Update 185: Traversal & Destruction - Released!

Hello everyone,

Today we’re pleased to be bringing you update 185: Traversal & Destruction for the War of Rights alpha!

We are going to outline the three new features that have been in development these past months. The following features are important stepping stones on the path towards the community level editor and the release of horses. With that said, let’s take a look at their specifics!

Destruction System

With Update 185 comes our new destruction system, focusing initially on fence destruction. Each object is configured with its structural integrity in mind. For example, each individual rail can be independently damaged and broken by small arms and artillery rounds alike, but if you target the posts, you cause a collapse of the entire segment.

Initially, we will only be rolling out post and rail fences as well as one type of stonewall while we gather network performance statistics and make balancing changes. More fence types and other objects are to be supported by the destruction system soon.

Artillery canister round versus a post & rail fence

Knockdowns

Another new feature with this update, designed to work in conjunction with the destruction system, are knockdowns. Artillery-round explosions now have a chance of knocking you off your feet, with the direction of the blast determining the direction you fall. In the future, we expect to expand knockdowns to other instances such as standing too close to a recoiling cannon, getting hit on the head by a musket butt, falling from a great height, and, eventually, getting hit by a horse at speed.

A knockdown caused by a nearby exploding shell

Artillery shell explosion versus a post & rail fence resulting in a knockdown

Vaulting and Climbing

Another big change in this update is the total overhaul of vaulting and the introduction of climbing.

The first thing you will notice with vaulting is that it will behave differently depending on the height of the obstacle; the taller it is, the longer it will take to clear it.

Secondly, you might notice that you can vault in a lot of locations you previously couldn’t. We have rewritten the obstacle detection to be more dynamic than before; vault areas that were previously hand-drawn in the editor are now calculated on the fly. This was an important pre-requisite for moving forward with the development of the Atlas level editor.

Finally, there is the addition of climbing. You can now clamber up obstacles that previously had to be navigated around. Climbing also lets you get on top of small objects such as barrels, rocks, and boxes, giving you access to new sightlines on some maps.

Vaulting a medium & a tall fence

Climbing the embankment

Now that we’ve gotten the major additions of Update 185 out of the way, let’s dive into the rest of the fixes and additions of today’s patch.

Update 185 Patch Notes

• Updated several environmental textures including leaves, plowed dirt fields, dry dirt, mud and dirt as well as MacAdam roads.

• Overhauled the Sherrick barn model.

• Updated the Roulette Farm scene to match the earliest known photograph (from the early 1900s) of its yard and stonewall entrance layout.

• Started the task of adding variations of flagstaff finials to the battle flags of the game. In this batch, we’ve added five finial models, including a common “acorn” style, three types of spades (decorative spears), and an eagle. More flags will get their historically correct finials as the amount of finial models is