Today's 1.2.2 update for the Starhawk Private BETA was deployed during the rescheduled server maintenance at 4pm Central and contained a large number of changes:
Homing Missiles and Swarm Lasers now begin homing far more quickly.
All 4 speeds have been greatly increased for Normal & Advanced flight modes.
Advanced flight afterburner now requires a double-tap of R2.
Advanced flight now has high-engine speed on press-and-hold of R2.
Afterburner speed for Arcade mode has been reduced slightly.
Increased Swarm Laser targeting range & reticle box.
Hawk Flare cool-down time has been lengthened.
Hawks now decelerate far more quickly when transforming from flight to mech mode.
Lowered the Hawk Mech stomp attack camera.
Camera in Arcade flight mode has been pulled a bit further back.
Missile Scrub values for "canned" dodges have been slightly increased.
Hawk off-screen target tracking time has been increased slightly.
Sniper Rifle aim assist while scoped has been increased slightly.
Increased firing time for Razorback turret before over-heat.
As you can see we've made a large number of changes with this update mostly focused on flight gameplay. Listed below is a bit more detail on the changes and why we made them:
Flight Speed Adjustment:
A common discussion among the BETA Testers in the Starhawk community has been that the Hawk felt slow & sluggish. And with our recent re-instatement of Classic Warhawk Arcade mode, we felt that we needed to bring the speeds of Normal and Advanced flight up considerably. While doing so, we reduced the speed of Arcade mode afterburner by a bit (still very, very fast) to make sure that all 3 flight modes were truly unified with regard to speed.
We have also re-enabled double-tap of R2 on Advanced flight mode to trigger afterburner while a simple press-and-hold or R2 will engage high-engine speed. This was to give advanced pilots more control on their turning radius while dogfighting much like we did in Warhawk. Please also note that the double-tap for afterburner is still intact for Arcade flight mode.
Missile Homing and Trajectory:
Another issue plaguing the air gameplay in the Starhawk BETA has been that Homing Missiles and Swarm Lasers were not tracking their targets quickly enough. This resulted in a number of unsavory consequences. First, defending pilots had a lot of time to maneuver and scrub missiles and in some cases, pilots were almost un-killable with missiles. Secondly, Swarm Laser salvos and Homing Missiles would often look like they weren't tracking their targets at all because of how long they would stay in straight flight before their homing systems would kick-in. Today's update sees a radical change by fully eliminating the homing delay on Swarm Lasers and reducing the homing delay on Homing missiles down to 0.2 seconds.
It should be noted that while we did make a small alteration to the missile scrubbing with this update, the almost complete removal of the homing delay has made a massive impact on the dodging and air gameplay of dogfights -- making it more challenging. That said, we will continue to monitor the gameplay and combat analytics and see if further updates are required.
Hawk Transform Deceleration:
Landing the Hawk exactly where you wanted was very difficult due to the momentum of the Hawk when it transforms and often resulted in player frustration. Today's change is intended to help that by making the Hawk decelerate *FAR* more quickly when transforming. With today's update, the Hawk will come to a nearly immediate stop when transforming with only a tiny amount of drift.
Please also be aware that this change largely impacts deceleration forward/backwards and side to side. There is still far more momentum in the upward direction than we are happy with and we will be addressing that in a future update.
Camera Adjustment in Arcade Flight:
Today's update brings an alteration to the Arcade flight camera intended to help reduce the amount of screen space the Hawk consumes. In the first deployment of Arcade flight, the Hawk was often causing large obstructions and resulting in a loss of combat awareness.
MISC. Weapon Updates:
The 1.2.2 update also contains a variety of other weapons updates:
Sniper rifle has received a slight increase in aim assist while in scoped mode and scoped mode *ONLY*. "No-scoping" is still 100% player skill.
The Hawk flares now take longer to recharge in an attempt to help increase the combat effectiveness of missiles while dogfighting. For players new to Starhawk, Flares are deployed by pressing R3 and scrub *ALL* missiles currently locked-on your Hawk.
The range at which Hawk pilots can begin aquiring lock with Swarm Lasers has been increased. In addition, the Swarm Laser targeting box -- the region around the on-screen reticle where locks can occur -- has been slightly increased.
Razorback turrets can now handle far longer periods of sustained fire before over-heating.
The Hawk's off-screen target tracker has been updated to track the designated target for a slighting longer amount of time. For players that are new to Starhawk, the target tracker is the faint circle in the HUD that is drawn on the last aircraft you hit with your Hawk's MG. This will aid you in tracking enemy pilots during intense dogfights. Furthermore, if that pilot flies off-screen, you will see a white arrow point in the direction you need to turn to re-aquire your enemy. However, if your enemy stays out of your view *OR* out of Line-of-Sight for a period of time, you will loose your target tracker and will have to re-engage.
