[R#198] Changing Gear - Soft Patches to the Rescue

[Zoltan]

[R#198]Changing Gear - Soft Patches to the Rescue

...are you f****** crazy NST?!

Sometimes maybe, yes, but not this time - Let me explain

Bragi's working hard to get his implant and armour changes working - his work is heavily dependant on iteration based on your feedback - this feedback and constructive criticism is essential and always very welcome. A staggering amount has changed with test patches R#198-T#198 to T#208 - several systems got an overhaul, some a complete rewrite, meaning a complete rework of implants, armour, weapons and NPCs is essential. Every layer is dependant on the others which is why this task isn't quite so simple.

We've already covered why this is so drastic again, the unravelling of a new set of modifiers discovered buried in the code.

You may have noticed that Vedeena patches have gone from one every few days to none since R#198-T#208. It's easy to explain this in my case - I have stopped working on the NC source code... because reasons.

Wait! Wait! Don't worry! - it's because of a more important requirement, our tool chain! Some of you may already know that if you want to change things in Neocron you have to do it with tools like Notepad - This is not a joke, we're not kidding! This is how KK made changes in the past and how we have made many change since 2012 - there were no tools available other than Notepad and Excel.

Wow! The 90's called... they wan't their tools back!

In 2013 I started an internal project called "Neocron Suite". The Neocron Suite (NCS) is ONE tool to combine all things we need to develop content and maintain the servers. The NCS is a "work in progress", living piece of software which automatically updates itself with the newest available builds - hot off the press! - and will never be "finished" because it grows with us and our changes to Neocron.

The NCS is plugin based and customizable so everyone on the team with the right coding skills can contribute new plugins. - the newest member of the plugin library is the "Weapon Editor", an essential component to aide rapid, iterative balancing on Vedeena. This new tool in our arsenal is also able to build and deploy the so called "soft patches" - this feature allows us to make changes to the game without patching it "hard" to your client.

Simply put, Bragi now has the tools he needs to configure weapon balance on the fly so he needs your help on Vedeena to be able to change and tweak and achieve the end result!



Yes this is the first time we show you some internal stuff - but I think it's okay in order to be more transparent

Needless to say, this is where my time has gone recently, to the development of such plugins which is why there is no new patch just yet.


Nice speech...! TL;DR. Don't bore me bro! What about future test patches?

Yes, there is a huge problem with Stun/Freeze effects I want to solve. As a PvPer I really hated getting paralysed/frozen by other players but I recognized its importance sometimes. Of course not like we had it in NC1 where you got "paralysed" ten times and got nailed on the ground but the feature does have its place.

Another item is Damage over Time (DoT) but for the most part there is no patch required, now that the system has been rewritten in T#208 and the NCS Weapon Editor exists. I personally want to have DoT returned to more weapons. Since we fixed the DoT system recently, there are just a few weapons which have DoT and most of them are not working OR the DoT is just something which makes you "burn" without any effect.

I've added fire stacks to the Rocket launcher and Fusion Cannon (alpha cells) testwise via soft patch - what do you think?

This is the end...

...of this post. The recent patches gave us back what we have missed since Evo 2.2 - The ability to fulfil our needs in PvP and PvE and all of this is now more customizable - and in most cases "on the fly".

I just want so say a new era of Neocron starts now, as always your feedback is very welcome and needed! The current balancing on our testserver is still a mess, because the R#197 value don't match the new, far less tangled system any more. We need your help to get this working again to get the very best out of Neocron.

... Oh... and about Neocron 1 - we can't bring back this game anymore and to be honest, we don't want it back. It was full of problems! HOWEVER there is nothing stopping us bringing elements of it's gameplay to the current version of Neocron Think about it

Z