SYNTHETIK 2 News

Hey everyone!

Originally the class update was planned to be a shorter update, supposed to add a good iteration or rework some classes, however after starting on some of the classes, level perks and the new switchable slots, it became apparent how the game transformed. It seemed to be the right thing to go all the way and bring it all to that higher level, so you will see a ton of changes in the test branch and the full update.

We also switched our content system to stream content (using "adressables") which means packing things in bundles, as opposed to loading everything directly. This was an important step but causes quite some issues at the start. So overall things did not go exactly as planned and we are sorry for the long wait for an update, but a lot of things have happened in the meantime, and we mean a lot.
So here we go!:




[h3]The Testing Branch is live![/h3]
Try the class update U5 - ORIGIN and let us know what you think.
Now is the time for your feedback on the revamped classes.
There are a huge amount of changes, but some things aren't fully final yet.
At best just try it out with a fresh set of eyes and let us know what you think!

You can enable the public test branch by right clicking your steam library game settings and going to the last tab, and enable the test version in the drop down menu!

[h3]U5 ORIGIN - The Big Class Update[/h3]
Overhauling 12 classes was quite a huge amount of work but it did definitely pay off.
The class update is not supposed to make the classes perfect but give them all a clear foundation and well working core gameplay. We also don't say "specs" anymore, as these are really more like 12 separate classes with some shared elements and body frame at this point.
Some bullet points for the class update are below. It is expected to come out of testing this week, so last chance for your feedback!


[h3]- New Switchable ability slots
- Overhaul of 12 classes, tons of huge changes!
- New Eliminator class
- New Heavy Gunner
- New Rocketeer
- New Sniper
- Many level & graphical improvements
- Stat upgrades are back
- Varied attachment balance tweaks and others
- Tons of under the hood & UniversEdit improvements
- Fixes audio system and tons of fixes
- Many other improvements[/h3]




Please write down your class changes wishlist in the poll here:
IN CASE OF STEAM BLOCKING THE LINK - PLEASE COPY PASTE IT MANUALLY TO YOUR BROWSER!
https://forms.gle/zRysjn71xcgCUQwS8




[h2]Other noteworthy things:[/h2]


[h3]- Super boosted workflows and tools:[/h3]
Our next level ingame editor UniversEdit has come a long way since the EA launch and even made big leaps compared to the start of the year, the workflows have improved dramatically and we also have become way more skilled at using it. Tons of things have improved under the hood and the power is steadily growing.

As example, we can now use UniversEdit while in the game, so it is possible to make changes while playing, save, and then just respawn the ability or weapon, and it will be updated. There are still some inconveniences and a bit laggy menus but we have achieved real ingame creation of game content!
This is not yet available for modding, some things need to be sorted out, but in general we probably have a 500% increase in iteration times since new years, and an similar reduction in bug creation!



[h3]- Pushing the boundaries[/h3]
On the updated classes and new abilities, you will see a lot more things which are outside the box as we tried to push boundaries and see what kind of things can be done with the current tools.



New things that are in testing or are already achieved:

- Glaiving attacks, bouncing from target to target
- Charge up attacks
- Directional microwave emitter construct
- Placable gadgets which can be stepped on
- C4 which can be remotely triggered
- Neutrino bomb with a timed fuse
- Punching constructs for combos
- Thunder and warning poles you can stick in the ground
- TOW Missile launcher emplacements which can fire a guided missile Battlefield style
- Weapons jammer, blocking enemy weapons
- Seismic resonator which can retrigger explosion and used for knockback movement
- Rocket boosts with weapons
- Stealth or partial stealth effects
- Drone swarms
- Mind control
- Sticky Bombs which stick to enemies
- Slow Motion effects
- Delayed lock-on missiles
- "Hold" abilities, like targetlaser
And more


[h3]- Content / Memory Management[/h3]
We are now using the "Adressables" system from the engine, which is a different way of handling content and bundling them in packages. The difficulty is that you can't have any object reference any other from another package, else both packages will be loaded, defeating the entire purpose.
This is also an important step as this makes adding more content (and mods!) not increasing ram cost. In some areas this also drives down overall loading times, as the game will not wait for content to be loaded anymore (that may not be used any time soon).

This system added quite some headaches and delays to the test branch updates but it seems to be mostly sorted out, and ensures that the project is more scaleable. Weeks prior we also had a spring cleaning and removed a ton of unused assets, reducing the game size noticeably as well.
The benefits for you are that RAM usage is now overall a lot lower, in some areas 50% from before. The game now comfortably sits way below 8GB RAM usage.
Our project cleanups also reduced the game size by 30% without losing anything!



