News: APR 16 Game Update

[Hamma]

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...l-16th.182835/

Known Issues

The loading screen will stay up longer than usual. This is to address issues with the loading screen coming down too early and certain elements not being loaded.

Major Issue Status - https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...issues.179848/

64-bit Client

• 64 bit client is back! This should be a significant reduction in client crashes, but we still have more to fix.

Server Crashes

• All known server crashes fixed.

New Carbines
The following Carbines have been added to fill existing holes in itemization.

NCAF-4A Bandit

• Designed with mobility in mind, the lightweight alloys that make up Auraxis Firearm’s AF-A4 Bandit allows for faster movement while aiming without compromising on stopping power in close to medium ranges. (What are the alloys? Nanites. Stop asking questions and get back to shooting.)

TR HC1 Cougar

• The Terran Republic’s Heavy Carbine project resulted in the HC1 Cougar. Utilizing a higher caliber cartridge than its LC cousins, the Cougar possesses unparalleled stopping power amongst other Terran carbines up to medium range. (If you are curious how far medium range is, it's like not really far away but close enough to render. If you are loyal TR you are going to use it regardless).

VS Zenith VX-5

• Vanu Labs’ close-to-midrange Zenith VX-5 uses advanced crystalline structures to significantly reduce weight without compromising on strength. It features both precision hipfire and increased movement speed while aiming. (To that guy who actually attached the gun to his hip and shot at people, this is not what was meant).

Straight Pull Bolt Attachments

• New attachment have been added to bolt action sniper rifles that allow you to stay scoped while bolting the rifle. (Apparently a few of you wanted this released...)

Quality of Life and Balance

• The TR LC2 Lynx carbine has been completely revamped
  • Very few weapons are able to touch the Lynx’s incredible rate of fire. Featuring a cyclic rate of 910 RPM, the LC2 Lynx tears through infantry at close to medium ranges.
• Unintentionally falling short distances will no longer apply jump penalties or force a weapon out of iron sights. (You've been told repeatedly to stop standing on the edges of stuff. If this change doesn't work you are all being issued bubblewrap armor).
• Lifespan of AV MANA turret projectile has been reduced from 10 seconds to 4.75 seconds. This makes the maximum range of the MANA turret around 450 meters.
• Both Engineer turret models have been slightly adjusted to have tighter collision.
• The amount of the player’s head exposed on NC and VS anti-infantry Engineer turrets now matches the TR. (We've actually genetically shrunk TR soldiers heads but this sounds better.)
• All ranks of TR MAX Lockdown now deploy and undeploy faster (Again, Nanites. Stop questioning why.)
  • Deploy times reduced from 2.5 to 2.0 seconds
• Zealot Overdrive Engine
  • ZOE max rank now lowers the MAXs resistance to small arms fire by 5% instead of 10%. All ranks: 9/8/7/6/5% reduction.
  • Comet direct damage while under the effects of ZOE increased from 347 and 375. Max damage range increased from 10 to 15 meters. Min damage range increased from 50 to 85 meters.
• Knife damage has been reduced from 625 to 500. The previous damage value was compensating for the old Nanoweave functionality where players could have up to 1250 health and is too high now that players cap out at 1000 health (not counting abilities).

Vehicle Changes

• All Vehicles Nanite Auto Repair
  • Additional ranks no longer reduce the delay
  • The delay is 12 seconds across all ranks (That is still going to feel like 10 minutes when you are under fire).
• All Vehicles Night Vision Optics
  • Night vision adjusted to have a longer range and a slightly brighter green.
• Flash Stealth Certification
  • Reduced to 4 ranks like other vehicles.
  • The certification line has been reset and previously spent points have been refunded.
  • The benefit at max rank for the new line remains the same as the previous max rank.
• Magrider Magburner
  • Increased regeneration rate of lower ranks.
  • Seconds required to fully regenerate from 60/48/34/20 going down to 35/30/25/20.
• Vanguard Shield
  • Amount blocked by shield reduced from 3000 to 2000.
  • Duration of shield has been normalized across all ranks to be 6 seconds (when it is not destroyed via damage)
• Prowler Anchored Mode
  • Projectile speed is now normalized at +30% across all ranks.
• Harasser
  • Stock armor damage reduction increased from 37% to 39% (You probably wouldn't have noticed but once again NANITES!)
    • This mostly makes some sources of damage less spikey. (Note: both spikey and blunty damage will blow up your vehicle).
    • Most big hitting weapons still destroy in the same amount of hits
  • Stock resistance to infantry small arms increased from 80% to 82%
    • With the stock armor changes this places the resistance to this type 50% of the way back towards the pre-PU02 values
  • Harasser turbo now consumes 50% less fuel while active, allowing for a longer boost
    • This is the pre-pu02 value
  • Turbo is now standard on all Harassers. (Now everyone can feel the need for speed!)
    • This frees up the utility slot for other options. (No you still cannot add hydraulics.)
    • The certification line still exists, but as a passive bonus

