Update Discussion thread (14FEB18)

[immaspaceninja]

The claymore hiding thing has been in for at least like a month

Well, i mentioned it because i just started playing after a pretty long break and i haven't seen anyone talk about this anywhere. Also the fact that its not in the changelog doesn't help as well, not to mention there was no reason given.

[solidfury7]

Claymore hiding nerf is good but when will resin holes face the same treatment? Getting sick of sprites being abused to hide them.

[ColdSuit]

Ayy, we can use the SADAR on the Almayer now. Thank god because SADAR specs can now contribute to shipboard events.

[Rikman]

Putting on and taking off marine armor suits now takes time to stop marines taking off armor to run faster.

Come... on....
Just make holding armor make you slower, please!

[Sulaboy]

Putting on and taking off marine armor suits now takes time to stop marines taking off armor to run faster.

Come... on....
Just make holding armor make you slower, please!

Then marines will just drop their armor, and come back for it later. This change was probably meant to stop marines from taking off their armor to chase down Xenos.

[Rikman]

Then marines will just drop their armor, and come back for it later. This change was probably meant to stop marines from taking off their armor to chase down Xenos.

Oh.

[Gnorse]

>Barricades no longer able to be dragged onto dropships, with the dropship door and lockdown changes barricades on dropships only serve to delay the round where the Queen is attempting to call down and take over the dropship.

I'm not saying I'm salty, but goddamn it I'm salty.

[misto]

we had a fun time once, making landings using a fortified DS, killing a couple xenos that tried to break in as they had the landing pad surrounded, and taking off again. but that was hardly a normal occurrence, so its not a big loss

[HKO20006]

May 16 2018
Spookydonut updated:
Sandbags no longer constructable on dropships.
Barricades no longer able to be dragged onto dropships, with the dropship door and lockdown changes barricades on dropships only serve to delay the round where the Queen is attempting to call down and take over the dropship.

May 15 2018
Rahlzel updated:
Inaprovaline and Dylovene no longer mix when inside the body to make Tricordrazine.
Tricordrazine is now available to the Sleeper bed as an injectable chem.
The main purpose of the above changes is to help prevent overdosing and to allow the helpful effects of both Inaprovaline and Dylovene at the same time. However, it is open to discussion whether or not this feature is more a hindrance than a help. I've opened a ticket on our Gitlab for further discussion and voting on whether or not this is a good change.
New human "pain" sounds have been added to dull the occurrence of screams and the gap between pricking your finger and having your head melted by acid.
Spookydonut updated:
Putting on and taking off marine armor suits now takes time to stop marines taking off armor to run faster.
The M5 RPG can now be used on Almayer.
Mines can now be used on the Almayer.
Marine uniforms can no longer have their sensors disabled.
HF2 Health Analyzer now fits in suit slot of marine armor.
Using shift + middle mouse to point no longer examines too, shift + left click still examines.

May 14 2018
RavingManiac updated:
Single-use zip cuffs added to SL and requisitions vendors for use when taking human enemies prisoner.
When firing an unsilenced weapon, you will be lit by muzzle flash. This will mostly be visible only if you do not already have a light source.
forcesay disabled due to breaking the server.
Spookydonut updated:
Linked upper/lower deck powergrids and disposals.
All reactors now on lower deck and feed power to upperdeck SMES.
Added a lockerroom for the MTS.
Made permabrig bigger and added stadium seating to execution chamber.
Added shutters to stop players entering each ERT arrival area before an ERT shuttle arrives at that area.
Brig cell lockers now outside the cells to make searching possessions easier and the detainment process quicker.
Added buttons to research to allow airlock-like operation of the entry doors.
Readded shutters to research (ooops).
Glass briefing doors now access locked.
Briefing flash now properly access locked.
PDAs no longer spawn as roundstart equipment for shipside roles.
Renamed LV colony areas to give a better idea of outdoor locations.
Renamed Big Red colony areas to give a better idea of outdoor locations.
Queen locator should work correctly on ice and almayer.
Fixed ice colony bugs #2336 #2760 #2843 #2895.
Fixed prison bug #2749.
Fixed LV cargo dome having metal roof in exposed areas.
Fixed LV bugs #2401 #2752 #2778 #2819 #3027.
Fixed weird lighting/sight issue on some LV domes like research.
Tasers no longer accept attachments.
Fixed Big Red bugs #2384 #2730 #2904 #2913.

