Version/2.38.x

Home > Patch notes > Version/2.38.x

2.38.0

This patch has not yet been released The information in this section is preliminary and subject to change, including the addition and removal of entire sections.

Release: (TBA)

Features

• Replaced vehicle shell particle effects with the new particle system. Each cannon can (and now does) have a different trail of particles.
  • This may make it easier to identify the locations of artillery tanks.
• Large rework of the vehicle heat mechanics
  • Added a fourth "Overheat" heat region.
    • Now there is "Low" (Green), "Medium" (Yellow), "High" (Orange), and "Overheat" (Red)
  • The portion of the heat bar that is not filled will still be displayed, but in a way more muted color.
  • The positions of the various heat regions can be defined per-engine.
  • When a weapon cannot fire due to overheating, the ammo indicator for that weapon will turn red. (This was previously in the game, but the definition of overheating used was incorrect so this never actually happened).
  • Engines will now begin stalling at the High region, and completely stall at the Overheat region.
  • Weapons can have a "Critical Heat Zone". When a weapon is fired while the vehicle is in this zone or above, then it will fire a crit.
    • Crit shells can have a different firing sound, impact sound, and trail particles. (Impact particle effects and muzzle flash effects are still to be implemented, but if this concept sticks around there's an entirely different way I want to indicate these in the scripts).
    • Critical shells do triple damage.
    • Only the Plasma cannon currently uses this feature, and likely only the plasma weapons will use this mechanic.
    • Only shells have crits implemented. If this idea is kept, then we'd want to implement the same for MGs, missiles, and grenades.
  • Due to simplifications of the engine stall code, the "Heat Stall Penalty" value on engines now indicates the maximum amount the throttle can be reduced to via engine overheating, instead of the square root of the maximum amount the throttle can be reduced to via engine overheating.
    • To keep the same behavior on existing engines, this value will need to be squared in the scripts.
• Research now drains resources over time, instead of spending all of the resources up-front.
  • Commanders can pause and resume research at any time.
  • If there is insufficient resources for research to continue, then research is paused automatically.
    • The entire team will hear the "Insufficient Resources" sound clip.
  • When research is complete, the entire team (and all spectators) will hear the "Research is now complete" sound effect, instead of just the commander.
  • Added a new mapmaking entity emp_logic_resource_drain to allow mapmakers to specify their own similar resource drains.
• Added new listener mapmaking entities,
• Added a sound effect that plays when a tank loads ammo.
• Increased the default value of the emp_sv_vehicle_fadeout_time cvar from 30 seconds to 180 seconds.
  • The previous default probably made sense before vehicle carcasses could be recycled.
• Increased the default value of the emp_sv_vehicle_fadeout_time_partial cvar from 30 seconds to 60 seconds.
• Removed the emp_sv_vehicle_allow_horns cvar.
  • Horns are a vital form of communication between players, and it does not make sense to allow server owners to turn this functionality off.

Other changes

• Several unused features have been removed:
  • Research can no longer upgrade ammo damage.
  • Vehicle weapons can no longer be "disabled", and research cannot disable vehicle weapons.