Combat Related Tweaks and Balance Changes
Previously, cones of weapons had splitting issues, so the burst lines were split in unrealistic ways. Forming the cones now uses weapon max range, not the mouse hex position. The direction of cones is defined by mouse hex position relative to the player.
Slug shells straight line burst (no cone) implemented. Now you can shoot from range with the same dmg as using one hex with slug shells.
Status Effects
Status effects now trigger text “BRN/PSN/RAD/KO” over the target
Damage caused by you and effects on targets are shown in a different color, default color being yellow. Color can be changed in the settings. Float msg does not remove previous float messages as before, it will slowly fade away.
Weapon maximum range is marked with faded red lines around the player.
Contour Shaders were previously causing rectangle shaped bleed over on targets around. It was messy. Now only targets that will get hit are highlighted red.
Hex shooting has been improved. While holding Ctrl, hex shooting target hex is taken by the mouse cursor position, targets under the hex shooting mouse cursor no longer interfere.
1hex marker under the target of 1hex. When the player is at one hex distance to the target and uses burst and has a mouse over the target, the hex under target is colored red. This helps a lot when there are a lot of enemies around and the player is not sure where to click to hit the target he wants.
Gap between lower and higher tier weapons were reduced in both ways. Low tier weapons damages are overall increased, so even low tier weapons can be deadly. It also means that NPCs that do use these weapons cannot be ignored anymore. Higher tier weapons did way too much damage in previous tests, it was no fun to die from range with 2 shots. High and mid-tier weapon damages are lowered, and damage increase perks/traits/drugs/critical hits have been nerfed. From current experience, I could say that melee weapons seem to have found their needed usages. One hexing values are slightly increased, meaning one hexing is more effective than in previous tests. It is still far from perfect, but the direction is right. Weapons have been tested on player vs environment situations and comprehensive PVP tests are required.
New Audio
New weapon audios were updated for Plasma and Frag Grenades and the Molotov Cocktail.
Scavenging related audio was added for mining, cutting wood, harvesting fruits and collecting microcircuits.
New Playable Races
Mutant shaders, textures, cosmetics and animations for armor and weapons were added. Some are still being developed. Mutants can use armors made of leather, and metallic materials. Mutant weapon restrictions mostly exclude small guns and some melee weapons from being used. Usable melee weapons are all Sledge type weapons (Pickaxe Axe, Sledgehammer super sledge etc.) and unarmed (Power fist, knuckles, boxing gloves)
Here is a Super Mutant donning armor made of used tires.
For now, there is no way to change to another race other than your choice in the character creation registration screen.
Registration Screen and Character Origin
To start your journey in the Wasteland, you must register your character. Start by choosing your race: Human Male, Human Female, Ghoul and or Mutant. Then choose the cosmetics you like by setting Skin tone, Hair, Colors, Shirt, Pants, and Boots. Write your character name and password. Email address is optional, but if you ever forgot your password, then you will need email to reset it.
Your character origin will have a few different options to select from: Caravan Guard, Raider, Scientist and Tribal. Origins will define small things here and there on dialogs, quest rewards and give starting bonus skills on a preset of skills. Origins will get more usage/features/flavor added later. There were worries that if the origins have too much effect on the gameplay, then players are obligated to create characters for each origin, but for the matter of end game it does not have any impact.
Toxic Caves Instance
You can find a map leading to Toxic Caves randomly dropped from World Map encounter mobs. Using a map will reveal its location near Klamath. The old maps were improved, enemies and loot were redone. You can expect a lot of radiation and some sources of poison damage. If you have rubber boots, then this is the place to use them. The dungeon is still a work in progress and a new kind of puzzle is planned, and an additional boss level is added. Despite work in progress, the dungeon is fully playable.
Base Building and Management improved and Tweaked
Now, players gain 100% resource when salvaging objects, so you can freely change and replace everything without worrying about losing resources. Accidental salvaging might still happen, but extra measures are planned for salvaging structures.
Base sorting solution was added, a buildable Mr Handy robot charging station.
You can command your robot to do all the cleaning for you. By default, the robot will collect everything from the floor. Robot picks up loot and does it in a 2 hex area around him instead of an item per item basis. Picking up items from the floor can be toggled off.
After the cleanup phase, the robot can also pull-out items from a “Main storage” to resort when this option is enabled. When everything is gathered, Handy begins to Sort the Loot. All the loot item types that have linked containers will have their items delivered to those containers. If there is no container linked, or the container does not exist anymore, the robot will deliver it to the “Main storage” instead. Suppose a main storage is not linked either, it will drop unsorted items on the ground for you.
Storage linking
All item types are listed in the storage UI, and all detected containers are also listed. If the player labels the container, it shows the label instead of the default name of the container. By clicking the item type, then the container, you can link the item type to a specific container. Multiple Item types can be linked to the same containers, so it’s not an issue how you want to sort things.
Item types were separated so as you can see there are a lot of options. If someone wants fewer containers he can link item types for the same containers, for example, I linked a container called ModsAndBooks to mods and books. If the player doesn’t want the robot to touch items on the ground, he can disable Picking up items and can use the Distribute Main storage feature, so you can put all items into the main container and the robot will move items from there. Car Trunks have no interaction with the base cleaner, and will not have one in the future. There will be an alternative way to transfer items between bases. If more loot shows up on the floor during clean-up duty, the robot will prioritize picking up items. This feature is pretty useful straight out of the box, but we’re waiting for bug reports and other information on how to improve it.
Storage management is available from the outpost UI. Outpost UI has been slightly reworked:
You can also change the cleaning robot’s personality as you like:
Crafting Costs Balanced
Crafting and item value costs were adjusted to make more sense; some previous values were just temporary filler. Each crafting materials source and sinks were checked and balanced. Still, some changes will be needed, but the current direction is right.
Skill Gain and Skill Books
In regular game play without grinding any specific skills, some skills were proceeding much faster than others. Skill related issues were comprehensively tested and adjusted to balance the speed of skill gain to be more equally proceeded. Skill gain is still slow as intended, but where’s the hurry?
The main source of weapon skill progression are NPCs you kill with said weapon skill. NPCs only provide a small amount of experience, this amount is directly transferred to weapon skill progression. For character experience gain, the main source will be quests.
Skill formulas are still being adjusted, so still too early to go into fine details, but some short explanations: Weapon skills affect hit chance (weapon skill requirement and target distance affect your chances). First aid affects the amount of hit points healed by your first aid skill, and affects your chances to fix crippled limbs. Repair is your chance to repair items (deterioration and tier of the item affect your success rate). Pick lock affects your chances to lock pick containers and doors (lock difficulty checked vs skill level). Traps affect your chances to disarm traps (traps difficulty checked vs skill level), and it also defines the difficulty of traps placed by you. Traps skill also affects how far you can detect traps from. Scavenging skill affects the amount of resources gained from scavenging objects such as junk, cars, mining ores, cutting trees and scrapping old computers. Outdoorsmen affect your chance to avoid encounters. Barter skill affects the value you gain by selling and buying items.
Skill book mechanics were changed to give flat skill bonus instead of faster skill gain % for a certain time. Each skill does have a newly made skill book to use. Skill books can be found randomly from dungeons and bought from bookshops and libraries. Using a skill book has new audio of “page turning sounds” for you to enjoy.
Transit Protection
When you enter or change a map, there will be a small amount of time (3 seconds) during which you are not targetable. While you are on this transit timer, you cannot change maps or target other players. You can target NPCs, which will remove the timer. NPCs do not target you while your transit timer is active.
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