May 13 2018
Rahlzel updated:
Adminhelps and private message replies now use the larger message text box. No more arrows keys to scroll back to reread your message or to check it for spelling and clarity. Message limit has stayed at 500 characters. We'll try this out and see how it goes. Let Rahlzel know if anything is broken or needs improvement if the engine is willing - the text boxes are either small or large with nothing in-between. (screenshot)
The Health Analyzer's popup-window-mode is now enabled by default after improving the formatting. This mode can still be toggled on/off by right-clicking the Health Analyzer in your hand and selecting "Switch Hud", which will cause the analyzer results to instead be displayed in chat as usual.
Using the 'Join as Xeno' verb in the Ghost tab no longer automatically enables the player's Xenomorph special role candidacy for those of you that are just window shopping.

[Nickvr628]

Glass briefing doors now access locked.
Briefing flash now properly access locked.

That is highly disappointing. Some of the best memes are a lone PFC stunning the entire room of a hundred marines as they try to leave for the dropships.

[ColdSuit]

They nerfed the Pyro spec to the ground with the flamer damage nerf. That is incredibly disappointing especially as it was a reliable way to kill the xenos that were usually too fast or too tanky to hit with enough gunfire to bring down (Hunters, Crushers).

[Bronimin]

They nerfed the Pyro spec to the ground with the flamer damage nerf. That is incredibly disappointing especially as it was a reliable way to kill the xenos that were usually too fast or too tanky to hit with enough gunfire to bring down (Hunters, Crushers).

BMC reverted that change don't tell the rest of the dev team.

[ColdSuit]

BMC reverted that change don't tell the rest of the dev team.

Oh thank god! Also, is actually for item values (damage, ammo, etc.) to be tailored specifically for whatever Ckey holds it?

[kroack]

BMC777 updated:
Added a new T1 Xeno caste, the Defender.
Defender Abilities:
Fortify - Enter an immovable, highly defensive stance.
Toggle Crest Defense - Raises or Lowers the Defender's crest. When lowered, Defenders gain a defensive boost but cannot use other abilities.
Tail Sweep - Knockback all adjacent Marines, possibly knocking them down as well.
Headbutt - Damage and knockback a Marine, can cause bone fractures.
Added a new T2 Xeno caste, the Warrior. Evolves from the Defender.
Warrior Abilities:
Toggle Agility - Puts the Warrior into an agile stance with increased movement speed, abilities cannot be used in this stance.
Punch - A hard hitting punch that will break bones.
Lunge - Jumps a few tiles forward to a target, immediately puts the target in a chokehold.
Rip Limb - When grabbing someone in a chokehold, target a limb and upgrade the grab to rip the limb off after some time.
Fling - Casually toss away a Marine a few tiles, does light damage.
Praetorian is now an evolution choice from Warrior, Praetorians have recieved buffs to health and speed, nerfs to acid spit range and speed, and a new acid spray ability that works similarly to a Boiler's but is a short range cone.
Crushers now evolve from Warriors.
Hunter's name has changed to Lurker.
Crushers were losing armor when upgrading, upgrading now gives increased armor.
Added new sprites for most Xenos. All new sprites courtesy of ARefrigerator and NicBoone. Special thanks to ARefrigerator for coming back just to work on this project.

New xeno memes are spicy.

[Snooper44]

New xeno updates are pretty sick. I have not seen a marine win yet thus far but i'm still interested to see how things will play out. So far i've seen warriors and defenders able to easily tank marines and because of it not many people often want to go crusher anymore.

[kroack]

I'm interested in the role of runners/lurkers with all the utility that defenders and warriors offer. The ambush castes seem like higher risk with less reward than the sturdier newer combat castes.

[HKO20006]

New castes gave a big boost to xeno pop, a recent 100 pop LV round, first scan 29 marines on the planet (18 on metal hive) while xeno have 23 sisters.

