Difficulty reworked. V3 will come with 2 core versions Weak Xeno's and Tough Xeno's. By default the xeno's will remain quick and deadly, with an addon again to slow them for those that want it, giving 4 possible difficulty setups.
I've also done a better job balancing Bug Hunt for solo play (should scale well with coop)
Weak Xeno's are basically one-shot kills to the head, and a short bust to kill anywhere. Their speed keeps them dangerous and its pretty fun like this. Tough Xeno's are V2 xeno's!
Sentry Gun improvements! Its (sorta) better at shooting at targets it can see instead of those it can't, and switches targets faster. It's awareness zone's have been reduced to prioritize close enemies better.
Xeno AI tweaks. I've reworked the "gangbang" mechanic now that I think I get what it does. Its used by the ai to decide if you (or their target) is sufficiently pre-occupied to ignore your threat status, so they will charge/pounce/attack/flank etc. I've reworked it so 1 unit counts as gang-banged, and it seems to help make the ai bolder and less idle-prone.
WY Mercs AI tweaks. They are more likely to react from being shot. these animations are called flinches. Even lowering it they still don't happen all the time, but I do see an increase. These interrupt their shooting, so Elites are a bit more manageble!
Huge overhaul of surface materials! I decided to just do it, and redo the specular, normal and ambient spec changes to all materials. The big difference is in ambient specular. For some reason practically everything had 20% ambient spec. Its like someone thought shiny = awesome. Disabling this on all the materials and allowing just normal, light based specular to shine (pun fully intended) really improves the atmosphere. Things are no longer stupidly shiny when they shouldn't be, and shiny when they should. normal (bump) detail is also more obvious on alot of objects (sadly not all use detail maps).
Xeno's are much harder to see now when they are idling on "infestation" as only local light is causing specular reflections on them both equally.
Weapons also look much nicer and more matt, reacting to light more realistically.
Fog,Smoke,Steam tweaks. some effects are stronger, and react better to light squeesing a bit more atmosphere out of the game
Check out the new screenshots for a sneak peak!
