Bionic Dues Beta 1.016 "Next Official's Release Candidate 2" Released!

[keith.lamothe]

(Crossposted from this blog post)

This one is a bit more tidying up in preparation for the next official release.  I'm hoping that will be later this week; we'll see.

If any of you have been getting sniped by BlasterBots in range of your spawn point, you'll be pleased by the change that makes BlasterBots not be able to fire their gamma-ray laser (as opposed to their primary, shorter-ranged weapon) until they've been active for 3 turns.

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]

Suggestion:  Keep the original settings for the BlasterBot (not requiring any charge) for the really high difficulties.  Well, for Misery at least.

It fits the overall.... everything, of that mode, and is also just more entertaining.  Well, it entertains me, at any rate.


Other than that it's a good change;  I've seen players that are new to the game get quite a bit irritated at those things.  They can be nasty little snots if you're not used to dealing with them.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, even on misery I don't want you to die first thing in a mission because of where the game spawned you.  Though I guess that's more a matter of it sometimes (probably related to mouse controls) making you do a move before you get a chance to look around.

[nas1m]

Maybe scale the number of turns of EMP with difficulty?
Misery: 1
Expert: 2
All Other: 3

[Misery]

I mention it because technically, it's pretty much always survivable, even if it costs some other resource to deal with.

Though nas1m's suggestion is a pretty good one I think.

[keith.lamothe]

Ah, ok.  I frequently lose exos to BlasterBot one-shots in testing, but I'm not generally kitting the exos out much.

[tmm]

Since this update, I seem to be unable to target any adjacent diagonal square to my Exo with the shotgun.  Some of the displayed firing cones also feel like they're behaving oddly, like they're one square displaced.

More generally, with the new shotgun, I am having trouble determining how much damage it's going to do.  Since I'm generally using it at point blank range, the difference between doing enough damage to kill a bot and not doing enough damage is frequently a dead Exo.  I'd like to see the indicators improved, as smaller circles don't give a lot of insight into whether I'll still have enough damage to scrap the bot I want to get rid of.

[nas1m]

i second the damage clarity part. This kills my Exos - regularly .

[keith.lamothe]

Since this update, I seem to be unable to target any adjacent diagonal square to my Exo with the shotgun.  Some of the displayed firing cones also feel like they're behaving oddly, like they're one square displaced.

Thanks for letting me know, I'll look into it when I get a chance.

More generally, with the new shotgun, I am having trouble determining how much damage it's going to do.  Since I'm generally using it at point blank range, the difference between doing enough damage to kill a bot and not doing enough damage is frequently a dead Exo.  I'd like to see the indicators improved, as smaller circles don't give a lot of insight into whether I'll still have enough damage to scrap the bot I want to get rid of.

Do you not see health bars above each of the targets that would be hit, showing what the bar will be after the shot?  It would certainly benefit from an extra "DEAD" indicator or something like that so you can tell the difference between dead and <5% health (or whatever it is at the lowest sliver), but that's not new to the shotgun.

[Hearteater]

I suspect it is the white and yellow issue. they are tough to distinguish if you are zoomed much.

[tmm]

Zooming in and taking a close look at the health bars, they do work as described, but the fact remains that the UI makes it pretty non-obvious when "this bot is going to die" vs "this bot is going to live and one-shot my exo" is of very high importance to the player.

It was a zoom issue more than a white/yellow, but I still think it'd be a good idea to increase the visibility of this information.

[nas1m]

It would certainly benefit from an extra "DEAD" indicator or something like that so you can tell the difference between dead and <5% health (or whatever it is at the lowest sliver)

That would do it for me, yes.

[cupogoodness]

With Bionic Dues on sale for the next week, I had to take the opportunity to mention all the hard work you guys have been putting in: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,16162.0.html

[keith.lamothe]

Thanks

[nas1m]

Sweet . Thank you!