[LtFEED]

We'd really like to hear your comments and suggestions about the recent Alphas.  Were going to be releasing beta versions very soon and we want to hear your comments about the Alpha. If you have some constructive comments about the Alpha or are having issues loading or playing the game, please leave them here.  THanks -LtF

[BZROM]

Right from the start..
I've noticed an uncontrollable wobble with the ship after jumping the fire crevice. It lasted for around 20 secs or so...even after stopping. (while accelerating it lasted longer)
Will follow through with what i further find as testing continues.

[SwedishSensation]

Wingmen tend to ram into the player when i am stationary

Cant get out of bomber (as of now)

Hud looks awesome, same with the vehicles with textures

[Zazz]

Known bugs list

Bugs

• Wingmen oscillating around their designated formation position
• Wingmen will bump into you
• Can't get out of bomber
• Too much angular momentum on bomber (view sways from side to side)
• Looking all the way up in first person view for the tank shows the edge of the 1st person mesh
• Looking all the way down in first person view for the bomber shows the edge of the 1st person mesh
• Can only respawn once
• 3rd person camera acts oddly
• Wingmen don't attack
• "Wingmen # is dead" message repeats several times
• Mouse wheel up scrolls to an empty weapon (guessing it's out of array boundary or something)
• HUD doesn't show whole weapon list, just currently equipped

Opinions

• 1st person view for tank too claustrophobic
• Rear thrusters shouldn't always be on
• Scout accelerates forward to quickly

Map related

• Invisible wall around base from the starting point, need to follow long way round follow the pipe)

If there any issues listed here be non-devs, I'll add them to our bug tracker.

[NoStr0m0]

Some things I noticed:

This looks sweet.

Weapons:
-if you switch weapons while holding down the fire button, the new weapon won't start firing until you release and then press the fire button. Not necessarily a bug, just a bit annoying.
-targeting reticle: once you pass a certain pitch, the minigun shoots a bit under it, rockets hit ok in first person. Minigun still shoots under and rockets shoot higher than miniguns but still under where the reticle is pointing in 3rd pers.
Tested on starting point wall and close by structure.


Veh physics:
Strafe+move side movement is lower and slower than when you strafe without moving. FWD movement seems to be much more powerful than the strafe in strafe-move. When strafing alone, the strafe motion seems as powerful as the FWD motion. Possibly has to do with the ration of fwd to left/right motion that is allowed when strafe-moving.
strafe moving in reverse seems to be correctly proportioned.

Pitching your camera doesn't pitch the vehicle, which is confusing and probably affecting weapon target which I mentioned earlier.

Vehicles-terrain interaction not always predictable: sometimes going over a ramp will drop you flat on the other side, other times some collision will happen that will send you flying for several meters.

Collisions are far too violent even at low speeds. Bit noisy too.
Collision boxes too large.
Related to this: can't get up sloped rocks. The vehs just hit them like a brick wall. But had the Razon wingman get up one after a collision. He continued on his way unphased.

Camera control: (as mentioned by Zazz)
To clarify on odly: In 3rd pers, hitting an up ramp pushes the camera towards the vehicle instead of away. Camera isn't 'glued' to the ship but is reactive. Very confusing and annoying in 3rd person. Hitting a down ramp/flying off peak pushes camera back, loosing sight of the veh for a few moments. Again, camera isn't glued to the ship, its movements seem to counteract the veh's.

Sat view camera should be centered on the player, at the moment the player is in the lower part of the screen.

Misc:
Wingmen locked to player spawning vehicle, not player. When I change ship, they remain locked on the Razor I spawned in.

Clipped the terrain when jumping over fire chasm; went through it for a few meters then popped up at normal level. Only happens when going away from spawn point.

Spider turret didn't react to me being in range until I was standing right beside it for a few seconds.

Pill turrets seem to detect me from miles away. They are already firing as I make the turn to see them (also firing while I'm not in range). They seem very slow to turn to follow me circling them.
Pill turret meshes are pushed by player and wingmen and eventually fall through the map if you drive straight into them and continue.

Skymap clouds effects need a bit of work. Maybe make the scale of the clouds and holes bigger and have them move slower. Also, the circling effect is very visible.

A big congrats to everyone on the team! You guys are doing a kick-ass job getting this together. It's already leaps and bounds from just a few weeks ago.

[BZROM]

Looks like between.. Zazz and NoStr0m0: they have covered this pretty well.
To stave repetition, i'll forgo my report;  (saved me alot texting)

[cmc1995]

Wish I could see wht the Alpha looks like because currently I don't have a computer sufficient enough to see it myself but great job anyways guys I'm sure its great

[djex]

Bugs

• Not sure if this is a bug or intentional but when exiting a vehicle the vehicle HUD stays on screen and player is unable to fire first person weapon
• When W + A OR W + D are held together and the mouse is rotated to the opposite direction the mouse jumps around erratically and control of the vehicle is lost until WASD and mouse are let go.
  
