Return of the Giants

Return of the Giants!

Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus Specializations

In this update, players will now be able to choose between two specializations for our playable Apatosaurus creature class.

Note that when the Apatosaurus is referred to in a general sense, it means the Apatosaurus creature class. When the context refers to the Apatosaurus specialization, it will be specified in this way.

The Apatosaurus specialization will be very similar to how the Apatosaurus played prior to the Rise of the Earthbreakers update back in April, 2022. Its stats, attacks, talent tree, and, of course, its size have been restored to its previous glory through the new Specialization mechanic! I personally went back and found the apato update patch and took all the old stats and put them onto the Apatosaurus specialization, and we've been digging through old bob stuff making sure we got other aspects of its stats right too. It should be as similar to the original, large, slow, heavy-hitting apato with ginormous health as we could manage to get it to be.

Additionally, we know a lot of players very much liked the Rise of the Earthbreakers update where we made the Apatosaurus faster, smaller, swifter, and have a wider variety of attacks such as its neck sweep and kick in place of stomp. This is why we have added the Brontosaurus specialization. Brontosaurus is a specialization of Apatosaurus that can be selected under the Apatosaurus playable on the dino select screen. It is exactly the same as public branch current Apatosaurus. It has all the same stats, the same size, and the same attacks as public branch Apatosaurus. It does, however, have a new look.

Here are a few things to note about what we're doing here:

The Apatosaurus specialization has stomp as its Left mouse button and tail whip as its Right mouse button. The Brontosaurus specialization has neck sweep as its Ability, tail whip as its RMB, and kick as its LMB.

The Apatosaurus specialization uses the current Apatosaurus model. The Brontosaurus specialization has kick as its Left mouse button, tail whip as its Right mouse button, and neck sweep as its Ability.

All Apatosaurus skins are compatible between both the Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus model, and the skins will swap seamlessly between the two. The Apato's quills on its head will map to the color customization channels used to change the Bronto's spikes. The Bronto, additionally, has a new customization layer that lets players change the color of its osteoderms.

Bronto and Apato can mate just as Palaeophis can. The mother's specialization is used for the hatchlings, and all specialization-specific stuff related to Palaeophis applies to Apatosaurus as well.

Bronto and Apato can group, as they're technically the same creature type internally.

Apato and Bronto share the same animations, skins, and several of the same sounds.

Specialization Resets

When players log onto a saved Apatosaurus, they will be given a one-time specialization change. You have the option of choosing to stay with the Apatosaurus specialization, swap to Brontosaurus specialization, or decide later if you want to do more research. If undecided, you default to the Apatosaurus specialization until you consume the one-time specialization change. It can be accessed by opening the Character menu.

There is also a console command named resetspecialization accessible through the admin permissions ModifyTalents that allows server admins to give players another specialization change. Server admins are free to use this console command however they see fit to meet the wishes and needs of their players.

Talent Inherits and Specialization Resets

The talent trees