S
Stonebits
Guest
Here
Cut and pasted as follows.......
==============================================
Experience System Changes
The experience system rewards players for facility captures, facility resecures, and eliminating opponents (whether in vehicles or on foot). None of that is changing.
However, the rewards (the amount of Battle Experience that you gain for each of those activities) are changing. Now that Facility Link Benefits are in the game and providing reasons for facility capture, the need for Battle Experience to be the "hook" to attract players to a facility is no longer as necessary. Therefore, the facility capture/resecure awards are being cut down to slightly less than half what they were previously. This deemphasizes facility capture for purposes of farming Battle Experience, but still rewards the effort.
To compensate for this lesser amount of experience, and to properly focus the game's experience system on the elimination of opponents, the Battle Experience for combat is being increased by almost three times. (The sole exception is that the rewards for eliminating MAX units are only slightly higher than before...which compensates for the fact that they were "overpriced" before.)
Since Command Experience (CEP) can only be gained via facility captures, a new multiplier was added to the experience system algorithms so that Commanders that lead squads to capture facilities will garner the same amount of experience as they got previous to this change. This allows them to continue to advance normally.
The end result of this change is that the average player (not individual players...but the average of all players on-line at one time) should see almost exactly the same amount of Battle Experience gained in a day, but that the bulk of the experience will be gained through direct combat, rather than facility captures.
In theory, this opens up the possibilities to players on how they want to achieve that Battle Experience. Combat in areas other than facilities will be more attractive to those focusing on Battle Experience as their sole goal and we hope to see combat spread out across the globe more easily now.
(NOTE: This is not the final adjustment to the experience system. However, it is a change that could occur immediately in order to loosen up combat decisions for players. Other changes are much more complex and need more time to implement. We're looking into other concepts (like directly rewarding support players with Battle Experience for their actions) in the future.)
"Defender Incentive" for Combat in Friendly SOIs
All rewards for combat experience are increased by 25% if you make those kills in a friendly SOI. In otherwords, you get more experience for defending a facility held by your Empire.
Hotspot Fixes
The Hotspot algorithms have been changed. You should now see many, many more hotspots in the world than you saw previously.
However, you will now only see hotspots if a significant number of soldiers from YOUR Empire are involved in that battle. If no one from your Empire is there, then no hotspot occurs.
Additionally, there are no longer variable sizes of hotspots. Each hotspot indicates a battle between around 10 or so people. The more hotspots are in an area, the bigger the battle you'll see there. Very large battles are represented as a collection of small hotspots.
Combat Balance Changes
NOTE: Most of these changes are increases in power to match up better with other weapons/vehicles already in the game. There are a few instances where, through oversight or simple bugs, a weapon or vehicle was simply overpowered. In those instances, the changes are marked with a "(design reduction)" or "(bug fix)" tag after that explanation so you can easily identify those areas. All other changes are changes that strengthen the item in question.
Aggravated Damage
Some weapons are classified as "aggravated" damage. This means that the projectiles hit or explode on the target and then do damage-over-time to that target.
Originally, any aggravated projectile that hits an already-burning target would essentially quench the original shot and replace it with its own shot. That meant that potential damage from previous shots was being erased by each successive incoming aggravated shot.
This resulted in aggravated damage being weaker than intended.
Aggravated damage now properly "stacks" so that each shot does its full damage, regardless of how many other aggravated projectiles hit that same target.
This makes aggravated damage weapons potentially more powerful than originally implemented, especially in the case of high rate-of-fire weapons.
Anti-Aircraft Weaponry (Skyguard, AA MAX units, shoulder-mounted AA weapons)
The balance of the weapons is changed so that Skyguard flak cannons are the most effective anti-air weapons, the MAX AA units are the second-best, and the shoulder-mounted anti-air weapons are the last in the pecking order.
These changes generally increase the strength of the AA MAX units and the Skyguard rather than limiting the power of the shoulder-mounted weaponry, however there were several bugs with the Striker that made it far too powerful. Those bugs have been fixed and this may make the Striker feel comparatively weak. However, it is balanced against the other empire AA-weapons now and is still a strong weapon.