[h3]- Graphical Improvements[/h3]
Some more graphical improvements have been done in varied areas.
Some of these are not used everywhere yet, but these are all things which strengthen our foundation for the future. Varied points are listed below:



[h3]- Bent Normal Occlusion[/h3]
By using bent normals to check on the lighting direction, unwanted glowing reflections are reduced, making things looks more realistic. You can see here that the underside of the vehicle does not strangely glow anymore.





[h3]- New Focus on ground details[/h3]



Since most of the visible playing field is ground, we want to add more depth, detail and 3-dimensionality into the ground elements. Some maps already have more of that, but in varied maps there is still a lot of room for improvement. In the screenshot you can see a combination of varied new elements, decals, grills, border trims and more. In general, we all have become more skilled at environment creation and it really shows if you compare newer iteration to our first.



[h3]- New Decal shaders[/h3]



Varied new shaders have been made, they are not fully in use yet but are a significant improvement
Wet puddles can now look significantly more detailed, but also new grunge decals now exist with both more variation and way higher detail and resolution. They can be combined and are based on world space. Grunge shader example:





[h3]- Occlusion [/h3]
We also did some more tricks to shadow areas like the pipes in the oilrig area or deep holes better
and also did new occlusion decals and used more of them, which can shadow objects more realistically where they touch the ground.

[h3]- Micro Shadows[/h3]
By using the bent normal technique, we also can now use micro shadows, which do enable more detailed occlusion at small details especially.



[h3]- Water[/h3]
As the saying goes, if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself, so we are throwing out things like Unity terrain or plugin water and doing our own implementations. These will be more flexible and have no dependencies or breaking points we can't control. Also we think they will look better in the end. Here is our current new water shader (this has improved in the meantime again):





[h3]- Custom Terrain Material[/h3]
The environment team has been developing our new foundation for terrain shaders which are very promising so far and will be the core of future outdoors areas. The terrain shader supports mesh blending, camera based render textures for things like snow trails, varied layers, tesselation and more.

We also worked on mesh blending techniques, which smoothly transistions between the ground and the asset and avoids sharp ugly intersections. Here a preview of the blending and worldspace biome effect (does not represent final terrain quality)





[h3]- New Floors[/h3]
2 new floors are in development the moment, one is coming very soon "The Cooling Chambers", as alternative second floor, while the other is an alternative for the Arctic level, which is more military themed, but you'll see. We are also looking at some potential arena style maps, but this has lower priority right now.

[h3]- System Improvements[/h3]
Now that the classes are much more engaging, it becomes glaringly apparent that the mid game progression is not at the level it should be. The class update already does tweak the curve of when things appear but this is only one part of it.

--Item Quality
Items at the moment are often quite lackluster.
After the class update, a focus will be to polish up items and make them into the core game sandbox they should be. Often it is mostly visual polish but sometimes the gameplay is simply not engaging. Playing with some of the new items makes it quite clear what the old items are just not on our new skill level and possibility space. Items are the core of Synthetik progression and due to them being lackluster, we tried compensating with shops and other things but that was a bit of a fallacy. Shops will also be improved.

As example, Power array now has a chargup time, sound, glow, laser targeting, screen fx and a buff, a huge difference from before where it just fired an ion shot. Some items have been upgraded a bit already like Power Array but more is to come.

--Item Synergies
We want to add an synergy system which links many items, to form a nice interlocking system of varied builds, planning and choices. Some examples which are already implemented:
- Shock net can electrify the spike strips, making them root enemies
- SAT masterkey fires incendiary shots when you have hot shot
- Field rations allows petting the dog for healing and granting a boost
S1 synergy items will likely also return in some form, like missile control boosting all missile items.

--Item/Ability Upgrades
We are doing an improvement of the system here as well, which will build upon item categories instead of being completely random and the same for all. The current system is too freestyle and unspecific even though it allows for some broken combinations. More info soon.

--Class Upgrades
There is also an idea of mid-run class upgrades replacing the focus perks, but we'll see..



[h3]- Multiplayer[/h3]
Our fully dedicated server based Multiplayer is progressing steadily, it is playable for some time but it needs polish polish polish and as many fixes. It is finally the time where the team starts internally doing serious playtests and where we gradually clean up the issues and start balancing and implementing coop specific features.



Instead of reviving at the next map upon dying, we are trying out a revive mechanic where you trade health to revive a player. This is more punishing on the team and less of a negative feedback loop where the dying player keeps getting weaker and then dies more because he has become weaker.
This should create more tension, be more fair and hopefully avoid making coop significantly easier than single-player.