Praetorians acid spray is a good addition to stop marine counterattack other than Boiler gas.

[Butlerblock]

Does this mean dev time will focus on fixing the movement speed problem, now that they have gotten tanks and this xeno update out of the way?

[adrenalinetooth]

Claymore hiding nerf is good but when will resin holes face the same treatment? Getting sick of sprites being abused to hide them.

A mine needs a clear line of sight for the sensors to properly detect a target, so the nerf makes sense. If you put garbage in front a mine, it's not gonna detect anything and not work.

With aliens in resin holes, they are organic creatures and can sense when something is nearby. If trash is on top of the hole, they can just push it out of the way and attach to their target.

[Nickvr628]

That limb rip ability seems ridiculously memey, especially since you can combo it right after a lunge chokehold. expect to see it happen a lot with queen rushes.

Also the choke hold will be great for FF...

[immaspaceninja]

Xenos fianlly got something interesting.
The only thing that bothers me are the praetorians. I mean, uh, they're broken right now.
They have the speed of a ravager, pheromones, strong acid to spit and melt stuff with, the health buff made them thicker, and their new acid spray is insane. It has a super low cooldown. You can just run up, using your new speed with pheromones and blast people with acid spray. They cant run away, they cant escape it, and if you used it while being right next to them/1 tile away, they'll end up with an acid wall behind them which makes it pulling them back a problem.
The stun on that thing and it's cooldown should be nerfed.

[immaspaceninja]

A mine needs a clear line of sight for the sensors to properly detect a target, so the nerf makes sense. If you put garbage in front a mine, it's not gonna detect anything and not work.

With aliens in resin holes, they are organic creatures and can sense when something is nearby. If trash is on top of the hole, they can just push it out of the way and attach to their target.

Please, stop trying to apply realism here. The claymores we have aren't even working like their IRL counterparts.
And, uh, what would prevent a marine from covering it in a such way that it's sensor wouldn't be blocked?

[HKO20006]

A mine needs a clear line of sight for the sensors to properly detect a target, so the nerf makes sense. If you put garbage in front a mine, it's not gonna detect anything and not work.

With aliens in resin holes, they are organic creatures and can sense when something is nearby. If trash is on top of the hole, they can just push it out of the way and attach to their target.

However, there is nothing to counter covering resin hole with xeno body, you can't see them and it's hard to click the tile as the body just cover most of the tile.

I find it strange to see Praetorian moved to the Warrior evolution tree, the whole front line tree is melee, I suppose picking Defender/Warrior to play melee not ranged, I guess we will see fewer Praetorians.

[solidfury7]

A mine needs a clear line of sight for the sensors to properly detect a target, so the nerf makes sense. If you put garbage in front a mine, it's not gonna detect anything and not work.

With aliens in resin holes, they are organic creatures and can sense when something is nearby. If trash is on top of the hole, they can just push it out of the way and attach to their target.

Oh you're right, it makes sense ICLY,

But I think instant stuns are not fun because you can't combat them. Especially if they're completely hidden due to other sprites.

Sometimes mechanical fun should come before realism.

[adrenalinetooth]

Oh you're right, it makes sense ICLY,

But I think instant stuns are not fun because you can't combat them. Especially if they're completely hidden due to other sprites.

Sometimes mechanical fun should come before realism.

It's hard, but the alien sits on top of the hole for about a second after it trips you before attaching to your face, so a good teammate can shoot it quickly and save you. It's not impossible. I'm a fan of how resin holes are; it makes you think twice before stepping into unknown territory. It's one of those things that makes the game punishing and difficult, which is what I like.
Also, if you target the weeds that the resin hole is on, you can shoot the resin hole and provoke the facehugger to come out from any distance regardless of any trash on it.

But yeah, if you don't have a good teammate to shoot it quickly, and you aren't 'minesweeping' by right-clicking every single tile, you're pretty much done for. I can understand how that's not mechanically fun, having to right-click everything..
I don't mind it because it keeps me on my toes, and I can't think of a better solution to translate "taking a close look at the ground" mechanically other than sifting via right-clicking.