Internal Playtest – Lobby Fixes, Server Stability, Twitch.tv Controls, New Turret Models – 3/11

http://www.twitch.tv/metabolical/b/510251475

http://www.twitch.tv/uber_garat/c/3868783

• Lobby improvements. More control over the lobby.
• Lots of spectator features are coming.
• Right now Uber is more focused on ironing out some of the new implamentations rather than adding new features – which is a good thing.
• Light instancing is coming – which is going to drastically improve performance – particularly for spectators.
• As a spectator, clicking on a player’s name will (likely) snap to the Commander
• Sorian is going to be taking a break from the AI to work on spectating features
• Lots of performance improvements coming.
• Network improvements coming soon.
• Sinking wreckage will be added, which is going to greatly improve naval gameplay on several levels.
• Server stability, server stability improvements are always excellent to see.
• The developers noticed various bugs, like some targeting issues with turrets. So hopefully those’ll get fixed soon.
• When you zoom out all of the unit icons go away on the planet except for some select important things, like Commanders and orbital launchers.
• Improvements have been made to the Twitch.tv integration and controls.
• Chat is temporarily broken, so that’ll need to be fixed before ship.
• Spectators are going to have their own chat channels.
• They’re going to work on a way to increase the video delay for spectators/streamers so people can’t cheat by watching a stream to see what the opponent’s are doing.
• The player list and system drop down stays down if desired.
• The AI REALLY likes Nukes – though we already knew that. Thankfully, the AI is still not the greatest at choosing nuke targets. But that’ll be improved soon
• New models for all of the Laser Defense Towers. Not a big change, but I think they look a lot cooler.
  
  
  
  If anyone has better screen grabs of the new models, please let me know so I can update them.
• New Nuke Launch animation
  
• The AI builds Halleys now. Is that new? I haven’t see that before.
• The Sun has been removed from the system drop down menu.

Love sever stability upgrades. Thank you uber , for trying to fix some of my problems, as I hated being disconnected in the middle of my games. Also some of the most used things in the game, nukes and turrets look even more bad-bottom if you know what I mean lol ;-)

More pictures of turrets plz plz plz. Lots of people hate turrets right now because OP (against t1), but those new ones look awesome more more more.

Looks like lots of the old models are being "redone" to match the more detailed new(er) units like gunships. This makes me happy.

Wow, those new turrets look really nice.
Also the AI building halleys isn't new.

Updated to include links to the streams. Also added in recaps of the opening 15 minutes that I missed.

Here's a repaste of the early part.

• Lobby improvements. More control over the lobby.
• Lots of spectator features are coming.
• Right now Uber is more focused on ironing out some of the new implamentations rather than adding new features – which is a good thing.
• Light instancing is coming – which is going to drastically improve performance – particularly for spectators.
• As a spectator, clicking on a player’s name will (likely) snap to the Commander
• Sorian is going to be taking a break from the AI to work on spectating features
• Lots of performance improvements coming.
• Network improvements coming soon.
• Sinking wreckage will be added, which is going to greatly improve naval gameplay on several levels.

The new turret models look a lot nicer, hopefully the patch will come with a nerf for them. Also the AI does build Halleys, but as far as I can tell, they don't like using them.

Also, hooray for sinking wrecks! Naval will now be million times better.

Yeah. I can't wait for sinking wrecks. Gonna make gameplay look cooler and naval battles be much better. It'll also mean there's more wrecks to reclaim.

Nice turrets, definitely look better.

Btw; the nuke launch effect is already in the live build, it was added last update.

Hmm. Missed that. Either way, I like it.

AI was building Halley's against me the other night. Never gave him the chance to use them though....

There was a thread yesterday on the ai derping and smashing the planet that it sent its com to after it sent its com there.

...

Huh?

AI can already build Halleys in the live build so that's nothing new.

I'm just glad the AI doesn't seem to know how to annihilate planets yet. Had the req set on a moon and it was ready to go. AI could have ended my friend and I while we were duking it out on the planet below.

New turret models? *fap fap fap*

They look really cool, however they look VERY similar. The only difference is that they have less or more turrets..but they do indeed look cooler.

I may finally be able to find my orbital units without selecting everything in view.

Twitch is down so I want to clarify something...

Do you talking about icons only (it's "Show Terrestrial" option) or unit models/effects too?

Actually @sorian confirmed it many builds ago, but I guess there just not enough planet usually so AI decide not build them.

Brian, you should get some sleep. We are not forcing you to stay up all night you know.

The AI built halley on a planet needing 5 halleys to move (and it was the starting planet). It wasted so much metal there so i crushed it in the end.

God lets hope not. Planets which are occupied with lots of buildings look so awesome from a distance.

Lovely!