This update builds on yesterdays chest mounted grenades by adding dedicated slots for both grenade types. There is now a frag slot on the left and a sticky slot on the right. Both slots can hold up to 4 grenades at a time, meaning you can now hold on to 8 grenades instead of 4. Grenade counts for each are indicated on the HUD, next to the shoulder indicators.
This is a massive improvement over the old system which had no sorting mechanism to speak of and made it difficult to actually grab a grenade in the heat of battle, let alone a specific type.
Choosing grenade options for a game variant is now much more sensible. Instead of choosing 4 individual grenade types, you can now simply choose a number of frags and stickies to spawn with:
Bugfixes/Improvements
Pistol reload zone is 2cm wider so it is easier to insert a mag without bashing the Vive controllers together
Made health/shield bars opaque to improve performance
Disabled lighting on some HUD elements to improve performance
Limited update frequency on some HUD elements to improve performance
Cut footstep volume by 25%
Update 11/27/17 - Chest holstered grenades
This update makes one major change; grenades are now located on your chest instead of on your ammo box. They still work exactly the same way, but this will hopefully keep them outside of your field of view when it matters and easily accessible at the same time. It's relatively experimental, but I'm hoping to try it out and get some feedback during tonight's scheduled play session.
Bugfixes/Improvements
Grenade slots now replicate, hopefully fixing the elusive floating grenades on clients bug
Left hand collisions are fixed
Update 11/22/17 - Better hands and customizable visor color
This update is mostly aesthetic. The default UE4 robot hands have been replaced by proper models that match the character model:
You can also now set your visor color to whatever you'd like:
This is a pretty minor update but I want to squeeze it in before the play session(s) tomorrow. Just a reminder, we play at 8PM GMT and 8PM EST Mondays/Wednesdays. Hope to see you there!
Update 11/20/14 - Better spawns and HUD Upgrade
This is part 2 of an ongoing interface overhaul. Last week I introduced optional shoulder holsters and a larger rear ammo box, but the HUD for these things was pretty wonky. Shoulder holsters had to be operated blindly and ammo counts were basically invisible for rear ammo box users.
That's all changed in this update. Shoulder holstered weapons are now indicated under the health bars, and ammo counts are now located on your wrists.
Not only does the ammo counter make the behind-the-back play more manageable, it also allows you to actually know how many rounds you have left in each gun. No more guessing!
The other major change you may notice is the new smart scope reticle color(s). By default it is now blue, and it will change to red when aiming at an enemy and green when aiming at a friendly. This makes the smart scope considerably easier to use, as you'll get a little visual stimulus when your shot is lined up. I'm really looking forward to trying it out in the scheduled play sessions tomorrow.
I've also (hopefully) fixed a lot of the bad spawns, particularly in very small areas like ZigZag. There was already a system in place to prevent spawning in an enemy's line of sight, but it was counting dead bodies as threats and getting confused. Basically once the map had piled up with bodies, all the spawns were marked as equally bad and you'd spawn completely randomly and end up directly behind an enemy or something. This obvious error has been fixed, so bad spawns should be much less frequent. We will see tomorrow.
Bugfixes/Improvements
Bots can no longer shoot through walls by sticking gun through them
Dead bodies are no longer considered threats when choosing a spawn point
Sight lines to top and bottom of a spawn point are now considered when determining its safety, instead of only the center
Spawn points are no longer considered safe if line of sight is only blocked by a teammate or a death spectator
Placed more spawn points on ZigZag
Exploded heads are now the correct colors in team games
Ammo counts are now displayed on wrists. The old ammo counters have been removed.
Shoulder holstered items are now displayed under the health bar
The smart scope reticle now changes color based on who you are pointing at (enemy or friendly)
Save Game Variant button is now visible and enabled on non-host players. Clicking this will simply save the current variant to the users system. If the variant's name is "Default", the variant will be saved under a randomly generated name (Unsightly Wind, Mammoth Gun, etc).
Holsters now replicate properly to clients. This is mostly unnoticeable for the player but may fix a bug found last week where switching from shoulder to hips results in broken floating guns. I was unable to recreate the bug on my own.
Armswing is no longer the default sprint option before you change/save your player options. This was never intended and I'm a little embarrassed that it slipped through the cracks. Anyone who calibrated their height first thing in the tutorial as recommended would have never seen this bug, but anybody who skipped it probably had a very confusing time. I sincerely apologize to those people.
Update 11/15/17 - Shoulder holsters and rear ammo blob
New Player Options
This update introduces a new player option:
Holster Location
There are 2 options, Hips and Shoulders. "Hips" simply attaches the holsters to the sides of your ammo box where they always have been. "Shoulders" instead enables two large holster zones behind your head.
Ammo Box Changes
Rear ammo boxes now use a much larger mesh which is easier to find blindly. Front ammo boxes still use the old box mesh.
Ammo counters simply float in front of the ammo blob, and grenades are attached inside it. This is a temporary solution. I am planning to put ammo counts on the hands and grenades on a chest rig, but due to the way the ammo box works I'm going to have to make some significant changes to both of these systems. This will come in a later update.
The combination of a rear ammo box and shoulder holsters is probably the smoothest way to play the game right now. It will likely become the default in the future, but it is definitely experimental at this point. Consider it a work in progress.
