Skills Update (Already?!)
About a week ago @Therily posted the news that we had brought Skills to the server. The post went over the intricacies of what you can expect when venturing round Sunset Valley and how to spend your points. For those of you that didn't read (shame on you!) and for those of you that may have forgotten, there's a link below.
Therily
You're back up to speed on skills, ready to get allocating your skill points for all those juicy levels you've earnt, right? Ahhhhh well we have some more news, the Skill Tree has been updated:
- A new Underwater Branch, with bonuses to how long you can hold your breath and damage to and from sharks!
- An opportunity to craft duplicates on the Crafting Branch with the new xxx perk!
- Ultimates (more on those below) - I mean these are just mind-blowing-game-changing-effects!
- A host of other tweaks and fixes!
Let's dive into each of those in a little more detail.
Underwater Branch
This tree may help you explore the ocean depths, maybe dive for treasure at a sunken cargo ship...
... explore one of the four under water labs ...
... breach the submarine fleet ...
Yep! There are submarines there too (bring your red cards as there's more than one door to get through!)
... or get some Duct Tape from Rust Mart...
Let's take a look at the tree itself in a little more detail.
Tier 1
- Cage Diver - 10% Reduction in Shark Damage per level
- Gilled - 60 seconds extra breath per level (?!)
Tier 2
- Reckless Diver - 10% Reduction in Shark Damage per level
- Shark Veterinarian - 2% Chance in finding a useful item when skinning a shark per level
Tier 3
- Treasure Hunter - 2% Chance in finding a useful item when looting underwater crates
- Nimble Fingers - Allows you to untie underwater crates immediately
- Aquatic Combatant - 10% Increase to damage done while underwater
If we do the maths for a few moments as we know most of these perks can have 5 levels each, that means you could completely negate shark damage or hold your breath without a tank for 5 minutes!
That will certainly help with mining all the sulphur nodes in Lough Neagh!
Crafting Branch
The update also saw the addition of a new perk to the Build Craft Skill Tree to Tier 3 called Thrifty Duplicator
Tier 3
- Thrifty Duplicator - 3% chance of duplicating an item while crafting per level
At max level that would be roughly every 8 items craft would be duplicated, that should certainly help filling your loot boxes when prepping for a raid!
Ultimates
Saving the best until last, because, honestly, for me, these are just amazing! Each of the trees now has a yellow boxed skill at the very end, which is the ultimate. These are game changing skills by anyone's standards, but such a reward for spending your points in that tree.
You'll need to spend 25 points in the tree to unlock the ultimate tier.
The ultimates also come with their own Ultimate Settings, which you can use to turn them on and off if you so please, you'll see why later. Let's jump into them in a little more detail:
Mining - Stone Sense
Stone Sense lets you locate nodes within a 200m radius. Not only does it find the nodes and display them for you, but it also tells you what they are. Need sulphur? Stone Sense has your back.
How do we use it?
With the chat command /locatenodes
What does it do?
It marks the nodes visually (even through terrain), so you always know you're on the right path.
Woodcutting - Deforestation
Deforestation does exactly that, it makes what they've done to the Amazon look like child's play!
How do we use it?
It's on as soon as you use the perk. If you'd like to disable it, you can do so with Ultimate Settings
What does it do?
You'll now cut down every tree in a 10m radius when you're chopping wood.
Skinning - Primal Identity
One of the more radical ultimates is Primal Identity, which gives you a different buff for each animal you kill. The buffs are dependent on what you've killed.
How do we use it?
It's on as soon as you use the perk. If you'd like to disable it, you can do so with Ultimate Settings
What does it do?
Depending on the animal you kill, you'll be given different buffs. These are as follows:
- Bear - Scientist no longer engage first
- Chicken - No fall damage
- Boar - Useful loot when collecting wild berries and mushrooms
- Stag - You're alert to nearby player threats
- Wolf - When you've got teammates around your healing will be more potent
- Polar Bear - An Overshield (Additional temporary health bar)
Harvesting - Botanist
Ever struggled to get the right genes for your plants? Well worry no more! Botantist makes it a cinch with the ability to set them yourself.
How do we use it?
With the chat command /setgenes
What does it do?
It will bring up a Plant Genetic configurator where you can select the slots for your plants.
After you've chosen what you want your plants to look like, every single seed you plant afterwards will have the same genetic combination, in this case GGGGYY.
Medical - Messiah
Not carrying a medkit? No worries, death is no longer an issue for you!
How do we use it?
It's on as soon as you use the perk. If you'd like to disable it, you can do so with Ultimate Settings
What does it do?
You get a 50% chance of resurrecting at the same place you died. Pretty handy if you're deep in a monument!
Combat - Vampiric Tendencies
Need that tank build in your life? Want to stand in front of Brad and laugh in his stupid face? Yeah Brad I'm talking to you, you big piece of sh– oh sorry, where was I?
How do we use it?
It's on as soon as you use the perk. If you'd like to disable it, you can do so with Ultimate Settings
What does it do?
Every time you damage a Scientist or Animal (or Player) you'll heal for 1% of the damage you've done. It sure is nice to see your health bar going up in combat rather than down for once and the great thing about it is it will still proc even if you're taking damage!
Building - Access Granted
Need to get behind that keylock but left your blue or red cards at home and have a tonne of greens from all those scientists you slaughtered in the Military Tunnels? Well this is the perk for you!
How do we use it?
It's on as soon as you use the perk. If you'd like to disable it, you can do so with Ultimate Settings
What does it do?
You'll now have a 75% chance to open any card reader with any card. No need to call a locksmith now!
Scavenging - Shredder
Inventory full of components from running around the Midlands? Nearest recycler a train ride away? Shredder has you covered!
How do we use it?
It's on as soon as you use the perk. If you'd like to disable it, you can do so with Ultimate Settings
What does it do?
Whenever you break a barrel the components are automatically recycled. Were you just about to loot your 4th stack of gears? Enjoy your scrap and metfrags instead.
Vehicles - Tank
Suck at flying, raise your hand. Liar! Ok ok, some of you can fly your minicopters without crashing them, but for the rest of us we'll be running back and forth to bandit camp most of the wipe. That's now a thing of the past as your vehicles are now coated in a gorgeous patina of protective Rust.
How do we use it?
It's on as soon as you use the perk. If you'd like to disable it, you can do so with Ultimate Settings
What does it do?
Try crashing that mini, I dare you. Honestly, fly it into a tree, go on. I'll wait. Oh...what's that big smile on your face instead of the exploded charred remains and a backpack lying on the ground? That's right, Tank reduces damage to your mounted vehicle by 100% (for now - until you're all trained up!)
Bonus - Rested XP
We know that you can't play all the time, but we love to see you around the Valley. As such, you now have a rested XP pool as well. This will accumulate 1,000 XP per hour for 24 hours. It will give you a 25% bonus to your XP rates until it's used up.
You can see this in the /st settings just below the respec.
That's all from us today, we've got some more changes that we're working on that we're excited to get off the ground that will tie in nicely with the new skill tree functionality.
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