Changes to raiding meta, hosting servers without port forwarding, and more!
Server Codes and Fake IP
Hosting a server to play with your friends just got one step easier! Joining using the new Server Code or Fake IP features bypasses the need for port forwarding:
Freeform buildables were among the most popular ways to gain altitude over bases with a claim flag. With their recent adjustments, it seems fitting to make explosive jumping a more viable alternative with two new items: Bounce Grenades and Impact-Absorbing Boots.
Impact-Absorbing Boots cushion against long falls by absorbing impact into the springs, preventing broken legs and most fall damage. They can be crafted from Cargo Pants, Wire, and Metal Cans.
Bounce Grenades are interchangeable with Bounce Charges stats-wise but do not require a Detonator. C4 is no longer a requirement for either explosive!
Precision Charges now deal twice as much raiding damage, metal freeform buildables are weak to all weapons, and freeform buildables are enabled by default again. It ought to be interesting to see how this plays out!
New Outfits
Six new outfits have been accepted from the Curated Workshop into the Stockpile:
The wiki still shows old data related to Precision Charge’s damage output. Brick wall HP never got updated too. Also, can we finally get brick floors and roofs, please?
I am not sure if I like these changes to raiding. Explosives and charges were already powerful, and now they are more so. It is also now much harder and impractical to build bases resistant to explosives.
I have heard the argument that this is to stop people griefing bases by placing metal plates since they are so cheap, but this should only apply to small metal plates and sidings. Large metal plates cost 80% of metal structures and have less health, but should keep their invulnerable status. They still cost 4x more than small metal plates so griefing will be less common.
Without the ability to have compact armour and honeycombing, the only way now to build a base resistant to explosives is to build it obscenely large, since metal structures are now the only buildables that require high cal / explosives.
Precision charges now doing 2000 base damage is borderline outrageous. This means a metal wall can be taken down to 9% health with 1 (one) charge. Metal and brick walls now only need 2 charges to be destroyed, when before it was 3 and 4, respectively.
Having precision charges do double the damage of demolition charges while keeping their mutual, interchangeable crafting recipes is untenable, even if precision charges have a much shorter range. I have long agreed that precision charges should do more damage. However, I would suggest that precision charges are made from demolition charges along with some more resources (maybe a raw explosive and some metal ingredients), and that this be a one-way conversion.
So, to summarise:
Large metal plates should regain their invulnerable status.
Precision charges (and perhaps demolition charges as well) should have their damage reduced, but precision should do more.
Precision charges crafted from demolition charge and some more materials.
Recipe for crafting demolition charges from precision charges removed.
Anyway, these are just my thoughts, feel free to call me an idiot
There’s nothing wrong with respectfully sharing feedback! Thanks for the feedback.
Any time we make changes to the game mechanics (particularly things that affect PvP), we’re aware that there’s going to be discussion about whether or not the changes are good, fun, or healthy for the game.
Balance changes can definitely be very contentious. I’m hopeful that players will see how these changes affect vanilla gameplay & progression first, but there are some server settings available to those wanting to nerf raiding after the changes made with this update. (E.g., servers can tweak the armor multiplier for Metal/Brick structures so that they have higher EHP.)
Regardless: depending on how the overall reception to this update is, we’ll see if additional tweaks/changes are needed.
I agree with everything except large metal plate invulnerability. If someone will want to grief, they will grief, be it 2 scrap a plate or 8, they will grief. Large plate has more hp and that is enough.
Precision charges definetly needed a buff but that is way too much - we are pretty much at the same point where we started 2-3 years ago. 1.25x-1.5x, no more. And as you said, there should be additional materials used by that recipe and it cannot be turned into a demolition charge again.
With all due respect, the few vanilla servers that are still left usually steer away from messing with such fundamental values like these, as they intend to provide a… vanilla experience. It is good to have the option nonetheless, but still…
I guess it’s worth clarifying that when I said “vanilla gameplay”, I was referring to servers playing on official/vanilla maps with the vanilla progression systems – as opposed to servers playing on newer curated maps that have their own progression system, or servers running custom gamemodes. That’s my mistake, what I said can easily be interpreted to mean something else.
Now that’s confusing. I thought it was obvious I was talking about vanilla maps too. If I were to discuss curated content I would probably do that somewhere else…
The reason for the precision charge’s significantly raised damage is in consideration of the much smaller blast radius. Where a regular charge may damage multiple walls, the precision charge will usually only damage one. It can be revised based on feedback depending how everyone’s feeling about it.
I disagree with the “precision charge is too powerful” argument but Metal Freeform plates should absolutely be invulnerable.
There’s many areas on vanilla maps where you can’t build structures such as the skyscrapers on Washington and Germany where metal freeform plates are essential to base in without getting raided by someone with a melee, and this change makes it basically useless - sure metal has more health but that just means a person with a chainsaw has to hold LMB on it for a little longer, the result is the same - many vanilla base spots are rendered far worse since anyone can get into certain areas (like the fire escape) with just a melee.
You should really consider rethinking it at least for metal.
Also, if people don’t want to be griefed they can just spam claim flags with the door frame covering it and easily very prevent griefing.
I’ve always said before that anything which may be considered “abusive” will be loved by players because how over powered it is, and metal plates has been always like this
Metal freeform barricades
Now thinking on them, just imagine a barricade which may be crafted needing only metal scrap (a material which may be found anywhere or from almost any item), but also you could damage them only with high caliber, but also having a lot of health, but ALSO without needing any skillset to craft them
Of course anyone would love to build with them, cheap and easy to craft but also difficult to get rid of them. You could even find players making skybases at 1000mts with them because their armor and cost was just the same as the metal structures, but also game would render them only from near distances because they were barricades so you couldn’t even get raided in a whole month due to this
For real this change by just enabling it being damaged by low caliber was helpful and necessary
Precision Charge
I’ve been using them and I just love it, but is a fact that raiding became easier with this, and now maybe is the time for Bricks to get more priority
Bricks discussion
Not totally related with the whole last game update but with this new raiding meta. Now since with this change raiding has become easier, would you consider giving more priority to the bricks structures?
Adding the long claimed and waited “Brick Floors/Roofs”. I have always thought why was not there a variant of those ones
Getting a higher tier. Even if they’re found by just looting construction zones, they’re very rare and they have been the strongest base material for a while. Right now the Brick items have just this ‘Common’ tier and their structures have the ‘Rare’ one
Also a new sound for the brick structures would be cool too:) They have just the same sounds as the cloth barricades, not only when placing them but also when they get a hit
On another note - will we get a better, easier to use server browser? People asked to improve on what was there to make it more user-friendly and we got something even more cluttered, janky and so user-UNfriendly I directly connect via IP now…
