Beta branch results

[imelman]

So, currently playing the beta testing for the new crafting system and such, and while I like the future the game will have, I want to report a bunch of things I found while playing it:

The railgun turret doesn't function as its top turret isn't coded on deployment;
Flechette launcher doesn't display combat stats;
Other beta weapons only display their stats when viewing other player's such weapons;
Reviver supposedly uses combine ball model but its an ERROR instead;
Plasma thrower shoots bullets and has no sound when shooting/switching to;
Ricochet rifle is currently the only one that displays usage info, but has no description and its very hard to use due to friendly fire mechanic, especially if it reflects onto you;
Speed burst module doesn't work;
Energy field generator is currently a buffed prototype rifle that replaces grenades and auto aim with shield that protects against ranged attacks;
Marine academy map doesn't support proper AI pathfinding, forcing you to lead bots;
Bastille doesn't always play selection sound if picked(which I think is hardcoded for long long time)

I can possibly update or provide more when playing. Looting in here seems interesting, since instead of idling the game to get loot or money, you actually have to pick pickups instead, which is good against idling bots, but also encourages playing, so I wish more games did like that.

[Ben Lubar]

The currently implemented beta-only weapons in beta are:

Ricochet
Flechette
Cryo Cannon
Energy Field Generator

These are just placeholders right now:

Plasma Thrower
Reanimator
Hack Tool
Railgun Turret
Speed Burst
Shield Bubble / Arena Dome / I Forgot What I Called This
Incendiary Grenades
Stun Grenades

[imelman]

Just crashed when viewing equipment in swarmopedia page - and after trying to get more loot due to "large resources found" notification, no map spawned any for some reason, on top of resource test defaulting to some sort of thai language until you actually click it.

[Ben Lubar]

Originally posted by imelman:

Just crashed when viewing equipment in swarmopedia page - and after trying to get more loot due to "large resources found" notification, no map spawned any for some reason, on top of resource test defaulting to some sort of thai language until you actually click it.

Did you get a screenshot of the garbled text? It's probably not actually text data being shown there, but seeing it might help me figure out what data it actually is.

[imelman]

In the beta branch, the new medals, AKA season 10 and onwards ones are in "items" section, and are bugged in terms of equip, resulting in console errors about their wrong type, and do not display their stats correctly.

As for the text, you are right, its simply scrambled until you enter the screen after it. I thought it was not true at first. Still no loot drops after initial ones, probably due to fact it is weekly than procedual it was supposed to be.

[imelman]

Only just now I finally managed to get loot drops properly, I think someone fixed the issue a few hours ago or something, but its nice that it does now.

Though bots are quite clunky, I managed to speedrun 1 map with them, barely managing to qualify with 1 second difference. Yes, forcing you to always play tech as they hack much slower than a player ever would, even with the double hack item that doesn't currently function for them or the player at the moment. Sure they do teleport if you are too far away and get speed/damage resistance boosts, but their lack of flexibility does make them hard to manage, even for no death campaign runs compared to players, though their inability to betray you makes them quite appealing otherwise. They suck with grenade launchers meaning you cannot rely on them with that, nor can burn biomass with flamers unless an enemy is near, nor burn parasite eggs unless they hatch, further forcing the player to do all the hard work. Though after combine units were added, they now target combine scanner in one of paranoia maps, even though it is harmless there.

I noticed that the autogun now deals exact same damage as minigun, which is a nice change to make it less weak than that, though even with inaccuracy minigun still reigns supreme overall due to greater DPS and only slowing you down when actively used on top of bonus piercing when continiously used, I think autogun needs innate piercing or same base damage as heavy rifle to make it actually competetive in that regard. in fact, you are better of using the heavy rifle, for rather obvious reasons over autogun at the moment.

The energy field generator being a 3 round burst rifle is quite a interesting choice, since it replicates the combat rifle from L4D2, which while not exactly the best, has its own strength in terms of damage/accuracy on the move, I wish non techs could get one of such rifles, but balanced around being burst only.

[imelman]

In non beta branch - some people who have strange weapons from beta actually can use them in non beta, like my strange medical gun having my name prefixed, and person with a grenade launcher tracking kills and displaying them in public per milestone like 5000 kills.

[imelman]

Bots in lana's escape instead of following the correct path in final part of the maze, they instead try to move through blocked off paths if you move fast enough for them to not catch up, which is often when trying to rush the level or otherwise, which also means they will be left behind and killed instead of teleporting to you.

Oh I was actually somewhat wrong on nuclear escort map - it is usually their incompetence if they are equipped with short range weapons, but giving them snipers made it bearable at very least, if a bit restrictive choice for escorts. And you use tech to repair damage, so you do have to be one yourself.

