09 Mar 2011

New Features

Landgrab Battles are Back!

Once again it is possible to gather your society and fight for the control of a land area. These battles will be more frequent than before, and also have a new twist.

Each land area that can be taken over by a society has a fort on it. If the area is managed by a society when a battle is started, they can try to defend the fort for a given time period. If successful, they will keep the land area for another management period (around a week).

However, if the attackers manage to destroy the fort's main control room, the Land Area Marker is unlocked. Any society can then claim (Operate) this marker and try to defend it with their lives. They need to keep at least one society member alive within a 30-meter range of the marker until the given time period expires. The society that achieves this wins the battle and can manage the land area until the next Landgrab battle.

For info about upcoming Landgrab battles check the Landgrab tab in the Event List (under System in the action menu).
Fort Event Battles

Now it is possible to fight between Forts in the Ticket Event system with the new Most Fort Points Win rule.

If two forts are located within an event area it is possible to start Fort Events. Join one of the forces and wait for the event to start.

May the best force win!

Basic Battle Rules

When the event starts you will automatically be placed in the fort that your force needs to defend. Take part in the offensive actions and attack the other fort or stay and defend your home fort. You can spawn vehicles, mount the Fort Defense Turrets or be part of the infantry - all in the interest of winning this battle.

Use the Force chat channel to communicate strategies and tactics within your force.

Follow the objectives and try to get deep inside the enemy fort. There you will find important objectives to destroy. If you destroy the Main Control Room of the enemy fort, the current battle round is won and a new round of fort battle will begin.

During Fort Events, ammo burn is 10% of the ammo burn at regular usage and deterioration is also 10% of its normal value. Such low deterioration value is valid for weapons (including attack/strike MindForce chips), FAPs (including healing MindForce), armor, vehicles, repair kits, MindForce speed/slow and focus chips.
Friend or Foe

Units are color-marked to easily see who is in your force and who is in the enemy force. Red units are enemies and should be attacked, while green or yellow units are friendly and should be defended, healed or repaired. These colors are used on objectives, your targets, status bars and on the radar.
Force Points

Your force gathers Force Points by destroying parts of the enemy fort, taking out enemy vehicles and killing enemy avatars. Depending on the importance of the destroyed objects or the SI of the destroyed vehicles, your force will receive different amounts of Force Points.

You can also gain Force Points by repairing destroyed fort parts (those that can be repaired), such as destroyed Defense Turrets.

Participant Points

You receive Participant Points by damaging enemy structures, vehicles and avatars, healing friendly avatars and repairing friendly vehicles and structures.
Winning

The fort battle is won by the force that has received the most Force Points when the defined event time expires.

Reward

1. Force reward: If your force wins, all members of your force will share the PED value of the accumulated ammo and deterioration used by BOTH forces during the battle. The winnings will be divided among the force members depending on how much Participant Points each participant have gathered.
2. Individual reward: The event rules can be set to award the top three participants in the winning force.

Radar and Dashboard

•   Radar UI and Dashboard UI are decoupled now and can be placed anywhere on the screen.
•   Radar UI can be resized.
•   Added icons to the Radar UI. The icons present details of the area you are currently at. Area properties you can view are if the area is a PVP zone, is toxic, and allows vehicles or you to enter. These icons can be viewed in three levels (colors): green, yellow or red.
• For pvp/toxic: green means the current area is pvp/toxic free, yellow means you are close to a pvp/toxic area and red means you are currently in a pvp/toxic area.
• For you/vehicles: green means that you/vehicles are allowed in current area, yellow means you are close to area that does not allow you/vehicles, red means that you/vehicles are not allowed in current area.

Creatures

• Terrain alignment for dead characters.

Improvements and Fixed Issues

Vehicles

• Reduced texture memory consumption.
• Smoother loading of multiple vehicles.
• Increased degree of freedom to the VTOL pilot weapon.
• Tank treads now correspond better to the wheels.
• The tank (Megingjord), the helicopter (Gungnir) and the combat boat (Naglfar) is now customizable.

Sounds

• Sound improved for all vehicles.
• Alert PVP sound changed.
• More sounds included for different terrains when walking and jumping.

Ticket Events

• Participating avatars will revive inside the event area when the event is active, if it contains a valid revival point.
• Non-participating avatars cannot enter active event areas (not by foot, driving, teleporting, mindforce teleporting or through revive). 
• Non-participating avatars will get a warning on the radar when close to an active event.
• Non-participating avatars will be moved to closest revival point outside the area if logging in inside an active event.
• Fixed issue where Max vehicle SI was set to 100 instead of 1000 if no alterations was made in the Create UI.

Miscellaneous

• In the Inventory, when dropping items at the bottom of the grid, the grid is automatically expanded again.
• Avatars will revive within the current land area (green in map) or ticket area (white in map). If the area do not have a valid revive point the closest one will be selected, as before.
• Fixed issue since 11.6 where desktop icons and chat was incorrectly repositioned if you logged in with a different resolution than you logged out with.
• Tools and weapons placed in the world now show their attachments.
• The top section on the Tron Column Display can be used again.
• It is no longer possible to walk right through kitchen furniture.
• Issue with not being able to place items on pedestals has been fixed.
• The white "screen door" graphics glitch in Service Centers has been fixed.
• The HD resolution, 720p, or 1280x720 is now selectable in Options. Only applicable if Windows reports it as a screen resolution.