Changes made in revision 8005:
- Added Camp Honoris.
- Character physics no longer tends to behave chaotically at high speeds.
- Character physics now generally produces more convincing animations.
- All hairstyles now have physics (except bald and Ivy League).
- Third-person camera now does a better job at keeping the character on screen.
Camp Honoris is located between a forest and a steep slope. The defense consists of two powerful ice turrets, each supported by a thermal turret. All turrets are activated by entering them. But be careful with the ice turrets, because when you leave them they switch off for a 30 second cooldown.
If you get overwhelmed and have to leave the position, it is a good idea to glide down the slope. You will hardly take any damage there and you can easily fire at the swarm. But the emergency teleporter is hard to avoid, which can become a problem if there are poison puddles or dangerous enemies at the spawn point.
In this case, the forest may be the better choice. The thicket slows down the spiders noticeably and can give you a few seconds to breathe.
I originally had new hairstyles planned for this week's patch. But first I wanted to add physics to all existing hairstyles, at least as far as it makes sense. However, I immediately ran into technical issues.
The problem was that my physics code didn't do well with short strands of hair. Investigating the problem took me down a rabbit hole that kept me busy for several days. In the end, I had fixed bugs, expanded algorithms, improved equations, and refined parameter sets.
When I wanted to assess the results, I found that the in-game camera often threw wrenches in the works. I've always tried very hard to get it to avoid obstacles and provide a clear view on the scenery. I hadn't noticed how this made it more difficult for the camera to keep the character on screen. I had to fix this issue as well.
Long story short, I didn't have time to add any new hairstyle. But body and hair animations look much better now. Most noticeable is that the physics code no longer generates unrealistically violent vibrations at high speed. In fact, it's so smooth now that I had to add artificial jitter to prevent the animations from looking lifeless.
In any case, I am very happy with the results and I don't expect any more trouble. I should be able to provide new hairstyles with next week's patch.