Leaderboard

So some of you know that i was streaming some of games from past two game nights. I managed to record overall 7 games, and its time to release them. For now only one, but i'll keep on updating this post whenever new one comes out. Also an invitation to everyone else who wants to show their videos from games, go ahead and post them here

Red Alert: A Path Beyond Update General Script zone checks are now only run server-side, this will improve client performance. Reduced particle count, size and lifetime of a wide array of particle effects in the game (mostly explosions, smoke and fire). Again this will improve performance. Fixed exhaust sound for normal rockets being louder than even V2/Arty projectiles (now only audible from up to 50m away instead of 200m) A little experiment to switch up sub searching. Water is now 95% opaque instead of 99%, but it blocks target acquisition - you can't get a target box on something on the other side of a water surface, just like in Beta. So subs are a fair bit easier to spot by eye close up (though not so much from a distance since the bubble emitter is gone), but you can't just detect one by flailing your mouse until a target box shows up anymore. This also has the neat little effect that bullets/rockets going through water will actually splash at the water surface now instead of the floor. However, it also causes tracking weapons to randomly go berserk when trying to track through water, but that's really only an issue for Longbows hitting submerged subs - phases are almost never close enough to submerged subs to hit them, and dest rockets don't damage them anyway. To compensate for this inconvenience, Longbow damage to submerged subs has doubled. The water opacity and permeability settings aren't on the non-naval maps yet until it tests well and even then only when I have more pressing reasons to update every other map (probably at the same time as whatever ends being done about rooftop access - don't worry, it's not getting removed, you've made your point ) On the flip side, water is now completely opaque from below due to a bunch of awkward overlaps with particle effects/windows. Subs should still have a fairly easy time seeing boats from below though due to the water wakes and the submerged hull (which subs CAN get targeting on). Vehicles Supply Truck Max speed up (~13.5 -> ~15.3m/s), a ~14% increase Can't dodge FTs/Turrets anymore. LST Price down (700 -> 500) Health down (450 -> 400) Reworked physics a bit, should be less vulnerable to getting stuck on beaches. Submarines Attack Sub torpedo's trail spawns particles at a faster rate, so it's easier to determine how to lead but also easier for Allies to notice you when you're firing. Removed rotor bubbles, so submerged subs are harder for Allies to spot at a distance. Reduced physical collision radius. Due to the water permeability change, Missile Sub's missiles now fire straight and it now needs to bring its launchers above sea level before firing, or else the missiles will spaz out. Yak Made physical collision box more lenient (used to be 66% as wide as its wings, now it's only 33%, or about as far as the landing gear). In addition to making it harder to clip trees/other Yaks and less obnoxious for infantry getting in, 2 Yaks can now be landed at the Airfield without creating a Mexican standoff where neither of them can build up speed for takeoff without crashing into the other one. Now floats downwards 1m while putting away its landing gear, so that the plane's in-flight position reflects its physical collision box more accurately (since moving THAT instead during the animation would cause issues). In addition to making it easier to tell how close you are to the ground, this also puts its gun 1m closer to the ground compared to its collision box, making it slightly easier to hit things without crashing into cover. Made speed thresholds for stall/damage more lenient again (20m stall/25m damage -> 15m stall/20m damage) Now has a heli-esque fuselage pitch effect when flying, and the inherent pitching from the flying animation is reduced to compensate. This makes it harder to attack things that are at ground level if you deliberately stop accelerating, ensuring that the more lenient stall speed is not too abusable for combat - it's there to make communication easier and make it harder to crash accidentally. Deceleration when not holding W is slower thanks to reduced mass (however mass can't be reduced much further than it already is without glitches) This mass reduction has also effectively improved its acceleration again, however its max speed is now lower to compensate (~49m/s -> ~45m/s) Horizontal aiming cone increased (40 -> 60 degrees) Splash damage (anti-infantry) up (9 -> 10) Splash radius up (10 -> 12) Direct hit damage multiplier to infantry down (1 -> 0.5), a 50% decrease Damage multiplier to Mammoth armour back down (0.4 -> 0.3), a 25% decrease Range down (130 -> 115m) Shots now use the same terrain effects as dragonsbreath, so they will not kick up enough dirt/sparks to hinder performance. Health down (400 -> 300) Now has a unique armour class that takes reduced damage from various sources: Redeye/AA Guns (1x -> 0.5x) LAW (1x -> 0.75x) APCs (0.875x -> 0.625x) Rangers/Captains (0.5x -> 0.4x) Artillery/V2 (1.2x -> 0.8x) With the health reduction, this means Yaks are killed by Redeyes/AAs 33% slower, APCs 5% slower and Artilleries 11% slower, but 6% faster by Rangers/Captains and 33% faster by almost everything else (Rifle/Sergeant/Grenadier/LT) as the problem before was that Yaks were completely useless if Redeyes were on the field, but completely unstoppable if they weren't. TL;DR Yak is now much easier to use (both control-wise and hurting infantry reliably) but has less raw power in fringe cases, and is less hard-countered but more soft-countered. Buildings Airfield Added a small invisible ramp on each end of the landing strip, which will cause Yaks to automatically pull up slightly at the end, making it more clear when you should start manually ascending. Maps RA_GuardDuty Removed the tree cluster directly in front of the Airfield to give scrambling Yaks more time to ascend. Allied infantry bots no longer randomly commit suicide while on the move (they kept trying to path to the Airfield MCT and failing). However they won't try to infiltrate the Airfield anymore. The riverside hills are reshaped to be less accessible, harder for enemy infantry to retreat from, and force artillery/V2 to expose themselves more when attacking from them. RA_Under Fixed Attack Sub being stuck in its spawn point. More tweaks to naval, as well as the long-awaited rerelease of Hostile Waters, are coming soon![blurb]Performance improvements and experimental Yak/naval tweaks abounds in this new APB update![/blurb]

Missing poll option: Add MOAR ladders and staircases! I think this is just one of those hings you got to live with. The moment you enable air units is the moment you know players will try to reach odd locations. You can make every roof a killzone but my personal take on these things is to just go with it rather than fight it. A lot of players across different gaming genres typically like to have as many open paths before them as possible, roof top access adds a path to base defense/assault. I just think we need to embrace stairwells more than ladders however, since you can fight in/from those. That's not to say all ladders should be replaced with stairs, that would be impractical, but more ways to get onto buildings would be good to have regardless, perhaps even from inside. Edit: I also like the elevator idea, but only if fancy magician @jonwil can use fancy magic to make them less of a lag-ride. This is the reason I axed rail carts from the new HW as well, I got way too concerned about reliability. As of right now however, mostly straight stairs are the fail-safe option. At most with one turn in them like on the Advanced Naval Yard - providing they are wide enough so that a lagging user doesn't rubber band all over the place.

I gotchu fam