Hotfixes October 2013

Spawn changes
This should alleviate situations where pilots and others are downed more than one region away from a friendly territory and are stuck with no good spawn options. This change will offer the nearest small outpost and nearest large outpost in addition to the nearest major facility that is already available. This should allow those players to either join the nearest front or fall back to spawn another vehicle at a larger facility.
 * Reinforcement spawn locations are now more likely to show up for front line battles.
 * Instant Action now has a higher chance of choosing a location on the player's current continent.
 * Increased standard spawn options to include:
 * Nearest Small outpost by lattice links
 * Nearest Large outpost by lattice links

Please note that the distance is by lattice-links, not as the crow flies.

World Domination Series UI Update
We have added the following UI elements to improve the awareness of the WDS to players, and to better inform players on where they can make a meaningful impact to their empire’s scoring.

The TAB Scoreboard now lists the Daily, Weekly, and Season scores for each empire. The scores shown are only for your server. Empires are sorted top-to-bottom so it's quick to see where your empire stands for the day/week/season.

The Map Region information panel now shows current WDS scoring value for the region. The capture value is the amount of WDS points your empire will receive if it were to capture the facility. The hold value is the amount of WDS points the owner will receive at the next point deposit. Next to the hold value is the time remaining for the next deposit.

The values listed in the UI are up-to-date values and take all modifiers to the scoring into account, including top dog and difficulty. Due to difficulty modifier changing with population, these point values will change over time.

World Domination Series Scoring Update
We have updated the World Domination Series scoring rules. New scoring rules are as follows:

Base Scoring Value Changes - The base values for capturing and holding territories is being adjusted for greater scaling potential. Here are the new values: These values are much higher than current, but they will be typically much lower than they seem due to the difficulty modifier (described below) reducing overall scoring value. Players will still see a significant increase in overall scoring potential compared to the previous scoring rules. The expected point scoring increase is approximately three times higher than previous weeks. These values take into account typical capture rates and hold times such that large outposts will roughly be worth twice that of a small outpost, and a major facility will be worth roughly twice that of a large outpost.
 * Small Outpost: 10 for capture, 20 per hour held
 * Large Outpost: 30 for capture, 50 per hour held
 * Major Facility: 50 for capture, 100 per hour held

Difficulty Modifier - The value of a territory for both hold and capture will now scale in value depending on the level of enemy presence on the continent. The difficulty modifier will be between .1 and 1, depending on the most populated enemy faction on the continent. The difficulty modifier is defined as: MAX( .1, EnemyEmpire1Population/PopulationCap, EnemyEmpire2Population/PopulationCap)

This means that empty continents will be worth much less than populated continents, and that empires that outnumber their opponents on a continent will be getting less capture and hold scoring there than those opponents. The most valuable territories will be on continents with a strong enemy presence. There is a minimum value of .1 so dominating empty continents still has some meaningful value, but fighting on a more populated continent has a significantly greater impact potential.

Top Dog Bounty - Territories belonging to the empire with the highest seasonal score for the server will have 50% increased capture point value to the other empires. This will make being the scoring leader more challenging. It is intended to prevent a runaway empire and to give underdogs a reasonable chance at a comeback.

These are the only scoring updates going in at this time. We want to see how these changes affect the preseason before making further adjustments.

Depot
Coming soon: Keep an eye out for Halloween sales on some new arrivals and old favorites.

Misc

 * Rotated the Warp Gate owners again for the World Domination Series event
 * Lowered "Alert Incoming" time to 2 minutes from 15

Bug fixes

 * Hooked up impact audio for MAX AV weapons, rocket launchers, and Liberator Dalton
 * Depot: Fixed a bug with purchasing boosts while in the VR training zone
 * Several helmets will now properly display character heads
 * Spectre Helmet now has appropriate camo pattern
 * Improved faction color visibility on stealth suits for the NC, TR and VS. As a result camouflage no longer covers the entire surface area of the suits.
 * Fix for rocket lock-on intermittently getting stuck on

Forum Link: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps2/index.php?threads/server-downtime-for-hotfix-october-16-2013-6am-pdt-3pm-cest.154341/

Depot

 * Spectre Helmet camo placement should no longer be inverted.
 * The Osprey helmet’s attempt at being ready for Halloween by imitating the Headless Horseman Helmet has been addressed.
 * The Bahamut Mask has appropriate camo coverage.

Forum Link: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps2/index.php?threads/client-hotfix-october-17th-2013.154606/