Chemical Passive Abilities

The biggest change this version is in the new chemical system. "What chemical system?" I hear you ask? I don't blame you, as it was FAR too confusing before. Well no longer. Chemicals have been improved in various ways. The biggest of which is that [b]chemicals now give you a passive ability when you carry them[/b]! For example, if you carry a Warp Field, you will increase your max shifts by +2. Chemicals are much cheaper now too ($1000) each. So you can almost view chemicals as cheap combat enhancements. Even if you never place them, you can spend a cool $1000 for some serious upgrades! Such as:

- Synthetic Shop (previously called Base Chemicals) gives you +20% ammo.

- Alchemic Acid gives you +20% cash for kills and loot.

- Warp Fields give you +2 max shifts.

- Sonar Cells increases your vision range.

- Goo Trap slows enemies with your bullets.

- Health and Mana stimulants now increase max hp/mana by +20.

- Damage Stimulant increases your gun's DMG by +5% per kill.

- Fission Mine (a new chem) makes you throw 2x grenades at once.

- Laser Tripwire (a new chem) removes all weapon recoil.

- Neutralizer now makes you immune to enemy chemicals.

Brand New Chemicals

There are 2 brand new chemicals that do some really fun stuff when placed as well - Fission Mines and Laser Tripwires. When an enemy steps inside your Fission Mine, it will detonate with a HUGE explosion dealing 100hp damage to anyone nearby. They have 1.5s to escape before the boom. Laser Tripwires let you set up a tripwire across a chokepoint, which shoots a laser beam at anyone who steps into it, taking off half their health. These new chemicals are great for area control, and are an intuitive way for new players to understand the chemical system.

Chemicals are now Visible

Another huge change is that when you place a chemical on the ground it is now visible to your enemies. Yes, you can actually *SEE* them, unlike before where they were all invisible. This is a huge change, and makes it far easier to find and destroy enemy chemicals, which will award you big bucks! If you want you can still make your chemical invisible, but this will cost you an extra $1000 to "conceal" it.

This mechanic makes for some interesting choices. For example, you could spend $1000 to buy a Laser Tripwire and place it in a chokepoint. By default this will be visible to enemies, and might deter them from coming through that route. This might be enough. However, you can upgrade it for another $1000 to make it invisible, which means they'll accidentally step into the tripwire and get shot by it.

Resurrect with the Genetic Heart

There is a brand new way to resurrect as a zombie - finding the Genetic Heart. The Genetic Heart is a special piece of loot only available to zombies. If you step into it, you'll instantly respawn! There is only one heart in the map at any one time, and it will spawn randomly somewhere in the map. This gives zombies a great new way to get back into the game (in addition to killing a survivor).

This mechanic was added to encourage looting and exploration. And because there is only one heart at a time, it becomes a race against the other zombies to find it first. Vehicles are by far the best way to do this, so you can now finally play GTA-style, cruising around in a vehicle and have an actual competitive reason for doing so!

Unlock Multiple Skill Trees

A huge improvement to the skill system is that you can now create skill builds across multiple skill trees! You no longer have to stick to just the Cybernetic, or Mental, or Physical skill tree. You can now create a super defensive skill build that combines Self Repair (Cybernetic) with Force Fields (Physical). The options are endless! It costs 4 skill points to access each additional skill tree.

The Unlock Hex Grid is now Tiered

The hex grid, which is where you spend Kill Coins and unlock stuff, has been split into 6 distinct tiers (containing 21 items each). You now need to fully complete the previous tier before you are able to unlock anything from the next one, and all items in a tier have the same cost. The kill coin costs per tier are 5, 20, 50, 100, 150, 200. These costs overall are cheaper than before, and are especially cheap for new players as the start of the game (as there are now a bunch of items that only cost 5 coins each). Daily Challenges now give 2x as many Kill Coins, making everything even faster to unlock.

