Patch APB 3.0.8.1 Changelog

[Pushwall]

[blurb]Read about the big changes being made to Phase Tanks, Walls and more in this A Path Beyond update from Pushwall![/blurb]

[thumb]thumb_apb.0.png[/thumb]  Red Alert: A Path Beyond Update     

INFANTRY

• MP5-N rate of fire up from 12.5 to 13.33, reload time down from 2.1 to 2. (Overall ~6% DPS boost.)
• Volkov reload time up from 7.5 to 8. (Overall ~3 to 8% DPS drop depending on fire mode.)
• Volkov's cannon now visibly tilts when reloading again, to make reload duration more obvious and prevent people accidentally canceling it with a switch/sprint.
• LAW reload time down from 2.5 to 2.2.
• LAW range up from 105 to 110.
• RPG-7/LAW damage down from 90 to 80. (With the reload adjustment, this means the LAW's DPS is up by a negligible ~1%, but the RPG's is down by ~11%. Grenadier is now a better building wrecker as a result.)
• RPG-7 is no longer affected by gravity.
• Ghost Spectator is no longer crushable.

 

VEHICLES

• Minelayer max speed up from 13.7 to 14.5.
• Minelayer health up from 200 to 250.
• Swapped tech level of MAD Tank and Mammoth Tank. (This really only matters for Bonsai right now.)
• MAD Tank damage now has 50% armour piercing against vehicles, like Tesla damage does. Primarily this means that mech-vehicles caught in the shockwave will take longer to repair.
• Mammoth Tank range down from 120 to 115.
• APC damage to aircraft up by ~14% (0.875 -> 1)
• Artillery/V2 damage to buildings up by ~4% (0.24 -> 0.25)
• Phase Tank is now radar invisible while stealthed.
• Hind range up from 100 to 105.
• Longbow range up from 95 to 100.
• Longbows now fire in quick bursts of 2 with a long reload. (Ammo capacity changed from 1/7 to 2/6, ROF up from 0.75/sec to 4/sec, reload time up from 0 to 2.75.) This means they take slightly longer to use up all their ammo (10 seconds instead of 9.33) but get two rockets off right away, have an easier time attacking while using cover between shots, and re-arm at Helipads/Refill Pads twice as fast (since they refill 1 magazine at a time).
• Longbow rockets turn 50% faster, making them hopefully more likely to track towards the intended spot.
• Longbow rockets are slightly stronger against certain targets:
  • Damage to Mammoth vehicles up from 90 to 100
  • Damage to Ore Trucks up from 75 to 100
  • Damage to Submerged Subs up from 5 to 10
  • Damage to blockades/bridges (e.g. Concrete Walls) up from 20 to 25

 

BUILDINGS

• Flame Tower reload time up from 3 to 3.25.
• Tesla Coil reload time up from 2 to 2.25.
• Turret reload time down from 2.5 to 2.25.
• Concrete Walls no longer have 10x the intended amount of health.

 

MAPS

RA_AS_Seamist:

• Tech level message at the start now says 3 for Allies, 5 for Soviets. (MADs/Kovs are still absent as usual though.)

RA_CamosCanyon_Bots:

• Fixed an Allied basic infantry bot who was spawning above the pathfind blocker and falling to his death.

RA_RiverRaid:

• The vehicle route going behind each team's WF is now permanently blocked, though you can still shoot over the blockade to hit the WF. (Basically the short stint of walls accidentally being indestructible made me realise that not having 3 vehicle routes was actually somewhat beneficial to this map with no defenses. 1 was too little though.)

 

[des1206]

Woah, lots of balance changes. What's with the mammoth range and RPG nerf?

The Phase Tank radar proof aspect is going to be interesting. No more worrying about Hinds or narrow corridors on small radar-less maps. 

Hopefully APC wouldn't turn into a hard counter to Hind. 

Can Radar Jammer's range be set as a function of map length (like 1/3x of map lenght)? This way small maps can have radar domes and it wouldn't be OP to have a RJ with its currenty 350m range. 

[Pushwall]

Allies seem to have a really hard time winning games nowadays. That's the gist of most of this.

[Pushwall]

2 minutes ago, des1206 said:

Can Radar Jammer's range be set as a function of map length (like 1/3x of map lenght)? This way small maps can have radar domes and it wouldn't be OP to have a RJ with its currenty 350m range. 

Nope, not without temping a bunch of new radar jammer vehicles for each map. (And heaven forbid I ever have to update any of the radar jammer's stats or scripts after doing that...)

[OrangeP47]

53 minutes ago, Pushwall said:

Volkov's cannon now visibly tilts when reloading again, to make reload duration more obvious and prevent people accidentally canceling it with a switch/sprint.