Vehicle Weapon Tuning

• M20 Basilisk
  • Basilisk is performing too well at long ranges.
    • Reduced minimum damage range from 130 to 100 meters (Sunderer and tank version only)
    • Projectile speed reduced from 600 meters per second to 550 (all versions)
• M12 Kobalt
  • Needs improvements to be a more competitive load out option. While certainly effective as a long range anti personnel weapon, it gives up a lot to do so. The changes below should improve that role and make it more effective against light armor.
    • Minimum damage increased from 143 to 154
    • Minimum damage range decreased from 130 to 110 (Tank and Sunderer versions only)
    • Projectile speed increased from 600 meters per second to 650
    • Pitch up limit increased from 65 degrees to 80 (same as walker and ranger)
• C85 Canister
  • Still could use improvements in the anti-personnel and anti-light armor rolls.
  • Removed CoF penalty (pellet spread remains) (Yup we track pellet spread)
  • Downward elevation range increased from 17 degrees to 35, (25 to 35 degrees on Harassers) allowing the close range weapon to hit stuff at close range
  • Stock magazine size increased from 8 to 10
    • The following changes are intended to extend the range of 2 shot kills by a few meters
    • Headshot multiplier increased from 1.5 to 2
    • Legshot multiplier decreased from 0.9 to 0.95 (No seriously there is a legshot multiplier...).
  • Minimum damage range increased from 40 meters to 42 (30 to 31 on Harasser variant)
  • ESF resistance to the C85 canister lowered from 80% to 75%
  • Harasser resistance to the C85 canister lowered from 72% to 69%
• Saron HRB
  • It is too effective as an anti-infantry weapon.
    • Blast damage reduced from 367 damage to 200 damage (334 to 200 for Harasser version)
    • This makes it require 3 direct hits to drop non infiltrators instead of 2. (Sorry Infiltrators. Maybe if you'd stop wrapping yourself in those weird flashy nanocloaks you'd live longer).
    • Inner blast damage radius increased from 0.5 meters to 1 meter
• Enforcer ML85
  • It is too strong in the anti-tank category. The below changes should bring it closer in line with other weapons like the Halberd.
    • Magazine size reduced from 10 to 8
    • Reload speed increased from 3 seconds to 3.25 seconds
    • Ammo capacity decreased from 100 to 80
    • Ammo capacity per rank decreased from 10 to 8
• G30 Vulcan
• The Vulcan is missing too many shots at 100 meters. (See? You aren't that horrendous of a shot!)
  • Increasing COF sight range from 75 meters to 100 meters
• G40-F Ranger
  • Needs to perform a little bit better
    • Camera and muzzle flash has been adjusted to block less of the reticule
    • Flak damage increased from 45 to 50
    • Ammo capacity being increased from 490 rounds to 800
    • Ammo capacity per rank increased from 16 to 70
• Lightning C75 Viper
  • The weapon is too effective in both anti-tank and anti-personnel. Both aspects are being toned down
    • Direct hit reduced from 400 to 345 damage
      • This makes it so all HEAT cannons kill faster than the C75 viper.
    • Blast damage reduced from 600 to 500 damage
      • This reduces the radius for two hit kills by 0.5 meters
      • Can no longer one hit kill infantry on a direct hit
• Prowler P2-120 HEAT
  • The double barrel is too effective against personnel; the following changes are intended to bring it more in line.
    • Blast damage reduced from 700 damage to 650 damage
    • Inner blast damage radius reduced from 1.5 meters to 1 meter
    • The above two changes reduce the effective two hit kill radius by 0.5 meters
• Prowler P2-120 HE
  • Similar to the HEAT version, the damage is a bit too high, for the HE we are just adjusting the damage.
  • Blast damage reduced from 700 damage to 650 damage
• Liberator L-24R Spur
  • CoF reduced from 0.75 degrees to 0.3 degrees.
• Liberator Dual-75 Duster
  • Reduced maximum CoF from 8 degrees to 6 degrees.
• Air Hammer, M14 Banshee, AP30 Shredder
  • Bullet impact FX has been updated to have a small explosion, to better represent that these fire explosive rounds.
• M18 Needler:
  • Increased magazine size
  • Magazine size increased from 70 to 75
  • Ammo resupply rate increased from 140 to 150 per tick
  • Ammo capacity increased from 840 to 900
  • Ammo per rank increased from 70 to 75
• M40 Fury:
  • Increased ammo resupply rate
  • Flash variant increased from 8 to 16
  • Harasser variant increased from 8 to 24
  • Sunderer variant increased from 8 to 32