Our plan for online coop is to have a first public test branch version ready around the Enemy Update.
Right now its most important to fix and polish up the game to a good level and getting multiplayer polished before it's given out. S1 multiplayer very unstable at launch and prone to crashing, we definitely want to avoid this.






[h3]Brief Roadmap:[/h3]

U5 ORIGIN "The Big Class Update"
- Expected this week! Last chance for your class feedback!

U6 HEAT
- Short in-between Update
- Full New "Cooling Chambers" Environment
- Environment Styles (spoiler in the thumbnail)
- Item & Upgrade System improvements
- ?

U7 LEGION "The Big Enemy Update"
- More info in a near future dev blog!
- First Multiplayer testing on test branch around that time





Thats all for today! After the class update has gone live, the enemy update will follow but we keep the enemy update talk for later.

Don't forget the class poll, we really act on your feedback so don't waste the opportunity!

https://forms.gle/zRysjn71xcgCUQwS8

! In case of steam blocking the link - please copy it manually into your browser !!

See you on the field, Androids!
- Team FFG

[h2]General[/h2]
- Pickups no longer need a button press
- Overheat now properly applies a burning effect and deals damage
- Improved Handgun Selection UI
- Improved Shop UI
- Removed Explosive run shake

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
- Big - Fixed Play button "Game" issue
- Big - Fixed the main power scaling issue
- Big - Fixed strange weapon damage scaling (? - Let us know how damage feels now..)
- Fixed extra shot firing the entire magazine
- Varied fixes for beam weapons
- Fixed variants reapplying
- Varied other fixes and action fixes

[h2]Weapons[/h2]
- Due to the damage scaling fix, damage might need some further tweak in the later game
- Tweaked and fixed varied attachments
- Increased weapon perk amount cap to 6
- Nailgun damage 1.25 > 1.35
- ZB-26 reduced magazine to 20
- S90 heat reduced 0.8 > 0.7
- Nemesis damage 8x > 9x
- X1200 damage and ammo nerfed, was very overtuned but keeps similar dmg for higher heat
- X1500 damage increased
- X500 recoil increased, movement accuracy is now normal, heat 1 > 1.2x
- CR18 has increased recoil reset after stopping
- P20 dual now has same magsize as P20, recoil increased
- A700 increased heat 15%
- Acid pistol base damage reduced (acid stays the same) recoil increased
- Fixed varied weapons having 'dead' magazine attachments
- Added divine sound & feedback for divine variants

[h2]Added missing ammo types:[/h2]
- Shock GL - Impact
- Thundercat - Ball Seeker
- Recoilless Rifle - Now missile compatible
- Acid Pistol - Eroder

[h2]UniversEdit[/h2]
- Added entries to Armory patchnotes that were forgotten
- Reduced size of Path explaination block
- Updated categories in mod browser

[h2]Known issues:[/h2]
- Action which delete themselves instantly do not execute certain effects?





For our next priorities, first we plan a small spring cleaning in the project, and then we continue with a class overhaul before continuing with the enemy update. In the following document are some proposed changes to classes outlined, and you have the chance to write your own suggestions here!

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[h2]Your Class Feedback / Class Changes preview:[/h2]

You have to copy and paste the link manually as Steam blocks it otherwise!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O8PAcGejztzkpoXc-nNK_5oW3r6wVNMFuyKBCZLgBeI/edit?usp=sharing


Have fun! - FFG

Hey everyone!
We know its been longer than anticipated, but this update is probably the biggest we've ever done and more like an entire expansion (although a bit rougher), only rivalled by Legion Rising.

Focus on this update was to bring weapons on a new level and to a state where we can be happy about that aspect of the game. After armory, we plan on doing upgrades to the other 2 big elements, enemies and classes. Here is what's new!:


[h2]Key Features:[/h2]
[h3]
New Weapon Tech Perk System
New Camera Attachment Total Overhaul
Unique Weapon Perks for every looted weapon
Switchable Ammo Types Improved game duration, maps & pacing
Improved impacts & graphics New Menu designs
And much more
[/h3]




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[h2]New REDGUARD Weapons:[/h2]


[h3]Rayon Elite LW/7[/h3]
Laser SMG



[h3]EVO XS[/h3]
SMG



[h3]Honorary Dominator[/h3]
Shotgun



[h3]PPQ-H[/h3]
Handgun



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[h2]New RAIDER Weapons:[/h2]