This is good, I was having a terrible time with that yesterday.

[Raap]

38 minutes ago, OrangeP47 said:

This is good, I was having a terrible time with that yesterday.

I remain of opinion that there needs to be a way to continue reloading during a weapon swap, it is just very counter-intuitive that you currently cancel a reload by switching.

[Pushwall]

10 hours ago, Raap said:

I remain of opinion that there needs to be a way to continue reloading during a weapon swap, it is just very counter-intuitive that you currently cancel a reload by switching.

That's something I sort of wished for during Delta's development too. In an early stage after I became objects.ddb groundskeeper, I figured that a way of making the C4 users more viable would be to give them infinite C4 but take a very long time to "reload" it. Since you had to keep it equipped to reload it, I had to keep the reload time fairly short for it to be even remotely viable, and because of that, it was just outright overpowered as long as you were never discovered and therefore never had to defend yourself. Since reload-while-holstered never happened, a proxy for the "infinite C4" mechanic got moved to the Supply Truck instead (and eventually the LST). Where it can still be strong under specific circumstances but definitely not to the degree that just pulling new C4 out of your ass would be. In hindsight the "auto infini-c4" probably wasn't the best idea anyway, it'd probably make Tanyas even more rambo-ey.

The ability to reload while swapped for actual weapons could be problematic though. Particularly for Volkov or rocket soldiers.

What with Volkovs being able to spend 8 seconds AT cannoning, then 8 seconds defending themselves from infantry by shotgunning, then AT cannoning again while largely averting the downtime that they're meant to have. It sounds like it wouldn't come up that much, but it would be 100% applicable to being inside buildings, so it'd be a big buff there, when they are specifically meant to not be building assaulters - at least not without the aid of a teammate with an actual anti-building weapon.

Rocket soldiers would be able to practically dual-wield their launchers if there are some combination of 2 of air, ground and naval targets around, or even just a lone air or naval target at close range. It sounds like an infantry-only version of the Beta mech/vehicle system where a vehicle could somehow reload itself without a driver, so you just fire your vehicle weapon, hop out, and pop an OP beta wrench to heal at the same time, or pop a shock rifle burst for extra power, all while somehow keeping the vehicle reloading. Which seems more counter-intuitive than what you're going on about.

[OrangeP47]

My issue was more that I wasn't used to the reload time yet and kept sprinting away beforehand, not necessarily the switching issue.

[Raap]

10 hours ago, Pushwall said:

That's something I sort of wished for during Delta's development too. In an early stage after I became objects.ddb groundskeeper, I figured that a way of making the C4 users more viable would be to give them infinite C4 but take a very long time to "reload" it. Since you had to keep it equipped to reload it, I had to keep the reload time fairly short for it to be even remotely viable, and because of that, it was just outright overpowered as long as you were never discovered and therefore never had to defend yourself. Since reload-while-holstered never happened, a proxy for the "infinite C4" mechanic got moved to the Supply Truck instead (and eventually the LST). Where it can still be strong under specific circumstances but definitely not to the degree that just pulling new C4 out of your ass would be. In hindsight the "auto infini-C4" probably wasn't the best idea anyway, it'd probably make Tanyas even more rambo-ey.

The ability to reload while swapped for actual weapons could be problematic though. Particularly for Volkov or rocket soldiers.

What with Volkovs being able to spend 8 seconds AT cannoning, then 8 seconds defending themselves from infantry by shotgunning, then AT cannoning again while largely averting the downtime that they're meant to have. It sounds like it wouldn't come up that much, but it would be 100% applicable to being inside buildings, so it'd be a big buff there, when they are specifically meant to not be building assaulters - at least not without the aid of a teammate with an actual anti-building weapon.

Rocket soldiers would be able to practically dual-wield their launchers if there are some combination of 2 of air, ground and naval targets around, or even just a lone air or naval target at close range. It sounds like an infantry-only version of the Beta mech/vehicle system where a vehicle could somehow reload itself without a driver, so you just fire your vehicle weapon, hop out, and pop an OP beta wrench to heal at the same time, or pop a shock rifle burst for extra power, all while somehow keeping the vehicle reloading. Which seems more counter-intuitive than what you're going on about.

 

The Supply Truck logic is a good one, especially for C4, so nothing exists there that I would change.

But for reloading-while-unequiped, you name Volkov as the worst case scenario and rightfully so. But the current usage is not much different, players can pre-reload both weapons and use them in succession right now. It'll be much more user-friendly in general to still make Volkov reload while using a different weapon, and just balance this edge-case accordingly via increased reload times. Unless memory escapes me, Volkov still has a standard pistol sidearm as a backup? He could use that while waiting for those reload times.

