Welcome to April!  Teamplay takes a giant leap forward with the addition of new team structure elements.  After reviewing the test branch, I'm incredibly excited to get this very important feature into the game.  Since my last update, PAX East and GDC have come and gone.  We have announced details about upcoming features like 12 V 12, Lobby, DirectX 11, UI 2.0 and Community Warfare.  Along with a launch date of Late Summer 2013!  This month we see the addition of several new features, consumables, and a new line of BattleMechs called Champions!

New Content:

• `Mech of the Month - Highlander (19th)
• Hero `Mech of the Month - Heavy Metal (2nd)
• Champion `Mech - TBA  (19th)
• New Patterns - Digital (2nd) and Fractal (19th)
• New Cockpit Items - BattleMech Statues (2nd)
• New Modules - Air Strike and Artillery Improvment

Team Structure and BattleGrid Improvements

The team has been busy adding new functionality and roles into the command hierarchy.  The first phase allows players to join two lances, each with a commander.  Players will now see there lancemates name, health status, and grid location on the HUD.  Lance Commanders will be able to issue lance commands via the BattleGrid.  Company Commanders can now also issue orders to individual lances.

Artillery and Air Strike Consumables

Two new consumable items bring new tactical options to the battlefield, especially for scout players.  Using line-of-sight targeting, players can elect to reign down a damaging barrage of focused artillery or linear air strikes on their enemies.

Champion BattleMechs

We’ve decided to add a new style of Hero BattleMech, one that represents the community – the Champion.  Similar in nature to the Founder's BattleMechs, a Champion `Mech is based of an existing variant with a special permanent 5% XP boost and lower price point.  Our first Champion BattleMech will be revealed on April 12th.

Improved Night and Thermal Vision

We have adjusted both Thermal and Night Vision modes to be better in different situations.  Thermal Vision will no longer be the defacto standard, and Night Vision will have more uses than ever before.  These improvements bring these modes closer to their intended original design.

Community Events

March saw more event testing, and better results, including an MC event for solo players.  Expect two more main events in April as we continue to refine our scoring system!  We plan to roll out team events in the coming months after we allow player to officially band together in units.

Performance

Host State Rewind (HSR) for ballistics will be going live on the 19th.  Players with high pings will see a dramatic improvement in ballistic hit detection, similar to last month's HSR beam weapon fixes.

Behind the Scenes

A lot of work is going into UI 2.0, Community Warfare, and 12 V 12.  Expect to see more details and feature rollouts over during the month of May, June, July.  A signifcant portion of the team is dedicated to making these features happen.  First up will be 12 V 12!