Well the maze was somehow made only by moving closer to the bots that resulted in their teleport, but still, its an rather annoying issue. Nuclear escort on other hand, is impossible in practice with them due to fact you need a team to cover every front, and they instead of that, they just follow you or stand still which means an failure later.

[imelman]

In unexpected encounter, if slowdown is enabled whenever an ally dies while you are rolling into/standing on the final platform, you have a chance to fall into map geometry itself, preventing completion of the mission itself.

[imelman]

Now that drops work correctly alongside post season 10 medals, I found out that out of all weapons in beta only the shield rifle for tech is avalible by default, others are disallowed by game rules, plus healing strange device if put on weapon that deals damage like medical SMG, will count damage against the healing stat, making it practically impossible to retain it at positive value. I think they are going to be reset once this is fixed, but it also makes it quite amusingly bad for a strange device choice on a weapon that both heals and deals damage.

[imelman]

In beta, the new swarmopedia calculation is wrong for medical gun - it uses the same value as medical amplifier does, resulting in it counting +5 instead of +10 per point of healing skill.

Chainsaw, a non-bullet weapon is affected with piercing bullets skill, which both increases its chance to stagger a drone, but also to hit ones behind the primary target.

Heavy rifle page due to including the stopping power text doesn't fit the whole screen, and you cannot scroll down to see full text.

Currently, the post season 10 medals are still bugged in-game - their equippability is also tied to in-game drops in beta, meaning if either is broken, neither works, and while they do display properly in steam inventory, in game its dependant on server stability, which suggests that only time drops leave beta is when the server is going to stabalize them, considering that users who are not running offline mode are more likely to get stable chances.

[imelman]

Oh so I found out the reason why I cannot properly register drops, strange weapons or equip post season 10 medals - turns out, the game only syncs those things properly only when you first launch the game when launching steam, meaning you have to restart steam in order to get drops again or equip such medals and so on to work properly.

Also, the weapons, in mission lobby page, display not their base plus boosted values, but their base valued with bonus already applied, so jaeger with vindicator has 175 + 70 displayed instead of 105 + 70 damage. This also applied to other values like fire rate for prototype rifle and reload speed, so I think it should be fixed.

[76561198358523117]

Originally posted by imelman:

jaeger with vindicator has 175 + 70 displayed instead of 105 + 70 damage.

Stat display format was asked about in Discord and the opinions were split. What would be the solution that satisfies everybody?

[imelman]

In beta, the only beta weapon avalible under default rules is shield rifle, others are only avalible if you enable a challenge, which is understandable, expect that the only challenge that enables those is the energy weapons one, others still disallow them.

Also, the energy weapon challenge still doesn't allow other beta items like shock grenade, while they are placeholders, they would be good if they were implemented, as techs prototype rifle grenades deal friendly fire that can kill you or your allies if you are not careful.

Rifle mod challenge also restricts the energy field generator(shield rifle), even though it can pickup rifle ammo in the first place and is a rifle itself. And other challenges for some reason restrict it as well, even though it is not restricted under default(no challenge)runs.

[Ben Lubar]

Hmm, default game rules shouldn't be showing any weapons as "disallowed by game rules"...

That should only show up for challenges that set some specific convars that filter the weapon list.

I wonder why the code is doing that on your machine but not on mine.

[imelman]

While techs shield rifle is still currently the only weapon usable in beta under default settings(and its the strongest rifle based weapon in terms of efficency at same time), I recently got an probable idea related to a tech exclusive weapon that is a grenade launcher - one that is modified to deal reduced friendly fire damage, though not without dealing at least half of the regular ones damage, and its alt fire fires shock grenades instead with even lower damage, but with clear support usage to weaken hordes in advance, since prototype rifle lacks long term stun grenade usage to make it a primary weapon in that regard, tesla grenades are non refillable, but having such weapon for a tech could be a strong utility if you ask me. Sure, it needs to be weaker than regular grenade launcher, but it still stuns aliens on impact and reduced friendly fire makes it easier to use in dangerous situations while preserving your life for objectives and being easier to use when surrounded. I think the reduction should be at least 50%, possibly 75% for allies and 50% for self only, while the tesla mode deals none to allies, but only 25% is taken as damage to self.

Yes, probably the devs can work on its system, while someone could model it, I do not think I can do AS style at the moment for making its model, but I am sure it will look like a technologically altered grenade launcher that is optimized with allies in mind. Won't be a strong weapon for obvious halved damage penalty it will have, but ability to switch modes and reduced friendly fire can make it a good utility if you ask me.