G’day Forts fans!
This regular update brings three new maps, and a raft of improvements and fixes. The new maps are courtesy of the recent Forts Map Making Contest III. Pyro’s map Battlegrounds 1v1 has been included in the first ranked season map rotation. The map rotation reduces the map count to 6, and is shuffled each season, to give each a more distinct flavour.
The maps for Season 15 are:
- Balls
- Ledge Grab
- Moorings
- Stalactites 1v1
- Desert Ruins
- Battlegrounds 1v1
Winner: ‘Battlegrounds 1v1’ by Pyro
Runner-up: ‘Elephants’ by Mech70
Runner-up: ‘Crevice’ by Cronkhinator
The headline improvement may be the new categories for the key binding menu, making it easier to find the key you’re looking for and discovering functionality. In ranked, the same map will not be selected twice in a row during the same lobby. In addition, to save time you no longer have to wait for all historic seasons to be discovered before starting a ranked game.
Device population caps are now enforced; excess devices are automatically scrapped. This is not so important for tech buildings, but modded weapons will see the benefit. It allows authors to place strict limits on the number of their devices.
Another improvement for mod authors is that weapons can now have a fire delay, a zero round period, as well as multiple rounds per burst. This will provide some new possibilities. In addition, a new ‘FireRetriggerEffect’ weapon parameter will allow more visual and audio customisation.
There are a bunch of important desync and crash fixes, plain bug fixes, and a few minor balance changes. See the full change list below. We invite you to provide feedback here or via the Official Forts Discord, and look forward to the next one.
Cheers,
EWG
Changelist 2021-12-03
Add: map making contest 3 winners to built-in map list: Battlegrounds 1v1, Crevice and Elephants
Add: Battlegrounds 1v1 to new ranked season rotation
Add: secondary fire effect FireRetriggerEffect for when spawning delayed projectiles (defaults to FireEffect)
Add: translations of Training Ground environment name
Add: ‘Community Manager’ to the credits
Add: disable mods for Moonshot weapons (Buzzsaw, Smoke Bomb, Howitzer, Magnabeam)
Add: ‘Full’ to the map field to full lobbies to clarify state
Add: ‘Open’ to the map field to open lobbies to clarify state
Add: ‘language’ and ‘keyboard’ headings to options screen
Balance: (Swarm) decrease impact force from 150,000 to 75,000 (-50%)
Balance: (Warhead) decrease impact force from 150,000 to 120,000 (-20%)
Balance: (Warhead) decrease splash max force from 100000 to 80000 (-20%)
Balance: (Howitzer) increase impact force from 20,000 to 100,000 (+400%)
Balance: (Howitzer) increase splash max force from 10000 to 80000 (+700%)
Balance: trigger target painted effect for local side and observers for weapons that require spotters
Improve: (options screen) add categories to key bindings
Improve: (ranked) don’t wait for all seasons to be found to allow start
Improve: (ranked) don’t select the same map twice in a row
Improve: (ranked) start map season rotation – 6 per season
Improve: layout of Options -> Game tab to prevent overlap of Russian text
Improve: translation of all modified strings
Improve: weapon aiming keys can be used in multiplayer
Improve: made target painted effect not attenuated by distance
Improve: no video hardware detected message links to custom Steam guide
Improve: workshop error messaging for error code 3 (No/failed network connection)
Improve: add ‘mActivated’ node flag to projectiles checksum
Improve: re-organise credits screen for consistency, removed unimportant credits (QA & localisation)
Improve: (Chinese) suggestions by Rothes
Improve: (Russian) suggestions by Wellory
Improve: (Smoke Bomb) ProjectileAngle script function can handle different RoundsEachBurst values
Improve: (Pillars) increased vertical world extents in both directions
Improve: (Pillars) lowered wind/view floor between the pillars
Fix: (desync) if playing client drops out and reconnects before host times them out other clients get out of sync
Fix: (desync) when previewing a weapon which has a Null state for a MuzzleFlash sprite (thanks Mech70)
Fix: (desync) reflected projectiles and returned-to-sender missiles change their owner, but not their projectile parameters
Fix: crash when triple deleting a node with an attached rope
Fix: crash when beams are reflected by terrain
Fix: crash in Leaderboard::Log when connecting to full ranked lobby
Fix: crash when % characters are passed to the Log script function
Fix: (ranked) commanders can be disabled
Fix: devices can’t be placed on the edge of team specific hazard blocks
Fix: devices surplus to pop cap are not deleted on connection
Fix: population caps don’t apply to inverted weapons
Fix: if you replace a strut while a repair station is repairing it the conversion doesn’t complete
Fix: repair stations will repair damaged portals in warm up, and making them appear to turn on
Fix: rotation break at a node always removes any temporary braced nodes
Fix: weapons won’t fire if FireDelay is > 0, RoundsEachBurst > 1 and RoundPeriod == 0
Fix: FireEndEffect is not set to ignore hidden like other firing effects
Fix: increase/decrease weapon power buttons don’t update previous shot position
Fix: weapon aiming keys don’t apply to the entire selected group
Fix: looping projectile fly (trail) sounds
Fix: inconsistent attenuation on target painted between swarms and warheads
Fix: materials that do not have their prerequisites satisfied don’t show a lock icon
Fix: adjustment of laser sights on weapons without them still creates a sound effect
Fix: inverted devices don’t have their sprite reset to Normal state during placement like regular devices are
Fix: some nodes don’t break cleanly, causing issues for rebuilding by the AI and player
Fix: messages shown on the main menu are obscured by DLC and Discord button
Fix: main menu message showing that video hardware was not detected is not triggered
Fix: (Buster) DU rounds can impact devices more than once
Fix: (Eagle Eye) RoundsPerBurst differences of mg and minigun is not in description
Fix: (Armourdillo active, AP Sniper) there is no muzzle flash effect
Fix: (Scattershot) name of Smoke Bomb is incorrect
Fix: (Scattershot) Smoke Bomb is not mentioned as an exclusion for the 2 extra rounds
Fix: (Scattershot) Buzzsaw’s increased build cost is not mentioned
Fix: (Scattershot) translations for new description line missing
Fix: (Phantom) moving a device counts it twice against the pop cap, which can prevent you building another
Fix: (Sever and Seize) incorrect ground texture on block under first derrick
Fix: (Dingo Breeder) obsolete field generator surfaces on middle islands
Fix: (Potholing) buildable terrain at the first portal
Fix: (Arms Race) the enemy cannon platform is not connected to the ground
Fix: (Pillars) a foundation node is not aligned to the terrain corner and can’t be consistently built to
Fix: (Pillars) Team 1 terrain below lowest mine position prevents construction of 2 mines without exposure
Fix: (Reactor) bounding rectangle is not symmetrical
Remove: obsolete commander tool tip strings
Remove: client database dump to console from replay to remove clutter
Remove: full local prefixes for map paths in replays
Changelist 2021-12-14 (hotfix)
Add: script function GetMapFilename
Fix: pop cap enforcement can apply incorrectly when connecting to a node which breaks
Fix: pop cap enforcement can apply incorrectly to structures connected via non-conductive materials (e.g. rope)
Fix: crash when a device type found in the map is removed by a mod, switched between platform and ground, or device and weapon
Fix: structure break can reset EMP disable period of doors and portals
Fix: (blast doors) missing opening sound
Fix: (expanded HUD) lock icon missing for materials
Fix: (Hurricane) machinegun, sniper and warhead are missing fast reload icons
Fix: (Howitzer) projectiles can be reflected
Fix: (Crevice) previews are out of date