[h3]'Spike' Fireball Cannon[/h3]
Sprayer



[h3]'Leviathan' Heavy Harpoon[/h3]
One-shot weapon



[h3]Stoner Carbine[/h3]
Assault Rifle Carbine



[h3]Two-Z[/h3]
Dual-wielded SMGs



[h3]Shooty[/h3]
Full-auto handgun



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[h2]New SAT POLICE Weapons:[/h2]


[h3]Super 90[/h3]
Shotgun with Strobe light



[h3]Shock Grenade Launcher[/h3]
Electric Weapon (Remodel)



[h3]P20 Competition Dual[/h3]
Dual-wielded pistols



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[h2]New MACHINE MILITARY Weapons:[/h2]


[h3]ML-10 Recoilless Rifle[/h3]
Explosive launcher



[h3]R2000H Anti-Material[/h3]
Heavy anti-material rifle



[h3]X1500 Ion Rail[/h3]
Experimental Ion Railgun



[h3]X1200 Particle Obliterator[/h3]
Explosive Ion weapon



[h3]X500 Handgun[/h3]
2 Shot Ion handgun



[h3]CR-18[/h3]
Burst Handgun



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[h2]New RESISTANCE Weapons:[/h2]


[h3]HS-50[/h3]
Recon Start (Remodel)



[h3]FA-7 Acid Pistol[/h3]
Damage-over-time handgun







[h2]New Weapon Menu[/h2]



- The weapon menu has been completely remade!
- Improved stats and perk displays
- Attachments now show their full name
- New ammo range damage falloff graph
- New tooltip for ammo types with details
- New tooltip for ammo/weapon technology
The stat side will see some more work but its already an big step forward!

[h2]New HD Weapon Images[/h2]
- All S2 weapon images in the menu use new HD versions!


[h2]120 New Weapon Technology Perks[/h2]



- Weapon perks system has been completely overhauled and extremely expanded!
- How it works: Weapons generally have 3 perk slots
- In most cases, 2 of these are filled with a random Tech Perk based on the weapon's technology
- Each technology has a different pool of perks. A Laser weapon will get laser perks.
- Perks are unlocked by dealing damage as before
- Earlier levels are now unlocked faster

Now when you pick up a weapon, you can compare and make informed considerations about which weapons to go for. You will notice that picking and inspecting a weapon will have a very new feeling and depth to it.

[h2]New Conversions[/h2]
- Technologies can also have rare 'conversion' perks
- These can add an additional twist to the gun!





[h2]New Unique Weapon Perks[/h2]
- All non starter weapons now have at least one unique weapon perk
- In the above example, the rifled third barrel is a Honorary dominator unique perk
- Unique perks are always on the weapon and always at the same slot
- In some cases they are unlocked early, in most they are unlocked as third option.

The unique weapon perks often come at the end of the leveling, so you can 'discover' a weapon by fully committing to it. You'll see something new that you wouldn't otherwise by just casually picking up the gun and then putting it away again. For weapons where it is key to the identity, the perks is usually at the first levelup.

[h2]New Weapon Variants[/h2]

- 15 New weapon variants have been added
- Weapon variants now have their new floppy disc images
- The floppy discs represent the user manual
- Varied existing variants have been reworked





[h2]Huge Attachment Update[/h2]


- Tons of attachments have been added, for over 80 total!
- Most existing attachments have been reworked or improved
- Let us know which attachments you do and do not like and which should be changed.
- Attachment costs have been reduced slightly, the last attachment costs more
- Weapon Rarity also affects the cost less than before
- Attachments now rarely use uncommon or epic rarities for consistency
- Legendary and Divine attachments have been added




[h2]New Switchable Ammo Types[/h2]
- Weapons can also now have multiple ammo types
- All ammo types have tooltips
- You can get a new type either through the 'Ammo Switch' attachment, or from the Tinkerer shop
- Ammo types can be switched in the menu or while playing
- Each weapon type has at least one alternative type, the common types have multiple
- Some ammo types can offer drastical changes, most offer a small twist in effectiveness.

Ammo types are intended as a slightly uncommon element of which you keep discovering types over time. They are not essential to play, but offer a nice layer of mystery, discovery and depth.

[h2]Other Weapon changes[/h2]
- Weapon experience required has been reduced especially for the first level
- Pistols can now gain variants through perks
- Explosions can now critically strike with critical strike chance
- You can now eject the weapon when the spare ammo is empty
- Tons of fixes regarding action saving, save and load, weapon swapping and level changes
- Many weapons have been tweaked

[h2]New Legendary & Divine Weapon Variants, Attachments[/h2]
- Weapons can also now have Ultra and Divine variants
- These are super rare and heavily boost stats!





