Perpetuum

Update news for 2010-06-22 - New effects system

Spotlight feature

New effects system

This patch brings the foundations for a new robot effects system. Effects here mean things that affect your robots' certain parameters, be it speed, sensors, armor, resists and so on.

Robot effects

You can see which effects are currently affecting your robot with the new icons that appear under your robot status window. These show both their cycle times (or the time until they disappear), and the number of how many of that particular effect type are on your robot. If there is more than one of a type, the thinner circular progress bar will show the next one that will end its cycle (or drop from you), and the thicker shows the last one (the one with the longest time remaining). Also, if you hover over the icons with your mouse, the tooltips will tell you how exactly they affect your robot.

In your targeting computer you are also able to see which effects others have on them, but only negative effects are shown there.

There are now also some limits to how many effects can affect a certain robot of the same type: Sensor suppressors, Demobilizers, Sensor amplifiers and Remote sensor amplifiers (the latter two combined!) have a limit of 2. This means for example that however many demobilizers are affecting a robot, only the first 2 will have an effect. Other modules currently have no limit.

Comments and suggestions are of course welcome on this new system on the forums, and stay tuned for more features connected to this in the future (weather effects ahoy!).

Gameplay

  • New: In addition to the current system (10 minute timer, paused when opened), operations affecting a container will now reset the despawn timer. This includes listing (opening) and item take/put.
  • Fix: New objects popping up on the landmark list will now get properly sorted and not appear first at the top of the list.
  • Fix: Plant death animations were not playing when using the new reward ammo types.

Robots and modules

  • Fix: Turret falloff did not have any effect.
  • Change: Energy injectors are now unique modules, meaning you can equip only one per robot. Currently equipped energy injectors have been removed from robots.
  • Change: Increased the optimal range of chassis and cargo scanner modules and reduced their cycle times.
  • Change: Increased the cargo volume of the Sequer from 60 to 80 units.
  • Change: The cycle time of demobilizers has been lowered to 5 seconds. Their accumulator usage has been lowered too, but effectively they consume slightly more than before.
  • Change: Base CPU performance of the Castel has been reduced from 200 to 170 TF.
  • Change: Sensor amplifiers and Remote sensor amplifiers now all have a 10 seconds cycle time, and their accumulator usage has been reduced to match effective consumption.
  • Change: Sensor suppressors' cycle time has been set to 5 seconds, changed accumulator usage accordingly.
  • Change: Increased the range of Sensor suppressors.
  • Change: Shield hardeners' cycle time has been set to 5 seconds, changed accumulator usage accordingly.
  • Change: Armor hardeners' cycle time has been set to 10 seconds, changed accumulator usage accordingly.
  • Change: Tier 3 Armor hardeners' active resist bonuses increased from 100 to 110.
  • Change: Slightly reduced the top speed of Thelodican bots (except Artemis).
  • Change: The armor repair cycle time bonus of Nuimqol robots has been changed to armor repair amount bonus.
  • Change: The magnetic weapons falloff bonus of of Nuimqol robots has been changed to global turret falloff bonus.
  • Change: Switched names and visual effects of HEAT-IX and Smite missiles.

Graphics

  • New: Stars and the planetary ring are now moving.
  • New: Further improvements in lighting and weather.
  • New: Added visual effects for the demobilizer, sensor suppressor and remote sensor amplifier modules.

Graphic engine

  • Fix: Red glowing patches appeared on the terrain at night if shadows were turned off.

Extensions

  • Change: Bonus of the Demobilization extension has been reduced from 5% to 3% per level.
  • Change: Bonus of the Sensor connection extension has been reduced from 5% to 2% per level.

Industry

  • New: "End product" parameter in CT information panels.

Market

  • Change: Moved the Lightweight frames category to Equipment/Armor.
  • Fix: Geoscanner charges are now seeded at beta terminals too.
  • Fix: The "You have x items of this type..." message will now also include items in containers.

Assignments

  • New: Industrial assignments now also reward special advanced scanning charges beside weapon ammunition.

GUI

  • New: Module cycle time display.
  • Change: Made the targeting computer and landmark information windows more compact.

Sound

  • New: Added external ambient sounds for all terminals, outposts and teleports.
  • New: Added sound effect for demobilizers.
  • Change: Updated sound effects for miner and harvester modules.

General

  • New: Added a new mode to the world map and radar which shows passable terrain for your active robot. You can select it on the world map with the bottom dropdown menu, and on the radar from the right-click menu.
  • New: Added invert mouse option for the terrain camera movement (Options/Gameplay tab).
  • New: The cargo hotkey (C by default) is now also available inside terminals.
  • New: Forwarded mails will now include the original sender and date.
  • New: Added tooltips for armor resistance icons in the equip window.
  • Change: Police towers have been removed from Abbuthilia Station, Hokkogaros.
  • New: Added Quit button to the "disconnected" screen.

Special

  • Change: Incremented the age of DEV BoyC by 1.

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