December update live on steam

SEASONS GREETINGS EVERYONE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2-BrRlUBi8

Thanks for your patience, things are really starting to come together now and it would be good for you to take a look at how the game is coming along.

STEAM LINK: http://store.steampowered.com/app/389670/ The following notes concern Steam Early Access Build no.0.5.364 (20161221):

NEW TRACK - Midtown. A new intro track that represents a new quality benchmark for the game.

Note: You will start to see tweaks and changes to the existing 4 tracks in the new year to balance the quality.

NEW FEATURES - replays - craft and weapon upgrade slot/card system in the garage - audio alerts - haptic feedback added - toggle on/off - motion blur added on max speed - toggle on/off - chase cam added

IMPROVED FEATURES

- physics and handling
- new offensive and defensive weapon options
- head up display
- shield has now been split to Shield and Health
- cockpit cam
- tail cam
- craft audio
- shield pickup now purple
- AI

IN MORE DETAIL:

THE GARAGE The Garage has huge changes namely the first outing for our card/slot based upgrade system.

WIP / PLACEHOLDER - Please remember this is EARLY ACCESS. The mechanic and UI are wip / placeholder and not fully implemented but we wanted to let you see it now. With the greatest of respect please don’t tell us the UI sucks. We know it does. It is purely functional right now and we are going to work with tDR to bring it up to the level of quality you would expect. For now please just play with it and HAVE FUN.

BALANCING – There are some obvious balancing issues with the card and craft systems but we have started to focus on this area. You will eventually need to pay for the cards with "Tech Credits” but right now they're free. For now please jump in and experiment with the various load outs.

Although it’s briefly explained in the on screen text, we’ll assume you’re like us and haven’t read it ;-) here’s what’s going on with the Card Upgrade system:

You have 7 slots on your craft and each can accept Behaviour Cards:

Engine: 1 card
Handling: 1 card
Braking: 1 card
Anti-Gravity: 1 card
Defence: 1 card
Defensive Weapons: 1 card
Offensive Weapon: 5 cards

Choose one Behaviour card for each Slot (or 5 in the case of your Offensive Weapon), and then save your LoadOut. You can save as many LoadOuts as you want.

Go to Custom Race and choose your craft and pre-saved LoadOut. Then continue to choose your race track. The only areas needing any huge explanation for now:-

OFFENSIVE WEAPONS: As you hit the button marked "Offensive Weapons” you’ll see you have a choice of 3 weapons:

- Energy Bolt
- Gauss Cannon
- Mine

Choose one of these. "Might I suggest that sir tries the Energy Bolt first" Then choose up to 5 behaviours for that weapon:

- Ricochet = how many times your missiles will bounce of the walls
- Spread = multiplies the number of missiles which are released at the same time
- Cluster = a number of smaller bombs are released on detonation
- Proximity = increases the range at which your weapon will detonate (and have an effect)
- Ammo Multiplier = gives you twice the number of missiles
- Area of Effect = aka blast radius
- Armor Penetration = self explanatory ;-) Constant
- Damage = slightly damages everything in its path within a radius - short lifespan
- Fire Rate = self explanatory ;-)
- Attract = pulls craft and other projectiles towards it disrupting racing lines or detonating
- Damage = increases the amount of damage a weapon will do
- Impulse = the force of the blast increases
- Leech = a portion of the damage dealt is transferred to the shooter as Shield Health.
- Tether = wip (no vfx yet) takes health from victim and adds to the shooters Shield
- Sticky = missiles (not Gauss Cannon) will attach it to target and detonate 1 second later
- Lifetime = increases lifetime of Energy Bolt or Mine Projectile
- Speed = increases the speed of any missiles
- Guidance = hmmm…oh yes…this is the one you want ;-)

DEFENSIVE WEAPONS

Unlike their Offensive brothers these are INDIVIDUAL WEAPONS and craft upgrades which are not affected by Behaviour modifying Cards. here’s a quick explanation of them:

