We've filled up the gas and put pedal to the metal with our latest 'Wheely Big' Update that's now live!. We've stripped the wheels back to their hubs and given them a much-needed re-work both in terms of how they perform and how they look. You can read more about the changes to wheels in our recent Dev Jam, but rest assured they are VERY FAST, VERY STABLE and VERY FUN!
In addition to the new and improved wheels, we've also added a new mini-LOML called the Stinger, and a new BRAWL, which is the first in a series of building challenge BRAWLs. But that's not all as we've added a number of balance changes to existing parts, introduced a player buff for uneven teams and squashed some bugs too. It 'wheely' is a big update!
NEW:
- Wheels re-work - We've taken wheels back to the drawing board and re-engineered them for 2017… They're faster, more stable, come in different sizes and can be camera controlled too.
One of the first things you’ll notice about the new wheels is the size. Previously you had 5 small wheels and then the Mega wheel called ‘Wheel Monster’ in-game, so we’ve resized them so you get a fairly even increment in size as you go up the range from the smallest to the largest (see image below). Since resizing wheels will break some Robots, we’ll be stripping the wheels off your Robots and putting them back in your inventory so you can replace them and tweak your wheeled Robots as necessary. This does not apply to the Wheel Monster as there is no change to their size.
Here's the all-important data for the new improved wheels:
- Camera controls for wheels added
- New weapon - LOML Stinger
- Classification: Epic
- CPU: 140 pFlops
- Health: 54,754
- Damage per hit: 52,426
- Mass: 560kg
- Energy Consumption: 2013 per shot
- Single Gun Fire Rate: 1.33 per second
- Max Fire Rate: 3.33 per second
- Max Fire Rate Count: 4 guns
- Blast Radius: 12.5 meters
- Forge Cost: 35,000
Special thanks to Sketchfab for their incredibly nifty 3D model plug-in tech.
- Buff to minority teams due to player disconnection/leave - In BA, League and TDM, whenever a team is in a minority, this team's Robots will receive a buff. The buff is applied to Damage, Healing (Nanos only), Health and Shield amount (Electroplates and Mech Legs only). The magnitude of the buff depends on player counts in teams:
- Robots that have the buff will display an icon near their avatar, showing they’re buffed
- If teams sizes become equal while a buff is active, the buff will be removed
- New voiceovers for player buff system
Please note that we're still working on a reconnect button and back-fill functionality; these things are complex and 'team buffing' was a quicker feature to add as we already had the code written.
- New Builder Challenge 1 BRAWL:
- Game Mode: TDM
- Team size: 5v5
- Restrictions: No chassis or glass cubes permitted
- 1st Win Reward: Double XP and an extra crate
BALANCE CHANGES:
- Insect/Wolf Legs:
- Speed increased by 59%
- Jump height doubled
- Health increased by 43%
- Carry mass increased slightly
- Mech Legs:
- Speed increased by 21%
- Health and Shields increased by 18%
- Sprinter Legs:
- Sprinter Leg Perseus speed increased by 17%
- Sprinter Leg Hermes speed increased by 6.5%
- Tank Tracks:
- Speed increased by 22%
- Skis:
- Health increased by 43%
With this update we have also corrected the thumbnail data for many parts as this was showing the incorrect information. For example, Insect Legs had wrong Carry Mass, and Sprinter Legs had wrong jump height (both were much higher than actual).
OTHER CHANGES:
- Removed all-player kickback from game lobby if a player fails to connect
- In-game camera optimisations for smoother visuals
- Player name now displayed as a tooltip on the Custom Games teams widget
- Added Red/Blue projectile color variants for Chain Shredder and Chain Splitter weapons
- Update to Roboshield/EAC to safeguard players against potential exploits
- Chinese, Russian and Japanese language corrections
- Existing Legendary tier LOML renamed to LOML Viper
- Adjusted wheels carrying capacity and diminishing returns according to their new CPU
BUG FIXES:
- Corrected the headers on both the "inventory has been updated" and "Some cubes are obsolete" dialogue boxes
- Fixed a bug which caused errors with the widget if a player was removed from a custom game party
- Fixed a bug which caused pending friends to appear on the party invitation dropdown
- Fixed a bug which caused the Robits image in crates not to appear in the correct position
- Fixed a bug which caused the + icon to appear in the Custom Games player dropdown list to appear next to players that were already in a party
- The 'Drag & Drop' label and icon no longer appear for all players in a Custom Game other than the Custom Game creator
- Fixed a bug which allowed the 'camera tilt' setting to be ticked when keyboard controls was selected on all non-English language clients
- Fixed a bug which failed to remove a clan avatar from a player's profile when they left a clan
- Fixed a visual bug which caused the '!' ping icon to be greyed out if you pinged behind an obstacle
- Fixed a visual bug which didn't render the Rocket Launcher shadows solid
KNOWN ISSUES:
- Diagonal Wheeled Robots can be a bit buggy, i.e. if you build diagonally to allow the Robot to fall forwards onto the front wheel when the game starts.
- Very tall Robots can topple the wrong way sometimes.
- When going extremely fast using Keyboard Controls you can sometimes get momentary oversteer which can send you off-direction and require you to correct, which is a challenge at 300mph. We're working on some additional improvements to the Traction Control which will smooth this out.