[h2]New Camera[/h2]
- The camera is now a bit more zoomed out
- The camera allows scrolling out further outwards
- The camera has a more shallow FOV, meaning it has less perspective
- This makes the screen estate much more consistent.




[h2]Improved Player Collisions[/h2]
- It should now be harder to get stuck or get blocked on ramps

[h2]Improved Maps and Game Length[/h2]
- The game was stretched out way too long, we trimmed varied maps
- Many map improvements have been done

[h2]Increased Ranges[/h2]
- Ammo ranges have been increased around 20%
- Keep in mind that the zoom and camera panning distance has also increased.

In General ranges are increased but shorter range weapons will still not be able to shoot offscreen although more range upgrades now exist also. Long range weapons can shoot around screen border. Since enemies are tied to these ranges, we are touching these very slowly at a time

[h2]New Menu Design[/h2]



- Still work in progress, but most menus have gotten a visual upgrade
- Varied elements also have gotten extra animations
- This was done for most menus and will be further improved over time


[h2]Many UI improvements across the board[/h2]
- Most of the elements in the game have been touched, at best check it out for yourself!
- Improved weapon levelup, item and weapon pickup popups
- Improved the enemy healthbars to show ranks better and be more readable
- More work needs to be done but this is an important step.


[h2]Improved Feedback[/h2]
- Some parts of the UI have gotten new animations, especially the weapon frame
- Enemy hitflash has been made snappier
- Enemy healthbar now shakes on hits for better feedback
- New systems have been setup for better feedback on actions:
-- New muzzle glow effects
-- New laser pointer effects
-- New character particle effects
- New sound system for object collisions (work in progress)





[h2]New Status Effects[/h2]


- You will start seeing more status effects with proper sounds, VFX and buff icons
- This is an important step for the core gameplay ruleset but more work will be done there

[h2]New Ground Loot UI[/h2]
- You can now see items and weapons with icon and name on the ground

[h2]New Credits menu[/h2]
- You can now see the credits in the Universe Tab menu




[h2]New Tinkerer Shop Upgrades[/h2]
- Weapon Mastercraft
- Ammo Fitting
- Upgrade Kit
- Divine Ammunition Total conversion
- Path of the Weaponsmith

[h2]Shop Tweaks[/h2]
Weapon shop costs:
- Epic: 1500 > 1200
- Legendary: 2500 > 2000



[h2]Enemy Tweaks[/h2]
- We focus more on enemies in the next 2 coming updates
- (Rank bonuses are added on top of each other)
- Rank 1 enemies health unchanged from +30% +500
- Rank 2 enemies health from +125%+500 to +30%+1000
- Rank 3 enemies health from +300%+500 to +150%
- Rank 3 enemies max shield from 2000 to 4000
- Rank 2 and 3 enemy magsize, firerate scaling reduced

- Escalation 3 enemy damage +10%
- Changed enemy spawning to be more specific to floors
- This means less low level enemies spawn in the later levels
- Shotgunners movement speed reduced (also their Rank ones are much weaker)
- Riotshield has reduced health
- Riotshield speed reduced
- Remade arena master taser to shoot straight instead of auto lock-on
- Increased environment prop armor values to increase bounce chances
- Alarm wheel does not cancel the spawn if sight is interrupted




[h2]New Sharper Image[/h2]
- Increased sharpness of the entire game visuals noticeably!
- Increased sharpness of TAA noticeably

[h2]New Color Grading[/h2]
- Added subtle color grading for better colors and contrast




[h2]New 'Screenshot' Setting[/h2]
- Added expensive setting for post processing, which has Screen Space Global Illumination
- Inefficient and not recommended for gameplay for most people but looks good
- Adds more realistic fake ray tracing like shadowing




[h2]New HBAO[/h2]
- Ultra and Screenshot setting have Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion now enabled
- Improves shadowing and definition of assets in the environment

[h2]New Shadow Cascade Quality[/h2]
- You can now have noticeably sharper shadows by using the shadow cascades on 'Normal'
- The previous setting is equivalent to 'Low'
- Make sure to set it back to low if you don't want a small decrease in performance




[h2]New Enemy Glow & Blob shadows[/h2]
- Enemies/Player now have a glow effect similar to S1, making them easier to see in the environment
- Enemies/Player now use blob/drop shadows, making them more grounded in the environment




