Release 1.4.1 Notes

[nanoduckling]

My reaction to the patch is mostly positive. Stamina don't seem too unbalanced and effectively give gunners a buff which was much needed. Stamina is fun to use as a pilot. The changes to the weapons are  mostly subtle this time around which is a major positive (I'd rather it take 2 patches to balance things slowly and carefully than what happened with the last patch and the pyra). One exception is the flamer, this seems excessive. I'd prefer a reduction (say 8m) in penetration. That way a flamer against a galleon is less effective (and I think galleons could do with some love), but a squid has to be carefully flown to avoid fire problems, something that should now be entirely possible with the benefits of stamina. If it isn't going to penetrate then a larger AoE or something is needed. As it stands the weapon has very few uses. Carro nerf isn't massive, but I think it will have far reaching effects on how we use our blenderfish, which might end up being welcome.

So on the whole seems good. Only one serious negative for me. The UI. It is more obtrusive and yet less information dense.

[Dutch Vanya]

Why?

Why is the only dev activity on the forums a bunch of off-topic joke posts in a thread about release notes?

The community who knows this game had so many concerns that they expressed here and through email.

All we get in response is bubbles shooting the shit?

However i do i think this is a decent patch. Stamina is pointless but not disastrous imo and there are some other decent changes.

[SamSandri]

The only thing i dislike from this nice update is the new UI. It's kinda "off topic".
It's too white and it ruin  the steampunk and dieselpunk feeling, and it's way too big (ie compass).

A little restyling would be totaly appreciated!

[Dev Bubbles]

@Schwalbe, nope!  Already read and replied.  Definitely not ignored, and definitely some great points there.

[Schwalbe]

Yeah. I can hear such formulas too often. As I said, I don't care. Just wanted to mention that as a farewell, cause it was good idea and might've been missed.

[Dev Bubbles]

@Dutch, I didn't think I wasn't seriously answering everyone's questions or concerns here.  And I don't know why there's an impression that we didn't answer people's feedback, especially on email.  I felt like the track record has been good.  But yeah, I'll watch my tone, not a problem.  Thanks for letting me know.

[Byron Cavendish]

Can you guys at least add an option to toggle off this butt ugly ui? Unless you plan on changing it I cannot play the game, it pains me to see a perfectly good ui taken and turned into a physically painful ui that looks like it was made by a graphic design enthusiast in high school. Seriously, whoever designed that ui should be embarrassed.

[Omniraptor]

This is a pretty great patch, thank you muse for posting the reasoning behind changes and for responding in the thread, most of the changes are amaazing, especially matchmaking QOL changes are very welcome. However I have a few concerns, sorry if I sound negative but the changes I don't mention are great.

- Underdog status will scare new players even more. I support the idea of extra perks for playing against more experienced people, but please don't make it seem like they're going to lose. This is almost as bad as showing MMR scores, and doesn't follow the logic that went into hiding them. Basically underdog status should only be displayed if you win, because as a noob I would much rather be pleasantly surprised after a victory, than told that I am likely to fail.

- gunner (and general) ui change: no! http://i.imgur.com/zvPbTVf.png at least not without an extensive rework

- Engineer stamina seems kinda useless with repair cooldowns being what they are (and especially for static gungineers like junker bottom deck). Even if I'm a mallet/spanner/chem engi all I can get out of stamina is more staring and waiting for cooldowns. We would really like either a cooldown reduction while on stamina and/or increased swinging speed for rebuilding/buffing.

- Pilot stamina is good, but why on earth would it add drag? I wanna go fast.

- Worried about the flamer. It will also be much harder to burn down guns while remaining safe from them. However we will see in testing.

- I also dislike the heavy clip hwacha changes, haven't tested it yet but something tells me the 1km hwacha disables might be harder or impossible now. That was one of the big things hwacha had going for it, being usable at long range. If the rockets only spread 1.2 degrees of an 800m circle, they spread out across 16 meters, when they need to be concentrated in one spot. Conclusion: I'm never disabling a goldfish's main engine with a hwacha again 

The math is (default spread * heavy clip spread modifier * range * 2 * pi ) to figure out the radius of the dispersion at a certain range.

[Extirminator]

The math is (default spread * heavy clip spread modifier * range * 2 * pi ) to figure out the radius of the dispersion at a certain range.

Isn't it:

Range*sin( jitter_angle*jitter_multiplier )

I think that would make more sense

[Omniraptor]

Yeah, but at these scales the difference is a matter of millimeters.

[Daft Loon]

Played several games as pilot as soon as the update went live, mostly close range ramming mobula.
-Really enjoyed using pilot stamina it made piloting a ship like the mobula much more forgiving (unless you make mistakes while using up all your stamina)
-The addition of stamina to ramming is very powerfull from what ive see so far, it might need to be watched for balance. Although i got caught out by the new drouge chute, impact bumpers combo at least once.
-Ill add my name to the calls for the UI changes to get some attention from the art department (the rematch vote in particular needs a frame or something to smooth its current flat blue box look)
-The stairs on the junker up to the helm felt weird to walk up
-I saw an ai crewman with rank and level above his character (26, chief technician if i remember it correctly) what does this mean if anything (i checked crew list and his costume it wasnt a sneaky ai clan member unless they are bugged to look like ai and not appear in crew list)
-The underdog matches i was in (2 wins and maybe 2-3 losses from 10-15 games) never felt like underdog matches to me, going by player level it looks like it expects experienced crews/players to be able to carry teams/ships more then they can (not sure how you could balance that though because sometimes they can - particularly the pilot and high impact gunners (lumberjack, mines etc))
-Apart from the initial wait for enough people to get back online for 1 game to start i spent several hours and 10-15 games and barely saw the lobbies or the matchmaker, ill put some of that down to excitement to see the new changes but the one time i got sent to the single ship auto searching form it took about 10 seconds, this is great
-maybe it was the abundance of close range spires and my ramming mobula but matches seemed to be much faster and kills/deaths easier than before
-The new sound effects and explosion effects are great, the sound of the hull groaning is much more attention grabbing than a small red shield icon sometimes
-an explanation of how thrust,drag,inertia etc are implemented would be helpfull - i sort of understand how stamina has the effects it does based on real physics but im not sure
-"Magical" abilities replenished by destroying and killing - BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD

[Extirminator]

Yeah, but at these scales the difference is a matter of millimeters.

I think I am not following here, what are you taking for your "default spread" variable to be exactly? Because both method do not conclude in the same results as far as I can see it.

[DrTentacles]

Hull break noise can get annoying on Squid, or any ship where it goes up or down a lot, but I suspect that will fade. I love the new sound effects and visual effects, especially compared to their beta versions.

Flamethrower nerf is bad. Really, really bad. Nearly unusable bad.

[Omniraptor]

Spread for 400 meters:

4 / 360 deg * 0.3  * 400 * 2 * pi = 8.37758041 about equal to

400 m * sin(4 deg * 0.3) =  8.37696795

Apparently I can't into math. However point still stands, you won't be able to efficiently target individual components anymore.

[Extirminator]

Spread for 400 meters:

4 / 360 deg * 0.3  * 400 * 2 * pi = 8.37758041 about equal to

400 m * sin(4 deg * 0.3) =  8.37696795

Apparently I can't into math. However point still stands, you won't be able to efficiently target individual components anymore.

Ah ok, I guess you were just converting it into radians.