Skyguard
Improved turret speed (tracks air targets more easily now)
Added up to 8X zoom (to identify incoming targets more easily)
ROF for the Flak Cannon has been increased.
TR Burster
Increased range of projectiles to 500m (Since these projectiles have no guidance, they have a slightly longer range than the Sparrow and Starfire to compensate, in addition to the high rate of fire for this weapon.)
NC Sparrow
Increase the force shield damage protection significantly.
VS Starfire
Aggravated damage now "stacks". (see above)
You must acquire a laze target lock BEFORE you shoot if you wish your projectiles to be guided. Any shot released while unguided will STAY unguided, even if you acquire a laze after the fact. (bug fix)
Remove constraint on jumping that requires 20% of jump capacitor to be filled before this MAX can jump again.
The turning speed has been increased slightly to accentuate the improved mobility of this Empire's MAX.
TR Striker
Changed projectile range to 250m (design reduction)
Increased clip size to 5 (from 3)
Decreased the damage to armored targets (design reduction)
Decreased damage to air targets (design reduction)
Decreased damage to soft targets (design reduction)
Increased the rate of fire on the weapon (to be able to take advantage of the increased clip size before the target moves away)
You must acquire a laze target lock BEFORE you shoot if you wish your projectiles to be guided. If you are fring in laze mode (Primary firing mode) then you can no longer fire AT ALL unless such a lazed lock is acquired before you pull the trigger. (bug fix)
If you reload while guided missiles are in flight, then those missiles will immediately change to non-guided. Therefore, wait until your target is impacted before reloading. (bug fix)
NC Phoenix
Increase range to 250m
Reduced reload time slightly
Added a dumbfire secondary firing mode. This mode can be fired without the user being forced into missile-cam view, but it is non-guided.
VS Lancer
Reduce damage vs. infantry (design reduction)
Wall Turrets
Range on shots upped significantly to allow Turrets to defend themselves against air attackers flying at range.
Damage to armor increased
Damage to air increased
Main Battle Tanks
These were always intended to have characteristics specific to their Empire. The Terran Republic vehicles are supposed to be "highest rate of fire", the New Conglomerate items are "armor and big hits", and the Vanu Sovereignty are "light...but FAST".
The end result of the changes (listed below) creates the following characteristics:
TR Prowler has the highest damage output, but the slowest maximum speed and only average armor.
NC Vanguard has the highest armor, average maximum speed, and average damage output (the 150mm shots are still the most power individually, but the Prowler does more damage over time).
VS Magrider has the highest speed and maneuverability, but the least damage and armor.
Tank versus tank analyses were made and the "time to kill" (for one tank to kill another tank of a differing empire) is approximately the same, regardless of Empire. (For instance, The Magrider takes slightly longer to kill other tanks, but it's direct-line attacks typically are much more useful in tank-to-tank battles and this makes up for that lack.)
Overall, the main battle tank top speeds and accelerations were slowed down significantly. This does two things: a) it makes the tanks "feel" more like tanks because they seem to have more momentum, and b) it reduces the ease with which the tanks can mow over infantry targets (they take more time to ramp up to speed now and infantry can move around them more easily). This slower movement rate also reduces lag between server updates, which means you'll see the tanks moving more accurately now as well.
This decrease in maneuverability was partially compensated for by dramatically increasing the amount of armor these tanks have. (In otherwords, they're easier to hit now, so they can take the damage more easily.)
The following changes were made:
TR Prowler
Increased main gun rate of fire slightly
Increased tracking speed of the machinegun
Increased the damage of the 12mm machine gun bullets (all vehicles using those bullets gain this increase, as well)
Decreased the tank's max speed
Increased the acceleration time to hit top speeds (making it feel more like a tank and less like a buggy)
Increased the vertical pivot of both guns.
Increased its armor significantly.