  Example: W + A are held mouse view is moved to the right.
• Wingmen spin about in circles and won't sit still.
• This one is hard to explain. There is a sort of choppy shadow glare when looking into a light source. At times depending on the direction facing half the screen with be shaded darker than the other with a choppy halo splitting the screen.
  
  I uploaded a few screen shots here: http://imgur.com/a/jr9Pl

Some Bugs have been omitted since they have been said in previous replies.

System Specs:
OS: Windows 7 Pro 64bit
RAM: 8 GB
CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 3.2GHz
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6970, Catalyst Version: 11.9

Opinions

• The vehicles currently feel too block like. When strafing side to side it would help if the vehicle banked into the direction you are strafing to. Also it seems to be missing that classic floaty feel the previous battlezones had.
• The first person view for the tank is too enclosed. Also an option to disable the cockpit in first person would be beneficial to some.
• The formations feature is pure awesome but it would be even better if the wingmen wouldn't crash into you while move side to side.
• When moving the mouse up and down the vehicle should tilt up or down accordingly. This would also help add to the feel.
• The map is coming along well. I noticed there is an invisible wall on the edge of the cliff at the spawn point. Will we not be able to float off cliffs like in previous battleszones?

Over all looking good. I think the main thing besides the bugs is working on the feel and maneuverability of the vehicles. Also I'm assuming the animations and textures are not yet fully completed for the vehicles.

[G-I-J]

after i start the instant action or multiplayer . its says "hit fire to start" but all i can see is the my health ammo. and the gun i have selected in the bottom right. when i hit F8 everything goes half rendered-like blue green yellow and red. even then, you cant see your enemies or anything else. When i hit F11 i will have the inventory menu, which looks great at works fine but i cant see anything else after i exit the inventory menu.

[SwedishSensation]

after i start the instant action or multiplayer . its says "hit fire to start" but all i can see is the my health ammo. and the gun i have selected in the bottom right. when i hit F8 everything goes half rendered-like blue green yellow and red. even then, you cant see your enemies or anything else. When i hit F11 i will have the inventory menu, which looks great at works fine but i cant see anything else after i exit the inventory menu.

Did you try this?

Installation Directions

(untill we get our GUIs working, heres the game launch work around)
1. install game to default directory

2. copy shortcut to executable

3. place copy of shortcut on Desktop

(if installed to the default directory, the game will place a shortcut in the Start Menu. In W7, its under 'All Programs")

4. right click on new shortcut (on Desktop) and click on 'properites'

5. under 'Target' modify the command line to read:

'C:\UDK\BioniteVehicelALphaA8\Binaries\Win32\UDK.exe b-alpha8'

(modify the end of the command line after '...UDK.exe' to include the map name 'b-alpha8')

6. click on 'apply' and then 'ok'

7. double left click on the new shortcut and launch the game.

[Zazz]

Over all looking good. I think the main thing besides the bugs is working on the feel and maneuverability of the vehicles. Also I'm assuming the animations and textures are not yet fully completed for the vehicles.

Thanks for your feedback djex.
You've got a few new points in there, so I'll log them in our issue tracker.

[NoStr0m0]

One more thing to add about wingmen:
(Most probably related to the formation coding = fixed point where the unit should be)
In long, straight drives, the wingmen movement seems choppy, a sort of stop and go of their engines.
I believe this is due to the fact that the they use cycles to calculate where they should be compared to where you are but as you continue to move forward the position changes so by the time they are in the position they were supposed to be the previous cycle and 'release the gas' the position where they should be relative to the player now has updates so they 'floor it' again.
I'm not sure how they're coded but a solution might be to also have the wingmen consider the player's input more. What I mean by this is that they should think that as long as W,A,S or D is pressed, they should keep moving in that direction and only after that do they check if they're in the right place, mirroring the player's input.

[BZROM]

 This may have already been mentioned in some form; The wingmen tend to ram into the rock formations either while moving by them or just sitting near.('b-alpha8')

[Ziggy]

Hey guys,

Been following the trailers. Killer work. I am a fan from way back when I bought my first Monster 3dII (with an unbelievable 12MB of RAM back then) and it came with the original Battlezone CD (the neon green one). I have been hooked ever since and still have both BZI and BZ2 installed on my current system with all of the player packs (REd Oddesy, etc.).

Maybe a stupid question, but where can I d/l the alphas that you guys are referencing? I can download in any format (torrents or otherwise). Can't wait to try this out!

Thanks,
Ziggy...

[Zazz]

Hi Ziggy, thanks for sigining up.
The latest alpha (and run instructions) can be found here.

As you may have gathered from the title, this alpha is mostly for testing the vehicles and the compatability with everyone's machine, such as the 'choppy shadow glare' djex has on his PC.
Any suggestions that you have though are welcomed, we take everyone's comments into consideration .