[h2]More Performance Improvements[/h2]
- More improvements have been done, especially Low settings have been trimmed GPU wise
- Main menu performance has been improved

[h2]Better Loading Times[/h2]
- Loading times have been reduced by around 30%





[h2]New Entity Spawning[/h2]
- You can now finally also spawn gameentities with a button in the F3 menu

[h2]New Conditions[/h2]
- Check for weapon category (SMG, LMG, Faction ..)
- Check for weapon technology type
- Check for current ammo of magazine (last shot..)
- Check for current ammo of magazine percentage
- Allow weapon selling

[h2]New Results / Effects[/h2]
- Replace ammo type
- Add ammo type
- Change weapon rarity, change actionrarity
- Add attachment to character/weapon (muzzle glow, laser etc)
- Added option for random weapon perks and tech based perks in weapon config

[h2]New Stats[/h2]
- Pellet count
- Damage Falloff Distance

[h2]New Ammo Stats[/h2]
- Alert range
- Backside hits
- Ammo gained

[h2]New Projectile Editor[/h2]
- You can now create custom Projectiles
- Homing, Curving, Grenade, Cursor target etc

[h2]Config Cleanups[/h2]
- Weapon configuration is much easier to navigate
- Game Entity is much simpler to navigate and understand
- Fixed shoot ammo only shooting one projectile from ammo and not using range properties
- Status effects, Ammo and Explosions had configs cleaned up and are ready to be used!

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]
- For some people the depot dosnt update changes until restart
- Editor info tooltips are often not displaying as they should




Note:
- We were testing the new environment on Test branch but feel its not ready yet for this update


[h2]General Known Issues[/h2]
- Pickups sometimes lack sounds
- Sometimes you can switch ammo types without ejection
- In some hotkey constellations, the display shows a black icon
- The attachment menu is still showing over the weapon stats
- Burst weapons gain too much heat

[h2]Bugs[/h2]
- This patch has been longer on Test branch than all others and a ton of things have been fixed, overall this should be the best state yet, but that does not mean there are not a good bunch of new bugs which slipped through. Remember to post in the respective channels!





Alright, this is it!
Focus for next time will be a good iteration over the classes and a big enemy update.
Since this update took longer but also had a lot more things than anticipated, we will likely try do a shorter update where we polish up the classes to a good state and then do the big enemy update, while doing a class progression update afterwards, not to forget multiplayer of course.

We'll likely do a roadmap update or another dev post in the near future.

Let us know what you think!
We hope you enjoy!

- Team FFG

Hey everyone!
A small update about the current development.
We are back from the holidays and steady at work on the 'Armory' Update as mentioned in Update 3.
Some juicy stuff has already been done. Some spoilers below.

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Development Priorities:
We are gradually working off the common points of complaint and things are going really well forwards so far. Our very powerful new framework is getting smoother and better by the day and we can now properly take the time and go through all parts of the game and polish and fix up everything, now that things are running and mostly stable. We are feeling pretty optimistic about the next months and we think you are going to be surprised.

For our plan to make Synthetik 2 top notch, we are devising 3 essential updates which are jam packed with improvements and focussed but not exclusively around the 3 main elements of the game, Classes, Combat and Enemies (and coop):

[h3]1. Armory - The Big Weapon/Combat Update[/h3]
- New weapons and handguns
- Ammo types, Images
- More than 2x the attachments of S1
- Many new Weapon and Technology perks
- UI improvements, Weapon menu rework
- Big Weapon pass
- Most needed enemy improvements
- Impact sounds, effects, explosions
- Camera? Ranges?
- Level improvements
- Big secret new extra (its very red)
- ...and much more.

[h3]2. Resistance- The Big Class & Progression Update[/h3]
- These will polish and rework the specs and classes as needed
- Better class progression and switchable ability slots.
- Rogue (Raider, Assassin ..) class.
- ...More infos after Armory.

[h3]3. Assault/Spearhead - The Big Enemy & Gameplay Update[/h3]
- Big pass on enemies, bosses, enemy abilities, AI and everything
- Terror level, Headhunters, loop? Military faction?
- All sorts of core gameplay related things
- ...More info after Resistance.


Plan:
Resistance and Spearhead might switch, the third is either way planned to be the coop update as well.
Which update you think needs to happen first? Resistance or Spearhead?

Some attachment spoilers from Armory:










We also conclude that both Resistance and spearhead need more like 6 weeks each instead of 4 to not cut them too short so it will not amount entirely to 1 per month but maybe we can do some mid-patch updates? We investigae what is best. Armory is planned to go on steam beta branch in the next week or so and arrive in the first week of February. Keep in mind that plans are just plans and things always change a bit.

