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[Alexander Garden]

PATCH # 37
Thursday, December 11th
Patch Number: 1.3.358

Greetings ‘MechWarriors!

Welcome to Community Warfare Beta

It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here. The team has had their collective noses to the grindstone to bring you Community Warfare, and we are now looking forward to watching you launch into the battle for the Inner Sphere. This is it – House vs House, Clan vs Clan, and IS vs the Clans. We want to see the newly updated and dynamic Inner Sphere map change because of your actions, your efforts.

Factions have been reset with this patch - your previously chosen faction will no longer be active. Once you log in, head to the faction tab to select a contract with your chosen faction. There are three short-term contract options: 7, 14, or 28 days. The thoroughly dedicated can pledge their loyalty to their chosen faction for a permanent alliance. With a longer contract comes greater rewards, but also a greater penalty for breaking it.

Once your faction choice is made you’ll have access to the Inner Sphere map. Here you’ll find a list of planets that you can attack or defend. So pledge your alliance to a faction and start fighting for territory control!

To enable this gameplay we’ve added a number of new features:

• Invasion game mode: Attack Vs Defense – it’s 12v12 to take over or hold your territory on the contested planets found along the border of the Great Houses
  
• Two new maps: On each planet, teams will battle in the frosty Boreal Vault or caustic Sulfurous Rift
  
• DropShip: Territory control is serious business; now you can take a stable of four ‘Mechs into battle, each one delivered to the battlefield via Leopard DropShips

To learn more go to our Community Warfare launch page.

The team has worked extremely hard to put this Beta into your hands, and we thank you for your patience in waiting for it to come together. There is a list of known issues at the bottom of these patch notes. To ensure this is a polished, balanced experience we need all of you and your feedback. Expect upcoming hotfixes, and we shall do our utmost to deliver these fixes fast and to respond to your feedback.

- The MechWarrior Team

Change Log

Content

New Community Warfare Maps (X2):

Boreal Vault

“The Boreal Vault is a polar base protecting a massive double-barreled anti-orbital gauss rifle. As long as the rifle remains active, high capacity drop ships are inhibited from entering the Arctic Circle's Airspace.”

Noble Ruler: Baron Sandra Vinterk

Star Type (Recharge Time): F4V, yellow-white (175 Hours)

Position in System: 2

Time to Jump Point: 16.10 days

Number of Satellites: None

Surface Gravity: .9

Atm. Pressure: Thin (Breathable)

Equatorial Temperature: -10° C (Arctic)

Surface Water: 55 percent

Recharging Station: Zenith

HPG Class Type: B

Highest Native Life: None

Population: 1,238,559,000

Socio-Industrial Levels: B-C-C-C-B

This rugged planet had seemingly lost all strategic value decades ago when its military facilities were shuttered at the conclusion of the Succession Wars. The Clan Invasion has however thrust it back into the spotlight as a crucial stepping stone and resupply depot to neighboring systems.

Due to the large volcanic hills and valleys that run along the planet’s northern hemisphere many installations are accessible only aboard dropship. Large Naval Gauss batteries key to preventing landfall by large scale invasion forces. These massive guns are a rare sight and often the first target for strike units aboard more agile dropships.

Invading ground units are forced to land some distance to the south and move along the twin roads that lead to the outpost’s two points of egress. The early stages of the invasion saw controlling forces litter this exposed flank in haste using any obstacle that could be cobbled together. Once at their doorstep invaders must contend with an array of defensive turrets and leverage the available high ground to disable the defender’s power generators and breach the massive blast doors.

Sustained warfare has left the terrain scarred, evidence of the almost insurmountable odds stacked against would-be attackers

Sulfurous Rift

“The Sulfurous Rift is an equatorial base protecting a massive double-barreled anti-orbital gauss rifle. As long as the rifle remains active, high capacity drop ships are inhibited from entering this equatorial quarter.”

