Bionic Dues Beta 1.013 "Explosive Refinement" Released!

[keith.lamothe]

(Crossposted from this blog post)

This one is largely some quality-of-life UI improvements, but also fixes a few bugs and makes some AOE changes with substantial balance implications.  In general I'm trying to polish this up a bit more so we can do an official update with the new goodies for the rest of the folks playing Bionic (that aren't using the beta updates).  After that further breaking of stuff will commence ;)

Displaying Enemy Bot Detection Ranges
I had no idea how useful this could be until I tested it.  Kudos to nas1m for the suggestion.  Basically this lets you bind a key to "show the detection range of the bot under the mouse cursor".  In other words it shows you where not to stand if you want that bot to not see you.  It fully takes into account line-of-sight and cover, etc, so often it gives you info you wouldn't have guessed.

Area-of-Effect Overhaul
You know how rocket blasts could hit stuff the next room over, through a solid wall?  Not anymore.  Basically a solid wall (not door, not cover, WALL) will block any kind of explosion, though most explosions will happily "flood" around a corner to spread death and destruction, albeit probably not with as much force as previously.

In general this is a bit of a nerf to the player, but mainly in the sense that it's not letting you do something that didn't make sense anyway, and hopefully this is largely counterbalanced by the enemy not getting buggily-high concentrations of DoomBots and whatnot as it did before this dev cycle.

That said, if more balance changes are needed please let us know.

Also, if you were wondering why Boss health was getting so absurdly high, there were a few bugs in one of my recent updates responsible for that.  Fixed now :)

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.

[Misery]

Hm, I wonder what this'll do with Brawlers in particular.  A huge amount of their usage was dealing with enemy bots coming around corners, using the Dissolver to hit them.  If it cant go through those corners though, it's odd shape might render it useless (it wasnt exactly the best weapon in more "direct" combat, that's for sure).   That'll need some experimenting. 

Other than that though, this all sounds good.  The explosion thing never did make sense to me.

[keith.lamothe]

In various playtesting I was doing I still found the dissolver great for hitting stuff around corners and otherwise not in line-of-sight.  But it can't cut through a solid wall to do it anymore, yea.

On the other hand, two of the Brawler's other weapons (volatizer and shotgun) have been significantly buffed since the last official.  I suspect that thing is now a short-range-aoe machine.  I think it will balance out.  If not I'm certainly open to further changes.

[nas1m]

Sweet .

One thing that I would like to see (as it is fairly opaque to me and regularly causes nasty surprises in my games) is a preview of the damage that the selected Exo weapon will do to a specific bot. I miss this dearly, especially for AoE weapons which feature reduced damage on the rims of the area (like the new shotgun).

Since a respective overlay on the cursor (possibly only if hitting an additional key) is likely too much work graphics-wise, how aboutadding the expected damage output of the currently active Exo weapon to the bots tooltip? Would this be possible?

This is the one clarity issue remaining that I can think of, as far as the UI is concerned.

In general I'm trying to polish this up a bit more so we can do an official update with the new goodies for the rest of the folks playing Bionic (that aren't using the beta updates).  After that further breaking of stuff will commence

Will you add in the conduct related achievements for the official ?
Might be a good time to do so ...

[keith.lamothe]

One thing that I would like to see (as it is fairly opaque to me and regularly causes nasty surprises in my games) is a preview of the damage that the selected Exo weapon will do to a specific bot. I miss this dearly, especially for AoE weapons which feature reduced damage on the rims of the area (like the new shotgun).

Since a respective overlay on the cursor (possibly only if hitting an additional key) is likely too much work graphics-wise, how aboutadding the expected damage output of the currently active Exo weapon to the bots tooltip? Would this be possible?

Hmm, there's already something in there to show you what the enemy's health bar would be after the shot, but I see now that it's only working for aoe weapons, on the target under the cursor, while you're not holding shift.  Will take a look

Will you add in the conduct related achievements for the official ?
Might be a good time to do so ...

Yep, planning on it

[nas1m]

There seems to be something bugged with 1.013.

For some reason I no longer see the yellow circle that is usually drawn on top of an enemy that is in range and thus can be attacked when the mouse cursor is on it - as soon as I update to 1.013.

I tried verifying the Steam cache and it reacquired two files. No help.
A diff of the Images folder before and after shows no difference, though.

Can anybody confirm this?

I have been fiddling with my installation quite a bit while trying various visual changes, but I am fairly sure that's not the reason (since it works after a verify, i.e. using 1.008)...

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, it's been reported on the steam forums too so I know what you mean; it's on my list for next time

Incidentally it still shows the red circle for not in range (when it isn't), oddly enough.

[nas1m]

Ok, cool.

BTW, I noticed that "cutting corners" using the dissolver apparently still works. I seem to remember you said it shouldn't. Or did I get something wrong?

Explanatory ASCII:

X: Tile hit by Dissolver
F: Floor
W: Wall
E: Exo

FFWFFF
FXWWWW
FFXEFF

I kinda thought that the redX tile should no longer be hit?

[keith.lamothe]

If the two floor tiles are diagonally adjacent, it can go from one to the other without passing through a wall tile, so it's not blocked.

What's blocked is if the dissolver were aimed at the E sqaure, it wouldn't hit the F just above where you have the red X.  Previously it would have.

[nas1m]

Okay, so all is good. Thanks.
I was worried you had removed this use of the Dissolver as well ...

[keith.lamothe]

Oh no, that one's totally fair game.  I just don't want you to be able to hit stuff in unrelated rooms without a shadow torpedo or whatever.  This resulted in making it such that a dissolver can no longer cut _through_ a corner.  It can still cut around one, if that makes sense.

[Histidine]

Can Plasma Cannon be made to ignore the new changes and go through walls again? Purely for the lulz value, I mean.

[keith.lamothe]

Can Plasma Cannon be made to ignore the new changes and go through walls again? Purely for the lulz value, I mean.

A sufficiently upgraded Plasma Cannon can still hit distant rooms, by flooding all the way down the hall, around that corner, up the other hall, and into the room

As for making them "flattens the map by sheer concussive force" again, I'll think about it.

[nas1m]

Found a really cool bug, that I would appreciate a fix for in the next version.
Mantised here.

[keith.lamothe]

Found a really cool bug, that I would appreciate a fix for in the next version.
Mantised here.

Protip: when picking enemy agents to suborn, perhaps don't select the ones known for making its allies disappear

But yes, like the AmmoBot, the virus'd effect of this one needs to not be as intense as the original effect, thanks for reporting it.