NC Vanguard
Increase the Vanguard's armor to be the most heavily armored human-tech battle tank in the game
Decrease the tank's max speed
Increase the acceleration time to hit top speeds (making it feel more like a tank and less like a buggy)
Increased the damage of the 20mm machine gun bullets (all vehicles using those bullets gain this increase, as well)
Increase elevation of cannons to 45 degrees so that its machineguns are more useful against air targets
VS Magrider
Increase the acceleration time to hit top speeds (making it feel more like a tank and less like a buggy)
Increase the time it takes to reach top strafing speed also
Increase main cannon damage to armored targets
Increase main cannon damage to air targets
Armored Buggies
When the balances on the main battle tanks shifted, then the buggy balances needed to shift accordingly. This was predominantly done by adjusting armor and some of the weaponry characteristics. The speed aspects of the various buggies were unchanged.
After the changes below were made, the relative characteristics of these buggies are as follows:
TR Marauder: Highest damage output, average armor and slowest speed
NC Enforcer: Most armor, average damage output, and average speed
VS Tresher: Greatest speed, weakest armor, average damage output.
TR Marauder
The GroundPounder mortar projectiles now have a decreased explosive radius. (design reduction)
The individual mortar shots do less damage to soldiers, armor, and air now. (damage reduction)
Increase ROF of mortar to almost three times as fast. (compensates for above changes and makes it more interesting to use as a weapon)
Increased the turret tracking speed for the machinegun.
Increased the armor on this buggy (slightly).
Decreased the top speed slightly and increased the acceleration time to max speed (making it feel like an armored buggy when compared to the Harasser). (design reduction)
NC Enforcer
Increased the armor
Decreased the top speed and reduced acceleration time (design reduction)
VS Thresher
Increased the damage done at the edge of the explosions on the main cannon. (This means that all explosions will do generally more damage to all targets in the explosion as the damage doesn't "taper off" as quickly from the center to the edge of the explosion.)
Explosion radius increased slightly (on main gun shots)
Increased main gun clip size to 100 (from 25).
Improved handling and turning radius.
All Ground Vehicles
All ground vehicles had their handling characteristics changed. Almost all changes were improvements, such as added reverse speed, longer life underwater (allowing you to possibly undo the error of going underwater), greater speed underwater, increased armor (for better field survivability), etc.
The following list shows the relative "nimbleness" of the ground vehicles in order from most nimble to least nimble. "Nimbleness" is a factor relating max top speed with acceleration. If a vehicle is fast off the line, and has a high top speed, it's regarded as highly nimble.
In general, armor is exactly opposed to nimbleness. The more agile a craft is, the less armor it has.
The most significant upgrades in armor were given to the ANT and Lightning. Both of these vehicles nearly doubled their armor values. The Deliverer also got a significant armor boost. NOTE: No vehicles received decreased armor. All armor changes were positive.
The ANT has greatly improved speed and handling now, in addition to its extra armor.
"Nimbleness" Listing (most responsive to least responsive)
Wraith
Basilisk
Switchblade
Harasser
Skyguard
Thresher
Enforcer
Marauder
Lightning
Deliverer
ANT
Magrider
Sunderer
Vanguard
Prowler
Flail
AMS
Router
A quick note regarding the Reverse gear changes: Until now, most vehicles had very slow reverse speeds. NC vehicles still tend to have slow reverse gears, even after this change, as they rely on heavy punching damage and armor to protect them. The TR have faster reverse speeds so they can compensate for their lower armor by doing "hit-and-fades" if desired. The VS have the fastest reverse speeds (almost as fast as their forward speeds) so they have the most maneuverability options, as usual.
In addition, when driving underwater, take note that open-air cockpits have a much lower survival time than closed cockpits.
Non-AA MAX Units
In addition to making the Main Battle Tanks and the Armored Buggies more empire-specific in character, the same was desired for the MAX units. Additionally, some of the weaponry on MAX units was either overpowered (in certain instances) or even underpowered.
