Eve-O

So I thought i'd post something, seeing as I haven't for ages. So, at the moment I am mainly playing Eve Online with the odd round of BF2 on the side.

I've got 2 battleships at the moment, one Tempest (2nd tier) which I have set up as a close tackler and damage-dealer for pvp.

And a Maelstrom (3rd tier) which is set up with arty and I am using to grind out level 4 combat missions for ISK.

Skills-wise i'm getting my shield and cap skills to 4 or 5, then
Large Projectile Turret and Minmatar Battleship to 4, and a
couple of sensor and drone stuff that I didn't get very far in.
After that i'm going to train Minmatar Frigate to 5 and look at Interceptors, or possibly Covert Ops.

My corp, PCTI, have left 5th Column alliance as we felt it wasn't really going anywhere fast. We are in talks with Invictus who have about 10 systems in the drone regions in 0.0 space. The thought of going to 0.0 at this stage of my skills and resources is a little scary, having only just got into battleships a few weeks ago, but I reckon I'll be alright. I mean, I haven't outgrown empire by any means yet, but if the corp goes, I will too because I like them, and the potential for growth is a lot better out there apparently. And it will be certainly interesting to see how it works, there are only 2 stations for like a 20-jump range! Also there should be better pvp available; at the moment all we get in Molden Heath is pirates coming through in ones or twos who you can hardly ever catch, or enormous gatecamps by big alliances with capitals, which we can't really match up to.

o/

BF2 1.4

So patch 1.4 came out today. Here is the official changelog.

GAMEPLAY TWEAKS

- The vehicle drop has been modified to help prevent exploits such as blocking enemy vehicles, destroying vehicles and commander assets, or as an alternative to artillery.
- C4 tossing distance has been reduced.
- A prone->crouch delay has been added.

BUG FIXES

- Fixed the Linux server hangs when trying to load a Special Forces Co-Op map.
- Another attempt at fixing the Red/Blue nametag bug.
- Fixed the missing server info on the map briefing screen.
- Fixed the server browser issues with updating info.
- Fixed the filter by maps size option in the server browser.
- Fixed a low reproducibility crash bug related to the vehicle drop.
- Fixed a crash in Co-op after a player is revived without a kit.
- Fixed a server crash on Linux 32 when trying to rotate maps in Co-op Mode.
- Fixed the occasional red distance marker appearing on the ground.
- Fixed the bug that caused the player's arms to become invisible when switching weapons.
- Co-Op bot console commands now function on local servers.
- Fixed the excessive damage taken by the Muscle Car.
- Adjusted the minimum number of players to start the round on ranked servers.
The new values for 16, 32 and 64 players are 6, 8 and 8 respectively.
- Re-enabled unlocks on unranked servers.
- Commander options are no longer available whilst commander is dead.
- Fixed bug where a spawn point is shown as selected when it is not if player has spawned in during the preview round.
- Co-Op (Local Server) - Fixed the issue where no other players may join the server if the server host is kicked and banned.
- Ranked Servers now force unlocks.
- Added support for multiple gamemodes in single maplist for mods.

Notice how the bug fixes list is three times longer than the tweaks one. Of the tweaks- you can't drop cars on buildings anymore, this is good, although it was quite fun to crush unwary snipers!
Reducing C4 throwing distance even more is stupid. You basically have to be like kissing the tank now to make a pack stick. Someone tell Dice that C4 can actually be thrown without detonating, it's not like a Molotov or something.
The prone->crouch (and standing->prone delay) which also makes your accuracy worse while doing it is kind of annoying, it makes for more deaths by some grunt with an AK-101 running round the corner because you can't get up quickly enough. Also it messes up the Support kit, cos you need to be prone to get any kind of accuracy with the guns, so you will die more while going prone. I think it was done to stop prone-spamming like this, but it's fairly unnessary as nobody does it and its not that hard to kill someone doing it anway.

Of the bug fixes, the main ones were server crashes, where your connection would freeze and then drop you back to the server list, and random CTDs.



The tanks are 'flying' because they carry on sliding along the screen
in whatever direction and height etc they were going!

These have been mainly fixed I think, I did get one server crash in an afternoon's play (although it may have been the server's fault) and some people said they got connection problems on bf2s.com. I'll see if I get any more.
The missing server info bug is also fixed, that was q. annoying.

The patch also added a new map: 'Road to Jalalabad', or Road to Jalalalalalalalalalalalalalabad as it's really called. This map is like a cross between Sharqi with the open ground at the start, then like a wider Karkand. It's got a lot of tall buildings, with some good sniper positions, which is a plus. The art side of things is kind of lazy in that they've re-used a lot of assets from previous maps such as the mosque from Mashtuur, the hotel from Sharqi, and a lot of the generic buildings are from those levels, albeit with a few more ladders. There are some cool touches though such as flaming wrecks of trucks, APCs, planes etc littering the streets.


The main problem with the map is that it's quite easy for the USMC to just roll across the lake crossing and cut right into the heart of the city, ignoring the outer flags. It's pretty hard to defend both sides at once, and once they get a flag in the middle, very hard to contain, and prevent a load more flags falling. I mean, it's always been like that in these defense maps, but none of Karkand, Sharqi, Warlord, Mass Destruction etc have this massive shortcut right into the heart of the enemy defenses. I think they should either let the MEC start with the lake flag or get rid of the lake crossing, because the available terrrain around the road is wide enough to let FAVs zip past defenders anyway.

You will see this a lot.

Okay, i'm off to snipe some unsuspecting fools...