Big changes in the new MU3 Beta!

Hi everyone,

Major Update 3 is close now, so we’ve uploaded the final beta for testing – and there’s a lot of big and positive changes!

The latest version is 0.8.26631 and to gain access you’ll need to switch to a beta branch. The instructions to do so are as follows:

Find SENTRY in your Steam library and right-click on it, selecting “Properties”
In the menu that pops up, choose “Betas”
Select “Beta Branch” in the “Beta Participation” drop-down list
In your Library you should see “[betabranch]” appended to the game name

When you play the new version your profile saves will carry over (i.e. all your equipment you’ve unlocked thus far), but your current escape run will not – so if you’re in the middle of a run and you don’t want to lose any new blueprints you haven’t banked, reach a gate and bank them before switching to the new version.

It’s also good practice to back up your profile saves ahead of any Major Update, just in case you’re the one that finds an obscure bug. You can find your profile and save folder here:
C:\Users[Username]\AppData\LocalLow\Fireblade Software\SENTRY\Saves\Steam\[SteamID]

[h3]Previous Betas[/h3]
There have already been a couple of betas, so if you’d like to know what else has been added you should read the posts here:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1252680/view/534352273139040758
And here:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1252680/view/534354183830113715
The general top-level info is:

Hazards and rewards system to improve variety and replay value
A major reworking of the UI (allowing things like the level information boxes to display what enemies will be in the levels etc.)
Doors now reroute enemies
Jump Jets are now a default player ability rather than a gear item
Two new melee weapons
Two new levels
Equipment banking is now automatic at Gates, but slots are no longer persistent across runs
A crew menu where you can rename crew, revive them and equip them with armour. More details on that (as well as how you can get your name in the game) can be found here:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1252680/view/534354183830111022
Since then we’ve used July to make a lot more changes which I’ll detail below…

[h3]New Deployable[/h3]
We developed the internal version a while ago, but the Flechette is now ready for action! This is our first non-square traditional deployable and so gives greater flexibility on where it’s placed. I personally have very much enjoyed the piercing upgrades when placing it looking down the length of a corridor – but let us know your thoughts too:

[h3]Reworked Crew Menu[/h3]
Once we had a bit of perspective on the latest Crew additions, we wanted to do another pass on the Crew and Crew Select menus and we’re much happier with them now.

You can see the original one here:

And the revised one – which has much less information repetition – here:

Part of this rework includes the addition of SENTRY Uniforms (aka skins). You can obtain skins through unlocking vessels in the campaign, or random uniforms through rescuing crew pods in the Navigator. Uniforms are banked automatically at gates, the same as equipment. We’ll be adding more uniforms and more ways to unlock them in future.

If you’re wondering how this works in co-op, all players get access to the uniforms from both players while they're playing together.

[h3]Supply Beacon Changes[/h3]
We’ve made changes to three existing systems which have a big enough effect to warrant being called out specifically :)

The first of these is to Supply Beacons.

In a previous beta we changed Supply Beacons so that any equipment could be found in any beacon type. Building on top of that, we’ve made the following changes:

Common Beacons have three options, while Uncommon Beacons provide four options
There are an increased amount of equipment-related choices to make – previously this was just weapon, deployable or gear – but now includes turrets too
You can also choose specific upgrades for types of equipment
When you receive a piece of equipment you’ve previously banked but not built in that run, it’ll be at a fixed Mk2 rather than a random level. People would get frustrated if it was anything other than high level, and randomly receiving a high powered piece of equipment could throw off a run’s balance too much
There’s an increased amount of Supply Beacons across each sector

Overall, this increases the rate of getting equipment and provides greater control over what you want to try and get – whether that be aiming for a turret above all else, or focusing on getting an upgrade for an equipment type.

We hope this improves Supply Beacons for everyone. We’ve got plans for future higher tiers of Supply Beacons which will build on these new foundations, but we want to hear what you think of these latest changes too!

[h3]Breach Point Selection[/h3]
The second of the changes to existing systems which has had a big impact on general gameplay is the tweaks we’ve made to the Breach Point Selection Rules.

This is probably something you’ll be familiar with in combat where you’ve just defended an attack from the A and B breaches, but the next wave is at C and D breach points. Oh, and the wave after that? Back to A and B…

This created a bit of fatigue and frustration by having to fully sell all your deployables and reposition them multiple times through a single battle, every battle.

The changes we’ve made mean that now there should be a general sense of escalation across fewer breach points in a battle. Full rotations will still occasionally happen, but they’ll be rarer and a hell of a lot less when measured across entire campaigns.

