Patience is a virTUe, and this update is just what the doctor ordered.
##WEAPON PREDICTION AND THE NEW WEAPON SYSTEM
We’re finally done implementing weapon lag compensation!
This means that when you shoot at something, the server works to recreate what you saw, so regardless of how high your ping is, you should still be able to hit your target.
Animated viewmodels are now supported and Krionikal is working on animations for each gun in the game.
Some weapon animations are work-in-progress and some weapons have no animations. We’re working through them. You can read more detail about the weapon animations at the bottom of this update log.
We also fixed some issues with weapons in the Lobby and the Condo, the hotbar plays nicer with weapons and is much easier to use now.
##VIRUS RE:CODED
Virus was completely recoded and boasts many improvements.
Most notably, shooting an infected plays audible “hit” feedback and displays the damage on your screen. The infected also make growling noises when hit (they don’t like it ok).
We also added timers to the HUD so you know how long it takes to reload your gun, or how long your adrenaline will last.
##NEW VIRUS MAP: SUBWAY
A new map by Lifeless.
##NEW BALL RACE MAP: PRISM
A new map by Mike.
##ENGINE UPDATE: UNREAL 4.15
In this update, we’ve migrated to the latest Unreal Engine 4 version. This migration allowed us to benefit from decreased load times and improve memory pool usage for streaming textures.
We’ve tested with different machine configurations and saw improvements to FPS and decreased load times (especially for those with SSDs).
##VOICE CHAT ISSUES RESOLVED
We found many issues with voice, especially when players respawn in Lobby.
We have recoded the voice system from the ground up and fixed these issues. Voice chat will now be more reliable!
Major Changes
- Recoded voice chat to be more reliable
- Rewrote traces to be a lot more reliable. Fixes a lot of strange issues for being unable to use items from certain angles. Traces would break more noticeably when crouching
- Completely rewrote weapons
General Changes
- You can now switch weapons in Plaza/Condo by pressing the corresponding number keys on the hot bar
- Crouch now smoothly transitions instead of snaps
- Sped up Lobby player walk/run speeds a little
- Player name tags no longer scale based on player distance (you can read player name tags even if the player is far away)
- You can now drop held condo items such as the basketball (instead of only being able to throw said items) with right mouse button
- Milk carton player model now holds weapons like confetti and bubble gun properly
Plaza: New Rocks
Plaza: Updated Rollercoaster Area
Lots of Optimizations
- Improved loading times
- Improved texture streaming VRAM usage and potentially CPU usage (could help FPS)
- Optimized networking on certain Plaza things
- Plaza: Reduced texture memory footprint
- Optimized content size of the game (~ 9GB less)
UI/Misc Changes
- Added new menu sound effects and added more sound feedback for UI elements
- Moved the friend drop down menu to the left for better access
- Key notification elements now use icons for mouse inputs instead of “Left Mouse Button”
Virus Changes
- Virus is no longer tagged as beta
- Rewrote all the weapons
- Improved weapon selection menu
- Added damage hit notes (shows how much damage you dealt)
- You can now decapitate infected
- Added hit sounds for better feedback
- Added adrenaline timer while using the adrenaline so you know exactly when it’ll stop functioning
- Increased hitbox size of infected
- Added reload progress circles (so you can see exactly when your weapon is ready to shoot again)
- Plasma autorifle has been changed. Now has ammo like the regular autorifle, but comes with a secondary charging beam blast
Minigolf Changes
- Added a block on Cove hole 17 to prevent players from getting stuck on the moving hole
Weapon Changes
- Added weapon state 3rd person animations for firing and reloading (you can now see when other players are reloading!)
- Weapon holding animations now apply while you jump, crouch, or sit
- Improved weapon bullet hit effects (bullets react to different surface types like metal or sand)
- Bullets now have different decals and hit effects based on the material it hit (aka different effects for shooting at sand, metal, plaster, etc.)
