Ignition! Exploding Vehicle Wrecks and Status Effects (Update 6)

Welcome back!

So as hinted in the last update, we’ve been working hard on creating some impressive fireworks for the game. There was so much feedback from Update 5 that we’ve actually had to release Update 6 before we added all of the planned stuff so we didn’t keep you waiting around because it features quite a few important bug fixes.

So the main effort this update is to make the environment a little more dynamic by adding props to the scene that can be interacted with. We have many types of props planned but we’ll start with the most exciting which is exploding vehicle wrecks.

So now the various wreckages have an orange outline (to show they can be interacted with) and a healthbar and if you shoot at them or use grenades to bring down their health, they’ll explode! If you are shooting at a wreck you’ll have a 5% chance of causing a ‘Lucky Shot!’ causing it to explode instantly but watch out because they might explode more than once! So keep an eye out for those glorious secondary explosions.

Once a vehicle has detonated it’ll be inert for a little while and then reset. Explosions now also cause a slight camera shake adding to immersion and we’ve added some new impact sounds when shooting at metal objects.

Any characters or wrecks caught in the explosion will take damage from the concussive force and characters will suffer ‘Knockdown!’ (same as being hit with any other in-game explosive.)

There’s a chance that any Character or Wreck caught in the blast will receive the status ‘On Fire!’ in which they’ll suffer repeated damage per second until the fire is extinguished. Characters that are on fire can set alight other characters or even wrecks. This makes for some very unique and emergent situations and offers up ways to deal with very-high level mobs that might otherwise be impervious to damage from you.

Previously, it was far too easy to level up so we’ve completely rewritten the levelling formula, the changes made might affect your characters level but you won’t lose any experience that you’ve accrued.

We’ve also added a new free Character ‘Jane Doe,’ if we were going to have a free male character then it’s only fair that we should have a free female one too.

Explosions and fire look best with glow enabled and the glow effect we’re using previously is very pretty but it’s quite expensive on performance. If your PC can’t handle the premium glow we’ve added a cheaper glow that doesn’t look quite as good but will let you enjoy those affects in better detail. Try playing with the ‘Glow’ option in the ‘Display’ section of the options menu and see what works best for you.

There is also a great many fixes in this update thanks to input from a raft of new players, details of which can be found in the #maintenance channel on Discord. Look forward to a Update 7 in which we’ll add some new weapons, better friendly NPC AI, additional sound FX and the inventory system gets more work.

Many thanks for the continued support!