Hello Spacers,

I apologize for the delay in getting this patch onto main, but given how it is going to upend a few things with respect to carriers I wanted to get through a few weekends of public testing before sending it to Live. This update is focused on balance and performance, but we'll be back to feature minor updates soon.

The network sync system for craft has been updated again to greatly reduce framerate drops on clients. The previous update duplicated a lot of work across clients, resulting in players with lower end PCs struggling to simulate all of the craft and causing low framerates, as well as a lot of divergent behavior causing dogfights to be completely unreadable. With this update, craft are no longer simulated on clients and their motion is now interpolated in a way that keeps it smooth and consistent with the server's while also reducing network traffic to improve server performance. There is still a little bit of ugly snapping when taking off and landing, but everywhere else things should look great.

During carrier beta testing we found that fighters were a gamble to bring because if the enemy didn't bring a carrier there wasn't much for them to do. To help make them less of a gamble we added a number of light strike weapons to enable fighters to interact with ships if no other fighters were present. Unfortunately, a number of factors have contributed to carrier builds coalescing around nothing but fighters on both factions. Hopefully that has been addressed in this patch with a few changes:

Skin thickness for the Tanto and Barracuda has been reduced and flak armor penetration has been increased. This means that fighters flying close to or attacking ships with active PD nets will now take full damage (instead of 50%) from most dedicated PD weapons, including single S1 missiles with enough warhead capacity. Bombers retain their previous durability, giving them better survivability against warships. Some other missiles, like the R-2 Rocket, had their skin thickness increased to prevent unintended changes in the rocket/flak matchup.

Another frustrating issue with fighter light strike, particularly for capping fleet players, was their ability to easily prey on small ships. In this patch, fighter weapons like the R-1 have had their per-ray damage reduced to retain their same total damage amount while not being able to fully destroy most components. This turns them into "stun" weapons, allowing fighters to contribute to the warship battle but requiring a warship or bombers to confirm the kill. Without a followup strike these ships can eventually repair.

The RBU has been removed from the munitions list (though it is still carried on the CBU-40, pending a development pass on that weapon) and replaced with the Fragmentation Bomb which is now the Alliance version of the R-1.

And finally, "hellbombing" has been the bane of my existence since starting the Carriers update. Bombs have always been intended as finisher weapons against ships which have already been heavily damaged, but a large enough group of fighters swarming a target will get through any amount of PD. To put the final (hopefully) nail in the coffin of this tactic I have slowed bombs down to the speed of the craft that dropped them, instead of gaining a minor boost, and added fratricide damage. This means that when a single bomb is destroyed by PD it will do damage to nearby bombs and craft, including the one that dropped it. Dropping kinetic bombs against healthy ships with active PD nets can no longer delete them in one attack.

Again, I apologize for the delay in these critical balance changes and I hope you enjoy the patch. As always, full patch notes follow.

See you in the Battlespace,
- The NEBULOUS Team

Changes/Features:
- Updated network sync system for craft.
- No longer requires duplicate work on all clients, clients with weaker computers no longer have to simulate craft behavior in parallel to the server result in low client framerates because tidi is server-based.
- Still some ugliness on takeoff and landing, will be improved.
- Decreased inherited velocity multiplier for KBU-15 and KBU-22 bombs to 0.99 (was 1.33).
- Added AOE damage to destruction effect of KBU-15 and KBU-22 bombs.
- Decreased per-ray damage of R-1 Perch Rocket to 15 (was 33.3), total damage unchanged.
- Removed RBU-15 Boosted Bomb from munitions list, still carried in CBU-40.
- Added FBU-15 Fragmentation Bomb, proximity burst warhead similar to RPF rounds.
- Increased Tanto illuminator pods FOV to 10 degrees (was 5).
- Increased positional error for Halberd Advanced Radar mission module to 40m (was 20).
- Increased R-2 Piranha Rocket wall thickness to 0.18cm (was 0.15).
- Decreased Tanto Interceptor skin thickness to 0.175cm (was 0.3).
- Decreased Barracuda Strike Fighter skin thickness to 0.175cm (was 0.3).
- Increased 50mm Flak round armor penetration to 0.176cm (was 0.1).
- Decreased Mk25 Rebound PDT recycle time to 0.2s (was 0.3) and reload time to 2.5s (was 3).
- Changed Mk25 Rebound PDT recycle stat type to "belt", no longer buffed by Rapid Cycle Cradle.
- Increased point cost of KBU-22 Bomb to 2 (was 1).
- Removed munition tag "Glide Bomb/S2" from Tanto S2 Bay and Barracuda S2 Pylons.
- Updated starter fleets.

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