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Surveys! Please voice your opinion!
We have some important surveys here, they take 5-10 minutes but it is worth doing them and your voice will definitely matter here. Don't miss out! Doing only one is perfectly fine of course.


[h2]S2 SURVEY[/h2]
https://forms.gle/rFcNK5bg9DVU6gLd7


[h2]S2 WEAPON SURVEY[/h2]
https://forms.gle/tdxhrU37a8iPwMCe9

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Ok thats it! I hope this gives you a better overview of what is going on and what is planned.

Small bonus armory spoiler at the end:



Best - Team FFG

Hey everyone!
We know its only been 2 weeks since the last one but we've got another update before the Holidays!
As follow-up to the BOOSTER update, the BOOST PLUS update is continuing on the improvements around items and abilities but more of this work will need to be finalised in the near future.
Here is what is new:



[h3]ACTIVE POWER SLOTS![/h3]
- NEW Active Power Slots
- Items which have the trigger "On class ability use" can now be toggled to use a power slot
- In the Upgrade menu "U" you can click the power slot button to activate at no cost
- You have 2 potential power slots



- This will allow manually activating the item with a hotkey
- It also increases the Effect Power of the item, the first slot by 30%, the second slot by 15%
- By default, your first 2 items will automatically have the power slots enabled

Originally posted by Shrike

Power slots are an ideal solution for all the issues with random active items, they allow you to have items on hotkeys but within a limited number, so you can never have 10 hotkeys at the same time, nor do you have to scramble with a fixed slot that is incompatible with other items. The power boost adds another layer of choice and could be extended to other items as well potentially. With this system, a player can also keep his items on reactive, or the amount of slots could be scaled up or down, or turned off by default (per example on Consoles) and the System shows even more potential for other upgrades.

[h3]CURSED ITEMS[/h3]
- NEW Cursed Item Chest
- NEW Item - Incubus
- NEW Item - Core of daring
- NEW Item - Bloodrite
- NEW Zir Shrine Event: Feat of Strength
- NEW Zir Shrine Event: Steal Relic

Originally posted by Shrike

You can now find cursed items in special chests, or from a new Zir shrine event, they generally offer increased rewards or power but at a difficulty cost

- NEW Item - Ghost Spawner
- NEW Item - Twin Grenade

Some items have been tweaked or their activation changed in favor of power slots.
There is definitely more potential in the new system than is in use right now, we have some ideas
already how to make even more use of power slots in the near future.

[h3]ITEMS[/h3]
- Item shops and rarity of items in shops have been increased for better choices
- Now with crazy item upgrades and power slots, we are also testing having a cap of 6 items
- This allows making more impactful choices and loadouts and reduces information overload

Originally posted by Shrike

This may sound like a negative at first but we think this does improves the quality of the gameplay and people who tested the beta seem to agree. Right now the items do not feel a lot like a loadout with an idea or strategy behind, but more like a random assortment of things like you would see in a passive upgrade driven game. Reducing the amount lets you keep track of what is going on and plan an actual loadout and strategy. In Synthetik 1 we had 8 items, now we have 8 items and 3-4 abilities, with the change this be closer to S1 (10 vs 8). Same as with the map sizes, bigger did not turn out to be better.

With upgrades being a lot deeper now and the power slots, I think this is a good change towards more clarity and impactful choices, and stray away from "just collect things until full" - Shrike

[h3]COMPOSITOR[/h3]
- We are slowly phasing out or reworking the current compositor upgrades
- This is due to the current system not making much sense in the way it is used technically
- The cool ones will either stay or become perks for terminals you can obtain
- NEW - All abilities now can use the same upgrades as the items
- Right now, the composites are staying as rare upgrades while more work is being done
- The idea is to have later rare composites based on slot or technology type of the item/ability

- Both item & ability upgrade types now go up incrementally in cost
- initially they should have a cap of 4 just like attachments, but we try this instead first
- We still want to allow rare 6-8 upgrade god-items, but at 600 cost it was clearly game-breaking
- Overall, the new upgrade system, while not fully complete yet, does show a lot of power already!

[h3]TERMINALS[/h3]
- Varied new terminal events
- Reworked varied events to be more interesting
- 2 shops per map now appear more often
- Item and weapon shops offer more rare goods
- Weapon shops and gambling shrines are more rare
- Item shops more common

Overall terminals are starting to get in good shape and already offer a good amount of varied choices and formats now. Some icons also have been replaced.

