Hey there AFF Community!
The obligatory hotfix for the latest update is here. Turns out DX11 is actually way more stable than we expected but instead we’ve introduced a couple nasty gameplay-related crashes. This patch addresses those, fixes a few other minor issues and introduces further balance changes and improvements.
Poranti objectives
Some of the objectives in the new map, Poranti, have proven to be exceedingly hard to complete in public matches. We took that feedback into account, removed an objective from the first and second phase, as well as changed the balance of power when it comes to capital ships.
DX11 performance
With the experimental DX11 mode we’ve definitely succeeded in offloading more processing work from the CPU to the GPU. Unfortunately on older PCs the performance of that mode turned out to be suboptimal to say the least. We’ve polished the new renderer some more and this patch should improve that situation quite a bit.
AI improvements
The bots are now smarter about using deployable gadgets (turrets especially) and not unloading magazines needlessly at distant targets. We’ve also optimized their target detection and line-of-sight checks quite a bit to lower the performance hit a map full of bots incurs.
Landing Zone cheese
We’ve noticed there’s a chance of getting stuck under the droppods descending at the Landing Zone objectives. Maybe even a few nasty tricks players could use to interfere with enemy landing zones. Now the game will make sure nobody tries to stick anything under, or phase into, the landing dropship.
Full changelog:
- Fixed a crash where the intro matinee in Igneous would end with the game falling over due to a missing prefab asset
- Fixed an infinite recursion crash (mostly occurring on Poranti) where if a shield touched a kill volume, the shield would be restarted and destroyed over and over again
- Poranti updates:
- Fixed some holes in geometry
- Updated culling/LOD settings on some objects
- Removed an objective from first and second phase
- Improved collision and AI paths
- Fixed droppod shields having wrong health values
- Replaced Chons with Javert for Phase 3 - Fixed lack of spawnpoint-protection-shields for rear AIA spawn in Irega Incursion
- Fixed a blocked entrance to one of the tunnels in Lukather
- Fixed Fortress’ Phase 3’s secondary objective (the sensor station) not colliding with vehicles
- Landing Zone droppods should now deal properly with stuff parked underneath when they land:
- For vehicles and enemy players: destroy them
- For friendly players: move them to a valid spawn location
- Same behaviour occurs should any enemy player end up inside an area (spawnpoint toggled with map phases for example) that becomes a safe zone for the other team. - Fixed sensor grenades not showing selected firemode, but rather always “sensor”
- Fixed detail mode on a bench in the AIA briefing room (was invisible on lower settings)
- Fixed slightly unreliable EMP effect on modded knife’s charged mode
- Standardized infantry EMP effect duration
- Increased cycle rate of the point-defense drone a bit (more chances for detecting targets and shooting them down)
- Fixed RID not properly dropping lock after gaining it and afterwards losing it entirely
- Fixed locks not always being lost if lockon is lost (would resume to 100%, even if expired)
- Placing deployables is no longer affected by EMP or on-fire effects (can now be placed regardless of these)
- RID will now lose its charge, if hit by EMP, as intended
- Reduced partisan reload time a bit to compensate for its previously reduced damage (now reloads in 4.25 seconds)
- Gunships spawn in “normal” flight mode instead of ”newtonian” as default again
- Gunships maximum regeneration delay upped to 15s instead of 10s, as intended
- Bots are encouraged, depending on their AI rating, to pop deployables and mines when ordered with capturing an objective, defending an objective or holding a location
- Optimized AI line-of-sight checks
- Bots are now more restrained in their firing against distant targets, if their chance of hitting them is low; Less fruitless mag-dumping.
- Fixed bots not considering changing vehicle weapons, if the current is reloading (they should now be less bound to sitting through a reload cycle, since the vehicle weapons reload even when put away)
- Fixed a case of reloading visually triggering despite the weapon being out of ammo
- Fixed an issue with reloading not properly behaving when the weapon is inactive (mostly affecting bots)
- Fixed the “out of bounds” messages persisting through respawn
- Optimized a few buffer operations in DX11 mode
- Removed an ancient “screendoor effect” on mesh culling, was causing major performance hits especially on DX11
For feedback, or just a lovely chat with the devs, post on AFF's Steam forums or contact us directly through our Discord!
Onwards and upwards!