The following changes achieve the desired changes in these units. They generally result in the TR MAXs having the highest rate of fire, the NC MAXs being the toughest nut to crack, and the VS MAXs having the most maneuverability.
Anti-Vehicular MAXs
TR Dual-Cycler
Decreased damage degradation so its bullets do better damage over range. This makes it a better anti-vehicle weapon.
Decrease damage to soldiers (design reduction)
NC Falcon
Increase the force shield power significantly.
Increase damage to armored targets
Increase damage to air targets
Range of projectiles reduced slightly (330m)
VS Comet
Removed damage degradation from this weapon entirely.
Aggravated damage now stacks.
Remove constraint on jumping that requires 20% of jump capacitor to be filled before this MAX can jump again.
The turning speed has been increased slightly to accentuate the improved mobility of this Empire's MAX.
Increased range (330m) and speed of projectile.
Reduced individual aggravated damage per projectile (but the improvement to the aggravated damage system actually increases the power of this weapon when compared to prior to this patch).
Anti-Infantry MAXs
TR Pounder
Decreased damage against soldiers (but see ROF increase below)
Significantly decreased damage against armored targets
Increase refire rate (approximately doubled)
NOTE: This results in damage over time being approximately the same, but the individual shots should accrue much less grief if used in a crowded area. Pounder operators have more time to react to any "oops" that occurs before getting a lot of grief.
NC Scattercannon
Increase the force shield power significantly.
Increase damage against armored targets (so that Scattercannons can hurt other MAX units now...still not a great weapon against MAXs, but they can do something now, at least.)
Increase refire rate (approximately doubled)
VS Quasar
Reduce damage degradation so shots have more power over distance
Increase pivoting speed slightly (to enhance maneuverability)
Decrease recoil of shots (making shots more accurate)
Decrease maximum COF size
Increase clip size to 80 (from 60). (This has the byproduct of increasing the number of AP shots available to 40 (from 30) also.)
Remove constraint on jumping that requires 20% of jump capacitor to be filled before this MAX can jump again.
The turning speed has been increased slightly to accentuate the improved mobility of this Empire's MAX.
Miscellaneous Upgrades/Fixes
Reaver
Rocket clip reduced to 16 (from 24). (design reduction)
Increased initial velocity of rockets (to avoid situation where Reaver can fly faster, without afterburner, than its rockets can fly)
Decreased lifespan of rockets, reducing their range. New effective range is slightly lower than 300m.
Mini-Chaingun
Decreased default COF (standing) to match crouching COF
Increased ROF slightly (from 125ms to 115ms)
There is now a slightly longer time between recoil free bursts (meaning you have to wait a fraction of a second longer between times when the COF is at its smallest size).
Jackhammer
Decreased projectile damage (very) slightly
Decimator (NOTE: This change already in the game, but is listed here for completeness)
Increase refire time of secondary (camera mode) missiles. (bug fix)
Range was significantly decreased in a previous patch. It has now been reextended. The current range was 360m. It is now extended to 450m.
Beamer
COF has been reduced for standing and crouching (tightest COF of all pistols)
You now get a few shots in before shots begin to degrade in power over distance. So your first few shots will be at full damage even at range.
The Beamer is now the most effective pistol against armor. It won't be taking out tanks anytime soon, but it can nick them to death slowly over time. (You may find it more effective against more lightly armed opponents.
Scatterpistol
Increase damage to soldiers ever-so-slightly to bring it inline with other pistols.
VS Forceblade
The glow has been removed from this knife.
Jumping
For infiltrators, standard armor, agile and reinforced armors ONLY. The 3-second delay between jumps has been removed. This allows you to jump whenever you want, as often as you want.
Stamina drain for jumps increased to 10 (from 5). This prevents infinite jumping (you'll run out of stamina eventually), while still allowing more flexibility to the player.
Harasser/Deliverer
Increased turret tracking speed to match machinegun changes made on battle tanks and armored buggies.
Galaxy
COF for the Galaxy's guns is decreased
Increased the ROF for the Galaxy's guns also.
