DAMAGE BOOST

We’ve been listening to your feedback on Weapon Energy and we’ve decided to keep it a fixed amount regardless of CPU, so now - all weapons can be used on all CPU ranges and for the first time large weapons will become viable on large Robots and vice versa. The Weapon Energy will be fixed for all Robots at the amount of energy you currently have at around 1,700 CPU and some weapons damage will be tweaked to ensure good balance. We wanted to allow you the freedom to make low CPU and high CPU Robots and for them to be viable in battle so we will be replacing the Weapon Energy to CPU relationship with a new stat called ‘Damage Boost’. Like Health Boost and Speed Boost, Damage Boost will provide an additive Damage Boost applied as a % to all your weapons (much like the buff you get when a player leaves on your team). The Damage Boost % will be highest at low CPU ranges and lowest at high CPU ranges - i.e. proper Tank, DPS and Medic teams will be viable and effective in BA and possibly even in TDM. Here is a graph showing how the Damage Boost varies with CPU:

CRF2.0 & MASTERY

With this next release we are making probably the biggest change to the underlying Inventory, Garage and Community Robot Factory (CRF) since the launch of these features. This change is designed to make experienced users, new users, and CRF contributors all happy at the same time.

COPY ROBOT

• For the first time ever you will be able to copy a Robot in your Garage with 1-click
• And, you will be able to copy a Robot, even if you do not have the parts spare in your Inventory
• Yes, I said that, you will be able to duplicate Robots without needing duplicate parts
• Example: You luck out and get 1 Chain Shredder, so you build a tank with your Chain Shredder, then you ‘copy it’, and you edit the Robot to have wheels. Now you have two Robots, one Tank and one Wheels both with a Chain Shredder on and with one chain shredder in your Inventory - Just Wow!
• Copied Robots appear green and cannot be edited themselves
• You can edit a copied Robot by clicking a new button called ‘Construct’ which then takes the cubes from your inventory and builds it so you can edit and paint it - you can only do this if you have the parts spare
• So you will be able to make multiple copies of your favourite Robot and give each one a different paint job
• You will be able to make multiple copies of your favourite Mech with different Loadout and Module setups

HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO THE CRF?

• Copy Robot works from the CRF too
• So, you can download any Robot from the CRF as long as you have the parts in your Inventory - even if those parts are already used in another Robot you have in your Garage
• So, you have one Chain Shredder, and this now gives you access to thousands of Robots in the CRF that you can download, drive and take into battle with a Chain Shredder on

Note: To download Robots with two Chain Shredders on you will need to have two Chain Shredders in your inventory (doesn’t matter if they are used on another one of your bots, but you will need to have two in total somewhere in your account)

• As with the Copy Robot feature, once in your Garage it is green meaning it cannot be edited but can be driven into battle
• Clicking ‘Construct’ on any ‘green’ Robot copy can convert it into a fully editable owned Robot in your bay
• So Clans can now share Robots more easily and friends can share designs with each other much more easily and freely
• All together these represent a set of huge new freedoms via the CRF and Copy Robot features

MASTERY

• Building Robots from scratch takes time, downloading them does not, so builders need to get proper rewards
• So, we’re adding a new ‘Mastery’ stat. ‘Mastery’ means you have ‘mastered your Robot’
• Each Robot has a Mastery stat which starts at Level 1 and increases to Level 10
• Each Mastery level gives you 10% extra XP when you play with that Robot
• Robots built from scratch start with the maximum Mastery Level 10
• Robots downloaded from the CRF start with Mastery Level 1
• Robots that are copied in your Garage copy their Mastery Level from the copied Robot
• The Mastery of a Robot increases by one Level each time you complete a full battle
• The end aim is that players who build from scratch tend to earn - on average - more XP than those who never build

CRF REWARDS

• We’re changing the way builders are rewarded when others use their Robots too
• Currently many players use their Inventory to get robots for free - which is great - but as builders currently get a % of the Robits paid, often the builder is not rewarded
• Instead we want to change it so that every time someone adds a Mastery Level to a Robot downloaded from the CRF (by completing a battle) the original builder gets rewarded
• Each Mastery Level gained will reward the original creator 500 Robits
• The Robits rewards can potentially be insane for very popular meta Robots being download by thousands of users each levelling them up to Level 10 Mastery
• Hopefully this will incentivise CRF contributors to upload more battle ready Robots also as they’ll likely get more repeated play from well-built combat-ready robots
• A Robot creator remains the creator even when a Robot is constructed and edited, only when the last cube is deleted in the bay does the original creator get removed, so even players downloading Robots and editing them are rewarding the original creators

We'll have more information on all these features on Wednesday, when we release the full patch notes. Feel free to hit us up on the forums, reddit and Twitter to give us your feedback. Catch you in-game! Thanks for reading! Mark, Game Director, Freejam