Patch - Mar 9th - buy now!, graphical polish, balance tweaks

[lamster]

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March 9th, 2009

Altitude is now available for purchase from http://altitudegame.com for $19.95 USD. Buy now and you can continue to use all planes and perks when the open beta ends!

New perk icons

Changed explosion effect graphics: added shockwave to show exact radius of effect

Slightly reduced speed of drop-on-death powerups

Explodet
added graphic for "tracking pulse" to indicate mine targeting radius

Bomber
moved grenade fire point from bomb-bay doors to top-front nose to force aiming (rather than overlap-kamikaze) in point blank combat
slightly reduced grenade arc
increased self-damage from point-blank grenades and bombs

Bomber-Red "Smart Bombs"
reduced acceleration and turning rate
smart bombs now stop accelerating and fall when their target becomes untrackable (dead or behind smart bomb)
improved lock-acquired graphic
added lock-acquired sound

Loopy-Red "Acid Bomb"
added sound effect

[skywalker]

Please change the icons for Ultracapacitator and Turbocharger.

Right now Turbo is a battery. Here are what turbochargers look like in real life:

Here is an example of how you can make a turbocharger graphic. I want the turbocharger graphic to be something similar to this.


Right now Ultracap is a lightning bolt. Here are what capacitors look like in real life:

EDIT: removed picture #2 due to massive size.
You should make the capacitor graphic look like that. Maybe the battery from Turbo with 2 wires sticking out would be enough.

I'm not dissing you and I know you probably already know what a turbo and a cap looks like, but I think the icons should be changed this way.

Oh and smart bombs are still easily abused, I got a double kill within 15 seconds of joining a server.

EDIT: Oh and overall the perk icons are VERY nice.

[tmm3k]

that turbocharger looks like a leafblower without the hose

[lamster]

Thanks for the perk icon ideas. We definitely want to hear about which perk icons you don't like, especially if you have ideas for improving them -- our artist can whip up new ones quickly. We will definitely rework some of the perk icons, including those you mentioned.

[Phelanpt]

Just wanted to note that smart bombs tracking is much better, now they are possible to evade. On the other hand, locking is hard as hell, at least for me.
I didn't use them before, though, so i don't know if that makes them different.

Grenades are harder to hit, but not that much hard, so it also seems an improvement.

Explodets' mine knockback and thermobarics make them very hard to deal with, especially in crowded games.

As for the graphics and sounds, I like them!

[DiogenesDog]

Maybe I'm insane, but the smart bombs actually seem UNDERpowered to me. Grenadier is way better imo.

[skywalker]

Originally Posted by tmm3k

that turbocharger looks like a leafblower without the hose

Never thought of it that way.
It makes a lot of sense too.

[Snowsickle]

Originally Posted by DiogenesDog

Maybe I'm insane, but the smart bombs actually seem UNDERpowered to me. Grenadier is way better imo.

They definitely weren't overpowered in a game objective sense. My complaint has been that an unavoidable mechanic that nearly always resulted in death (at least, for slower planes) isn't very fun to deal with, even if it only happens once every minute or so. Previously they seemed to be balanced with the "well its hard to get a lock so they should be powerful" mindset, which works balance-wise in this case but \makes them frustrating and unfun to play against.

[Blank]

Originally Posted by DiogenesDog

Maybe I'm insane, but the smart bombs actually seem UNDERpowered to me. Grenadier is way better imo.

Grenadier was always better, smart bombs were just "better" for the people who suck so bad they couldn't aim either.

[lamster]

Re: bombs being underpowered, I actually haven't had a chance to play with them much; the latest tweaks were mostly to clean up their mechanics (tightened deployment rules, fixed odd chase behaviors, fixed bounce off shield, etc). I'll tweak them some more once I get some more feedback and see them first hand in a few real games.

[Kupac]

Originally Posted by Blank

Grenadier was always better, smart bombs were just "better" for the people who suck so bad they couldn't aim either.

I think smart bombs are just to trick people into thinking that they are better. You still have to aim with the nose for both, maybe just a little less with the smart bombs.

[Triped]

They don't even seem like they're tracking to me.

[protest boy]

The capacitor icon is fine, it's exactly what a capacitor is. Two plates close together with an electric field potential between the two.

[lamster]

haha protest as a physics major I can't help but agree -- though I do think the turbo/ultra icons are a bit annoying to distinguish and tricky to remember (does a battery increase charge rate or increase storage capacity?) etc.

[Animosity]

An engine turbocharger has nothing to do with the game's turbocharger function

[tmm3k]

I think the turbocharger icon should look more like a penis.