Starship Troopers: Extermination News

Attention, Troopers! Pyre Actual here. Sit your rears and open your ears! Mission Command has seen fit to transmit a SITREP to prepare you for a new upcoming mission.

Allow me to read it to you.

[h3][MISSION BRIEFING: HIVES OF VALAKA][/h3]

ahem.

Prepare yourselves, valiant Troopers, for a descent into the very bowels of the treacherous planet Valaka! The Bugs have been permitted to harass our operations with impunity for too long – it’s time to bring the fight to them!! 

As the battlefront shifts, so too must your unyielding resolve. We’ll be sending teams of 4 into the subterranean depths. This will bring new challenges to you and your squad, as you fight through hordes of Arachnids in order to deliver a nuclear payload directly into their Hives. Engage the enemy with the ferocity and determination of the Federation’s best, for within these caves you’ll discover the crucible in which you shall be tempered!!

This hostile, pitch black terrain will test your mettle, demanding adaptability and impeccable teamwork! Abandon your fear and stand resolute in the face of the impending darkness. The survival of humanity hinges upon your courage and tenacity. Rally your fellow Troopers and fortify yourselves. Together, we shall strike at the very heart of the Arachnid menace!

Our triumph is inevitable, for we are the Vanguard of humanity, the Mobile Infantry, and our legacy is one of unyielding bravery.

Provehito in Altum, brave Troopers!

[h3][END OF TRANSMISSION][/h3]

And that’s it.

Stay vigilant! We will be sending out further directives from Mission Command in the coming days. Now get out there and be ready to hit ‘em where it hurts!

Pyre Actual Out.

Hey everyone! In an effort to better understand the troopers contributing to the war effort, we've created a questionnaire for all of you. If you can take a couple minutes to answer a few questions about yourself, the Federation will appreciate your service. Thanks for doing your part! 🫡

[h2]Questionnaire[/h2]

Hey Everyone, we're back with another Q&A! A very big thanks to everyone who submitted a question this month, the response has been overwhelming. We wish we could answer all of them, but of course we have to make sure we don’t get into too much trouble with HQ. If you missed our last Q&A transmission, you can find it here: August Q&A

[h2]Questions[/h2]
Now let's dive right into your questions!

What's the roadmap going to look like regarding weapons?
We are looking to add multiple weapons every year for each class.

Will there be customization for Classes?
Yes, we will be looking to add customization that really brings out each trooper's individuality. That being said, each type of customization must be grounded in the Troopers Universe.

Different ammo types that are better for different types of bug?
We love this idea, we have bounced around some thoughts in this area. We want to make sure each damage type has a reason to exist and has a risk vs reward against the Bug threat.

Will there be any weapons from Starship Troopers 2 and more from the New Animated Movies?
Short answer is Yes.

Could there be an air-strike mechanic?
Yes one day for sure, it is something we want to incorporate into the game, we are looking at is it a power up item or something that incorporates base building, for example a communication building.

PVP Mode?
Not at this time.

Will there be an in Game Friends/Clan list?
In regards to friends we have an approved design and we will be rolling out a more robust friends feature in 2024. Now since you brought up Clans, well some news to share is that we are really excited to bring a clan experience to the game and we are hoping to launch our version of clans with the first iteration of Galactic War in early 2024.

Any chance for an 8 player game mode?
Yes, we are planning on having many of our modes available for different party sizes.

Is there any chance Support will get back the power up build tool?
Great question, since we are actively designing our Class Progression 2.0 for 2024 these are the types of discussions we are having. This feedback is very valuable in how the final system handles perks for classes.

What parts of the Starship Troopers IP are you able to draw from?
We can use anything from the five films of Starship Troopers, Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation, Starship Troopers 3: Marauder, Starship Troopers: Invasion, and Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars.

Will we see any plans to add lore into the game?
Yes, we want to have a very robust metagame around lore, we want to make it more than just a codex. As we get closer to finalizing the design we will share more.