Cut and pasted as follows.......
==============================================
Experience System Changes
The experience system rewards players for facility captures, facility resecures, and eliminating opponents (whether in vehicles or on foot). None of that is changing.
However, the rewards (the amount of Battle Experience that you gain for each of those activities) are changing. Now that Facility Link Benefits are in the game and providing reasons for facility capture, the need for Battle Experience to be the "hook" to attract players to a facility is no longer as necessary. Therefore, the facility capture/resecure awards are being cut down to slightly less than half what they were previously. This deemphasizes facility capture for purposes of farming Battle Experience, but still rewards the effort.
To compensate for this lesser amount of experience, and to properly focus the game's experience system on the elimination of opponents, the Battle Experience for combat is being increased by almost three times. (The sole exception is that the rewards for eliminating MAX units are only slightly higher than before...which compensates for the fact that they were "overpriced" before.)
Since Command Experience (CEP) can only be gained via facility captures, a new multiplier was added to the experience system algorithms so that Commanders that lead squads to capture facilities will garner the same amount of experience as they got previous to this change. This allows them to continue to advance normally.
The end result of this change is that the average player (not individual players...but the average of all players on-line at one time) should see almost exactly the same amount of Battle Experience gained in a day, but that the bulk of the experience will be gained through direct combat, rather than facility captures.
In theory, this opens up the possibilities to players on how they want to achieve that Battle Experience. Combat in areas other than facilities will be more attractive to those focusing on Battle Experience as their sole goal and we hope to see combat spread out across the globe more easily now.
(NOTE: This is not the final adjustment to the experience system. However, it is a change that could occur immediately in order to loosen up combat decisions for players. Other changes are much more complex and need more time to implement. We're looking into other concepts (like directly rewarding support players with Battle Experience for their actions) in the future.)
"Defender Incentive" for Combat in Friendly SOIs
All rewards for combat experience are increased by 25% if you make those kills in a friendly SOI. In otherwords, you get more experience for defending a facility held by your Empire.
Hotspot Fixes
The Hotspot algorithms have been changed. You should now see many, many more hotspots in the world than you saw previously.
However, you will now only see hotspots if a significant number of soldiers from YOUR Empire are involved in that battle. If no one from your Empire is there, then no hotspot occurs.
Additionally, there are no longer variable sizes of hotspots. Each hotspot indicates a battle between around 10 or so people. The more hotspots are in an area, the bigger the battle you'll see there. Very large battles are represented as a collection of small hotspots.
Combat Balance Changes
NOTE: Most of these changes are increases in power to match up better with other weapons/vehicles already in the game. There are a few instances where, through oversight or simple bugs, a weapon or vehicle was simply overpowered. In those instances, the changes are marked with a "(design reduction)" or "(bug fix)" tag after that explanation so you can easily identify those areas. All other changes are changes that strengthen the item in question.
Aggravated Damage
Some weapons are classified as "aggravated" damage. This means that the projectiles hit or explode on the target and then do damage-over-time to that target.
Originally, any aggravated projectile that hits an already-burning target would essentially quench the original shot and replace it with its own shot. That meant that potential damage from previous shots was being erased by each successive incoming aggravated shot.
This resulted in aggravated damage being weaker than intended.
Aggravated damage now properly "stacks" so that each shot does its full damage, regardless of how many other aggravated projectiles hit that same target.
This makes aggravated damage weapons potentially more powerful than originally implemented, especially in the case of high rate-of-fire weapons.
Anti-Aircraft Weaponry (Skyguard, AA MAX units, shoulder-mounted AA weapons)
The balance of the weapons is changed so that Skyguard flak cannons are the most effective anti-air weapons, the MAX AA units are the second-best, and the shoulder-mounted anti-air weapons are the last in the pecking order.
These changes generally increase the strength of the AA MAX units and the Skyguard rather than limiting the power of the shoulder-mounted weaponry, however there were several bugs with the Striker that made it far too powerful. Those bugs have been fixed and this may make the Striker feel comparatively weak. However, it is balanced against the other empire AA-weapons now and is still a strong weapon.
