We’re here with another exciting patch. This time, the major change is the addition of bots into matches. There are also some balance changes and bugfixes.
Bots
- JunkBots have been added to complement matchmaking matches.
- We have created several skill profiles for bots to create an adequate challenge for both early and late-game players. The skill and ship power rating of bots is determined based on the average power rating of human-controlled ships in a match.
- Matchmaking waiting times have been lowered for players across all levels, most significantly for new Rookie ship players, who will get a match almost immediately. For late-game players waiting times have also been reduced, while still leaving time for enough human players to assemble. The basic rule is this: The higher the level of a ship, the longer the waiting time and the higher the proportion of human players in a match.
- In this first version, bots are able to move across the map, find cover and engage against other ships with all types of weapons. Currently they are unable to use active abilities. They will also use self-destruct, when their ship is too damaged.
- Bots use a variety of ships made by the team. If you would like to volunteer your ship to be used as a bot, write your player ID and the ship name into the comments. Currently the bots work best with ships with a balanced energy system and passive abilities.
The addition of bots to the game serves two purposes. First it should give new players quick and balanced matches so that they have enough time to learn and get through the early levels, before facing off against highly skilled opponents. Second they serve as ‘filler’ enemies for mid- and late-game matches. While we are quite satisfied with the early game bots, we understand they will require more tweaking for late game matches (such as being able to use abilities). Please, let us know, what are your impressions!
Balance
- Tactical Swap charge time has been raised to 6 sec from 3 for all levels. The cooldown remains at 35 s.
- Magnetic Cannon’s projectile diameter has been decreased from 300 m to 200 m. Max range at lvl 10 has been lowered to 4000 m down from 5000 m, the range at lvl 0 (3500 m) stays the same. This has been done so that there is a narrow range gap for snipers, where they can’t be reached by this ability. The decreased diameter should allow fast ships to avoid being hit some of the time. Note: There is a known issue, that the tooltip does not display the correct range.
For the following patches we’re preparing more balance changes, which will entail functional changes to some abilities (i.e the max damage cap for Plasma Ball). There will also be other balance changes to adjust the game to the requirements of the new game mode. These will be announced before the release, so that we may get your feedback.
Polish / Bugfixes
- Tooltips have been added for the Profile, Daily quest and Friend buttons in the hangar.
- Fixed a bug, that caused some abilities to not initialize for a match (the 3D model was on the ship, but the icon was missing and the ability could not be used)
That’s it for this patch. Let us know, what you think of the bots - their skill, ships, names anything. If you’d like to volunteer some of your ships to be used as bots, write your player ID and shipname in the comments.
One more thing. In the following weeks we will be releasing more details about upcoming features such as the new game mode, so stay tuned!