Will there ever be a story/campaign mode, or any intention of adding a Solo (PvE) gamemode?
We realize there's a great number of players out there who want to contribute to the war effort but through a more solo-driven experience. While we can't commit to anything right now, we are actively investigating what a solo-esque experience might look like for our game, but we can honestly say we are not looking at adding a traditional narrative campaign.

Can you give us an idea on how Galactic War MetaGame impacts how people play?
All we can say is that more news is coming in the next couple of months for our Galactic War MetaGame. We plan on releasing our first iteration of Galactic War in early 2024. Look for an updated Roadmap to come mid to late October that highlights that and other updates to the Roadmap.

Are there any plans to bring the gameplay down into the bug tunnels?
Yes, really really soon.

Where does Hero of the Federation Difficulty fit into the Future Roadmap?
Closer to launch, we are very hesitant to add in more difficulty levels until we release Galactic War.

Flying Bugs?
Yes, eventually we want to include them in the game.

Any chance of upgrading the player amount per server?
Not at this time, our focus is currently to have our servers accommodate up to 16 players.

Will the Class level cap be extended?
Yes, we will be updating the Level cap really soon, then maybe one more time in our lead up to our Class Progression 2.0 reset coming in 2024.

Will there be a Tutorial expansion?
Not at this time, but as the game receives more features we will look for opportunities to flesh out the tutorial experience.

Will there be Tactical map upgrades?
Yes, we have a new tactical map design that we will be looking to roll out in 2024 that includes more options to help the player navigate the levels, find squad mates and provide more in-game information.

Thank you so much for being such an awesome community and joining us in this adventure!
Starship Troopers: Extermination Team Out!

We have the 0.4.1 Patch coming at 10:00 AM PT (GMT-7) on Wednesday, August 30.

This Patch will fix a handful of community-reported issues, along with a few improvements and adjustments to Starship Troopers: Extermination.

Notable Bug Fixes:

• The player stats screen was displaying the wrong text for a few weapons and abilities.
  
• Horde mode: Killed Bugs were sometimes not counted towards the kill count.
  
• Horde mode: Fixed an issue spawning with a black screen.
  
• Fixed a client crash.
  
• Fixed an occurrence where players could be placed into one squad above the 4-player limit.
  

Notable Quality of Life Improvements

• Removed player rank restrictions on difficulty levels to find matches after a set time.
  
  • Example: If you search Recruit Mode, it will search within Recruit Mode. If it fails to find matches within 75 seconds, it will expand to search Normal (Trooper) Mode. After 100 seconds, it will expand to Veteran.
• The party system will use the party leader’s rank to determine if the party can join a mode instead of the lowest party member’s level.
  
• Removed Horde from Quick Play Options so new and returning players can experience AAS and ARC game modes with optimized queue times across all regions. Quick Play will remain with AAS and ARC moving forward.
  

Update 0.4.0: Relentless Hordes introduces the much-anticipated Horde Mode as well as Player Profiles with stat tracking, the remaining items listed in Phase 2 of our Early Access roadmap! In addition to these new features, this update brings quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes to issues shared by you, our Troopers, on Discord, Steam, and other social media channels. This medium Deployment drops at 10:00 AM PT (GMT-7) on Wednesday, August 2.

Features

• New Game Mode: Horde
  
  • Horde Mode unlocks for Troopers at Career Rank 2.
    
  • Horde Mode is available at Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty.
    
  • Players must defend the Mobile Headquarters (MHQ) at the base against 10 increasingly difficult waves of Bugs.
    
  • Each wave has two phases: Build Phase and Defend Phase.
    
    • During the Build Phase, Troopers will have a short amount of time to build and repair base defenses using a limited amount of ore. The MHQ itself can only be repaired with special repair canisters obtained from completing secondary objectives during the match.
      
