The northern half of Indar is a dry oceanbed, with water levels having receded in years prior. For a limited time on the Public Test Server, you'll be able to see what Indar may have looked like before the water dried up!
In an effort to test our new water mechanics before the arrival of Oshur, we'll be flooding Indar for all to play with. You can download the test server here.
Disclaimer: Everything you'll see is heavily work in progress, from visuals, to audio, to gameplay mechanics. We go into further detail below.
Water Mechanics
We're currently working toward having all vehicles, infantry, and projectiles able to interact with water in new ways.
Projectiles
- All simple projectiles have increased drag beneath the water. Currently this value is low, and will be tuned upward.
- Grenades/Ammunition Pouches/Mines/other dynamic projectiles, currently do not interact with water at all. In the future we'd like these to be impacted by buoyancy in some respect.
Known issues with Projectiles:
- Projectiles currently can't be seen behind a water plane. So if you're on the shore, and fire into the water, you won't currently see it travel beneath the water unless you, yourself, are in the water.
- Firing at a water plane you're close to will cause impact FX to appear at eye-level.
Infantry and Abilities
- For the initial release, we're planning to turn all infantry abilities off when a player is submerged.
- We can pursue any exceptions at a later date.
- Infantry currently moves slowly while in the water, but they don't currently have their fall speed or jump height affected. These changes will be made in a later update.
Vehicles
Tuning for vehicles is still very heavily a work in progress. Wheeled vehicles float along the surface like boats, hover vehicles hover above the water's surface, and treaded vehicles sink to the bottom. Aircraft will be able to more easily navigate beneath the water's surface, but they require adjustments before being able to do that adequately.
The following vehicles are mostly functional:
- Flash
- Harasser
- ANT
- Sunderer
- Lightning
- Prowler
- Vanguard
- Magrider
- Javelin
The following vehicles are the least functional:
- Chimera
- Galaxy
- Valkyrie
- Scythe
- Reaver
- Mosquito
- Dervish
- Liberator
Known issues with vehicles:
- All vehicles will receive new particles and audio signatures as they move beneath the water.
- You may occasionally enter a state where entering the water will not consider you underwater for the purposes of visuals and mechanics. This happens most often when in a gunner's seat of a vehicle.
- You can still fire underwater if the vehicle's camera is not submerged in third person.
Visuals
The visuals of the water (and beneath the water) are very much a work in progress.
Currently in the works:
- Light rays beneath the waves - Currently being tested internally.
- Tessellation-based waves - We have this working roughly internally, but are weighing the pros and cons.
- Better screen effect on the transition into/out of water.
- Backface transmittance for water above the player.
- Better ocean-side foam.
Known issues:
- Underwater sky files need tuning.
- Particles can appear to overlap the water surface in some cases.
- You can't easily see the surface of the water from beneath unless it's in front of a prop or piece of the environment.
- Fog from the sky is making water at a distance appear hazy and show distant terrain beneath the surface.
