V2.2

V2.2 Update Features Features Replays- Watch a replay of your game, or go into the leaderboards and watch games from the top players. Modding Support- We have added the ability to mod game files, add maps and scenarios and enable and disable mods for your game. For all the details checkout the Modders Guide. New Maps- 3 new large maps added to support lots of players. Manannan- A 12 player Terran map which is great for free for all games. Brighid- An 8 player Arctic map that is ideal for 4 teams of 2 players each. Aenghus- A 10 player Desert map that is great for free for all games. Issue Orders to Multiple Factories- Selecting multiple factories will allow you to give the same order to all of them. If you select 3 factories and queue up a Brute all three will begin producing a Brute. If you hold the Ctrl key it will issue those requests out one at a time (ie: queuing a Brute will have the first factory begin queuing a Brute). Period key now selects an idle engineer (just like the F1 key does). Radioactive and Metal desposits without mines now show as grey in strategic view to make it easier to see which one's haven't been upgraded yet. Bug Fixes Fixed an issue that was causing all players rank to show up as 10 on the custom lobby screen. Various Crash fixes. Fixed an issue where the Air Rampager's weapon would miss the majority of the time Fixed Terrain Intersection bug that sometimes prevented high weapons from targeting low targets. Fixed an issue where the map, Pinwheel, had a black stripe running through it. UI & Tooltip Improvements There are various changes to the UI Panel and tooltips primarily aimed at making the game more intuitive and accessible for new players. Some of these changes will take a bit of getting used to for experienced players. Chat Panel In-game chat panel moved from the centre of the screen to the left to avoid getting in the way of the player and obscuring their vision. Renamed Orbital Abilities Kill renamed to Nanite Assassination Detonate renamed to Antimatter Detonation The old names are incredibly bland, this makes them sound more appealing and also suggests the role of the ability. Amplify renamed to Optimize This is to avoid confusion with the similarly named Amplifier structure. “You have built an Amplifier but you haven’t Amplified the point” Avatar renamed to Call Avatar, Probing Force renamed to Call Sentry Incursion renamed to Deploy Incursion. These new names are a matter of consistency and allow new players to instantly identify what these abilities do. Avatar is an ambiguous name, but Call Avatar is obvious. Every summon ability now has “Call” in front of it (except for Deploy Incursion and Engineer Drop) Grid Locations The grid layout of units and Orbital buildings has been rearranged in order to: Make equivalent units between the two factions share the same grid location Move most common units to the top For example, Zeus and Avenger share the same tile, likewise for Orbital Fabricator and Gateway. This makes swapping between the factions and memorising the units and counter system easier, as well as finding the more common units and using hotkeys for them. Not everything can be aligned perfectly as some units are unique to that faction. New Unit Panel Renamed Building Panel Resources renamed to to Economy Economy structures sounds better grammatically and is a more recognisable RTS term. Orbitals renamed to Technology A new player is going to have no idea what Orbitals means, whereas Technology (Tech) is a general RTS term which players will identify. Technology also more accurately describes the purpose of these buildings as they unlock new units as well as the orbital abilities. Naming them Orbital buildings was probably done before they unlocked new units. This also avoids the term “Orbitals” conflating the abilities and the structures. New Building Panel Tooltips Fixed an error where Orbital Command said it was unlocking Nano-Transport which is now a substrate ability. Included in Gateways description that it unlocks Call Saboteur orbital ability Improved the wording in various Orbital ability tooltips. Fixed inconsistent grammar or style in the tooltips. Previously Orbital ability tooltips had a full stop at the end while most unit tooltips didn’t. Now every tooltip ends with a full stop. Updated several unit tooltips to provide more information. Fixed typos and errors in various tooltips Text now says "Loading Assets" instead of "Optimizing Turinium" for ease of understanding Weapon Tooltips Now displays the exact amount of armor piercing each weapon provides Removed duplicate displays of information such as Area Weapon Orbital Rearrangement In order to make the grid layout of Orbitals more intuitive and easier to learn for new players, we are making the following adjustments: Group similar types in the same line (Nukes, Summons, single target buffs, AOE abilities) Make orbital layouts more consistent among Substrate and PHC Order the offensive abilities in their respective lines of cost upwards to identify strength When possible, have the same or equivalent ability on the same tile. Move Orbital Jam to the top so it’s easy to use with hotkeys Move Call Sapper to Support to better reflect the ability and to make the Orbitals look more even between the two teams. (I plan on merging Engineer Drop and Call Sapper) Map Options The maps options were incredibly unintuitive and confusing for new players. We have improved them to be more readable and easier for players to use. Changes made: Renamed the map options to be self explanatory, such as “Metal Income” instead of “Crust Metal” Made the border around the dropdown menu more distinguishable to improve the separation of values in the dropdown menu and what is a different option Renamed “default” to “normal” to not confuse players when an option such as Air Units is not set to default. Rearranged the order of the dropdown selection so that it progresses from lowest to highest. Previously Default was at the top. Balance Aside from obviously making the game more balanced and fair, these pillars served as the goal for this patch. Refine the Counter system to function properly so that units are not countering more than they are supposed to, such as Athena's countering Frigates. Increase strategic diversity so that games feel unique and require players to think on their feet instead of repeating the same things every match. This is mainly