Skyguard
Improved turret speed (tracks air targets more easily now)
Added up to 8X zoom (to identify incoming targets more easily)
ROF for the Flak Cannon has been increased.
TR Burster
Increased range of projectiles to 500m (Since these projectiles have no guidance, they have a slightly longer range than the Sparrow and Starfire to compensate, in addition to the high rate of fire for this weapon.)
NC Sparrow
Increase the force shield damage protection significantly.
VS Starfire
Aggravated damage now "stacks". (see above)
You must acquire a laze target lock BEFORE you shoot if you wish your projectiles to be guided. Any shot released while unguided will STAY unguided, even if you acquire a laze after the fact. (bug fix)
Remove constraint on jumping that requires 20% of jump capacitor to be filled before this MAX can jump again.
The turning speed has been increased slightly to accentuate the improved mobility of this Empire's MAX.
TR Striker
Changed projectile range to 250m (design reduction)
Increased clip size to 5 (from 3)
Decreased the damage to armored targets (design reduction)
Decreased damage to air targets (design reduction)
Decreased damage to soft targets (design reduction)
Increased the rate of fire on the weapon (to be able to take advantage of the increased clip size before the target moves away)
You must acquire a laze target lock BEFORE you shoot if you wish your projectiles to be guided. If you are fring in laze mode (Primary firing mode) then you can no longer fire AT ALL unless such a lazed lock is acquired before you pull the trigger. (bug fix)
If you reload while guided missiles are in flight, then those missiles will immediately change to non-guided. Therefore, wait until your target is impacted before reloading. (bug fix)
NC Phoenix
Increase range to 250m
Reduced reload time slightly
Added a dumbfire secondary firing mode. This mode can be fired without the user being forced into missile-cam view, but it is non-guided.
VS Lancer
Reduce damage vs. infantry (design reduction)
Wall Turrets
Range on shots upped significantly to allow Turrets to defend themselves against air attackers flying at range.
Damage to armor increased
Damage to air increased
Main Battle Tanks
These were always intended to have characteristics specific to their Empire. The Terran Republic vehicles are supposed to be "highest rate of fire", the New Conglomerate items are "armor and big hits", and the Vanu Sovereignty are "light...but FAST".
The end result of the changes (listed below) creates the following characteristics:
TR Prowler has the highest damage output, but the slowest maximum speed and only average armor.
NC Vanguard has the highest armor, average maximum speed, and average damage output (the 150mm shots are still the most power individually, but the Prowler does more damage over time).
VS Magrider has the highest speed and maneuverability, but the least damage and armor.
Tank versus tank analyses were made and the "time to kill" (for one tank to kill another tank of a differing empire) is approximately the same, regardless of Empire. (For instance, The Magrider takes slightly longer to kill other tanks, but it's direct-line attacks typically are much more useful in tank-to-tank battles and this makes up for that lack.)
Overall, the main battle tank top speeds and accelerations were slowed down significantly. This does two things: a) it makes the tanks "feel" more like tanks because they seem to have more momentum, and b) it reduces the ease with which the tanks can mow over infantry targets (they take more time to ramp up to speed now and infantry can move around them more easily). This slower movement rate also reduces lag between server updates, which means you'll see the tanks moving more accurately now as well.
This decrease in maneuverability was partially compensated for by dramatically increasing the amount of armor these tanks have. (In otherwords, they're easier to hit now, so they can take the damage more easily.)
The following changes were made:
TR Prowler
Increased main gun rate of fire slightly
Increased tracking speed of the machinegun
Increased the damage of the 12mm machine gun bullets (all vehicles using those bullets gain this increase, as well)
Decreased the tank's max speed
Increased the acceleration time to hit top speeds (making it feel more like a tank and less like a buggy)
Increased the vertical pivot of both guns.
Increased its armor significantly.
