Bionic Dues Beta 1.012 "Bots Under Assault" Released!

[keith.lamothe]

(Crossposted from this blog post)

This one makes it easier to mod the game's graphics, but is mainly balance changes:

Mission Bot Population
Now every normal mission will have at least one type of "fodder" bot, and at least one of the higher-pain bot types.  This is important because otherwise the game could (somewhat rarely) pick all high-pain bot types, and then you'd have a mission full of just those (it wouldn't reduce the quantity of them at all).  We're all for a wide area of randomness, but ultimately "all DumBots" and "all DoomBots" aren't very much fun (the latter, at least, is not).

Also, the game no longer uses the handcrafted bot mixes except on the very lowest difficulty levels, and even for them it doesn't use them as far into the game.  They were helpful in regulating the early experience to avoid people running into truly nasty combinations, but ultimately it was masking bugs/imbalances that need to be fixed.

Bot Level Progression
Previously, on Hard or higher, it was possible for the game to pick the same bot over and over to upgrade such that you could theoretically have one nasty bot type at 10+ before the rest got much above 1.  Relatively rare, but excruciatingly painful when it happened.  Now the outlier-control logic used on the lower difficulties is used in a somewhat more relaxed form on the higher difficulty levels, and in general it's now better at keeping one bot from getting too far in front of the rest.

Assault Exo Buffs
Many of you have mentioned how underwhelming you find the Assualt Exo compared to the others, and it received some pretty significant buffs this time around.  Notably (and this also impacts the Brawler) its epic-upgrade "Volatizer" weapon now has a new AOE pattern and is much more powerful.

There's also various other balance changes (including a redo of the scale from Easy to Expert, since Easy, Normal, and even Hard were being so easy) and a few bugfixes.

Feedback on the balance (and anything else) is always welcome :)

Enjoy!

This is a beta update delivered through the in-game updater, if you already have 1.008 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.

[nas1m]

Cool one ! I am looking forward to trying out the new assault in my next game.

I already prepared a couple of custom floors . Will upload them as soon as I get back to my computer.
The saturation boosted variants I created earlier will make a comeback as a proper texture pack as well...

Do the bot seeding changes take effect in existing games? Or will I have to start a fresh one?

[Alex Heartnet]

The assault needed a buff?  Really? 

[nas1m]

Unfortunately there seems to be something awry with the texture pack support .

I can select my pack in the settings just fine, and it will also load correct images, but after closing the settings all text disappears.

Restarting the application (a you said would be required) fixes the issue, though.
Having to do just that without any button carrying a caption just is - a little inconvenient .

Do you think there is something you can do about this?
Aside from this (i.e. as far as the actually replaced images are concerned) switching packs without restarting the application seems to work just fine (at least for floors).

EDIT: And I forgot to mention that the following Mantis tickets can be marked as resolved now:
15600, 15603, 12903

[Misery]

The assault needed a buff?  Really? 

Badly.  It had needed one for awhile.

I dunno how it is on lower difficulties, but on the higher ones, the Assault was absolutely useless most of the time.  didn't have enough damage output to actually be an asset to the team. 

And on those difficulties, killing enemy bots FAST is important, as alot of them can one-shot you, or maybe 2 hits.  That's one-shotting the ASSAULT exo, mind you, even with his shielding.  The shielding is still useful against low-end bots, but even those, he had a hard time beating them.  Even when buffed up by powerful equipment.  It just took too many hits to kill even weak foes.  Not only did this increase his chance of getting destroyed (since every extra turn shooting is an extra turn for nearby enemies to get closer, particularly the one being shot at), but it also meant that he tended to run out of ammo without actually having done much.   He could do some extra damage in Epic form, but.... still didn't compare at all to the others, even the Science one (which has the mighty chaingun).

[keith.lamothe]

Do the bot seeding changes take effect in existing games? Or will I have to start a fresh one?

Iirc all of the changes in 1.012 apply to games already started


On the Assault, I suspect that on the lower difficulties it felt OP because it has advantages in stuff other than "single shot power", and the enemies were so weak that the other exos' advantages on that point were just overkill, leaving the Assault as a tanky high-ammo murdering machine.  But with Easy, Normal, and Hard being harder now I suspect the Assault needs the buff even there.

[nas1m]

On a totally unrelated topic:
Keith, could this be added? This would make my life so much easier when playing ironman...

EDIT: Another quality of life improvement that I would really like to see (like in: I would consider naming my firstborn son after you for this ) is this one.

EDIT2: And another one.

[keith.lamothe]

New one