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Patch Notes

Patch Notes for Update 0.3.0.1517 AI Minions

By December 31, 2018No Comments

Our next large content update for Revn is here! In Update 0.3.0, we are finally able to implement the third pillar of Revn’s core gameplay systems: AI troops. We couldn’t have done this without Chris Lodge; he coded practically all of their behavior from scratch. There will be tons of bugs, I’m sure, and there will be plenty of odd behavior from the first version of these AI. But we’re confident that the AI is ready to be battle-tested, and further improvement will come from playtesting and pushing them to their limits.

A quick overview of AI and how they work

The “Minion Command Wheel” can be toggled with the Q key. From this menu, players can deploy up to 5 Minions, for a cost of 25 Metal each. The first Minion will spawn near the player’s location, and additional Minions will spawn close to existing Minions.

Two other commands can be issued: Follow Me, and Go There. Follow Me will tell the AI to stay within range of the player, and Go There will set a location for the AI to travel to. After reaching either of these destinations, AI will patrol in a random pattern, searching for enemies.

Minions have reduced speed, health, shields, damage, and rate of fire, compared to player characters. They are meant to be used to outnumber your enemies or to protect objectives. Their stats will most likely need some balancing after the first week of alpha playtesting, and we look forward to your feedback.

New First Person Aiming System

In this update, I also introduced a first person view for aiming down sights or with scopes. This mode can be toggled with the V key, which switches between over-the-shoulder, or the iron-sights / scope. Additional improvements to camera positioning and gun play are also included.

Here are the full patch notes for Update 0.3.0:

  1. Created Minion Commands “Go There” and “Follow Me”
  2. Minions can now be spawned for 25 Metal.
  3. Minions will acquire targets and shoot at them until dead.
  4. Started prototyping new level designs in Small Map
  5. Raw Resource Zone “trigger area” is now slightly bigger (covers the top of the pylon mesh)
  6. Re scaled all build-able objects (wall, floor, ramp, etc) to use a 3 meter grid instead of the old 8 meter grid
  7. Decreased length of ray trace for building preview location calculation. (was 2000, now 1000)
  8. WallWithDoor trigger collider will no longer block projectile object types
  9. Prototyping a FPS camera toggle for aiming
    1. Reloading, sprinting, and switching weapons will use the third person camera
    2. Characters will now resume ADS if RMB is still down after reload cycle is over. Reloading will now call StopAiming.
    3. Fixed Bug where if you ADS in TPS, then hit V, then stop ADS (release RMB), player will get stuck in TPS-ADS-OverTheShoulder camera position (StopAiming event now calls the timeline to reverse the PrimaryCamera position even when FPSADS mode is set to true)
    4. StartAiming event will now check if character is SwappingWeapon, if they are swapping weapon, it won’t let them start aiming
    5. Added code to prevent StartAiming from doing anything if character is still reloading
    6. Fixed bug where clients would not be able to resume aiming after reload / swapping weapons
    7. Reworked Start Aiming so that TPS camera never applies zoom and never uses “scope overlay”. TPS Over the Shoulder ADS mode will never zoom in, even for weapons with scopes. Instead, use FPS ADS mode for scoped weapons if you want to use the scope on them!
    8. Muzzle flashes are hidden locally, but with a bug where if server hides his flash locally, it is hidden on all clients as well.
    9. Weapons now have weapon-specific toggles for FPS ADS mode. Players can have weapon 1 be FPSADS mode ON, while weapon 2 has FPSADS set to OFF. Also, FPSADS mode is now set ON by default for all weapons at spawn.
  10. Changed size of capsule collider for BaseCharacter to fix bug where character couldn’t walk through the new door size
  11. Reworked Door to slide horizontally instead of vertically
  12. Characters will now resume firing weapon if “fire weapon” input (LMB) is still being pressed down after Reload Cycle Ends.
  13. Characters will now call “stop shooting” on previous weapon as part of EquipWeapon event
    1. Fixes this fun little bug https://clips.twitch.tv/CrepuscularBombasticAsparagusCurseLit
  14. Crouching now adjusts camera positions vertically, for both FPS and TPS cameras
  15. Lowered the overall position of TPS camera from 80 to 64
  16. Deploy Drone event now calls Stop Aiming. Fixes bugs where launching drone while aiming would cause a black screen overlay in the drone HUD, or would cause local client character model to be hidden
  17. Deploy Drone will now call Stop Shooting on current weapon. Fixes bug where launching drone while holding LMB would cause weapon to continue firing even after player was controlling drone.
  18. Removed the circular base from Raw Resource Zone mesh. Design is now a solitary pylon.
  19. Added a “-50% Rate of Fire” stat to Short Shotgun, Medium Shotgun, and Long Shotgun barrel mods
  20. Change Primary Color now works on default mannequin character model
  21. Big improvements to building support check code. Refactored CheckSupport function to use “Disintegrate Event” instead of “Destroy Actor” when it determines a fort object needs to die. This adds a 1 second delay before other objects are notified that an object has died, which massively improves performance and frame rate!! It also looks pretty.
  22. Wrote a new “Check Preview Support” function that only checks for adjacent fort objects or terrain, instead of recursively checking for support, and utilized this function in player controller preview update code. This improves frame rate when players are previewing buildings next to lots of other buildings.
  23. Ramps should no longer block walls from being built
  24. Improved fort destruction algorithm. “check supports” function now only utilizes static meshes that are overlapping with support points, instead of any fort object (fixes bug where medic tower trigger box could be considered as a supporting object for walls and floors positioned above it.
  25. Fixed bug where preview objects could be considered supporting objects in Check Supports function.
  26. Rotated spawn point in SmallMap so that it is pointing in the proper direction.
  27. Refactored “drone control sheet” to be a universal control cheat sheet. It now displays control notes for toggling between FPSADS and Over the Shoulder.
  28. Balanced all Barrel bullet speed stats
    1. Changed Bullet speed on TripleBurstBarrel from 200 to 900
    2. Changed Bullet speed on AutoBurst barrel from 200 to 900
    3. Changed Bullet speed on AutoShotgun barrel from 200 to 400
    4. Changed Bullet speed on FettBarrel from 200 to 600
    5. Changed Bullet speed on LongBarrel from 200 to 900
    6. Changed Bullet speed on LongShotgunBarrel from 200 to 400
    7. Changed Bullet speed on MediumBarrel from 200 to 900
    8. Changed Bullet speed on MediumShotgunBarrel from 200 to 400
    9. Changed Bullet speed on ShortBarrel from 200 to 600
    10. Changed Bullet speed on ShortShotgunBarrel from 200 to 400
    11. Changed Bullet speed on SniperBarrel from 200 to 1100
    12. Changed Bullet speed on StandardBurstBarrel from 200 to 900
    13. Changed Bullet speed on TurretBarrel from 200 to 900
    14. Changed Bullet speed on WeakMediumBarrel from 200 to 900
  29. Reworked bullet speed stat to measure in meters / second
  30. Fixed the rangefinder units for HUd so that they now measure distance in meters
  31. Created “Zone Capture Meter” UI widget, got rid of hitboxes on CapPoint and RawResourceZone so that the “Overhead Health Bar” widget in HUD no longer shows anything for them (purple bar). Instead, capture progress is now displayed in the Zone Capture Meter

Alright, that’s all for 2018! Its been a great year. Have a great 2019, and I’ll see you guys tomorrow for community playtesting at 5:00 pm EST.

Silas Talley, Creative Director