    • During the Defend Phase, Troopers must fight off Bugs that spawn in finite but scaling numbers and difficulty. Build Tools cannot be used and Troopers cannot respawn during this phase - if Troopers are downed while Bugs are present, they will need to be revived by their teammates (Operator Drone and First Aid Stims also work).
  • Three types of secondary objectives that yield repair canisters for the MHQ may be available during the match: Exterminate Arachnids, Restore the Power Generators, and Secure the Signal Booster. Note, Bugs spawned from secondary objectives do not count towards Horde Mode wave counts.
    
  • As groups of waves are defeated, Wave Modifiers will increase Arachnid attack speed, movement, and damage.
    
  • If the MHQ is destroyed or all Troopers are killed, the match ends in defeat. However, if the MHQ is still standing at the end of 10 waves, victory is achieved, and a rescue dropship will be deployed!
    
  • Mission Mutators do not currently apply to this mode but may in future updates.
• New Feature: Player Profiles
  
  • Troopers can now track their in-game stats including their favorite class and weapon as well as other relevant game metrics. Note, these stats will begin being tracked as of Update 0.4.0.
    
    • Career Rank and XP
      
    • Total Hours Played
      
    • Total Kills
      
    • Total Revives
      
    • Total Mission Wins
      
    • Kill/Death Ratio
      
    • Win/Loss Ratio
      
    • Favorite Class (most hours played)
      
    • Favorite Weapon (most kills earned)
      
    • Favorite Game Mode (most hours played)
  • This information will be viewable by selecting the Stats tab on the Profile screen and will be categorized by Mission, Kills, and Weapons. The data can be filtered by Game Mode and Classes.
    
  • More game stats may be added as new features, modes, and content are introduced.

Gameplay

• Reduced self-damage of Twin Machine Gun Emplacement to now allow for about 35 seconds of sustained firing while not being repaired.
  
  • Developer Note: This allows the TMG to be more useful in Horde Mode where repairing is limited.
• Updated Trooper health regeneration for all mission difficulty levels.
  
  • Troopers will regain health at a higher rate on Easy Difficulty.
    
  • Troopers will regain health on Normal Difficulty.
    
  • Troopers will not regain health on Hard Difficulty.
• Canisters can now be thrown by holding down the fire button while they’re equipped.
  
• Pyre will now call out which cardinal direction (north, south, east, west) a base is being attacked from.

Base Building

• Reduced Twin Machine Gun Emplacement cost to 2000 ore.
  
  • Developer Note: This cost reduction accounts for the fact that the TMG is destroyed when placed on top of a structure that’s destroyed. Also, unlike Sentry Guns, the TMG requires a player to actively use and repair it.
• Increased the Build Tool’s unbuild speed to half of build speed.
  
  • Developer Note: We’ll continue to monitor for misuse of this function to sabotage base integrity and adjust accordingly.
• Updated the Build Tool interface to be more consistent and less confusing.

Quality of Life Improvements & Bug Fixes

• Set the frame rate to cap at 120 FPS by default. This can be adjusted in the Settings.
  
• Added Mission Mutators to the After Action Report (AAR) screen.
  
• Intro cutscenes now pause on the last frame until the voiceover is complete instead of going to a black screen. Also decreased the audio volume of the intro cutscene.
  
• Updated the in-game Discord link to point to our custom URL: https://discord.com/invite/starshiptroopersgame
  
• Renamed “New Mission in” to “New Mutators in” on the main screen.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Low Gravity Mutator where jumping could cause visual stuttering when reaching the maximum height of the jump.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Grenade Surplus Mutator where players would spawn in with only one grenade and must throw it to begin the restock timer.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Twin Machine Gun Emplacement wouldn’t respond to the Build Tool when it was pointed at the top of the turret.
  
• Fixed an issue where entering and exiting the Twin Machine Gun Emplacement could cause the Low Gravity Mutator to cease functioning.
  
• Fixed an issue where a player could get in a stuck state and unable to play after leaving a party.
  
• Fixed an issue where the respawn interface could become visible for a short time when first joining a match.
  
• Fixed an issue where the respawn interface could become visible before the player dies after beginning the bleed-out state.
  
• Fixed an issue where FOV scaling would break on ultrawide monitors.