Bionic Dues:Post Release Notes

Prerelease 1.001

(Not yet released; we're still working on it!)

• Fixed bug where Rey could lose multiple exos in a single turn (overlapping AOE attacks, etc).
  • Thanks to Patashu for the report.

• While we were at it, also made Rey's auto-revive ability restore hacking, mine, sentry, stealth, and virus points to the revived exo (previously it already restored health, ammo, and un-disabled weapons).

• Fixed a bug where Sentries granted credits when destroyed. Which would be fine, except it motivates dumping out all your spare sentries just before the end of each mission for a fleecing. Cute, but wrong.
  • Thanks to SNAFU and others for reporting.

• Fixed a bug where Sentries and Mines could be deployed even when the exo had no more left (or had never had any!) through the hotkey or interface button.
  • Thanks to SNAFU, bladewarp, and others for reporting.

• Fixed a bug where Sentries granted credits when destroyed. Which would be fine, except it motivates dumping out all your spare sentries just before the end of each mission for a fleecing. Cute, but wrong.
  • Thanks to SNAFU, aerouge, and others for reporting.

• Fixed a bug where Sentries and Mines could be deployed even when the exo had no more left (or had never had any!) through the hotkey or interface button.
  • Thanks to SNAFU, bladewarp, and others for reporting.

• Ok, whew, Sentries were REALLY overpowered. Them being good is cool, but certain cheesemasters were trivializing high-difficulty endgames with 300+ trap skill, etc... wily players. Anyway:
  • Sentries no longer get an ammo boost from trap skill (unless they were already placed in an old save).
  • Sentry range boost from trap skill is capped at 5 (max total range of 11) (unless they were already placed in an old save).
  • The +TrapSkill effect now costs 4 item levels per point instead of 3 (from a player perspective this basically means trap skill values will be 33% lower on the items you find in the future, has no impact on items from old saves).
  • The +%Propulsion-related effect's range from 12%-to-60% => 9%-to-45%. (again, won't affect items from old saves).
  • The +SentryCount effect magnitude from 2+level => 1+(level/2) (same deal with old save items)
  • Overall, with the +attack and +shields boost from trap skill still intact (albeit with lower trap skill, and fewer sentries to work on), these are quite possibly still too strong. We have a sneaking suspicion that players will find out and let us know.
  • Thanks to Sooty, Misery, Frumple, Reasonance, Waladil, The_Ring-Bearer, Tridus, Mick, and others for inspiring these changes,

Customization Quality-of-Life Improvements

• Added new toggle to Extras tab of the Settings Window: "Enable Customization/Inventory Merge". This is an experimental feature, but one felt necessary in the wake of very widespread feedback that it's part of the game that actually gets in the way of the fun.
  • Description from the tooltip:
    • This feature is still in testing, use at your own risk. But it's generally less explosive than a plasma cannon.
    • If you are running the game at a resolution of at least 1280-wide and at least 768-high, this toggle will enable an alternate layout of the customization and inventory screens that are used between missions. Instead of clicking on a slot to bring up a separate window to pick a part for that slot (and having Inventory be a third window where you can just browse all your parts), you will see your inventory on the same screen as your exo's slots and be able to drag-and-drop parts from your inventory into the slots.
  • The game's minimum specs are 1024x720 so there will always need to be a display that works for that too, but the information available to us is that at most 5% (and probably way less) of the audience uses devices incapable of 1280-wide and/or 768-high, so it seemed appropriate to have an improved version of this one interface for the other 95%. If this experiment works out, the really key improvements can be integrated back into the smaller version.
  • For the curious, here's a screenshot of the overall layout: http://arcengames.com/dl/Bionic_RevisedCustomizationScreenFor1280x768.jpg
  • Thanks to ragosaurus, Arnos, Jin, Pakuska, Conir, Mick, navik659, BobTheJanitor, Knight of Virtue, Penumbra, Kevdogg155, Cool_Roxas, Hermundure, BriianC, Underwhelmed, Velorien, xDURALx, Haldurson, and others for inspiring these changes.

• Added an "Auto-Equip One Part" button to the Exo Customization screen. As its tooltip says:
  • Feeling indecisive? Just want _something_ put in those slots so you can get on with the robot-annihilation?
  • Just ring the bell and one of our maintenance crews will be right over to make a total hash of things. Er, that is, to take exquisite care in their meticulous selection of a well-suited part to install in your exo. Yea.
  • Notes:
    • This will never remove or replace a part that is already installed. To auto-equip the whole exo first use "Remove All Parts".
    • If your exo has a non-negative power-balance, this will never pick a part that makes it negative. If your exo has a negative power-balance, this will never pick a part that makes it worse.
    • This will only auto-equip a single part; to continue auto-equipping the exo just keep clicking the button. Simple, no?
  • Thanks to BobTheJanitor for the suggestion (others suggested something similar, but he was the one with the temerity to say "even the most rudimentary"; here you go!)