[h3]RARITIES:[/h3]
- Rarities had an issue fixed and now should behave as intended
- This means in some shops the epic and legendary things are now as rare as they should

The general rarity weighting looks/should look like this:
50% - Common
30% - Uncommon
15% - Epic
5% - Legendary

In some loot/shops this was already the case more or less, but in some this will make a noticeable difference, so balancing is shaken up and we will gather feedback on this topic.
Weapon/Item shops notably drop higher rarity level loot however



[h3]LEVEL IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3]
- Silo and Training got some design changes and improvements.
- Some overly big and convoluted maps got more compact
- Varied map improvements in terms of cover placement, collisions and spawn camping
- Still an ongoing process, post your gripes in the level-issues channel on discord!

Originally posted by Shrike

We are trying to keep sizes more consistent throughout the game and reduce
on overly huge maps, as they do not make for great gameplay, have a lot of backtracking,
confusion and make the balancing of item/weapon drops very hard.
We will continue with some adjustments to the Oilrig and Mainboard levels

- Enemies AI shoots less unneccessary on cover positions
- Arena Masters have more health
- Armored defender armor increased
- Bosses are now invulnerable in cutscenes
- Reduced Silo Jet Boss health by 15%
- Increased Sawblade Boss health by 15%
- K9s have a different attack sound
- Riotshield enemies have a much more generous backside attack area
- Enemy shotgunners damage reduced a bit



[h3]UNLOCKS:[/h3]
- Each class now has one pistol costing only 75 Data (down from 150)
- Each class now has one spec costing 2 unlock tokens,
- Exp requirement for level 5 reduced (15000>10000)

This makes you unlock some things fast in short playtime but doesn't let you unlock everything easily. Some new handguns are planned for the Armory update!

[h3]OTHER:[/h3]
- Amount of upgrade parts grants increased when above 350 parts
- Precision Strike damage doubled
- Reduced Facemelter damage
- Chrono charge increased volume
- Unstable chrono charge deals more damage
- Varied specs had wrongly setup ability categories fixed
- Grenadier Multi Talent duration 1>1.5s
- Launchers now eject shells on reload
- Improved chat colors
- Changed Cheat menu to not cause a massive lag at the start, work in progress
- Orbital Authority and Power kick have improved shake
- Orbital Authority now deals more damage, executes targets if below 35%
- Buffed Riotguard Judge lifesteal
- Weapon swap no longer needs to complete the fire timer of the last shot
- Facemelter now dosn't trigger if an enemy is within 5m range
- Twice is the charm and double misfire now increase extra shot amount and work
- Updated class menu a bit to be more clean and use class colors
- Due to being super cursed, prismatic chain is being removed until reworked
- Spike strip now is stronger, lasts 90 seconds
- K9 item secret
- Varied UI improvements
- Varied unlisted changes which got forgot

[h3]FIXES:[/h3]
- Tons of things that were reported have been fixed
- If you see any action or other related things which do not work as intended,
please report them in the discord channel for action bugs (or Steam if must)
and they will be fixed.



[h3]SOUNDS[/h3]
- Many feedback sounds and player weapon sounds are now in 2D instead of 3D
- This makes them have the proper volume they should and appear closer to you
- Varied sound improvements
- Known issue: Some sounds are overblown

[h3]PERFORMANCE:[/h3]
- Some smaller improvements, mostly for low settings
- Remember to update your drivers if you haven't - this may definitely help!



- NEW - Merge Depot
- You can now merge depots you got from other people into your own
- This will also allow us to add mod content much easier to the game if wanted

- Weapon burst now works at 0
- Particles can now be scaled
- Added a couple more tooltips

[h3]ATTENTION MODDERS:[/h3]
- IMPORTANT! Make sure your class abilities have the category "Action Archetype: Any" category
If you want your abilities to use the orange upgrades. This means they can use any upgrade.
It is also recommended for all items or class abilities to have the new technology category set for the future. We always try to be as little disruptive to mods as possible but with adding new things this is not always possible.



[h3]PRIORITIES:[/h3]
The biggest priorities for the near future:
- Wrapping up the action system and making upgrades and scaling work fully in all regards
- The "Armory" Update with focus on everything all around weapons
- Improving map flow, variation and decreasing some sizes
- There are always the typical UI, UX, Bug, Performance, Sound
and general improvements and multiplayer of course.
Don't forget out roadmap on synthetikuniverse.com.



Here is a very rough overview of our current intentions.
Alright, that's it! We hope you enjoy and wish you merry holidays!

Have fun! - Team FFG