In our testing thus far this has felt much better, but as ever we’re keen to hear what you think.

[h3]Pursuer Cameras[/h3]
The third of these changes is to the camera that shows pursuing vessels and missiles.

There’s been a popular request to provide an option to disable this camera, but we felt this had a couple of problems. First, not all players dive into the settings menu and so this could be missed by some people (particularly as our settings menus are populated with a lot of granular options). Secondly, there was a danger that not showing this information could result in negative results – i.e. being surprised by a hunting ship suddenly boarding you, or not realising that a pursuing missile was getting that close.

Ideally, we’d make this something that is acceptable to everyone – and so we’ve made the pursuing missiles and vessels now always appear in a picture-in-picture format. This allowed us to make the following changes:

Make the entire sequence much faster. We no longer have to scroll the camera across to focus on the chaser, it cuts straight to and from what it needs to show – this alone at least halves the previous timings whilst retaining the information that needs to be shown
The player retains full camera control in the Navigator, so you’re not just sat watching it, you can scroll around and plan your next move while you wait
You can perform actions in other menus while the PiP is happening, so you can upgrade, look at crew etc.

All told, this makes the entire sequence less annoying. We know that there’s still more we can do here, and we’ll be looking at this – plus pursuers in general – in future updates.

[h3]Hazards and Rewards Feedback[/h3]
We’ve done a pass on messaging the hazards so their effect on gameplay is clearer. There’s also been a bunch of changes based on your feedback and bug reports, so thanks for sending those through. Here are the changes:

Added a glitch effect to denote the Loadout Glitch hazard
Pod Shortage is now messaged in the spawn messaging and the crew lives icon
Enemy health bars now have dividers. These stack up for the Battle Hardened hazard
Loadout UI now messages the Disrepair hazard
Fabricator Glitch hazard is now easier to tell which deployable is temporarily disabled
Stopped the Disrepair hazard always being applied
Fixed the Set in Stone hazard also making deployables more expensive
Scientific Discovery and Military Decoration rewards now work for the client
Pod Shortage and Instant Action hazards would only appear on Boss encounters, but they were displaying the non-boss icons
Stopped the client disconnecting when they receive the Hostage Rescue reward
Convoy escape bar now gives an indicator of which enemy just escaped. We’ll add something to this for messaging the Strong Influence hazard

Every subsequent Major Update should include a collection of new hazards and rewards that build on the foundations of what is established here. We’ve got some cool ideas but love hearing those from the community too, so keep them coming.

[h3]Miscellaneous[/h3]
There’s a bunch of other changes which I’ve noted below:

P9 and Bolt Rifle Bolts no longer detonate automatically once their lifetime expires, but fizzle out instead. This gives full control to the player, reduces inadvertent friendly fire instances and stops new players being confused by what is happening with sudden explosions everywhere
Fixed the Equipment shortcut button when receiving equipment from supply beacons. Also added a shortcut button to the Crew menu on the UI where you pick up a pod in the navigator view
Crew pickup UI now shows for client
Revised the crew pickup UI to factor in the latest changes to crew (names, uniforms)
Revised the Supply Beacon UI that shows what you picked to accommodate the changes to Supply Beacons described in the section above
A whole bunch of tutorial changes to improve the messaging for new players – basically stuff we’ve seen people struggle with, so hopefully these changes (with more on the way) will help those people. Some of these tutorial messages are global, meaning existing players may see them appear - but they're one-offs so won't appear again on that profile.
Plugged some level holes
Added breach letter decals to Thermal Vats and Junction
Added an extra wall near the C breach point in Mainframe
Fixed the Crossing D breach decal overlapping with floor-based deployables
Removed the “+” buttons on friends on the host co-op menu when they’re in combat (you can’t join mid-combat but the icons being there when they shouldn’t was making people think you could join in the middle of combat)
Updated the After Action UI to show all the latest changes to crew and rewards
Adjusted sector maps and added some new ones
Major balance pass across Initiate and Starfarer campaigns
Updated newsletter crew names

As ever your feedback is important in helping shape the areas we focus on, so please let us know what you think!

You’re welcome to post your thoughts in this thread, our Discord or our dedicated beta branch feedback Steam forum, which is located here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1252680/discussions/0/

Assuming there’s nothing major that crops up, we should then release Major Update 3 soon.

Once MU3 is out I’ll also create an updated roadmap, as we have an increasingly clear idea of the remaining work for Early Access.

Thanks for your continued support :)