NC Vanguard
Increase the Vanguard's armor to be the most heavily armored human-tech battle tank in the game
Decrease the tank's max speed
Increase the acceleration time to hit top speeds (making it feel more like a tank and less like a buggy)
Increased the damage of the 20mm machine gun bullets (all vehicles using those bullets gain this increase, as well)
Increase elevation of cannons to 45 degrees so that its machineguns are more useful against air targets
VS Magrider
Increase the acceleration time to hit top speeds (making it feel more like a tank and less like a buggy)
Increase the time it takes to reach top strafing speed also
Increase main cannon damage to armored targets
Increase main cannon damage to air targets
Armored Buggies
When the balances on the main battle tanks shifted, then the buggy balances needed to shift accordingly. This was predominantly done by adjusting armor and some of the weaponry characteristics. The speed aspects of the various buggies were unchanged.
After the changes below were made, the relative characteristics of these buggies are as follows:
TR Marauder: Highest damage output, average armor and slowest speed
NC Enforcer: Most armor, average damage output, and average speed
VS Tresher: Greatest speed, weakest armor, average damage output.
TR Marauder
The GroundPounder mortar projectiles now have a decreased explosive radius. (design reduction)
The individual mortar shots do less damage to soldiers, armor, and air now. (damage reduction)
Increase ROF of mortar to almost three times as fast. (compensates for above changes and makes it more interesting to use as a weapon)
Increased the turret tracking speed for the machinegun.
Increased the armor on this buggy (slightly).
Decreased the top speed slightly and increased the acceleration time to max speed (making it feel like an armored buggy when compared to the Harasser). (design reduction)
NC Enforcer
Increased the armor
Decreased the top speed and reduced acceleration time (design reduction)
VS Thresher
Increased the damage done at the edge of the explosions on the main cannon. (This means that all explosions will do generally more damage to all targets in the explosion as the damage doesn't "taper off" as quickly from the center to the edge of the explosion.)
Explosion radius increased slightly (on main gun shots)
Increased main gun clip size to 100 (from 25).
Improved handling and turning radius.
All Ground Vehicles
All ground vehicles had their handling characteristics changed. Almost all changes were improvements, such as added reverse speed, longer life underwater (allowing you to possibly undo the error of going underwater), greater speed underwater, increased armor (for better field survivability), etc.
The following list shows the relative "nimbleness" of the ground vehicles in order from most nimble to least nimble. "Nimbleness" is a factor relating max top speed with acceleration. If a vehicle is fast off the line, and has a high top speed, it's regarded as highly nimble.
In general, armor is exactly opposed to nimbleness. The more agile a craft is, the less armor it has.
The most significant upgrades in armor were given to the ANT and Lightning. Both of these vehicles nearly doubled their armor values. The Deliverer also got a significant armor boost. NOTE: No vehicles received decreased armor. All armor changes were positive.
The ANT has greatly improved speed and handling now, in addition to its extra armor.
"Nimbleness" Listing (most responsive to least responsive)
Wraith
Basilisk
Switchblade
Harasser
Skyguard
Thresher
Enforcer
Marauder
Lightning
Deliverer
ANT
Magrider
Sunderer
Vanguard
Prowler
Flail
AMS
Router
A quick note regarding the Reverse gear changes: Until now, most vehicles had very slow reverse speeds. NC vehicles still tend to have slow reverse gears, even after this change, as they rely on heavy punching damage and armor to protect them. The TR have faster reverse speeds so they can compensate for their lower armor by doing "hit-and-fades" if desired. The VS have the fastest reverse speeds (almost as fast as their forward speeds) so they have the most maneuverability options, as usual.
In addition, when driving underwater, take note that open-air cockpits have a much lower survival time than closed cockpits.
Non-AA MAX Units
In addition to making the Main Battle Tanks and the Armored Buggies more empire-specific in character, the same was desired for the MAX units. Additionally, some of the weaponry on MAX units was either overpowered (in certain instances) or even underpowered.
