Weekly Development Activities - 03/22

[Strygun]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/index.php#835

[Madcow]

They fixed the bug that made infil show up to newly spawned players? HOLY CRAP! It's obvious the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse can be expected at some point before 2.7 hits.

[Mag]

They actually just flew by, knocked over my lawn flamingos... damn things.

[Peacemaker]

:confused:

Anyways I like most of these ideas. I like the idea about vehicle huds, SLs right clicking, surge changes. Omg it all rocks. GREAT PATCH.

[Eldanesh]

Activating the Surge implant will now automatically holster any weapons or equipment that are currently drawn. The implant will automatically deactivate when a weapon is drawn. There will be a small delay after deactivation before the player may fire.

RiP sweet surge, we shall miss ye. :(
Time to bust out the vanguard ownage... wait they nerfed the mowing. =\

[Baneblade]

Surge din get nerfed *ducks*, I mean you can only run so far before the guy is behind you, then its useless...

Anyhow, a lot of these updates and new things are sweet...

But people can turn off my waypoints? :lol:

[Krinsath]

Surge din get nerfed *ducks*, I mean you can only run so far before the guy is behind you, then its useless...

Anyhow, a lot of these updates and new things are sweet...

But people can turn off my waypoints? :lol:

Every sniper who read that is dancing in the street. Many SLs think that their members are total idiots who will congregate EXACTLY where the WP is, so they plop it right on top of the base being attacked.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to see the enemy when you have BIG NEON ARROW in the middle of your field of fire? Snipers get screwed by their own SLs.

When I'm a SL, I look at the map, figure out where we're going to be attacking from and put the WP a little bit beyond the target (i.e. - if we're attacking from the south, the waypoint is put a ways north of Marduk, but in the SOI). They KNOW we're attacking Marduk, but that way the WP isn't totally killing the snipers in my squad.

In short, the only time an SL (currently) should EVER use exact waypoints is when it's critical to get the positioning right (AMS for instance). The bases and towers DON'T MOVE...general area works fine when accompanied by the text "target is Marduk"...if someone is so n00bish as to go EXACTLY where the WP is, do you really want them on your squad? ;)

In short, marvelous change! Damned things can't get here soon enough. :p

[Lartnev]

All I can say is:

"It's all good" :)

[ORANGE]

im happy about the infil bug and the silent run changes good times for cloakers again

[BigFreak]

Krinsath - Lesson? Squad with outfit. Randoms=sux.

[Acaila]

Wait wait wait, my OS will actually kill shit now? Huzzah!

The right click on squad member thing is awesome. Makes it very easy to wack a wp down when someone says "EAMS my position".

[Dizik]

It's all muy, muy bueno. It is going to be good to be an infiltrator again. I love the new waypoint option. And I love the whole kill/death ratio stats. It's fantasmoristic.

[Krinsath]

Krinsath - Lesson? Squad with outfit. Randoms=sux.

My outfits' SLs are grievous offenders too....until I point this fact out to them (usually a BD round to the head is enough of a reminder that they have snipers to consider...and before anyone gets on my case I'm a medic/eng on my snipers, so they get fixed). People just tend to forget little details like that, especially in the heat of battle.

[321]

Darn it's the server nerf :(.

[Incompetent]

Krinsath, its worse with people who WP towers exactly. You can't see anything on your minimap because the WP obscures the vast majority of the tower.

[Krinsath]

Krinsath, its worse with people who WP towers exactly. You can't see anything on your minimap because the WP obscures the vast majority of the tower.

Totally agree...once a squad is in the area of a WP, the WP should be removed. People who join the squad later will be able to figure out the target based on where all the little numbers are clustered.

Let that be a lesson to you SLs!

[Happy lil Elf]

Can we have an option where waypoints aren't gigantic spinning neon arrows of doom? Seriously a nice simple translucent thin line would work just as well for those of use just using it to get a bearing.

[ChewyLSB]

My general rule of thumb for waypoints is this:

Waypoint 1: Primary Target: Back Door of Attacking/Defending Base. I put it about 20 meters out.
Waypoint 2: Secondary Target: Closest Tower to the Attacking/Defending base. I put it just outside of the SoI of the tower.
Waypoint 3: Tertiary Target: The closest tower that doesn't belong to our empire.
Waypoint 4: Important Enemy Locations: I use this one for enemy AMS's/Routers and such.

Once I hit CR3, I'm probably going to change this around a little bit.

[Cryptica]

Excellent patch! Wow I love the Silent Run changes that makes it very cool. Infils should love that stuff. All in all I like it a lot.

[Madcow]

Have they said whether or not Silent Run is passive now? I really like the change, but if it's draining stamina it could get ugly trying to get far enough into an SOI to do anything worthwhile.

[ChewyLSB]

I would imagine that Silent Run will drain stamina, just like every other Implant. I think that the design intention was to make it so that whenever you move, you use Silent Run, and when your Stamina runs out, crouch down and de-activate silent run until your stamina goes back up. Sort of like Surge Running across a long time.

[Lartnev]

Yeah they can't make it so you can just run through spitfires and interlinks without fear, there has got to be some limiting factor.

[Madcow]

I would imagine that Silent Run will drain stamina, just like every other Implant. I think that the design intention was to make it so that whenever you move, you use Silent Run, and when your Stamina runs out, crouch down and de-activate silent run until your stamina goes back up. Sort of like Surge Running across a long time.

