G'day Forts fans!

We've cooked up another update for you, this one long anticipated. The headline items are ranked arbitration and matchmaking by playtime.

Ranked Arbitration

After much work the ranked arbitration server is now operating. It monitors the game clients as before, but now it determines the winner. Players who disconnect during the match will record a loss and the remaining player a win.

We are hopeful that this change will improve the ranked competition significantly, and allow us to announce season results earlier.

To celebrate this milestone we've added 'Spirals', a runner up map from the Forts Map Making Contest 2, to the ranked map pool.

Spirals by M4r0x has been added to ranked

Playtime Matchmaking

Next, we've added a simple form of match making. Players are divided into three experience levels using their total playtime: New Players (0-50 hours), Advanced Players (50-200 hours), and Expert Players (200+ hours). These levels are indicated by one, two and three stripes.

When configuring a lobby, hosts can now exclude those outside of one level equal to or above their own. Put another way, a new player can create a lobby accepting only new players, or advanced players, or expert players. An expert player can create a lobby accepting only expert players.

Set an accepted experience level for a lobby's public listing

In the Lobby Select screen the host's level is shown next to their name, and the level being accepted is shown in a column on the right. In the lobby the accepted level is shown next to the lobby name, in the case where a player does not match it their level is shown next to their name.

The host's experience level, and that accepted by the lobby are shown in the lobby select screen

Hosts can invite friends not in the lobby's configured level, but the level of these players is shown if it doesn't match the setting.

And of course you can still make a lobby open to everyone.

Other Highlights

The Smokebomb now blocks the Firebeam for almost its entire duration. This is to provide a better counter to the Mortar/Firebeam combo.

Spook's active duration is a few seconds longer, but she takes longer to charge and steals less.

Some functions that are called each tick and which bog down as the scene grows in complexity have been optimised. Replays which contain many screenshots are faster to browse in the replay menu.

For modders, we've added a flag 'Mirror' to sparks and sprite effects so their direction can be symmetrical with respect to weapon facing.

Cheers,

EWG

Change List 1.34.0 r20032

Add: Matchmaking by play time

Add: Ranked arbitration - disconnecting during match will cause loss

Add: 1v1 map 'Spirals', runner up of the Forts Map Making Contest 2 by M4r0x

Balance: (Firebeam) Damage multiplier vs smoke reduced from 65 to 21 (-68%), making it more effective at blocking

Balance: (Spook active) Duration increased from 20s to 24s (+20%)

Balance: (Spook active) Resource theft reduced from 200 metal, 2000 energy to 150 metal, 1500 energy (-25%)

Balance: (Spook) Increase GaugeAttackHitpoints from 8640 to 11088 (+28%)

Balance: (Spook) Increase GaugeDamageHitpoints from 4050 to 4725 (+16%)

Fix: (Map editor) Right clicking on an underwater strut selects water terrain

Fix: (Vanilla 2v2 MS) Terrain on cliff face can be attached to

Fix: (Vanilla 2v2) Terrain on cliff face can be attached to

Fix: Both Menu Skin and HUD Skin dropdowns can be opened simultaneously

Fix: Can't sell devices after a move is interrupted

Fix: Mute control doesn't work in some circumstance

Fix: Projectile gameplay effects of special theme can be out of sync with base version, causing desyncs

Fix: Resource limited team-mates can create struts at the same time

Fix: Result at time limit sometimes incorrect

Fix: Smoke produced from the destruction of the Smoke Bomb is destroyed instantly by Plasma Laser

Fix: Sprite idle animations are stopped by reload

Fix: Unsubscribed mods are activated via saved Skirmish settings

Fix: Upgrading an overheated machine gun causes the minigun to be permanently overheated

Fix: Ranked maps can be selected twice in a row

Improve: (Ranked) Spirals included in ranked pool from Season 38

Improve: AddTextButtonControl and AddStaticControl add to the replay root if in a replay

Improve: 'Draw' is displayed when there is no winner

Improve: Fire effect sparks and sprite effects emission angles can be mirrored with weapon facing by adding Mirror = true

Improve: Lobby alert popup works within menus and map editor

Improve: Moved replay screenshot option to Video tab

Improve: Set bounds to FramesRate, Oversamples, MinimumMass, FramesPerTick, TickLookahead and CollisionLookaheadDistance to limit abuse

Optimise: Checksum calculation and desync debugging

Optimise: Loading speed of replay screenshots

Make Sure To Join Our Discord

If you haven't already, join our Forts Official Discord server to connect with other players, share strategies, create maps/mods, and receive advance notice of upcoming events.

Cheers,

EWG