Istrolid Update 0.46.9 - Part Updates

Nov 18, 2017

A bunch of visual, balance, AI and order giving fixes.

Balance Changes

Stasis Field: Price from 15 to 10 This should allow stasis to be more easily placed on fighters and other small craft without making a serious impact on their cost effectiveness.

Spinal: -50 Range The base range of spinal was quite strong, this should bring that power down a little while we think about the role of spinal versus rangemods in the long time.

Flamethrower: 1 normal dps to 2. Flamethrower really only works as a niche anti-heavy weapon, a bit more base damage should help it kill units it would otherwise struggle to kill with it’s DoT, such as fighters, while not necessarily making it too strong in those cases.

Visual Updates

Thrusters have got an overhaul, typing together the visuals of the two variants of bulk and cruiser so they are more clearly the same thruster type.

Ultralight armour is now fully rotationally symetrical.

A range of other small tweaks and cleanups.

AIs updated to work with rebalanced parts:

FireShower
PushForce

Bunch of order giving fixes.

Stop, Self-D, Hold orders can no longer be shift-q'ed.
You can now Hold with the Z key and issue many orders, after you let go they all will be executed.
Follow Units renamed to Focus Fire/Follow (Many people did not realize that this command lets you focus fire on enemies)
Orders are no longer sent to all observers (they are private now).
Only the last order id is sent (which means a lot less network traffic from orders)
Order shift-q increased from 8 orders to 50.
Units during selection are sorted so that during line move they end up in the same place and don't switch positions.
Line move positions are now interpolated better, drawing line fast or slow produces the same line.
Orders no longer flicker when player issues orders and get them back from the server (player never gets them back now)

Design warnings are more descriptive

Design warnings now give instructions. For example: to add more wings if you cannot turn fast, to reduce weight if you are too slow, to reduce thrusters if they draw too much energy. This should help with player responses to these design problems.