Bugfixes/Improvements
Dropped grenades will now disappear after 135 seconds so they won't pile up anymore
SMG bullet force has been halved
Shotgun bullet force has been nerfed even more
When a player dies, any magazines in their hands will be returned to their ammo box instead of floating in midair
Update 11/13/2017 - New map (ZigZag) and weapon despawns
This update includes a new map: ZigZag
This one is considerably smaller than the others and is inside of a volcano for added danger. It's a work in progress but is fully playable in all game modes. No mob emitters at this point as I'm not yet sure where to put them.
Bugfixes/Improvements
Energy shield no longer activates after being unhidden during a dual wielding reload
Ammo boxes on non-host players display ammo counts properly again
Rear ammo box option works again on non-host players
The ammo box height slider has been replaced with a dropdown menu to work around a bug in Unreal Engine
Fixed pistol swap selector
Dropped weapons will now despawn after 135 seconds if they have ammo, 60 seconds if they do not.
Bots no longer spawn extra mags at (0,0,0) when they spawn
Bots can now use teleporters, launchpads, and grav lifts
Bots now look in the same direction as their weapon is pointed (was slightly off before)
Unequipped bot guns are no longer visible on the character's stomach on client machines
Update 11/8/17 - Configurable Ammo Box Height
New Player Option
This update adds a single player option: Ammo Box Height. This slider runs from 0% to 100% and determines where the ammo box and holsters appear on your body. Previously this was locked to 50% but that doesn't necessarily work for everyone.
Bugfixes/Improvements
Fixed an animation issue with right crouched walking
A small ledge has been removed from the south grav lift on Launchpad. This ledge for whatever reason was causing players to get shot across the map randomly.
If a magazine is ejected while a fresh magazine is in the opposite hand and touching the reload zone, the mag will automatically be inserted. This prevents awkward reload fails.
Fixed some lighting problems on the map Launchpad
Players with light primary colors will now get black text in the roster, while darker colors will get white text. This guarantees that player names and stats are always visible.
Walking thumbstick input is now clamped to size of 1 to hopefully fix a bug with oculus thumbsticks
Update 10/31/17 - New Character Models and More
The most notable feature of this update is a brand new character model for players and bots. It looks much better.
This character is much better animated than the old one as well, and is able to handle crouched/prone stances gracefully. The inclusion of a "real" character model required a whole lot of code changes, as (third person) hands and heads are no longer their own objects. This shouldn't make too much of a difference to gameplay.
Rather than trying to glue a wingsuit to the space armor, I've given it something I'm calling a "holosail". When active the holosail appears as a transparent plane attached to your hands/head, like this:
It is visible in both first and third person and gives a pretty good visual indicator for gliding, at least when gliding backwards. Most of the time it should be behind you.
The smart scope has been upgraded as well:
Resolution has been greatly improved and a small red dot has been added to the center for better accuracy. The reticle is now much more visible against bright backgrounds. I also fixed the contrast in the scope, which was extremely weird before.
The bad concrete and stone textures I've been using everywhere have been replaced with much prettier ones:
These look decent both from a distance and close up, and scale correctly regardless of the object size. No more weird stretched textures!
New Player Options
This update adds 4 new player options:
Primary Color
Secondary Color
Lights Color
Smart Scope Opacity
The color options change the colors of your player. In team games, your primary color will be replaced by your team color.
Smart scope opacity can be set between 5% and 100%, depending on user preference.
Update 10/16/2017 #1 - Major Bugfix (Game won't start)
The primary reason for this update is to fix an issue some people have been having where the game runs forever but never starts. It appears to have been caused by a very deep rooted bug in how Unreal Engine loads up assets. As such I am unable to truly fix the issue at this time, but I have managed to figure out a workaround for folks that have been affected. It does have a few side effects, however:
Thumbnails are no longer visible for custom maps
Existing custom maps may now fail to load.
If you are creating a custom map and it does fail to load, try disabling the Event Driven Loader in the project settings. Also talk to me about it, I'll probably be able to help.
New Weapon
This update also includes a new weapon, the energy shield. This is a hand mounted shield that is activated with the trigger. It can be activated for 10 seconds (total) and is capable of taking ~70 points of damage before breaking. It heals at the same rate as player shields.
It's a bit premature at the moment, as I'm rushing this update to fix the bug, but it is in the game and it does technically work. It's got a few known issues:
Some effects are missing, and the ones that are there may not spawn correctly in multiplayer
Rotation is wrong when spawned directly into a player's hand
To fix this you just have to drop it and pick it up again.
No lag compensation in multiplayer, which may create a discrepancy between which shots appear to be blocked
All these things will be fixed in the next update. For the time being, it's there if you want to play with it.
Other Improvements
<*> The grass texture has been overhauled and looks much better. Tiling is less obvious and it's better scaled.
This update introduces 2 new checkboxes in the player options tab:
Orient Thrusters to Head
Orient Ninja Run to Head
Both of these default to checked. When checked, thrusters will point away from your head when in use as they always have. If unchecked, thrusters will remain locked to your hands during use. This will allow you to steer with your wrists instead of your full body. The same option is available for ninja run so you can maintain control parity.
One of the main advantages of the ninja run system is that it minimizes motion sickness by tying movement to your head. However, bending over all the time to sprint can be fairly uncomfortable for some users. These options essentially trade motion sickness for physical comfort by allowing steering to be done using wrists instead of full body. It also makes the armswing sprint style more practical as you won't be forced into ninja run while airborne.
Bugfixes/Improvements
Fixed bug where saving a game variant fails and eventually causes the game to crash
Fixed bug where clients in a lobby would hear proximity voice while the server heard spatial radio