Every implant does not drain stamina, range magnification and enhanced targetting specifically require nothing and darklight may as well be nothing with the way people flick it on and off and lose a single stamina point for their trouble. The Interlink SOI will still be no man's land for an infiltrator if Silent Run works as you say it should. You get past the spitfires, find a good spot to rest inside the SOI and regain your stamina, turn off the implant and get pasted within a few short seconds because even though you're stationary you're showing up as a red dot on the HUD and somebody took the time to hunt the red dot down. Basically, unless they fix the interlink bug the implant will be helpful in some situations but will still make the interlink an impossible task for infils.

[Baneblade]

I haven't run across that interlink bug...is it new?

[Madcow]

I haven't run across that interlink bug...is it new?

Nope, it's been in there since the FLB patch. I've been mowed down way too much because of it, I literally skirt around the SOIs if an interlink is involved. At this point it may dictate which continent I even drop on.

[Lartnev]

I believe they wanted to enable infiltrators to avoid being picked up by the interlink radar if they were moving slowly (like they avoid spitfires and such now). This would also apply to the mossie, but its radar would always be on.

Dunno if this will be implemented though.

[ChewyLSB]

Uh, Enhanced Targeting drains stamina. It just drains stamina at such a low rate, that if you're not moving, it regenerates it. When you're in a vehicle, it counts as not moving. I'm almost positive Range Magnifier does the same thing, it drains stamina but regenerates it as soon as it's drained. Anyone confirm this?

[Madcow]

Uh, Enhanced Targeting drains stamina. It just drains stamina at such a low rate, that if you're not moving, it regenerates it. When you're in a vehicle, it counts as not moving. I'm almost positive Range Magnifier does the same thing, it drains stamina but regenerates it as soon as it's drained. Anyone confirm this?

Range Magnification and Enhanced Targetting do not drain any stamina, they were both changed within the last couple of patches. Trust me, I run around with Enhanced Targetting on all the time. As a matter of fact, the devs have already stated they are planning on the implant automatically turning on once it's available as there's is no reason to have it turned off any longer.

Edit: From the February 17th patch notes

Stamina drain from the Range Magnifier and Enhanced Targeting implants has been removed.
The stamina drain on the Personal Shield implant has been decreased to approximately one third.

[ChewyLSB]

Well then, I didn't realize that, I'm sorry. I've only recently re-subscribed to PlanetSide, and, although Enhanced Targeting is one of my implants, I didn't realize it didn't drain.

Excuse my ignorance.

[Baneblade]

Nope, it's been in there since the FLB patch. I've been mowed down way too much because of it, I literally skirt around the SOIs if an interlink is involved. At this point it may dictate which continent I even drop on.
I have never seen a dot in an interlinked facility stop moving and stay visible unless a friendly can see them. When Im hunting down a red dot it disappears when stopped, but I just watch it move and figure out what level it is on and chase it down...

If it turns out to be an infil I'll switch DL on and smoke em.

Are you the red dot in these facilities? Or are the red dots enemy players...

[Madcow]

Not a problem at all, it's not like you were rude about it. Enhanced targetting has turned into such a useful infiltrator implant since they removed the stamina drain, that coupled with its use in vehicles makes it a new staple for me. I love knowing which guys I only need to stab once to drop.

If Silent Run changes to have a drain similar to the old Advanced Targetting, that wouldn't be bad. If you could leave it on but stay stationary and gain back your stamina then it would at least still be useful in the Interlink.

[KIAsan]

I have never seen a dot in an interlinked facility stop moving and stay visible

Been my experience as well (concerning interlink radar). Once the infiltrator stops moving, he disappears from the radar (same goes for any enemy). Now, the bug I have seen, is cloakers showing up on the radar when crouch walking. Thus, when they implement the new implant, cloakers will actually have the ability to never show on the map (until they pull out an inventory item). Should be a really interesting change for all of us. Don't know if there is another bug out there.

Only beef I have with the patch is the invalidation of CE sensors. What is their purpose, if they don't show infiltrators? Not complaining, but once this patch goes through, I can't see any CE wasting time on placing sensors (other than to catch new cloackers).

Otherwise, very good changes.

[Madcow]

I have never seen a dot in an interlinked facility stop moving and stay visible unless a friendly can see them. When Im hunting down a red dot it disappears when stopped, but I just watch it move and figure out what level it is on and chase it down...

If it turns out to be an infil I'll switch DL on and smoke em.

Are you the red dot in these facilities? Or are the red dots enemy players...

This could be true about the dot disappearing, it's hard for me to say. My experience was that as I would crouch walk into a facility I would get blasted by people with no DL who knew I was there based only on the HUD. I was still crouch walking, so it's distinctly possible that any movement at all triggers it. I'm just going to have to reserve judgement on the new Sensor Shield thing until I can try it out and see, I do have concerns about the drain though.

The red dots are any enemy inside the SOI (including vehicles).

[Madcow]

Only beef I have with the patch is the invalidation of CE sensors. What is their purpose, if they don't show infiltrators? Not complaining, but once this patch goes through, I can't see any CE wasting time on placing sensors (other than to catch new cloackers).

Otherwise, very good changes.

Motion sensors haven't worked properly in over a month anyhow. As an infiltrator I outright ignore the things, they just don't light you up 95% of the time any more. While it seems like sensor shield could help me quite a bit, it will also cost me a few lives as I use spitfires as a weapon a good majority of my play time (either to kill or distract). If the implant starts getting use from people outside the infil suit it could hurt business.

[ChewyLSB]

I don't think many non-infil's will be willing to sacrifice an Implant Slot for Sensor Shield... hell, I think that they'd WANT people to run at them, for kills :P

[Baneblade]

Ah, when you crouch walk you do show up :) , but when you aren't moving you don't...