Infantry Weapon Tuning


NC

• Carnage AR
  • Lowering the muzzle velocity to match this weapon’s short-to-medium range role.
  • Muzzle velocity lowered from 600 to 580
• GD-7F
  • This weapon had a lower total recoil magnitude than weapons with a slower rate of fire. The below recoil increase corrects this.
  • Vertical recoil increased from 0.3 to 0.31
• GD-22s
  • Projectile velocity increased from 580 to 620 to match this weapon’s longer range role.
• Gauss SAW S
  • Faster equip rate, both base and when a forward grip is attached.
• EM6
  • Recoil recovery is being slowed down to match the general pattern of high-capacity, high-RPM (per damage class) LMGs having the lowest in class recoil recovery. This change makes the weapon more consistent with other LMGs.
  • Recoil recovery slowed down from 13 to 12
• EM1
  • The opposite of the above. Recoil recovery is being improved to match this weapon’s lower rate of fire and longer range role.
  • Recoil recovery is faster, from 12 to 13
• AF-4 Cyclone
  • Small short reload adjustment to get this weapon’s damage over time output more aligned with the SMG standard. Increasing recoil because this weapon is performing too well at range.
  • Short reload increased from 1.75 to 1.855
  • Vertical recoil increased from 0.22 to 0.24
  • Min horizontal recoil increased from 0.2 to 0.212
  • Max horizontal recoil increased from 0.3 to 0.304
• LA8 Rebel
  • Improving reload speeds to correct this weapon taking too large of a damage over time penalty.
  • Short reload is faster, from 1.8 to 1.7 seconds
  • Long reload is faster, from 1.5 to 1.4 seconds
• NC05 Jackhammer
  • This weapon is outputting too much damage over time when using the faster firing single-shot mode. The below reload adjustments correct this.
  • Short reload increased from 2.6 to 2.7 seconds
  • Long reload increased from 3.65 to 3.7 seconds

TR

• Cycler TRV
  • The below recoil adjustments are a small increase to overall accuracy.
  • Min horizontal recoil reduced from 0.275 to 0.272
  • max horizontal recoil reduced from 0.3 to 0.295
• SABR-13
  • Projectile speed increased from 600 to 620 to match this weapon’s longer range role.
• T1B Cycler
  • Increasing ammo to 42 so that the burst count matches up.
• T1S Cycler
  • Short reload increased from 2.7 to 2.52 seconds to better align the damage over time output with the S-class weapon standard.
• TAR
  • Very small recoil adjustment and damage over time increase when using the short reload.
  • Max horizontal recoil reduced from 0.3 to 0.297
  • Short reload is faster, from 3.0 to 2.97 seconds
  • Fixed the weapon being held in a slightly different position in the single-shot hip-fire fire mode. Small adjustment to overall hip-fire held position so the weapon transitions to aimed mode smoother.
• TRAC-5 Burst
  • Increasing ammo to 42 so that the burst count matches up.
• TRAC-5 S
  • Short reload is faster, from 2.7 to 2.595 seconds to better align the damage over time output with the S-class weapon standard.
• LC3 Jaguar
  • The below recoil adjustments are a small increase to overall accuracy
  • Min horizontal recoil reduced from 0.245 to 0.243
  • Max horizontal recoil reduced from 0.275 to 0.273
• T9 CARV-S
  • Reducing max horizontal recoil to better match the ROF tradeoff when compared to the base CARV.
  • Max horizontal recoil reduced from 0.225 to 0.2119
  • Fixed the muzzle flash being different in burst and single-shot fire modes
• T32 Bull
  • Short reload faster, from 3.195 seconds to 2.890 seconds
  • Muzzle velocity increased from 600 to 670
• SMG-46 Armistice
  • The below recoil adjustments are a small increase to overall accuracy
  • Min horizontal recoil dropped from 0.35 to 0.347
  • Max horizontal recoil dropped from 0.4 to 0.376
  • Bullet speed increased from 360 to 370
• PDW-16 Hailstorm
  • Max horizontal recoil dropped from 0.35 to 0.331
  • Recoil recovery increased from 18 to 20. Now tied with the NS-7 PDW for best in class.
  • Bullet speed increased from 335 to 360
• T7 Mini-Chaingun
  • Small increase to starting (pre-spool) refire rate. The fully spooled up fire rate remains the same.
  • This weapon now has a fixed cone of fire when using the aimed fire mode.
  • The hip cone of fire is now capped at 3 (standard is 7).
  • Added a Ballistic Rapid Refire Toggle attachment (Yes we know what you guys wanted...sorry!)
  • The Ballistic Rapid Refire Toggle overclocks the Mini-Chaingun's motor drive, allowing it to both spin up faster and increasing its rate of fire.
• T2 Striker
  • Max projectile speed increased from 100 meters per second to 125