done by nerfing units which are overperforming and buffing units which are too weak or overpriced to make them viable. Open up the late game tech: Most matches, even team games, don’t involve players making use of late game tech such as heavy air units, Dreadnaughts and Hera/Eradicator. We want players to make use of these tools and are making them more accessible. Make Substrate less Radioactives intensive: Substrate suffer from having much higher radioactives costs compared to PHC. This makes them underperform on maps low on Radioactives. Weaken exploitative “cheese” strategies such as Artillery Post spam, rushing air units or an Orbital Fabricator to spawn Sentries in your opponent's base. Improve game flow by making base defenses less potent. Make the game more welcoming for newer players Improve scouting to add more emphasis on outmanoeuvring your opponents and countering their strategy Remove Double Capping One of the most significant changes is to Prevent double capping before creeps spawn. In high level games, players are able to capture two points at the start of the game before the creeps spawn by boosting the Nexus with the first Engineer or by calling down an Emergency/Serpentine Turret. This was not intentional, and we view double capping as a frustrating dynamic and we want to remove it for the following reasons: There’s no real decision making behind it, if you don’t double cap you are behind It is an unintuitive hurdle for new players It requires speed and precision. Ashes is supposed to be a game of strategy, not of fast clicks It is easy to stuff up, especially due to lag, and if you do it is very punishing and frustrating It often made North spawns on maps stronger because of the spawn direction of the Engineers It required lots of practice learning which maps you can and can’t double cap on. This isn’t fun. It allowed for frustrating strategies such as air rushing to be too effective and difficult to identify This is being achieved by increasing Engineer build time and delaying some Orbital abilities. to compensate, Engineers will be receiving a cost reduction to allow for a much faster Factory to get into the action. Factions PHC The starting storage of 500 was too punishing compared to Substrate who have unlimited storage, even at a high level it was difficult to avoid wasting resources by maxing out 500 storage. Increasing the starting resources of PHC gives new them a more breathing room where resources are not wasted. Starting storage increased from 500 to 1000 Misc Units Engineers & Constructors The Engineer and Constructor were extremely fragile for their cost of 400. Losing an Engineer in the early game was disastrous and it often happened instantaneously before the player had a chance to respond. This was frustrating, especially for new players, and it also made Dominator and Furies far too potent at harassment, overshadowing the Punisher and Hades. Engineer Health increased from 120 to 350 Build time increased from 26 to 40 Metal cost decreased from 400 to 300 Constructor Shields increased from 100 to 270 Health increased from 30 to 80 Build time Increased from 26 to 40 Metal cost reduced from 380 to 300 Harvester The Harvester is incredibly fragile compared to the PHC Refinery. Not only does it have a pitiful amount of HP, it is also vulnerable to interceptors due to being an air unit. It’s still going to be weaker to compensate for its ability to move between points, but its health will be more fair. Health increased from 30 to 100 Shields increased from 80 to 500 Frigates Frigates would lose relevancy after the first few minutes as they were easily countered by Cruisers. We want Frigates to fill a bigger role in the counter system and be more effective against Cruisers as there are so many other ways to counter them on top of their lack of scaling with upgrades. Hermes The Hermes did not perform enough recon for its cost to provide enough value. We are increasing its recon abilities to make it more desirable. Sight range increased from 600 to 750 Radar range increased from 1000 to 1200 Brute With the nerfs to the Medic, the Brute and Archer need buffs in order for PHC frigates to be viable against Athena/Maulers as well as Reapers. Health increased from 80 to 90 Damage increased from 1 to 2 Archer Build time reduced from 18 to 14 Health increased from 40 to 70 Now has 20% armor piercing Logistics cost increased from 1 to 2 Medic The Medic’s heal rate was too high, large numbers of Medics gave Cruisers and structures too much durability. It is also getting a movement speed reduction to prevent it from automatically running forward in front of other units. Heal rate lowered to 66% of its current value Logistics cost Increase from 1 to 3 Movement speed reduced to that of Brute Martyr The Martyr was too weak compared to other Frigates and didn't fill any purpose compared to the Reaper. The Martyr is now very powerful but lacks the armor piercing and range of the Reaper. Shields increased from 60 to 105 Build time reduced from 23 to 19 Logistics cost reduced from 4 to 2 Damage increased from 4 to 6 Reaper The Reaper had a very high desired attack range which made it kite backwards away from enemy units. This made the Zeus ineffective against Reapers since it would rarely be able to get within range to use its main weapon. This will make the counter system function better. Desired attack range reduced (will no longer kite backwards) Capacitor The Capacitor had a large energy storage, but once it depleted it took too long to regenerate. It also had far too much health which made it exploited as a cheap damage soak. We are Increasing its energy regeneration in exchange for lowering its health to make it perform its intended role as a support unit more reliably. It is also getting a movement speed reduction to prevent it from automatically running forward in front of other units. Energy per second regeneration increased from 1 to 4 Shields reduced from 500 to 300 Movement speed reduced to that of Reaper. Sky Cleanser The Sky Cleanser over performed with too much health and damage, yet it had inconsistent damage due to its low accuracy. It is getting an accuracy increase in exchange for less damage to provide more reliable damage output but also heavily nerfed overall. (Also affects neutral anti-air creeps) Accuracy increased from 66 to 100 Damage reduced from 20 to 10 Shields reduced from 800 to 400 Cruisers