The following changes achieve the desired changes in these units. They generally result in the TR MAXs having the highest rate of fire, the NC MAXs being the toughest nut to crack, and the VS MAXs having the most maneuverability.
Anti-Vehicular MAXs
TR Dual-Cycler
Decreased damage degradation so its bullets do better damage over range. This makes it a better anti-vehicle weapon.
Decrease damage to soldiers (design reduction)
NC Falcon
Increase the force shield power significantly.
Increase damage to armored targets
Increase damage to air targets
Range of projectiles reduced slightly (330m)
VS Comet
Removed damage degradation from this weapon entirely.
Aggravated damage now stacks.
Remove constraint on jumping that requires 20% of jump capacitor to be filled before this MAX can jump again.
The turning speed has been increased slightly to accentuate the improved mobility of this Empire's MAX.
Increased range (330m) and speed of projectile.
Reduced individual aggravated damage per projectile (but the improvement to the aggravated damage system actually increases the power of this weapon when compared to prior to this patch).
Anti-Infantry MAXs
TR Pounder
Decreased damage against soldiers (but see ROF increase below)
Significantly decreased damage against armored targets
Increase refire rate (approximately doubled)
NOTE: This results in damage over time being approximately the same, but the individual shots should accrue much less grief if used in a crowded area. Pounder operators have more time to react to any "oops" that occurs before getting a lot of grief.
NC Scattercannon
Increase the force shield power significantly.
Increase damage against armored targets (so that Scattercannons can hurt other MAX units now...still not a great weapon against MAXs, but they can do something now, at least.)
Increase refire rate (approximately doubled)
VS Quasar
Reduce damage degradation so shots have more power over distance
Increase pivoting speed slightly (to enhance maneuverability)
Decrease recoil of shots (making shots more accurate)
Decrease maximum COF size
Increase clip size to 80 (from 60). (This has the byproduct of increasing the number of AP shots available to 40 (from 30) also.)
Remove constraint on jumping that requires 20% of jump capacitor to be filled before this MAX can jump again.
The turning speed has been increased slightly to accentuate the improved mobility of this Empire's MAX.
Miscellaneous Upgrades/Fixes
Reaver
Rocket clip reduced to 16 (from 24). (design reduction)
Increased initial velocity of rockets (to avoid situation where Reaver can fly faster, without afterburner, than its rockets can fly)
Decreased lifespan of rockets, reducing their range. New effective range is slightly lower than 300m.
Mini-Chaingun
Decreased default COF (standing) to match crouching COF
Increased ROF slightly (from 125ms to 115ms)
There is now a slightly longer time between recoil free bursts (meaning you have to wait a fraction of a second longer between times when the COF is at its smallest size).
Jackhammer
Decreased projectile damage (very) slightly
Decimator (NOTE: This change already in the game, but is listed here for completeness)
Increase refire time of secondary (camera mode) missiles. (bug fix)
Range was significantly decreased in a previous patch. It has now been reextended. The current range was 360m. It is now extended to 450m.
Beamer
COF has been reduced for standing and crouching (tightest COF of all pistols)
You now get a few shots in before shots begin to degrade in power over distance. So your first few shots will be at full damage even at range.
The Beamer is now the most effective pistol against armor. It won't be taking out tanks anytime soon, but it can nick them to death slowly over time. (You may find it more effective against more lightly armed opponents.
Scatterpistol
Increase damage to soldiers ever-so-slightly to bring it inline with other pistols.
VS Forceblade
The glow has been removed from this knife.
Jumping
For infiltrators, standard armor, agile and reinforced armors ONLY. The 3-second delay between jumps has been removed. This allows you to jump whenever you want, as often as you want.
Stamina drain for jumps increased to 10 (from 5). This prevents infinite jumping (you'll run out of stamina eventually), while still allowing more flexibility to the player.
Harasser/Deliverer
Increased turret tracking speed to match machinegun changes made on battle tanks and armored buggies.
Galaxy
COF for the Galaxy's guns is decreased
Increased the ROF for the Galaxy's guns also.
