Auto Fire v0.6.61: Citadels, Balance, UI and Optimization

In the last couple of months we’ve made a number of changes to UI, the combat experience, and those you meet at citadels.  It’s a beefy update but more to come.  Download the new build, and while you’re waiting check out the new teaser!

Release Notes

Advanced Sector Preview

  • There is a temporary button in the Campaign Start dialog called ADVANCED SECTOR PREVIEW
  • This will advance you to a sector slightly deeper into the game.
  • This is recommended for experienced drivers only!

Combat/Driving

  • Made hits impact the exposed side of the target rather than randomly within their square
  • Fire gang implemented for region
  • Gave fire gang bosses rocket salvos that drop flaming oil
  • Enemy vehicles can now use dropped weapons.
  • Fixed a number of reverse control issues
  • Towers fire double rockets again
  • Entrances to roadways and garages are no longer barriers to be collided with, you can drive through them if you want.
  • The Camera now now holds on your target until the projectile hits, so you can better see the results of your shot

Balancing

  • A lot of difficulty tuning.  Damage ramping isn’t nearly so crazy.f
  • Adjusted enemy aggro down a little so we didn’t get mobbed from everywhere
  • Reduced the population of most maps, the player could easily get swamped if they covered a lot of ground
  • Fixed burning damage to not apply the weapon’s base damage, which was causing massively OP damage when you or enemies are on fire.

Citadels

  • Added a progression of mayor quotes in the citadel.  It increases as you get better renown or accept new sector quests.
  • Mayor feed in the citadel ticks out like the quest panels do.
  • Changed the faction readout to show the relevant factions in the current sector, and have room to show their full name.
  • The citadel screen shows sector stars in a cleaner fashion.
  • Removed skills entirely.  Perhaps they could return later, but right now they are not sighted to add value to the game.

Social Feed

  • Added a feed to the loading screen so we can have a colorful quote from the populace as well.
  • Improved some of the macros to better support “they” pronouns.
  • Cleaned up some bad citizen tweets.
  • The leader of a citadel waits for the player to get done loading before teletyping.

Content/Generation

  • Massively improved and refined the city ruins block set
  • Added randomness to a lot of rubble prefabs in the cities
  • Reduced the ruincity population
  • Overworld roads are more diagonal and less derpy looking
  • The highway map doesn’t have a missing tile at the exit
  • The highway map has additional patches and population
  • Less damn trash bags all around, none in the desert

Gangs/Organizations

  • Updated the bandit naming setup for better results.
  • Corporate agents and duellists now named better.
  • Wrote some minor encounters for fuel and towers
  • Reduced base quests from 4 to 3 fuel dumps and watchtowers

User Interface

  • Added a pointer that indicates the next objective if radar is pressed.
  • The player is prompted to press radar when the encounter is completed.
  • Added visual quality settings to  the in-game popup.
  • Some visual improvements to tablet displays such as challenge and mission completion
  • The in-game settings menu has a visual update.
  • Gender selector is now He She They
  • A lot of gamepay fixes and support.
  • Added gamepad control to Gear usage menu
  • Revised the social feed phone mask
  • The social tablet fades out after a set amount of time, but fades in for key messaging

Environment/Visuals

  • Created a full set of cars with color variants red, blue, yellow, black, and apply them to gang types
  • Replaced some of the old awful rocks with more stylized desert-worthy obstructions
  • Added VFX, sound and hitstop to crit hits
  • Fog of War should be steadier and not have a weird lag.
  • Terrain visuals are adjusted and scaled between tactical desert and overworld
  • Revised VFX for scattergun (not great, but better)
  • Smokescreens are now effected by the force of the vehicles moving between them.
  • Smokescreens and fire oil now decays out properly rather than pop
  • Smokescreens have an intro that plays in unscaled time so that it doesn’t look weird when the game is paused.
  • Mines and oil barrels now blink in unscaled time so they stand out to the user.
  • Flamer doesn’t attach to the muzzle anymore, should look better
  • Speed lines are more prominent with when the player is boosted
  • Dust motes are now in the world and affected by vehicle speed.
  • Fixed long wires appearing as short wires.
  • Adjusted the bloom of oil splats and removed oil hit VFX because it was causing a weird square bloom thingy
  • Adjusted some sparks to use a brighter and more efficient VFX.
  • Water tower no longer peeks through the fog layer
  • Emplacements do not disappear when obscured

Audio

  • Hitting a soft thing like a body plays a different ram sound than a heavy vehicle thing
  • AL now has his own message sound

Bugs/Optimization

  • Upgraded to Unity 2020.3.40f
  • Quality Settings adjusted to default to High rather than V High or Ultra.
  • Fixed bug where scattergun could target itself(!)
  • Automap cleans up better and avoids memory wastage.
  • Fixed an issue with defining battlegrounds, we risked a crash when getting into a combat encounter.
  • Fixed camera view for vehicle in stable or character view.
  • Fixed an issue with the car stable sometimes showing improper buttons.
  • Deferred lighting is being used
  • Optimized some materials for draw efficiency and hitches
  • Cleaned up issues that occurred if the campaign is repeated multiple times in a single session
  • Hopefully fixed tires that could sometimes get out of sync and pop out of their wheelhubs
Click here to find it on Itch.io!

One thought on “Auto Fire v0.6.61: Citadels, Balance, UI and Optimization”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *