The focus of this update has been game balance. Making early game weapons more compelling and buffing some of the weaker commanders. We've also added a slot system for campaign saves, and made a bunch of important fixes.

Several weapons have received a boost to make them more viable. The incendiary mortar is more damaging, while costing a little more to fire. Similarly, Swarm Missiles have an additional projectile, each one being more damaging, but it costs more to fire. Miniguns do more damage to bracing and have a more flexible aiming arc. Smoke Bombs are more responsive and are better at blocking Plasma Lasers.

Both Swarm Missile and Warhead cause splash damage on destruction now, as does the Plasma Laser. Cannons have their firing cost reduced back to 3000 energy. Firebeam costs more metal to build, and more energy to fire.

Machinegun projectiles take a little longer to burn out when passing through a Firebeam.

Passive: Remove weapon deviation increase

Passive: Flak produces 50% more shrapnel

Passive: Shotgun projectile gain increased from 1 to 4

Active: Fires 3 rockets during active, costs more to fire

Passive: In-ground missile silos are 80% the normal width

Passive: Battery metal cost is 50% less than normal

Passive: Smoke Bomb doesn't produce smoke when destroyed

Passive: Increased Buster's shotgun and minigun bonus vs armour and doors to 10%

Active: Rocket depleted uranium distance reduced by 25%

Passive: Weapons recloak after being idle for 10 seconds

Active: Fixed rockets not gaining 25% damage and splash radius

NOTE: Some of these are missing from the in-game commander descriptions. We'll patch them shortly.

Campaigns now have four save slots, allowing you to run different difficulty levels, play styles, or experiments concurrently. A screenshot of the map or last mission is saved, along with its date and time, to help identify your games.

Saves where the final mission has been beated now show 'Complete' instead of 'In Progress', which should clear up their status. They can still be opened to replay missions.

The previous save files will be migrated to the new slot system. Let us know if you have any problems.

Run up to four save games for each campaign concurrently

Weapons will now cast rays either side of the central ray to test for obstruction. This is to make it harder for you to accidentally shoot your own fort. This was primarily for the benefit of the Smoke Bomb, but is beneficial for others. You can see the extent of these angles in the aiming arc. Some weapons such as the Shotgun are relaxed to reduce frustration during quick shots.

It's now harder to smoke yourself by clipping the door

Minimum clearance has also been doubled for many weapons, to better allow weapons embedded deep inside of forts to open doors near the outside.

Thanks to Phantom's new weapon recloaking, finer control for cloaking has been added. You can make weapons lose their cloak when damaged, or not lose their cloak when firing, and adjust how long it takes for them to regain cloak.

Weapon/ammo configuration values ClearanceAngleBase, ClearanceAngleStdDevFactor and ClearanceAngleSprayFactor have been added for modders to adjust new clearance functionality.

Some fixes have been made to configurations of shotgun style weapons. Projectiles will spray consistently, and the weapon can overheat mid-burst.

Add: Campaigns can have up to 4 save games, showing screenshot of last progress

Add: CloakLostOnDamage weapon value (defaults to false)

Add: CloakLostOnFiring weapon value (defaults to true)

Add: CloakRecoveryTime weapon value (defaults to huge)

Add: ClearanceAngleBase weapon/ammo value to set or increase clearance angles of weapons

Add: ClearanceAngleStdDevFactor weapon/ammo value to control how spread relates to std dev for projectiles with normal distribution

Add: ClearanceAngleSprayFactor weapon/ammo value to adjust spray type weapon spread

Add: View.AimingGizmo.ClearanceAngleStdDevFactor as default ClearanceAngleStdDevFactor

Add: View.AimingGizmo.MaxClearanceAngle constant to limit clearance angles

Balance: (Buster active) Reduce depleted uranium distance from 560 to 420 (-25%)

Balance: (Buster) Increase Buster's shotgun and minigun bonus vs armour and doors from 5% to 10%

Balance: (Firebeam) Increase construction cost from 400 to 500 metal (+25%)

Balance: (Firebeam) Increase fire cost from 2000 to 2500 energy (+25%)

Balance: (Incendiary Mortar) Increase EnergyFireCost from 150 to 200 (+25%)

Balance: (Incendiary Mortar) Increase ProjectileDamage from 10 to 20 (+100%)

Balance: (Incendiary Mortar) Increase ProjectileSplashDamage from 40 to 50 (+25%)

Balance: (Firebird Incendiary Mortar) Splash damage kept at 40 to avoid being OP

Balance: (Machinegun) Flaming projectile MaxAge increased from 0.2 to 0.3 (+50%)

Balance: (Minigun) Decrease MinFireAngle from -15 to -20 degrees

Balance: (Minigun) Increase MaxFireAngle from 20 to 25 degrees

Balance: (Minigun) Increase damage multiplier vs bracing from 1.5 to 2.1 (+40%)

Balance: (Minigun) Increase MaxFireRadius from 600 to 800

Balance: (Phantom) Weapons recloak after being idle for 10s

Balance: (Plasma laser) BeamOcclusionDistance reduced from 1200 to 600, making smoke better at blocking it

Balance: (Plasma Laser) DeviceSplashDamage increased from 100 to 120 (+20%)

