EDIT: Please make sure you've updated your Nvidia/AMD graphics drivers, as many reports we've been getting can be traced back to older drivers. Thanks!
AND WE'RE LIVE LIVE LIVE!
Open Beta Update #14
Upcoming Patch - Tuesday April 2nd @ 10AM – 1PM PDT
Patch Number: 1.2.209
Change Log
UPDATE
Greetings MechWarriors
Yesterday was April Fool's day but these patch notes are no joke!
First is our Hero BattleMech Heavy Metal! Yes this 'Mech is pink and does really play music when you get a kill! This is the first time we have released the Hero Mech before the base variants (coming April 16th). Don't let the color stop you from buying it, though, we will eventually add changing Hero 'Mech colors.
Next we have added air-strike and artillery consumables. I think Conquest mode just got more interesting! Here is a pro tip: Use them for when a light is capping your base on Alpine and save yourself a walk back to your spawn!
New Thermal and Night Vision modes are in! They look amazing and are balanced for game play! No more BlueWarrior for you!
We also have cool new digital camo patterns for your 'Mech and more 'Mech Statues for your cockpit! Keep reading for other fixes and tweaks!
See you on the battlefield!
Matt Newman
Important Known Issue
During testing we ran into a crash issue that only occurred using Nvidia 311.xx drivers, drivers before 311 tested fine as did drivers after 311. The 311 drivers have since been removed from the Nvidia website. If you are using 311.xx drivers YOU MUST UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS failure to do so will likely result in a low frequency (3 out of 10 games from our tests) crash when playing the game.
Content
New Hero Mech
“Heavy Metal” HGN-HM
Highlander HGN-HM
Tonnage: 90
- Engine: 275 XL Top Speed: 49.5 kph
- Max Engine Rating: 330
- Torso Movement:
- 90 degrees to each side
- 20 degrees up and down
- 20 degrees to each side
- 30 degrees up and down
Weapons & Equipment:
- Left Arm: 3 Medium Lasers
- Left Torso: LRM 20, SRM 6
- Right Arm: Gauss Rifle
- Internal Structure: Standard
- Left Arm: 3 Energy
- Left Torso: 2 Missile, 1 AMS
- Right Arm: 2 Ballistic
Jump Jets: 5 (5 Max)
ECM Capable?: No
Module Slots: 2
- 30% C-Bill Bonus
- Plays a music clip from its head-mounted external speakers after an enemy kill
- Raven RVN-4X
- Centurion CN9-A
- Dragon DRG-5N (Community)
- Awesome AWS-8Q
- Jenner Statue
- Cataphract Statue
- Centurion Statue
- Digital
Each team has a separate global cooldown timer governing their use of artillery and air strikes
No one can activate an artillery or air strike while their team's cooldown timer is counting down
At the start of the match, each team's cooldown timer counts down 60 seconds
When a player activates an artillery or air strike, his team's cooldown timer starts to count down for 10 seconds
Artillery Strike
- Automatically unlocked
- 40,000 C-Bills
- Calls in a barrage of long range artillery.
- Press [Home] to target the area under your crosshairs with an artillery strike.
- After a 5 second delay, 6 shells drop into a 50 m radius around the targeted area. Each shell does 10 points of damage.
- Consumed on use.
- Cannot be equipped to a Mech that already contains an Artillery Strike, Improved Artillery Strike, or Priority Artillery Strike module.
- Upgradable to Improved Artillery Strike.
- Automatically unlocked
- 15 MC
- Calls in a barrage of long range artillery.
- Press [Home] to target the area under your crosshairs with an artillery strike.
- After a 4 second delay, 10 shells drop into a 50 m radius around the targeted area. Each shell does 10 points of damage.
- Consumed on use.
- Cannot be equipped to a Mech that already contains an Artillery Strike, Improved Artillery Strike, or Priority Artillery Strike module.
- Automatically unlocked
- 40,000 C-Bills
- Calls in a fighter air strike on a targeted zone.
- Press [End] to target the area under your crosshairs with an air strike.
- After a 5 second delay, 6 bombs drop along a 100 m strip, starting at the targeted area and moving away from your location when you activated the strike. Each bomb does 10 points of damage.
- Consumed on use.
- Cannot be equipped to a Mech that already contains an Air Strike, Improved Air Strike, or Priority Air Strike module.
- Upgradable to Improved Air Strike
- Automatically unlocked
- 15 MC
- Calls in a fighter air strike on a targeted zone.
- Press [End] to target the area under your crosshairs with an air strike.
- After a 4 second delay, 10 bombs drop along a 100 m strip, starting at the targeted area and moving away from your location when you activated the strike. Each bomb does 10 points of damage.
- Consumed on use.
- Cannot be equipped to a Mech that already contains an Air Strike, Improved Air Strike, or Priority Air Strike module.
Air Strike Accuracy
- 5,000 GXP to unlock
- 4,000,000 C-Bills
- Decreases the radius of the targeted area by 20%.
- 5,000 GXP to unlock
- 4,000,000 C-Bills
- Decreases the length of the bombardment zone by 20%.
New Consumable Module Upgrades:
Improved Artillery Strike
- 15,000 GXP to unlock
- Upgrades the Artillery Strike module.
- Increases artillery shell count by 4, and decreases flight time by 1 second.
- Does not need to be equipped to a BattleMech.
- 15,000 GXP to unlock
- Upgrades the Air Strike module.
- Increases air strike bomb count by 4, and decreases flight time by 1 second.
- Does not need to be equipped to a BattleMech.
- Changed HDR eye adpatation numbers to reduce amount of HDR blooming, and speed the recovery rate.
- Tweaked lighting in all levels to minimize lighting differences due to HDR eyeadaptation changes.
- Extended LOD distances in River City on many large buildings.
- Reduced strength of parallax occlusion mapping on some snow terrain textures to help reduce "crawling" terrain textures.
New Night and Thermal vision modes
- Thermal vision is now "white hot" and is restricted to normal view distances. i.e. Players can no longer use thermal to view long distances.
- Night Vision is now monochrome green and shows greater detail in the surroundings.
- Players will notice that Night Vision is more useful for navigation and Thermal Vision is more useful for seeking out Mechs.
- More tuning will be done but these vision modes are on target for final implementation.
- Artemis Line-of-sight check is now more accurate
- EMP will now turn off ECM in Counter Mode
- Mech damage glow now fades away after they die
The MechWarrior® Online™ Team