Noble Ruler: Duchess Samantha Dolfid

Star Type (Recharge Time): G2V, yellow (183 Hours)

Position in System: 3

Time to Jump Point: 9.12 days

Number of Satellites: 1 (Dugenia)

Surface Gravity: 1.0

Atm. Pressure: Standard (Tainted)

Equatorial Temperature: 35° C (High)

Surface Water: 68 percent

Recharging Station: Zenith

HPG Class Type: B

Highest Native Life: Microbes

Population: 1,002,738,000

Socio-Industrial Levels: A-C-B-C-B

The acrid atmosphere of this world forms lakes of sulfuric acid that dot its unforgiving surface. Colonists would have been completely disinterested in the world if not for its abundance of easy to reach minerals. Refineries and strip mines are common sights across its landscape and are the most likely targets for a conquering force.

Rarely seen Space Defense Systems have been installed to defend against direct attack from high capacity dropships. Units must utilize speedy aerodyne dropships if they hope to land near enough to mount an effective attack. The gun’s placement amongst important structures has the added benefit of making the site too valuable to be the target of orbital bombardment.

Fortifying the location has proven difficult due to the porous nature of the area.

Three clear channels have been eaten into the surrounding rock providing attackers with multiple fronts to engage. Gaps in the eroded cliff faces offer shortcuts and vantage points for jump capable ‘mechs. Pathways spill into an eventual opening walled behind three large perimeter gates. The small size of the compound can make it an easily defensible position for well-trained units and a killing ground for the unprepared.

Gameplay

• Added a new client cvar, 'gp_default_cockpit_light', configurable from within user.cfg, which controls the initial light level for the first person cockpit (between 0 and 5).
  
• If you are in a unit, you will need to wait for your unit leader to re-select the unit's faction
  
• As part of this update we will also be clearing all of the currently 'Disbanded' Units in the database. Details on this can be found in a dedicated news post.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the Polygon skins for Gargoyle 'Mechs
  
• The final team score or resources is now displayed at the End of Round screen of all game modes.
  
• Fixed issue where large groups would erroneously be broken up between lances.
  
• Fixed thermal vision on DirectX 11 when any form of anti-aliasing was enabled.
  
• Reduced lag on in-game chat when large numbers of messages were received by the server simultaneously.
  
• Improved several issues relating to popping in the terrain LOD system.
  
• Fixed 'Mechs occasionally floating in the air when their ground contacts were suddenly removed.

Known Issues

• Faction achievements do not grant titles and other related rewards – this will come in the new year with new title functionality to allow titles to display in-game. Please see http://mwomercs.com/...oints-clarified
  
• Sulfurous Rift: large spheres around the Gamma Gate contain invisible walls
  
• Sulfurous Rift: when a player enters the internal out of bounds areas they will not get a warning countdown or die
  
• When the DropShip animation plays, the King Crab’s claws appear to detach from the ‘Mech
  
• Unit coffer may not update properly upon donating – relogging will fix this issue
  
• Unit members that are given 'manage contract privileges' are not able to break a contract
  
• Creating multiple ranks with the same name causes all but one to be deleted
  
• Going from dropdeck selection to the store causes the dropdeck to overlap with the dropdowns. To fix this, you will need to relog
  
• If a member of a Unit Group enters the store, their status in the social window may display “store” – this is a visual issue only, and will not affect actual status or gameplay
  
• When your contract ends, you will be abruptly taken back to the Faction selection screen
  
• Rarely, a users Faction icon may change to match other users Factions in the same Lance
  
• Ready/Not Ready buttons remain after leaving a Unit Group – to fix this select the same planet again and to switch back to the correct attack/defend buttons
  
• When selecting a permanent contract, the 'Time Left on contract' or 'Attack Phase' notification is missing from the upper left of the Faction screen - to fix this navigate away from the Faction tab and back again
  
• The Loyalty Points on the planet info will change to 0 when selecting to attack/defend while in a Unit Group - however, this is just a UI issue and you can see your correct loyalty points at the end of the match if you win
  
• Rarely, the user will not see the rewards screen when returning to the Front End after the end of an invasion match
  
• Rarely, upon conclusion of a match, you will see the incorrect contract results screen. Please note you will get the proper rewards, regardless of the screen's message
  
• Rarely, users will not be disconnected at the end of round screen - if this happens, hit the exit match button
  
• Selecting a random map in a private match may launch the match with an invasion map - if this happens, either play it out as a death match or just re-launch a private match

We look forward to seeing you on the battlefield!

- The MechWarrior® Online™ Team