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4.20.7.0 update introducing the first melee weapon: a fire axe.
These past two weeks were focused on core melee functionality for the fire axe item, fisticuffs, and gun smacking. There is still more work needed for the fists and guns however, so only the fire axe is included in the update.
Melee Part I
Warning: the blood and gore setting is enabled in this video.
Melee damage is dealt entirely from the 3rd-person animation intersections. (Whereas in Unturned the damage is "hitscan" directly toward your crosshair.) This means an attack of the weapon can strike multiple targets as long as the blade itself hits them.
Each weapon defines multiple hit shapes (boxes, capsules) that optionally deal damage. For example, the handle of the axe will interrupt an attack causing you to falter if it hits a solid object. Using these shapes ought to increase the utility in different scenarios, as a polearm and katana do not have the same profile.
At the moment the fire axe only has a single attack, but directional attacks, blocking, and other strategic melee features are under consideration. For a thorough rundown of the future of melee read the suggestions list here: https://trello.com/c/Ns9jDz2r
Persistent Identifiers
Everything is now saved and loaded with a persistent GUID rather than by name. Persistent objects can then reference each other with a GUID sub-object path combination. For example, if an item needs to reference a blueprint component on a car it could do so with the car's GUID and component sub-object path.
Using GUIDs rather than unique names should allow save data to be transferred between servers without conflicts. I imagine this being used to support a bank of items in the safezone to transfer between servers on the same network, or support travel between maps within a vehicle.