VS

• H-V45
  • Lowering the muzzle velocity to match this weapon’s short-to-medium range role.
  • Bullet velocity reduced from 590 to 570
• CME
  • Increasing overall accuracy
  • Bullet velocity increased from 630 to 670
  • First shot recoil reduced from 2.5 to 2.0
  • Max horizontal recoil reduced from 0.225 to 0.22
• Corvus VA55
  • Improving accuracy of the initial burst.
  • First shot recoil reduced from 1.85 to 1.75
• Serpent VE92
  • Like the NC’s GD-7F, this weapon had a lower total recoil magnitude than weapons with a slower rate of fire. The below recoil increase corrects this.
  • Vertical recoil increased from 0.245 to 0.255
  • First shot recoil increased from 2.75 to 3.0
• Orion
  • Lowering the muzzle velocity to match this weapon’s short-to-medium range role.
  • Projectile velocity reduced from 615 to 570
• SVA-88
  • Lowering the recoil recovery to match this weapon being a more closer range LMG (0.75x move speed + better than average hipfire).
  • Recoil recovery reduced from 13 to 12
• Ursa
  • The below recoil adjustment improves accuracy.
  • Max horizontal recoil reduced from 0.1875 to 0.182
• Eridani SX5
  • The below recoil adjustment improves accuracy.
  • Max horizontal recoil reduced from 0.4 to 0.392
• Cerberus
  • Improving reload speeds to correct this weapon taking too large of a damage over time penalty.
  • Short reload is faster, from 2.1 to 2.0 seconds
  • Long reload is faster, from 1.75 to 1.65 seconds
  • Reduced suppressor muzzle velocity penalty to match this weapon having a lower than average base velocity

Coramed Labs Updated
Revamped Coramed Labs and surrounding area on Indar. Combat between Dahaka and Indar Excavation is much more enjoyable.

Misc

• Update to Reaver texture, empire colors, and camo patterns.
• Fixed Reaver viper fin skinning bug.
• Defend Missions will once again be created if enemy population is significant in a vulnerable facility. Defend missions once again require the enemy presence to be significantly reduced before the mission will end. (No more just making faces at each other through a spawn room shield).
• Capture status for the current facility will now always show when a player is in the facility area regardless of whether that facility is the player’s current mission.

Bugs Fixed

• Fixed various client and zone crashes
• You will no longer play the death animation in the spawn tube after respawning.
• Fixed various art and terrain issues on Indar, Amerish, and Esamir. Includes fixes to missing textures, gaps in terrain, missing or floating turrets on bases, holes you can get stuck in, rocks inside buildings, and even the replacement of entirely missing buildings.
• Fixed missiles fired from the AV Mana turret not being visible to other players. (No more free stealth tech).
• Decals will once again display correctly on the Harasser.
• Dalton and Zephyr now have different sound effects.
• Updated the Harasser turbo tooltip to be more accurate.
• Hornet missiles should no longer appear to come from the cockpit of the plane when fired in first person.
• Flashlights will no longer force players to hold the gun in the ready to fire position while sprinting.
• Infantry should no longer be able to move vehicles by jumping from underneath them. (You weren't really that strong.)
• Magazine now falls out of NS semi auto sniper on reload.
• Fixed various animation issues.

[PredatorFour]

Thankyou SoE not only have you improved my flash fury but you've given me a refund on stealth certs, niceone

[CraazyCanuck]

Yay 64 client is back.

Like that the kobalt, canister are getting a buff, especially the angle changes and improved dmg versus esf.