Rocket launcher is a valid concern, but then perhaps exceptions can be made. In this particular case the reload time isn't much longer than ~1.5 seconds, so you can still apply the reload logic change here, but instead implement a weapon-lock-on-swap delay mechanic that emulates the reload delay slightly and independently of the actual reload speed. Naturally, both reloading and weapon-lock-on-swap delay logic are both functionalities not presently available on W3D, so there is that hurdle to overcome... But either way, having these two options available would improve your balance toolkit and also improve the general player control "feel" the game has.

Edit: Then there is the question of sprinting cancelling reloads as well. In my opinion, ideally you don't cancel reloads while sprinting, but you put them 'on hold' to continue for the remaining duration when sprinting stops.

Edited March 12, 2017 by Raap

[Pushwall]

26 minutes ago, Raap said:

Edit: Then there is the question of sprinting cancelling reloads as well. In my opinion, ideally you don't cancel reloads while sprinting, but you put them 'on hold' to continue for the remaining duration when sprinting stops.

Any changes with sprinting, besides the little that's already adjustable in LE (which is all speed-related), is pretty unlikely to happen because apparently CJ's code is the Ark of the Covenant.

[Einstein]

> Ark of the Covenant.

 

I couldn't resist

 

[Pushwall]

2 minutes ago, Einstein said:

> Ark of the Covenant.

Well, that is pretty much what happens when anyone wants to look at that code...

[OrangeP47]

I'd also like to comment that I really got a kick out of the no less than 3 people who asked in game today what the changes were. Could tell you noticed as well

[Raap]

On 12-3-2017 at 1:11 PM, Pushwall said:

Any changes with sprinting, besides the little that's already adjustable in LE (which is all speed-related), is pretty unlikely to happen because apparently CJ's code is the Ark of the Covenant.

It's a great shame someone can just walk in with 'contributions' that literally messes up other functionality, to the point where even removing it becomes a risk. Perhaps at the time, a rollback to pre-CJ might have been the beter solution in the long run. Not much you can do about that now anymore, I suppose.

[Pushwall]

32 minutes ago, Raap said:

It's a great shame someone can just walk in with 'contributions' that literally messes up other functionality, to the point where even removing it becomes a risk. Perhaps at the time, a rollback to pre-CJ might have been the beter solution in the long run. Not much you can do about that now anymore, I suppose.

At the time, APB was entirely CJ's thing, and scripts 5.0 was almost entirely his too I think, as it was never intended for vanilla Renegade (IIRC it actually strips out a lot of vanilla functionality to improve performance) and I don't think TSR/AR were even considering moving to it at the time - he didn't just "walk in" and make a mess of someone else's house. Besides, he did make a lot of very valuable contributions - reverting to scripts 4.x would have opened a bunch of cans of worms even back when he left. We've gotten back in contact with him, but since it's been a long time for him, there's no telling what he may or may not be able to fix.

[Raap]

Fair enough. I didn't mean to trash his work as a whole, after all, I don't have the full picture on these events, since they occurred when I was not around. 

Since I feel my comments might appear too 'harsh' due to the way I write sometimes, I'll refrain from commenting on this subject further.

Edited March 13, 2017 by Raap

[Mojoman]

What we really need is Aircraftkiller to crack the code. Easy!

[Willy]

On 3/18/2017 at 4:01 AM, Mojoman said:

What we really need is Aircraftkiller to crack the code. Easy!

Is he even still around anymore? I havent seen that guy in at least a decade

[Raap]

7 hours ago, Willy said:

Is he even still around anymore? I havent seen that guy in at least a decade

He's still floating around: 

 

[Major552]

Glad to see that this Mod is still alive and kicking! Super stoked to play with you all! 

[ChopBam]

4 hours ago, Major552 said:

Glad to see that this Mod is still alive and kicking! Super stoked to play with you all! 

You look familiar.

[des1206]

Did anyone else notice Hinds bullets now go through armor? Should be use vs mech combos.

[Pushwall]

1 hour ago, des1206 said:

Did anyone else notice Hinds bullets now go through armor? Should be use vs mech combos.

That's been a thing for some time now, for this very reason - compensation for how the only well thought out thing about Gamma's Autocannon!Hind was the ability to splash repairing mechs to death.

[Major552]

On 3/28/2017 at 11:24 AM, ChopBam said:

You look familiar.

I was a tester way back when the mod was still .9935 and the beta. I still played for a while after that but it's been ages since I've played. Most of the names here too ring a bell!