Balance: (Plasma Laser) IncendiaryRadius increased from 0 to 108

Balance: (Plasma Laser) IncendiaryRadiusHeated increased from 0 to 120

Balance: (Plasma Laser) StructureSplashDamage increased from 90 to 160 (+77%)

Balance: (Repair Station) Increase smoke clear radius from 500 to 650 (+30%)

Balance: (Repair Station) Increase smoke clear rate from 26 to 30 (+15%)

Balance: (Scattershot active) Fires 3 rockets during active, costs more to fire

Balance: (Scattershot passive) Remove weapon deviation increase

Balance: (Scattershot passive) Flak produces 50% more shrapnel

Balance: (Scattershot passive) Shotgun projectile gain increased from 1 to 4

Balance: (Seep) In-ground missile silos are 80% the normal width

Balance: (Shockenaugh) Battery metal cost reduced from 105 to 75 (-29%, -50% from base)

Balance: (Shockenaugh) Smoke Bomb doesn't produce smoke when destroyed

Balance: (Smoke Bomb) FireSpeed increased from 8000 to 10000 (+25%)

Balance: (Smoke Bomb) RoundPeriod reduced from 0.7 to 0.35s to improve fire rate

Balance: (Smoke Bomb) Smoke projectiles are slightly more spread out to cover more area

Balance: (Subswarm missile) Increase rounds per burst from 13 to 14 (+8%)

Balance: (Swarm missile) Increase damage from 50 to 62.5 (+25%)

Balance: (Swarm missile) Increase rounds per burst from 13 to 14 (+8%)

Balance: (Swarm Missiles) Increase fire cost from 1800 to 2100 (+17%)

Balance: (Swarm missiles) Reduce time to build swarm from 70 to 60s (-14%)

Balance: (Swarm) Gains splash damage and incendiary effect on destruction

Balance: (Warhead) Gains splash damage and incendiary effect on destruction

Balance: (Warhead) Increase time to upgrade from swarm from 95 to 105s (+11%)

Balance: Building space for inverted missiles on Stalactites style forts removed

Balance: Decrease fire cost of Cannon from 3500 to 3000 (-14%)

Balance: Increase time to upgrade incendiary mortars from 20s to 25s (+25%)

Balance: Reduce time to build incendiary mortars from 30s to 25s (-17%)

Improve: Campaigns are marked 'Complete' when final mission is passed

Improve: Increase minimum clearance from 500 to 1000 for Howitzer, Magnabeam, Smoke Bomb, Harpoon, Orbital Laser, Deck Guns, 20mm Cannon, Firebeam, Flak, Rocket, EMP, Shotgun, Laser, Cannon, Minigun, AP Sniper, and Sniper

Improve: Save and restore timeline position for music

Improve: Small weapon clearance angle added to test ray in direction of gravity

Improve: Weapons test for clearance at angle of 1 times std dev for normally distributed projectiles, visible on aiming arc

Improve: When clearance tests hit the limit of reflections and teleportations it is assumed clear, not blocking

Fix: (Christmas) Cannon has Factory base when Tons of Guns is enabled

Fix: (Christmas) Start sound is affected by in-game music volume

Fix: (Hurricane) Machine guns rarely overheat as automatic AA

Fix: (Spirals) Exposed gunner gives away faction

Fix: (Spirals) Reactor is missing starting AP protection

Fix: (Warthog active) Rockets don't gain 25% bonus damage and splash radius

Fix: Aiming arc preview doesn't reflect recessed material during extrusion

Fix: AUDIO event:/ui/hud/start_sim gets triggered when enemy core explodes

Fix: Auto-orientation fails when linking to an inactive portal

Fix: Background bracing preview in front of weapon turns to foreground when built

Fix: Beams don't collide with overlapping smoke fields

Fix: Cancelling upgrade will escape the EMP effect

Fix: Central clearance ray is not parallel to aiming ray for some weapons

Fix: Crash in PhysicsManager::SetDoorState

Fix: Crash selecting hardpoint

Fix: Desync when upgrading propellers after using drag facing

Fix: Eagle Eye and Scattershot sprites show to other side when same faction

Fix: Faction mods are applied early, preventing Christmas theme from applying Cannon faction skins correctly

Fix: Grey smear at top of map preview in lobby

Fix: Halloween commander deactivation sound is heard when special themes are disabled

Fix: Hang when shotgun style weapons overheat mid-burst

Fix: One way portals can be made by linking at destruction

Fix: Players are kicked out of ranked waiting when matching with a player at limit with them

Fix: Player's total play time can be incorrect if steam fails to respond

Fix: Repair station triggering antiair effects in the wrong place on fields. It will trigger a new "repair" effect type centred on the field instead.

Fix: Replays sometimes have the wrong screenshot

Fix: Shotgun style projectiles are off centre with some configurations

Fix: Side 2 can determine side 1's faction using neutral weapons

Fix: Smoke Bombs and Shotguns hit the edges of doors easily

Fix: Sparks effect SpeedMean bugged above a value of 2100

Fix: UniformSpray is ineffective when RoundsEachBurst is 1

Fix: Upgrading then cancelling the upgrade clears overheated status

If you haven't already, join our Forts Official Discord [discord.gg] server to connect with other players, share strategies, create maps/mods, and receive advance notice of upcoming events.

Cheers,

EWG