Hi everyone! It is time for another Cobalt update! Start the launcher and update or head over to PlayCobalt.com to download the latest!

This version has lots of bugs fixes, alterations and new content in it. We have been working on this for quite some time, and while it contains a lot, it also contains a great deal of behind the scenes work in preparation for the previously called campaign – adventure mode. We don’t have anything fun to show from the campaign stuff in this version, but much of the work we are doing should shine through in the new maps, the new polish and the new features.

Dont forget to post bugs at http://getsatisfaction.com/cobalt or discuss the game at http://www.cobaltforum.net/

Join us in the channel #cobalt on espernet on IRC if you want to chat!

Hit the jump for the full change-log!

Change Log

Alterations:

• Gas flames are not non-instant in the extension of the flame which makes them work better with bullet time.
• Button and Sensor triggers can now require both an id, or just an actor or item type, or both.
• Shield belt logic has been reworked. It now takes equal damage from all direction and instead of just deflecting all damage less than 1, it now has a fast recharching buffer which all weapons damage, and when the buffer runs out, the panic charge is issued giving a temporary high damage resistance.
• Beam gun ammo drain is less exponential at higher powers.
• Plasma weapons used to insta-gib shield wearing characters due to a bug, now the yellow shield correctly reports the damage done to the plasma bullet reducing its energy by the correct amount.
• Plasma weapons do less damage and more heat damage, meaning only hurting enemies will leave them with more relative health if left to cool off. (used to be equal amounts which rarely contributed to any strategy)
• when starting a new map directly from an old one through menu, teams and players are remembered as good as possible.
• 3 different activate_physics actions have now been merged to 1, and added the “grouped” boolean that will activate them all and glue them together.
• The double jump has been changed. It is now a “kick” and you can perform the kick once per jump, but it gets stronger if you charge it up by running. You can now double jump (kick), while rolling which will give you a speed boost in the direction you are facing in the roll.
• The jet shoes have been simplified, they initial blast that they generated has been removed and the regular flame has been made stronger in and more predictable in relation.
• Changed close editor key to F1
• Slugger and matter bullets are not also affected by forward speed.
• Improved throwing physics, more natural speed of objects while rolling especially
• Boomering movement has been redone.
• slow effect on metalfaces on successful hit has been removed in an attempt to increase control and lessen annoyance. (being hit while rolling will still eventually force you out of the roll)
• the aim flow while autoaiming has been tweaked to go down more as well as only being active when sneaking, and not ducking. So, sneak to make carefully timed shots, duck to panic shoot as centrally as possible towards targets.
• Weather, time of day, night sky configuration is less “smart” and more absolute
• Throwing spikes are now droppable and pickupable
• Debris flying off of actors now renders less backgroundish for 3 seconds until it fades to gray.
• Campaign is now called Adventure since Campaign sounds too militaristic.
• Tags have been added to maps which can enable and disable large chunks of the level. Functionality is limited now but it is mostly in preparations for adventure.
• Slight red tone on damage done on targets.
• Bounty disabled the valuable pickup hud since it got too cluttered
• Picking up valuables now has a much faster disappearing fade if you have more than 1 pickup in que or if you are far away from the pickup location.
• Enhanced heat effect
• Reduced damage from lava and burners, but retained the heat damage so that you can escape unscathed more likely if you don’t die.
• Plasma guns now apply their damage over time on contact, dependant on charge and speed of bullet, however, all plasma guns also have increased rate of fire, accelerator has 2 ammo, and boost increases overheating only 20% of the previous increase. On top of that, plasma weapons now cool down faster if they are moving (rolling, running and so forth)
• A fully charged punch is now considered a threat for the generation of bullet time, albeit rather small.
• Punch has slightly better boost when punching ground to make it slightly more usable
• When an actor is made to loose the grip for example when hit the regaining of grip is now smooth instead of jerky.
• acceleration running now takes into account in you are already moving in a speed higher than your normal speed and consideres itself accelerated
• sliding now requires either holding duck or roll to maintain it which should result in less annoying feeling of being stuck in a slide
• paste a multi layer paste into a single layer. (edit -> paste in one layer)
• Bullets and grenades have been rebalanced when it comes to weight.
• Wires now propagate the signal with a slight delay making loops and a bunch of other stuff possible.
• Added 8 new rail-based weapons.
• Rudimentary water added. Missing a lot of effects though.
• Updated graphics for a lot of tiles
• Added a bunch of tiles, among them snow and desert and stuff.
• Added DM maps Rooftops, Tower, Rocketcity, Desert and Ruin, CTP map Snowfall, survival maps Research Facility and Sandswept, BO maps Hard Rock, Reactor , Scrapyard and Hidden ruins.

Bug-Fixes:

• Split screen now plays sounds correctly for both views
• localization files are now loaded from the my documents location too.
• Jet shoes had acquired a strange bug in some version which made jumping with it sometimes jerky (is now smoother)
• fixed the difference between placing snap and drag move snap.
• Menu now howevers on where it was left after going to menu instead of being misaligned by the “return to game”
• Hints for keyboard keys has been extended, now includes numpad keys and some other missing buttons.
• teleporting 2 people no longers gets them stuck in perpetual teleportation
• scoping long range weapons could make the aimer fall off the camera bounds, fixed!
• Enemies would sometimes not be able to move up slops if far away from the view which resulted in some strange behaviour in some survival maps
• Hack Device now works while it should not really be used since its behaviour might change.
• Beheaded metalface heads now are correctly rotated
• Beheaded heads where likely being rendered twice and are now correctly in the background.
• Camera now makes sure to include the whole actors and then a little bit more around to keep at least most of the hud in the screen at all times.
• Merged actor shaders so that different effects can fade between each other like heat and deflect.
• auto aiming and klonk and flashbangs now works
• low charged punches no longer create absurd speeds on shrooms and bird. Close combat attacks have been recoded and works better, also code has been consolidated into a better structure and should make it easier to add more.