A Cruiser, built by WitherV.
Nations has updated to 1.18.2, and in doing so, the first stage of the Naval Update has been deployed. This first part of the Naval Update completely overhauls all aspects of Movecraft on Nations, including craft design, controls, weaponry and combat. Accompanying this update is a much-requested creative Movecraft server to allow you to easily design and experiment with ships.
Direct Control
The new Direct Control (DC) system provides an intuitive way to control crafts without using signs, commands and macros. To activate DC, type /dc while controlling a craft. This will activate cruise mode for the craft.
Rotating while in DC is simple: press the Swap Item key (default: F) to rotate clockwise and the Drop Item key (default: Q) to rotate anti-clockwise, while holding a clock (aircraft) or compass (all other crafts). Moving is equally as simple: the craft will move in the same direction as you move.
For aircraft, moving forwards will lower your pitch and moving backwards will raise your pitch, like using a control stick on a real aircraft. Scrolling through your hotbar while holding a clock in DC adjusts the throttle of the aircraft: scrolling right increases the throttle, and scrolling left will reduce the throttle. Key movements can be combined to move diagonally, allowing complex maneuvers to be executed.
Cannons
New Cannon Designs
Land cannons have been completely separated from naval cannons for the sake of balancing and aesthetics. These new cannons look better and are far easier to fit on ships. There are 9 new cannons in total, each with their own ammunition type - among them a dedicated anti-aircraft flak cannon.
Better Remote Cannon Control
Previously, cannons could only be fired and reloaded manually or using redstone. The forced inclusion of redstone into ship designs often made them convoluted and fragile - it was not uncommon for a ship to be left combat-disabled after a few hits or due to redstone freezing due to bugs. It is no longer a requirement to use redstone as of this update: your craft's cannons can now be reloaded and fired by left-clicking with a clock, just like how they can be aimed by right-clicking with a clock. Moreover, dogfighting is now possible with fighters as right-clicking with a clock will both aim and fire their cannons.
Sometimes you might want to aim and fire just one type of cannon, e.g. your anti-air guns, but not your main naval guns. This is possible by renaming your clock to the cannon ID of the cannon type you want to control. These can be found on the cannons wiki page.
TNT Cannon Improvements
Wiki article: Directed TNT Mechanics
It is no secret that some find engineering TNT cannons more compelling than building plugin-based cannons. The new mechanics added in this update will make TNT cannons viable:
- Primed TNT can be moved by pistons and sticky pistons (translocation).
- Fast-moving Primed TNT will detonate upon impact with a surface.
- The blast yield of Primed TNT will depend on the velocity it is travelling at.
Combat
Balancing
Over the last few months, it became clear that the naval meta had stagnated. Corvette swarms and and so-called "shotgun ships" ruled the waves, which made ship design and combat fundamentally uninteresting.
To address this, several features have been introduced:
- Magazine explosions. When a container block storing ammunition - such as a chest - is destroyed, the ammunition will detonate and trigger a smaller secondary explosion. This explosion's strength depends on the amount of ammunition inside the container. This makes both cannon placement and target selection more strategic.
- Rotation cooldowns. No longer can a dreadnought perform a 180° turn in two seconds - rotatable turrets are essential for larger warships that want good fire coverage.
- Convergence when using /aim and clock aiming. This allows spaced-out cannons, such as those on turrets, to focus (converge) their fire.
- The stone brick portion of cannon barrels must now be uncovered to discourage embedded cannons.
Along with this, the separation of naval guns into different tiers has helped us balance the interactions of different craft types with one each other without interfering with land sieges.
Craft HUD
It is difficult to track the damage done to your craft during combat. The Craft HUD was created with this in mind. The HUD automatically activates when piloting a craft with cannons. Hull Integrity tells you the percentage of blocks remaining on your craft since the moment you started piloting it. Below Hull Integrity is a list of the cannons on your craft and their cardinal facing direction. The colour of each cannon corresponds to its status: firing, loaded and ready to fire, reloading/on cooldown, unloaded and destroyed.
Battle Points from Destroying Crafts
Destroying a tank can be as difficult as killing a player, and will now be rewarded as such. Battle points can be earned by destroying enemy-piloted crafts within a siege zone using cannons, fire charge AA and directed TNT. More points are rewarded for destroying the larger craft types.
SvS Combat Tag
If a craft fires its weapons, it will be combat-tagged for 30 seconds. While combat-tagged, a craft cannot be released. That means you can no longer evade being sunk by strategically releasing your craft.
New Craft Types
An IFV, built by WitherV.
Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV)
The IFV is the successor to the APC. It retains the crew bed capabilities of the APC while being able to fight infantry on its own using its IFV Cannon.
There was a need for a medium-sized battleship without the specialisation of the Destroyer. Cruisers are the answer to that, armed with 9-inch naval guns.
The Heavy Tank is a larger and heavier variant of the Tank. It trades maneuverability for increased damage against forts.
Elevators are utility subcrafts that work using the newly-implemented Subcraft Relative Move Sign. They can be used, for example, to lift ships at a shipyard or move fighters onto the deck of an aircraft carrier.
Commands
/craftlist
This command replaces /craftreport. It lists the locations of all active crafts without disclosing the craft's type, pilot or size. However, each entry is colour-coded depending on the relationship of the pilot's nation with your nation.