The reason for this change is to give players a sense of progression ("3 more items till I unlock the next tier!"). This also simplifies decision making. A problem the old system had was that you would end up with like 50+ items available to unlock, all of them costing different amounts of kill coins, and it was really hard to know what to get ("Do I unlock the UZI for 15 kill coins, or the Force Fields for 75 kill coins, or any of the other 48 items I can't remember?"). Now, every item costs exactly the same amount of coins, so you only need to focus on the actual item itself. And the available options are far less, letting you actually keep them all in mind and make a more fun, informed decision. Finally, when doing daily challenges to grind for kill coins, you now know exactly how many coins you need as all items have the same price.

Health Kits & Survival

Health Kits are far more important, and give you a huge incentive to stay alive and loot. There are health kits everywhere, which will increase your max hp/mana by +5. It's expected that you'll gain about +50 max hitpoints by the end of the round, really helping in the final showdown. But if you just camp, or become a zombie and resurrect, you won't have this health advantage. Basically, the health kits have been reworked to strongly reward and encourage players who loot the map, while still trying not to die. You can't just rely on a last minute resurrection anymore, as you'll be at a serious health disadvantage. Stay safe!

Changelog

There are a bunch of other goodies in this version, such as damage numbers that show up whenever you hit someone (I love this one). Here is the complete list of changes!

- All chemicals now have passive abilities when you hold them! EG:

- Synthetic Shop (previously called Base Chemicals) gives you +20% ammo.

- Alchemic Acid gives you +20% cash for kills and loot.

- Warp Fields give you +2 max shifts.

- Sonar Cells increases your vision range.

- Goo Trap slows enemies with your bullets.

- Health and Mana stimulants now increase max hp/mana by +20.

- Damage Stimulant increases your guns DMG by +5% per kill.

- Fission Mine (new chem) gives you a free grenade each throw.

- Laser Tripwire (new chem) removes all weapon recoil.

- Chemicals are now visible to enemies by default. Huge change!

- Chemicals can now be made invisible by standing in them and buying a "Concealer" for $1000.

- Chemicals now cost $1000 instead of $3000.

- You can neutralize your own chemicals to refund them.

- Damage/Mana/Health Stimulants are now separate chemicals detached from Base costing $2000.

- Added a new chemical called Fission Mine. It explodes when enemies step in it.

- Added a new chemical called Laser Tripwire. It zaps enemies who step into it.

- Warp Fields can now warp to ALL buy zones.

- There is a new piece of loot called the "Genetic Heart" which will resurrect zombies who find it.

- You can now unlock skills from multiple skill trees.

- Skill points now cost $1000 instead of $2000.

- Generally, weapons across the board do less damage, but are more accurate.

- Killing enemies now causes them to drop excess chemicals, health and mana kits.

- Increased the shifting length from 6m to 8m.

- Non-BR game modes now have designated buy zones, similar to BR.

- Removed the capturing cooldown timer in Conquest mode.

- In Conquest, each team starts with 2 points captured already to save time.

- Zombies in BR now have 100 mana and can use passive skills.

- Zombies can no longer see or loot for health or mana, making survival key.

- You can now go all the way up to a max of 200 hp/mana from kits.

- Adrenaline Rush has been changed to make you run faster while you're reloading.

- Generally there is less cash in the map and you only get $100 cash per kill.

- Superweapons now cost $8000 instead of $5000.

- You get to keep the ammo in your gun between rounds.

- Everyone runs a little bit faster.

- Vehicles have less health, but much faster out of combat regen.

- You no longer need to eject from a car that's on fire. It will heal itself naturally.

- Bazooka, Grenades and Stinger Missiles all do exactly 300hp vs cars (enough to kill buggies).

- Reorganised some items in the hex unlock grid, and also split it into tiers.

- In order to access the next tier in a hex grid, you need to unlock a certain amount of items first.

- Added damage numbers that show up whenever you shoot someone.

- Daily Challenges now give more kill coins (30/40/50 vs 10/20/30).

- Ammo piles now give you +2% DMG to your currently held weapon.

- Fixed countless bugs and AI issues.

Have fun!

Bencelot.