Starship Troopers: Extermination News

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.
  

Stow the scuttlebutt, Troopers - we’re receiving it over the comms too. All squads not on deployment, patch in to rescue net frequency now.

“--I say again, mayday mayday mayday! This is Deep Space Vanguard mobile headquarters, Valakan starport district, broadcasting a general distress signal to all units in the vicinity.”

“The bugs got sarge! Sarge is GONE, man! HE’S GONE!”

“Dispatch dropships to our position immediately, our defenses can’t take another assault. Our CO is KIA and--”

“WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND!?”

“Trooper! Remove yourself from my communications tent and get back to repair duty! …wait, do you hear rumbling?”

“Oh no… not again… NOT AGAIN!”

--*Arachnids shrieking and humans screaming, then only shrieking*

Well, you heard it CFB: our mobile headquarters is in need of rescue. This one’s coming in hot - Military Intelligence is still pulling down data from the starport’s uplink but here is what you and your squads need to know now. Arachnid presence in that district is in flux: seems the Bugs are flooding in groups towards this location. You’ll be dropping in at the MHQ front porch, after which you should have a brief window to assemble rudimentary defenses. We’ll provide what ore we can to your team between firefights.

Redeployment will be a no-go until all active threats are neutralized. If you’re downed while bugs are present, better hope your battle buddies remember their Operator training, can run in for a clutch revive, or first aid stim jab.

Speaking of patching things up, the apes who built this place set up repair canister generators nearby. Bad news, they’re all offline and will need to be reactivated. You’ll want to take this on as a secondary objective, ideally before the MHQ falls.

*bzzt!*

And there goes the comms dish. Bugs’ plasma artillery must have finally taken it out. Go-time is now: defend the MHQ, keep your Troopers standing, and fight back the Arachnid horde. Be quick about it, Brimstone-1: tangos entering visual range in minutes. Looks to be a Drone detachment but ground radar shows that’s just the start of the party.

Pyre out.

Attention, Deep Space Vanguard! Terran Command has informed us that Arachnids are closing in on our Mobile Headquarters - a lot of them. We expect them to reach their target on Wednesday, August 2 at 10:00 AM PT (GMT-7) with the release of Update 0.4.0: Relentless Hordes. This will be Starship Troopers: Extermination’s second medium deployment, which introduces Horde Mode and Player Profiles with stat tracking. The game’s price on Steam will also be increasing on August 2 from $24.99 USD to $29.99 USD.

Horde Mode will unlock for players at Career Rank 2. In this 16-player mode, Troopers must defend the Mobile Headquarters (MHQ) in the build zone against 10 increasingly difficult waves of Arachnids. Each wave has a Build Phase and a Defense 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 escalating 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. 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, a dropship will be deployed to extract any surviving Troopers!

Troopers are to be on the lookout for upcoming transmissions that will share more details as the release of Update 0.4.0: Relentless Hordes approaches.

Pyre out.

Attention, Vanguard! Starship Troopers: Extermination Update 0.3.1 will go live on Thursday, June 29 at 10:00 AM PT (GMT-7)! The game servers will be briefly unavailable during this medium Deployment and players will need to update the game client.

The Federation thanks its Troopers for their detailed and constructive feedback on Update 0.3.0 this past week. In addition to the patch notes addendum with class and loadout changes, R&D has been working to resolve bugs reported by the community related to Mutator effects, Veteran difficulty, Bug health, unusable controllers, and more.

Gameplay

• Veteran (Hard) Difficulty
  
  • Developer Note: Mutators affected Veteran difficulty modifiers to Bug health and Bug damage and made them apply incorrectly, causing Veteran difficulty to lose its intended balancing.
    
    • Bug health modifier has been corrected, it was higher than intended.
      
    • Bug spawn frequency has been corrected, it was much slower than intended.
      
    • Bug damage multiplier has been corrected, it was lower than intended.
• Recruit (Easy) Difficulty
  
  • Bug damage multiplier has been corrected, it was higher than intended.
    
• Mutators
  
  • Added dormant Mutators, meaning Trooper (Normal) and Veteran (Hard) difficulty missions may have no Mutator effects.
    
  • Ambush: Reduced frequency of ambushes.
    
  • Ambush: Slightly reduced enemy counts when ambushes trigger.
    
  • Arachnid Rush: Reduced Warrior Bug run speed.
    
  • Bug Pack Mutators: Now trigger periodically throughout the mission instead of all at once at mission start.
    
  • Bug Pack Mutator: Reduced kill requirements and per-pack spawn amounts.
    
• Game Modes
  
  • Increased refinery cooldown to 30 seconds (from 4 seconds) for AAS game mode.
    
  • Reverted change to refinery cooldown for ARC Slam game mode.
    
    • Developer Note: The refinery cooldown timer change was not intended to affect ARC Slam matches. We will replace it with a new timer that is reflective of the ARC Slam game mode in a future update.
      
  • Corrected the damage radius of player-deployed explosives to account for friendly fire damage resistance.
    
• Quality of Life Improvements & Bug Fixes
  
  • Corrected inconsistent language related to the Build Tool in the Controls menu.
    
  • Updated the mapping layout to improve class skill usability while using a controller.
    
  • Fixed the ability to exit the Twin Machine Gun Emplacement while using a controller.
    
  • Fixed an issue where refilling ammo from an ammo crate while reloading a weapon resulted in the weapon not reloading.
    
  • Fixed an issue where the Grenade Field Test Mutator could cause players to spawn in with no grenades.
    
  • Fixed an issue where the Pilum Surplus Mutator could cause players to spawn in with an empty secondary weapon slot.
    
  • Fixed an issue where the Armory Incident Mutator could cause players to spawn in with no equipment.