/craftblocks [craft type]
This simple command opens a GUI listing a craft types's allowed blocks. You can also compare the allowed blocks lists of two craft types using /craftblocks compare . For example, "/craftblocks compare Dreadnought Turret" will return the blocks that are allowed on a Dreadnought and not allowed on a Turret. This is useful for finding blocks to separate subcrafts.
/craftcomposition
Use this command while piloting a craft to view the list of blocks on your craft and the percentage of the craft that is made from them.
/craftcalc [craft type] [size]
This command calculates the block requirements and limits for a craft type of the given size.
/countermeasures
A straightforward command that activates countermeasures on a Destroyer in case all Countermeasures signs have been destroyed.
Siege Region Changes
For the updated times, check the wiki article.
Atlantic
This is a merger of the former Gibraltar and West Atlantic siege regions. Its controller will receive $3456 per day, as well as access to the Gibraltar naval town.
Sahara
This is a new land siege region that can be captured using tanks and heavy tanks.
Mediterranean
This is the former Suez region, expanded and moved further to the west.
Pacific
The siege window of this region has changed in response to feedback. It is also now attackable on Friday and Saturday, rather than just Saturday.
Bab al-Mandab
The siege region has been expanded and moved to the east.
Periscopes
This is similar to the short-lived periscope mechanic from N1, but hopefully with less exploits! Periscopes can be built on tanks, heavy tanks and submarines to change your character's camera view. Periscopes can be used with Direct Control to achieve a kind of third-person control mode.
Resource Pack
The resource pack has had major additions for this update. TheLastOreo and Kuakster_V have graciously designed textures for both the existing and new explosive shells. Firing and reloading sounds have been added for every new cannon, and some crafts will now even make sounds while moving, such as fighters and trucks. Combined with new textures for explosion particles, the audiovisual experience of naval battles is vastly improved.
Movecraft Creative Server
Last year, you voted 134-3 in favour of adding a creative mode Movecraft build server. This server finally exists and can be joined using /server movecraft. The server gives generously-sized plots on which you can build and use all cannons and craft types present on Nations. You can claim a plot by flying to an unclaimed plot and typing /ps claim, or typing /ps auto to automatically claim the nearest free one.
FastAsyncWorldEdit can be used on the server. As well as being a faster version of WorldEdit, this plugin also lets you import and export schematics of your builds to and from the server.
There is an arena world where ships can be tested and battles arranged. It resets daily, after the automated server restart. It can be teleported to using /warp arena.
A full rule set for this server will be published in the coming days. For now, it should suffice to say that griefing and design theft of any sort will not be tolerated, and violators may be permanently banned from the Movecraft server in addition to receiving a temporary ban from CCNet as a whole.
Miscellaneous Changes
- Removed:
- Large (Wool) Cannon - redundant as it was almost identical to its smaller counterpart.
- Smoke and gas canisters - appeared to only generate annoyance and FPS drops at sieges.
- Cluster HE - unsurprisingly, the cluster aspect of the projectile made it too difficult to balance.
- Flares and the Mortar - virtually unused. This will be reconsidered should invisibility potions be added in the future.
- Piston heads will now be used as the lock block on crafts!
- The block requirements for many crafts have been changed to allow for greater creative freedom. There are too many of them to list here, so you should check the wiki or /craftcalc.
- Fire spread on moving crafts has been fixed.
- Shipyards will always ask for white wool in place of coloured wool, just as they only ask for white concrete to build coloured concrete.
- Torpedo and bomb damage has been rebalanced.
- Depth charges have been rebalanced and the method through which they select a detonation location on submarines has been improved.
- Contacts now works properly and detects crafts from longer ranges. Moreover, crafts on Contacts signs will be colour-coded depending on their proximity to your craft.
- /aim and collective clock aiming messages are now sent through the action bar to limit spam.
- Fighters have been re-added to zeppelins and they will no longer melt walls.
- Fixed the naval support battle points multiplier not functioning at all.
Known Issues
I am only aware of one issue, although unfortunately it is quite serious when it occurs: crafts will sometimes become 'bricked', unable to be released and preventing you from piloting a new craft. This is being tracked by the Movecraft developers here.
Part 1? What about Part 2?
There are a number of features that I did not have time to implement in this update. The most significant of these is Squadrons, which will allow pilots to control multiple aircraft using aircraft carriers. Squadrons is not (and may never be) ready for Nations, but can for now be experimented with on the Creative server. I also intend to add Naval Raids, a type of conflict similar to naval sieges that would allow money to be plundered from peaceful and non-peaceful towns alike in a non-destructive manner. Finally, modular torpedoes are also on the agenda.
There is no ETA and I cannot say whether Part 2 will indeed materialise at once, through a number of smaller updates or whether it will even happen at all. The fact is, I have spent much more time on the server than I should have, and I will need to deal with the consequences of this first before considering adding new features.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all the testers on the Movecraft server for making this update possible, including but not limited to:
- WitherV (cannon designs, recipes, extensive testing)
- Taakot (wiki)
- BenisLad (coding, testing)
- Melkron (testing)
- TopTrash (testing)
- Scorpius_992 (testing)
- TheLastOreo (textures)
- Kuakster_V (textures)
Last edited: about 1 year ago x 6 | x 1
WitherV