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I’ve gotten a lot of feedback about the mod so far, and predictably some of it is good and bad. Personally, I’m not quite satisfied with the final product, however being that this is a community project, a release now is probably for the best as it will give many people an opportunity to get involved with the project as we work out some of the issues.

Much of the feedback I’ve gotten has been related to gameplay specific values that still require some tuning. This means that a lot of these values can be changed quickly and we’ll be able to release a patch that addresses the common issues so far. This is a list of prospective changes for v1.1:

• Adjustment in Fall Damage System
• Default Energy Recharge rate will be changed from 9, to 11
• Slight reduction in Air Friction
• Projectiles will inherit motion in all directions
• Increase in spread on gatling gun
• Slight increase in the size of projectile hitboxes
• Increase in throwing distance of the flag
• Increase in the size of Ion Rifle splash graphic
• Reduction in the Ion Rifle splash damage radius
• Projectiles will feature intersecting image plane tracers to improve visibility

The fall damage system is going to be changed because the current system lacks a sensitivity. It’s either far too harsh, or far too forgiving. What’s also problematic is that if you have quite a bit of health, it doesn’t matter how hard you hit the ground, you’ll still survive. Right now there are only 3 levels of fall damage, and two of them deal damage. The proposed change involves expanding that to 8 levels of fall damage, with the majority of the values at the lower thresholds dealing out far less punishing damage.

The energy recharge rate was a bit of a tricky one, but we’ve decided to change the value all the way to 11. Part of the reason why it was kept so low is because I’ve played the two maps so many times that I know how to navigate and manage my energy correctly so I never really end up short. Enough people have asked for this to change, so it will get changed to 11. Keep in mind though that this is a value that can be set on the server. If you end up playing next week and find yourself having more energy than you used to, it’s likely the value was changed by the server.

There’s also going to be another slight reduction in air friction. This value allows you to accelerate from a standstill a little bit better, and it should remove a little bit of the sluggish feeling that new players might experience.

Projectiles are going to get a little bit of work as well. The size of the hitboxes are going to be increased slightly as some people are finding it difficult to hit people flying in the air. Probably the biggest change is going to be the visibility of the tracer which should give people a better read on exactly where their bullets are going. Right now they’re line sprites which like to snap to the best visible tangent. In some scenarios they really don’t display as well as they should, so changing them to actual models with intersecting planes will ensure that tracers for bullets will be seen from any angle. Additionally projectiles will inherit motion in any direction. Right now it adds velocity to the players view direction, but this will be corrected to ensure that any type of motion by the player is transferred to the projectile.

Lastly the throw distance of the flag is going to be improved, but direct teammate to teammate passing isn’t likely going to be a viable option until a new physics class is built for these types of entities.

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Thats about it for now, we’ll begin work on some of these changes shortly and we’ll be sure to announce when a new patch is available. If you still have any suggestions outside of what has already been proposed please feel free to comment on the forums:  http://www.twars.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5