Bug Fixes
- Minigolf: Fixed major bug where sometimes the camera would get stuck inside the ball
- Minigolf: Fixed a bug where the camera would not reset back to the ball if the camera was overridden by a special scenario (like cannons or the water wheel in Waterhole)
- Little Crusaders - Toy Room: Fixed getting stuck in certain areas of the map
- Fixed jump crouching not doing the crouch animation while you are in air (it never looked like you were actually crouching while in air, now it does)
- Fixed weapon holding animations not applying while you jump, crouch, or sit
- Fixed voice chat not working while and after being ragdolled in Lobby
- Fixed third person camera showing the inside of the player’s head while switching camera modes in Lobby
- Fixed inventory icons looking really blurry on certain resolutions
- Fixed weather particles disappearing after suicide as a client, which also fixes the fatal error when attempting to re-enable the weather particles in the settings
- Fixed a bug with confetti effects being different when switching between first person and third person
- Fixed camera rotation being wrong while inside a sideways/upside down seat
- Fixed a bug where the Condo host could never see players actually sit down properly
- Fixed a bug where if you sit in a seat while crouched you will appear higher above the seat
- Fixed “click to view profile” tooltip not closing when the chat box closes
- Fixed weapon bullet decals not drawing
- Fixed not being able to have multiple weapons equipped and switch between them in Lobby
- Fixed a bug where weapon shadows would draw even if the weapons were not equipped (shadow would look like you are holding many weapons)
- Fixed a bug with weapon aiming up and down, the left arm would desync and clip through the weapon held (most noticeable with double barrel)
- Fixed weapon aiming animations poses not lining up properly with where the player is aiming at
- Lobby and Virus: Fixed ragdoll camera not colliding with walls
- Virus: Fixed infected player movement animations having a hobble when turning
- Virus: Fixed the infected health bar not showing up
- Virus: Fixed a bug where the infected player model would sometimes not be set
- Virus: Fixed player name tags not showing up or not following players
- Virus: Fixed infected running animations having weird issues when turning
- Virus: Fixed weapons appearing out of the hands of players
- Virus: Fixed a bug with weapon shadows showing all the weapons in the shadows
- Virus: Fixed a bug where sometimes you would see players holding all their weapons at once
- Virus: Fixed countdown sounds being too loud (and not being part of the sound effects volume group)
- Virus: Fixed flashlight beams being absolutely distracting (disabled them)
- Virus: Fixed many bullet trace issues in Hospital
- Virus: Fixed TNT left over from infected survivors not being removed properly
- Virus: Fixed an issue where you could not shoot through survivors
- Virus: Fixed a HUD issue where the full ammo of the Tommy Gun would not display (it would only display 2 digits instead of 3 digits)
- Virus: Fixed a bug where you could hear weapon selection sounds while infected even though you have no weapons
##ADDENDUM: ABOUT THE WEAPON ANIMATIONS
As stated above, we’re still working on the weapon animations for Virus. As of this update:
- The 9MM model was completely replaced by a new handgun in this update. We have decided to use a different overall design for the gun. The new handgun has first pass animations for equipping, firing, and reloading. The animation for the new handgun is the standard for the rest of the Virus weapons, including with it a new hand model that will be replacing the old hand models
- The Flak Hand Cannon has first pass animations for firing and reloading
- The Double Barrel has first pass animations for firing and reloading
- The Silencer uses the same animations as the handgun
- Adrenaline has basic first pass animations for injecting
- The Confetti Gun has basic first pass animations for firing
These weapons do not have any animations yet:
- Autorifle
- Plasma Autorifle
- Tommy Gun
- TNT
- Sonic Shotgun
- Sci-fi Handgun (currently uses some of the handgun animations)
- Also, the sound for weapons (reloading, deploy, etc.) is virtually non-existent as Will is waiting for the animation work to be finished before foley work can be done on them.
##UPCOMING UPDATES
You can follow our current developments on our Trello:
https://trello.com/b/6BwRMiPw/tower-unite-roadmap
You can report bugs on our forums:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/c/bug-report
Or you may also report bugs on our Steam community, but please expect slower response time.
