Attention all Troopers! Our biggest update yet, 0.5.0 – Hives of Valaka, launches tomorrow!

This update brings a brand new 4-player tactical game mode, a couple of highly requested weapons, new Perks and Utilities, a new teamwork-focused reload mechanic for our Twin MG, a complete refresh of our XP system and its in-game presentation, and a variety of quality of life updates and bug fixes.

Deployment drops at 10:00 AM PT (GMT-7) on Thursday, October 12.

Key New Features

Hive Hunt Game Mode

Added a new game mode for 4 players, providing a close-quarters combat experience in Bug tunnels. The objective of Hive Hunt is for players to plant Nukes at Arachnid Hive Cores, and then extract before time runs out.

Players can use new portable Light Beacons to assist in navigating the darkness, and will sometimes discover more helpful items scattered throughout the Hives near the bodies of less fortunate Troopers.

For a deeper look into the design intent and inspirations for this mode, check out our recent Hive Hunt Dev Blog.

XP visualization and XP rebalancing

Added a real time XP feed shown in the player’s HUD during gameplay. This feature will give players better feedback and visibility on what actions they are taking that add to their XP. We believe this will encourage players to play in a way that helps their team’s goal.
We’ve also assigned new XP rewards to many more actions in the game. We’ve outlined all these XP changes in the Tables below:

General Sources

Class Loadouts

New Gameplay

Weapons:

• Morita XXX Sniper Rifle: a powerful sniper rifle for Hunters
• TW-2 SPecial Light Infantry Tactical (SP.L.I.T) Shotgun with 3 variants:
  • Operator: standard pump-action buckshot
  • Hunter: pump-action slug
  • Bastion: full auto slug

Structures/Base Building:

• Ammo Stockpile: Provides 15 deliverable ammo boxes for weaponized structures.
• Ammo boxes can be picked up from the Stockpile, and inserted into weaponized emplacements (Twin MG and Sentry) using the interaction key (default E).
• Ammo boxes can be thrown by holding down the attack button.

New Utilities:

• Shock Field Device (Hunter): Deploys an electric field in a circular pattern that shocks arachnids
• Speed Stim Dispenser (Operator): Deployable station that Troopers can use to grab single use Speed Stim injectors
• Guardian UAV (Operator): Defensive flying robot with a machine gun that shoots at Arachnids near the user. Can be toggled between Guard/Follow modes, or be remote controlled
• Rally Beacon (Operator): A high power transmitter that creates a fixed beacon for Troopers to redeploy on
• Deployable Shield (Bastion): A small deployable shield called the Wartime Adversary Limiter (W.A.L) that can be deployed to provide quick low-level cover
• Overcharge Module (Bastion): Boosts effectiveness of offensive structures for 30s, at the cost of structural integrity over time
• Sentry Turret (Bastion): Placeable automated machine gun that automatically shoots at Arachnids from a fixed position. Best suited for point defense

New Perks:

• Mobile Training (Hunter): Increases climbing speed, enemy melee attacks don’t stop your sprint
• Watkins Trigger (Hunter, Bastion): Make your sacrifice mean something! Your explosives trigger upon death
• Running Start (Hunter): Get some extra height when you sprint and jump at the same time
• Spotter Training (Hunter): Automatically scans bugs when they are pinged
• On Your Feet (Operator): The ability to revive troopers at a distance
• Refined (Operator): Repairing a running refinery while it’s at maximum health speeds up the ore extraction process
• Long Range Repairs (Bastion): Increases repair range
• Reinforced Repairs (Bastion): Structures can be repaired past 100% to give them extra durability

Balancing/gameplay changes

• Full audit of our XP sources, outlined in above tables
• Morita Mk1: Increased damage output slightly
• Morita Carbine: Increased damage output slightly
• Chi-Hong Grenade Launcher: Blast radius decreased by 50%
• Recruit (Easy) difficulty: Reduced the extra health given to Troopers
• Recruit (Easy) difficulty: Reduce health regeneration by roughly 20%
• Recruit (Easy) difficulty: Magazine size is no longer increased on Recruit
• ARC mode: ‘Gather Ore’ objective now has to be completed before the ‘Gather Gas’ objective
• Increased the damage output of the Sentry MG structure, to compensate for it needing Ammo
• Increased the health of the Sentry MG structure
• Twin MG and automated Sentry MG now require ammunition
• Twin MG no longer degrades while firing

Quality of Life and Other Changes

Accessibility

• Added Accessibility section under Settings
• Added Color Blindness options under Accessibility
• Added Brightness setting under Accessibility
• Moved Screen Shake options under Accessibility

Miscellaneous changes

• Class selection now shows what other players have picked
• New unlocks are now highlighted in the Loadout menu with exclamation marks
• Improved matchmaking times by 10 seconds on average
• Quick Play Button removed – Quick Play is being redesigned as a part of our transition to the Galactic War in the new year.
• Hero of the Federation difficulty tier “coming soon” tease was removed, as it will still be coming to the game around the 1.0 launch window with a top secret experience codenamed “Regimented Assassinate Insect Deployment”

Engine Upgrade

• Updated to Unreal Engine 5.2.1, from the previous engine 4.27.
  
  We will be taking advantage of the new features in UE5 over time, where possible
  
  Please be aware that tentpole UE5 features like Lumen and Nanite are not a part of this release. As we get more comfortable with the engine we will look to explore these and other UE5 features in the future.
  
• New Trooper Models: We’ve updated our engine to Unreal Engine 5.2.1. With this, each of the three classes have been updated with a new Trooper model with significantly more detail

Bug Fixes & Known Issues

Notable bug fixes

• Matchmaking: Fixed a rare issue where a player could end up in a different game mode than they selected
• Settings: Fixed an issue where changing a setting would cause other settings to be re-applied
• Settings: Fixed a crash when changing video settings
• Weapons: Improved Field of View handling with scoped weapons
• Audio: Fixed several crashes related to weapon audio, by upgrading to UE5’s metasounds system
• Crashes: Fixed a rare crash when a player was incapacitated

Known Issues

• A major engine upgrade may always cause unforeseen issues with various hardware combinations. We will be monitoring for crashes and fixing issues in future patches.
• The Watkins Trigger Perk is currently unusable in Horde and Hive Hunt game modes, since players do not have a bleed out timer. This will be fixed in a post-update patch
• Some UI graphics still need to be updated with the new Trooper model
• Rendering: The Hive Hunt maps may appear somewhat darker on Low/Medium Effects quality setting, as this setting affects lighting and fog rendering

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