Daniel Stahl’s released the May Engineering Report and it’s got some really really exciting information in it. Season 4, especially Ground Combat 2.0, has been on the horizon for so long, that it felt like it was never going to make it into the game. Now suddenly it feels like it’s almost here. Stahl has announced a tentative, let me repeat that tentative, date of July 7th for Season 4’s release, with features starting to show up on the test server in early June.
Stahl also gives a short summary of what the new ground combat is like by saying that it is going to be faster. There’s a new optional over-the-shoulder aim reticle mode which eliminates tab targeting and leads to some cool new mechanics:
It also means being able to drag weapon fire across an area an hit multiple targets, or dumb throw grenades in a general area.
Weapon stats, ranges, firing modes, reload times, sound effects, and visual FX had all been updated. Mobs HP scaling has been adjusted when changing mission difficulty, this is something I’m very interested in since I like space combat on the advanced difficulty but ground combat at that level is very tedious.
I’m starting to get excited again now that it feels like we’re more than halfway through the lull between Featured Episode Series 3 and the Season 4 update.