Weekly Development Activities

[Strygun]

Sporkfire has posted this week's development activities:

Today, we are wrapping up testing on the version 3.2 update, containing the December Global Benefits event, BFR adjustments, and a variety of other changes. We'll be holding a Public Playtest today, in order to determine if this build is ready for the Live servers, so be sure to join us to check that out.

Battle Islands: Global Effects!
December's Combat Event focuses on the Battle Islands, creating unique combat scenarios and offering benefits for locking the facilities on those continents. Details can be found in the Test Server Release Notes, and will also be posted to the PlanetSide web site and News Forum soon.

BFR Changes

• Standard BFR�s will no longer be available for purchase. The Gunner variants will be available to players after Imprinting in the caverns without requiring the Advanced BFR merit. The Gunner variants will be renamed Colossus, Aphelion and Peregrine.
• Adjusted the armor on the Gunner variants to all be the same, equaling the current Colossus.
• Adjusted the movement characteristics (top speed, turning radius, etc) of all Gunner variants to be the same, roughly equaling the current Colossus. Run speed is now 35 kph for all.
• Moderately increased the effectiveness of BFR Gunner weaponry.
• Lowered the damage absorption and regeneration rate (while moving and crouching) for the Flight BFR�s.
• Reduced the armor on all Flight BFR�s.
• Reduced damage done by BFR pilot weaponry.
• Adjusted movement characteristics of the Flight BFR�s to be roughly equal or better than the current Eclipse.
• The Advanced BFR kill streak has been adjusted to required 15 kills.
• Caverns Facilities will count toward BFR acquisition if they merit 450 or more Experience.

The design goals for these changes include making the team-oriented two-person Gunner variants the standard BFR�s. Pilots will have some capacity for damage output, but the real destructive power will come from the Gunner.

Flight variants are more mobile, but must use those new properties to avoid damage, as they are also significantly less protected now. Its weaker pilot weapons will make the Flight BFR a choice for situations where mobility and moderate firepower are important, but will keep this loadout from being an all-purpose mobile death machine.
Other Updates

• Holiday hats, gift corpses and lights on the frozen continents will be back again to celebrate the holidays.
• The stats pane will reflect driver assisted kills, meaning that if a gunner scores a kill, the driver will also have a kill registered to their stats. Driver assisted kills will be tracked in their own section of the stats pane.
• Bail malfunctions will now have a chance to occur when a vehicle has 35% or less armor remaining.
• Corrected a bug that could cause door IFF locks to disappear at certain Level of Detail settings.
• Corrected a joystick slider center point default that was not being applied properly.
• Corrected a issue that could lead to a crash to desktop when respawning.
• Lodestars can no longer repair vehicles while they are flying.
• Corrected a problem that could cause you to stop hacking a control console when your vehicle was attacked.
• Removed the possibility for a gunner to take damage when bailing from colliding with the back of the vehicle.
• Fixed invisible collision issues with removed BFR bays on Battle Island maps.

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