Wish they would have refunded the certs on the nanite repair and the vanguard shield.

Finally, knife dmg dialed down.

By brighter green on the night vision I hope then mean improved clarity. Because it sucked ass previously.

Turbo across all harrasers with improved fuel efficiency...harrassers will be in bases full time now, but now with improved getaway capability and improved armor.

Infantry weapon changes makes sense, for the most part. Looking forward to the mini-gun attachment.

[HereticusXZ]

My only disappointment is that I can't have Ballistic Rapid Refire Toggle with Extended Magazines on the Chain gun, It's only one or the other :C

[CraazyCanuck]

That is disappointing.

[Chewy]

With the 64bit removed again long before any of the prime time players. SOE still can't know what it will do in a stress test.

But, I might have found a way to force the game to run in 64bit thanks to reddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/c..._now_that_its/


-NOTE-
I have NOT found ANY posts saying that forcing the game to run in 64bit is allowed or not. Nothing in reddit or the topic I made on the official forums as of yet if this is allowed or not. I have not done this yet but others have and it seems to work from their posts.

More or less you just rename the .exe file (with the launcher running so it wont auto fix it) and the game will run in either 32bit or 64bit depending on what .exe the launcher runs. That's all it takes to get the 64bit running.

But it is still iffy as to if we can do this or not. Bans may happen, they may not. We can't know till we get some official feedback. So if anyone has a contact please pass this on so that some feedback is given.

[Falcon_br]

Now the lynx is the best smg in the game for the TR! (for light assault and engineer).
Still has less damage/second then the 845 RPM carbines from other factions... But it is good to use!
Cycler TRV is great now! It was already my medic weapon of choice.
t9 carv partial unnerf was welcome! (didn't change much, but this is welcome)
New tmg-50 sound is awesome!
Striker buff is doesn't make it useful again.
Harasser buff was not tested to me, the two times I got it, I died to mines.

The minigun is a new weapon that I can't say it is useful:
It is recoiless, the CoF increases almost nothing on all stances, fixed in some of them.
Crouching doesn't decrease CoF.
Aiming decrease CoF in almost nothing.
You can no longer hit long range targets with it.
It is spray and pray weapon!
The new attachment is nice, but with a spray and pray I think I will keep my extended mags.
Maybe it is the end of the minigun, maybe we will find some use for it.

Engineer turret nerf is awesome, your tank no longer die for no reason from ghost damage! But I think the range is lower then 450m, probably 400m (acceleration time).


VS snipers with straight pull attachments everywhere!

Vanguards with shields dying everywhere is awesome!

97% freeze loading

PS: my game still runs in 32 bits.

[TheAadvark]

Love the new sounds of the TR guns. But I'd like to say something about that.

Every gunshot has an identical sound to the last making it sound monotonous and in long bursts sound very artificial/unrealistic. Let us take battlefield for instance which (despite being a broken game) has hands down the most realistic sounding guns I have ever heard. They have put in minor variations within the gunfire sound asset with each or each subsequent group of bullets which eliminates that problem.

NOW I KNOW that they have other things to do. I am just pointing this out.

[Dougnifico]

Ya. Overall a very welcome change. The TR aren't grossly under-powered anymore! The lynx is more amazing than ever and the cougar is actually pretty decent. It fills a niche that the TR was missing. T9 Carv isn't mentioned, but it feels better, like it got ninja buffed.

Sadly, DICE has a massive team of like 200 people + marketing and Planetisde has like 50-60. I mean, I'll bet DICE has more sound designers than PS2 has artists.

NOTE: If DICE ever gets the itch to make a mmofps... Smed's got some problems.

[SixShooter]

Good stuff. Hope to get some game time in this weekend.

[Chewy]

The last 100MB hotfix re-re-re-added the 64bit client. Rather crashy still. Changing maps was a certain crash and changing loadouts/classes/vehicle spawning had a chance as well.

[Dougnifico]

Yup. They need to pull it again and fix it. There shouldn't be a big rush to get it out. Just get it right. Put it out for a day, pull it. Repeat until the crashes stop.

[Belhade]

I just patched, and ran 32-bit...which crashed on a continent change. That's never happened to me before, except only when I ran 64-bit yesterday.

[CraazyCanuck]

Another hotfix this morning and locked up after playing the game and going back to the character selection screen. The whole game itself loaded faster though.

[Ghoest9]

The new NC gun is nice for those of us who habitually aim.

But I wish it had sub machine gun sites.