and reactive of all things, I just don't know what happened there. I probably would have gotten abs in a game if I wanted to command more of them, but I wanted to experience other changes more.
i think you also changed default texture scale to .32 ... ... which is an absurd value since for example a 512x512 texture would span 163.84 x 163.84 units. default texture scale should be a power of 2. in the end you need to realign most textures to their specific surfaces anyway. something like ~1/3rd only works on large surfaces with tiling textures but there often values like 1 and higher are better. i only just realized and changed it back to .25 like i had it before, it means a 512x512 texture is 128 units, thats about room height (a low room, the lower bound for believable) no pressing issue
