Changes submitted since version 226

The following changes have been submitted into cvs, for probable inclusion in the next build.
The changes are mainly to improve balance and gameplay.

Medic Engineer gets an overhaul - see separate thread. Summary: Loaded Healing up to level 3, Experienced Healing level 9, level 3 drip, no pet abilities, different list of engineer items to spawn (blocks, def sent and minigun turret), level 10 Damage Reduction, level 15 shield regen, no armor regen, level 5 of the defsent addons for shields, armor and health.

Replaced the ExtremeEngineer subclass with the BaseSpecialist subclass. This subclass can summon lots of blocks and defense sentinels. and a minigun turret, no vehicles. It will be able to summon a link sentinel, once I have finished a bit more testing on it.

MonsterDamage reduced from 5% to 2% per level, to reduce the power of the ExtremeMonsters subclass

Advanced Damage Bonus upped from 2% to 3% per level, to help WMs

Locking vehicles and turrets, including adding "Lock" and "Unlock" commands. Eject command removed. Can only have one item locked at a time.

Starting health etc reduced for numerous things (assume most, but only slightly), including vehicles, sentinels, turrets, pets and blocks

Berserker damage at long range upped by 1% per level. I think the last nerf left them a bit weak at distance.

Hybrid Loaded artifacts order changed to help the AM/WM. order now lvl1: MWM,Globe, lvl2: DoubleMag,Max,Rod,Triple, lvl3: PlusOne,FireBall. AM/WM now gets level 3.

Defense Sents boosting spider mines for WM/Eng if they have both the spider steroids and DefSent Resupply abilities

Minor power increase on autogun fire, plus large range increase

Fireball slightly faster

Level 1 adrenaline surge added to AM hybrids

Vampire upped by one level for WM hybrids

Experienced Healing up from level 2 to 4 for AM/MM and WM/MM hybrids.

Added column and single level straight wall constructs.

various minor bug fixes, including another change to possibly fix the eng client crash.

Change to DCMonsters for minor bug fixes, and reducing how often monsters attack each other

Added the link sentinel for BaseSpecialists.

The link sentinel will boost all minigun turrets, energy turrets, ball turrets and ion cannons within range in a similar manner to the engineer link.

It will heal but not boost link turrets, sentinels and vehicles.

It will not link to players. Players linking to the link sentinel will heal it, but that is all.

This is the core part of the BaseSpecialist class. BaseSpecialists will only be able to summon one of these, but will be able to summon 2 defense sentinels at the same time.

On further feedback and scores, it looks like Berserkers are a touch too strong, and so I think upping their long distance capability would not be a good idea. So I have rolled that back. In addition, the berserking-benefit distance was a bit generous, so I have reduced it a touch. Not a lot, just enough to encourage them to close up on their enemy a bit.

Extreme WM are already powerful, and when they get the +10% from the advanced damage bonus, they will be too powerful. So, to push them further away from adrenaline use, I have halved the adrenaline EWMs get from kills. Like a -1 adrenal surge. This will reduce the amount of time they can use triples/globes or berserks. Adrenaline from sprees will not change.

Extreme AMs are too powerful. So I am reducing them from having a max level 3 of adrenal surge down to level 2.

Another few minor tweaks.

Vehicles should be for outside, not inside. But currently you can spawn vehicles in smaller spaces than turrets. That seems wrong to me. So I have reduced the spawn space required for turrets (still making sure there is room to go over it or around it), but increased the space required for vehicles.

There is still inconsistency between the LoadedArtifact ability and the LoadedArtifactHybrid ability. Why should hybrids get unbreakable artifacts earlier than AMs? And why do they get better artifacts for the same level? So the two abilities have been merged, with just one list of artifacts. And because the artifacts per level have changed, the costs of each level have changed.

Freezebomb removed from list of AM artifacts, since no-one ever used it.

Wave configuration has changed slightly.

It is a lot easier to survive at low level as a general/medic/engineer than as a AM or WM. So I have slightly increased the low level benefits for AMs and WMs.