Sticky: Planned GAR 1.2 Features

[eplex]

==== Planned GAR 1.2 Features ====

Ships and Weapons:

- Fixed rate weapon isotope activation for players, weapon drops, elite pirates/aliens. Weapon patterns will be much less affected by frame rate and better synch across network games.
- Slightly increased projectile speeds.
- Autonomous Drones: High level players will be able to purchase an upgradeable autonomous drone that orbits the player's ship. The drone's weapon will be powered by the player's current weapon isotope. Drones chase and attack the player's currently selected enemy target.
- Tighter ship handling.

Controls / GUI:

- User configurable controls. Controls edit screen available in flight.
- User may set any arbitrary screen resolution on the options interface.
- Xbox controller in PC version. Feedback for these controls will be considered for Xbox Live Arcade version.
- HUD may be toggled on/off.

Game:

- Player military ranking system.
- Players gain ranks based on missions completed.
- JumpGates will require a certain rank for clearance to activate.
- Each system will have a unique Super Elite boss, each with different special abilities/powers.
- To gain ranks to progress to new systems, players will be required to complete a mission to defeat Super Elites in each system, either solo or coop.
- Variety of colored Space Blobs, each with different special abilities/powers. Space Blobs will be immune to weapon isotopes that fire certain colors.
- New music tracks and sound effects.
- Mod installs cost 100 credits.
- More high level non-PVP zones.
- Squad chat /s instead of /squad
- XP in squads is split for players in the same system.
- Enemy ships and stations no longer spawn immediately (and possibly on top of players). Enemy spawns now do a landing drop into the system, while projecting landing zone marker below them. Thus players have a 5 second warning for incoming spawns nearby.
- Radiation storms randomly appear in unstable systems. Flying into a storm causes periodic radiation damage.

Graphics:

- Planetary rings.
- New explosion blast wave effect.
- New enemy special effects.
- Improved font precision, for cleaner fonts.

Bugs/Fixes:

- Anti cheating: PC executable obfuscated and more functionality moved to server.
- Fix player left game squadron bug (says player left who was not in squadron).

Server:

- server automatically publishes player stats daily to a configurable location

==== Old GAR 1.1 changes ====

- Max level is 200.
- Max ship mod levels are 25.
- New ship mod Critical Damage (% chance for double damage)
- You can now form "Squadrons" of up to 4 players. Players in the same Squadron won't damage each other in PVP zones. To invite a player to a Squadron type "/invite player" in the chat. To leave a squadron type "/leave" in the chat window. The status of the players in your squadron will appear on the UI, if they are in the same star system.
- New evolved weapon scheme. There is substantially more variety possible.
- Weapon "polarity" toggle. Reverses the polarity of Neuralium isotopes, inverting primary direction of fire.
- When you slot a new weapon, your old weapon drops into space. You have 30 seconds to pick it back up if you don't like the new weapon.
- 10 second cooldown on jump gates.
- 60 second cooldown on station repair.
- Increase higher level ship costs (doubled).
- Decrease how money gain in general (approximately halved).
- You can now jump to Cygnus Alpha and Cygnus Zeta from any jump gate.
- Changed level ranges on most higher level zones.
- Chat fades when not typing or receiving a message for 20 seconds.
- All player health bars are always displayed (you do not need to target them to see health bars).
- Additional background music tracks.
- UI beeps when you receive messages or a players joins or leaves the game.
- Fixed multiple transmits of PVP kill messages.
- Fixed AI bug where NPC guards would ignore some enemies shooting them.
- Fixed some keys not working in chat.
- Fixed bug where chat window would reject a chat line that hit the size limit.
- Fixed teleport cooldown bar display problem, after purchasing a new rank in Teleport Cooldown.
- Fixed bug in multiplayer window where client would crash when clicking on an empty server slot.
- Fixed bug in multiplayer where, if autopilot is on, and you begin typing a chat a message, autopilot would turn off.
- Server does periodic backup automatically.
- Zones never despawn when no players are in them.
- Fixed AI bug where Pirates were always assigned the same attack pattern.

[grysh]

Wow, this will be awesome =)

[Daemon]

What is the ETA for 1.2 anyways?

[42Wired]

[Ken]

We are not sure of the release date at this time but it is definitely in the works so it will be in the relatively near future.

ken

[42Wired]

==== Planned GAR 1.2 Features ====

Controls / GUI:

- User may set any arbitrary screen resolution on the options interface.

Does this equate to multiple monitor support?

[eplex]

Hmm not sure. I would guess that any multi-monitor setup should automatically handle the calls to multiple graphics devices. I have a multiple monitor setup at work so maybe I'll have to try it and see what happens. 2 monitors might not be so great, since your ship would be right in the center. But 3 monitors would be amazing.

[Bereaver]

Sorry, I've been too busy recently to even visit the site.

Anyway, the new wave graphics do look nice, but don't go too far with the colors.

It would be nice to still have some guns with real ammunition instead of them all being energy.

Any clue when you'll be spitting out 1.2? I'd like to try it out sometime :p

[Ken]

Actually, the energy bursts that you're seeing on the new screenshots are not from guns. Rather, those are new explosion effects that happen after things blow up. The guns will still have real ammunition.

We're hoping to have 1.2 out sometime in December, but as always that is a rough estimate depending on how long planned additions take.

ken

Sorry, I've been too busy recently to even visit the site.

Anyway, the new wave graphics do look nice, but don't go too far with the colors.

It would be nice to still have some guns with real ammunition instead of them all being energy.

Any clue when you'll be spitting out 1.2? I'd like to try it out sometime :p

[42Wired]

Is December still looking good for a 1.2 release? If not, are there any significant updates?