- Cloak = wip but the opponents can’t see you (you see your craft as a sort of Predator effect)
- Upsurge = when charged you can activate a mini BOOST
- Tank = increases hull strength
- Flashbang = errrr….flashbang, wallop Energy
- Leach = wip (no vfx yet) needs to be touching other craft Flares = fired from rear of craft to counter guided weaponry
- Shockwave = short range "Gravity Wave” which violently shoves other craft and projectiles

REPLAYS

This is very much a WIP feature. Some things to know about it:
- there are 20 slots available
- a replay happens when you’ve completed a race or 1 lap Time Replay
- once you’ve selected your race it will start in Cinematic mode
- you can select any pilot’s POV, switching between Chase, Tail
- exit via Escape key only

KNOWN BUGS - Weapons exist in multiplayer in the pure race. They need removing.

Note: We will attempt to push out an update out before we break for Xmas on Friday 23rd to fix any major bugs that may crop up through expanded play testing.

TUTORIAL - the Tutorial is gone for now. We’re working on a real one which will come out later.

KERS - is now referred to as “Boost” - its function is the same as in the earlier build: - build up BOOST points by piloting without hitting anything - lose BOOST points on collisions with anything - use BOOST points for a big speed surge

WARNING VOICES - WIP - you can turn them off or down in Options/UI Voices level

MULTIPLAYER WIP - due to some tests we’ve been doing we’ve had to bring you a Multiplayer without weapons - you should see some changes to the smoothness but overall it is very much still WIP

MUSIC WIP -All music in the game is placeholder. We are working with music artists right now to confirm the line up.

I've just been having a quick play with it, and the reason for the wide tracks is starting to make a bit more sense now I tried the new Midtown track on all three speed classes [ If you thought the previous tracks were wide, wait till you see Midtown - It was my favorite of the Red Route tracks, Glad to see it make it through :) ]

The current default handling [without changing anything in Garage ] reminded me very much like I was racing around in Icuras in WO3, where you point the crafts nose in the general direction you want to go, and do most of the steering by swinging the crafts rear around, the faster you can get your crafts speed up to, the more this effect comes into play.

The new Kers or Boost as it's now called has a quirk to it, if used on a straight bit of track, it seems to last a very long time, well as long as it takes before you have to steer for the next corner [ could of done with a boost like that for tracks like Moa Therma ]

I've yet to try anything in Garage yet with the card system, as the initial explanation on how it works only showed up the first time I opened it, and not again after I had closed it and reopened again, so I had to come back here and read the post above on it's workings.

The warning voices aren't annoying, well not yet anyway, but truth be told, I'm having a hard time understanding what they are telling me anyway, a bit too robotic to be easily understood IMHO.

I like what has been done with the pick up/ speed pads, they don't seem as intrusive as previous builds, but still relatively easy to see, Mannahatta being the exception because of everything else that is going on visually with that track.
[I've had a sort of glitch on Mannahatta a few times now where the rain effect has appeared as double or triple the amount of rain, like a monsoon.....it's fixed each time by quitting to menu and restarting the race]

Anyway, plenty to play around with.

I just uploaded a video of the new Midtown track, check it out, reminds me a bit of 2048 now it's in it's fully rendered form.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yejBAZnGVc

EDIT: I've just been having a good look at the available upgrades to craft stats and weapon use and effect.....OMG!:eek you guys are not going to believe just how much tweaking you are going to be able to do in GARAGE, the list is huge [I'll try to get around to post a list of all that is available, but it will have to wait until tomorrow at the earliest , as it's going to take an age just to type it all out ].
Now this is all on paper ATM, as it's so early into this build I haven't had time to test them out, so ATM I don't know just how much of a change will be perceptible with handling.
There is so much to choose from, you are really going to have to plan out your craft builds to get the best out of them [this will need it's own forum section for sure ] .....think of the amount of handling changes you can do to a car in Grand Turismo, roughly the same......thank God I've got the next 2 weeks off.

looks really better now!