V1034 Community Test: Update #05

We've been working hard on GROUND BRANCH V1034, and today we got another Community Test update for you!

Patch notes after the usual instructions:

[h3]❓ How to join the Community Test beta branch[/h3]

• Right-click GROUND BRANCH in your Steam Library and select Properties…
• Click 'BETAS' on the left-hand list menu
  
• Select 'communitytest - Community testing branch' from the drop-down menu
  (no password required)

Steam will begin downloading the files for the testing branch. Patching may take a while.

[h3]🐞 Where to report bugs[/h3]
You can report bugs and issues using any of these methods:

• The in-game Bugs & Issues screen (press Esc once in-game and look along the top menu)
  
• The Steam forums: steamcommunity.com/app/16900/discussions/
• The #bug-reports channel on the official GROUND BRANCH™ Discord

Your reports help us locate and fix issues faster, so keep them coming!

🚧 These issues are known to still be present:

• Recoil is currently unclamped, meaning sustained automatic fire will eventually clip weapons into the character; this also affects weapon sway in low stamina
  
• Enemy AI may be unresponsive/idle/stuck in various contexts — if you see it, please make note of whether it was online (dedicated server? Listen server?) or offline, which game mode was being played, as well as map and location etc.

  ⚠️ Bots are particularly prone to getting stuck in doorways; we're actively working on fixing/improving this issue.

• Weapon movement, poses and animations in general are still being put back together after the prone overhaul — please bear with us
  
• Walking or running with a primary weapon equipped causes the character's right foot to "hover" before it actually touches the ground
  
• The prone stance does not conform to terrain angle
  
• Aiming (ADS) is offset with pistols while crouch-leaning (particularly to the left)
  
• Character and weapon collision while prone is pretty finicky! Let us know how it all feels to you
  
• The Tablet (map) is currently offset to the bottom while crouched, and unusable while prone
  
• Various combinations of hairstyles and headgear items have visible clipping or overall jankiness
  
• AI bots are still not hooked up to the Deathmatch game mode
  

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[h2]Maps and missions[/h2]

[h3]747[/h3]

• Updated all relevant 747 missions with new collision and patrol point checking
  
• Fixed issue with light portal flickering light in 747 cargo hold
  
• Fixed various collision issues
  
• Fixed some other lighting issues
  
• Replaced fan in terminal office with new style fan that can be shot out and powered up and down by the local power box
  
• Cleaned up navmesh
  

[h3]Arena and Arena 2[/h3]

• Updated missions with collision checker
  
• Cleaned up navmesh
  

[h3]City[/h3]

• Made pole lights leading down to subway actual lights that are on/off and destructible
  
• Made bollard lights destructible
  
• Added proper destroyed light meshes to outdoor lights
  
• Fixed various collision issues and culling bugs
  
• Fixed up all missions (except Last Man Standing) with the new actor collision checking feature of validation scripts
  
• Cleaned up some geo collision that was way too big, and fixed some other geo and collision bugs
  
• Fixed some lighting issues
  
• Changed some wall pictures in City bank
  
• News helicopter updated to fly a little smoother, and animations added for hover and evasion
  
• Cleaned up navmesh
  

[h3]Compound[/h3]

• Updated nearly all missions with new collision and patrol checker
  
• Fixed invisible wall collision under staircase in unfinished building
  
• Cleaned up navmesh
  

[h3]Creek[/h3]

• Various collision and culling bugs fixed
  
• Cleaned up navmesh
  

[h3]Depot[/h3]

• Fixed mesh culling and collision issues
  
• Fixed over-penetration of bullets through some metal objects
  
• Fixed incorrect normals on rocks
  
• Cleaned up navmesh
  

[h3]Docks[/h3]

• Fixed up missions (except Last Man Standing) using new actor collision checking feature of validation scripts
  
• Cleaned up less than optimal collision on a few assets
  
• Filled in empty buildings/trailers
  
• Added glass windows to the construction trailers
  
• Cleaned up collision on a few of the metal staircases
  
• Made red light on electronics box destructible
  
• Cleaned up navmesh
  

[h3]Power Station[/h3]

• Cleaned up navmesh
  

[h3]Rundown[/h3]

• Various collision and culling bugs fixed
  
• Cleaned up navmesh
  

[h3]Small Town[/h3]

• Fixed up various missions using new mission collision checker and patrol route checker
  
• Nav link tweaks for ladder
  
• Added pillars to basement and removed cinder blocks
  
• Fixed misaligned Humvee windshield
  
• Rebuilt navmesh
  
• Mini graphical overhaul:
  
  
  • Fixed some foliage meshes using billboard as base LOD on lower foliage settings
    
  • Adjusted billboard distances, generally pushed them back further
    
  • Wind/sway tweaks
    
  • Color correction and improvements in mask clipping and materials
    
  • Improved vista forest material/visuals
    
  • Fixed crossfade billboards not correctly disabling when toggled off
    
  • Added support for virtual texture blending with landscape, rocks and embankments
    
  • Landscape material work, adding some wet muddy areas
    
  • Fern color correction
    
  • Added leaves mesh scattering to dead leaves landscape layers
    
  • Added some cinderblock scatter
    
  • Increased bounds of a few floor pieces in B building (potential fix for disappearing floor)
    
  • Remade bullet hole decals, higher res and cheaper
    
  • Landscape material displacement tweaks
    

[h3]Storage Facility[/h3]

• Fixed various collision issues
  
• Fixed incorrect normals on rocks
  

[h3]Tanker[/h3]

• Fixed various collision issues
  

[h3]The Farm[/h3]

• Potential fix for flickering billboard trees
  
• Slight foliage color tweaks
  
• Landscape material/textures improvements
  
• Added leaves grass layer
  
• Hornbeam trees: fixed roughness not coming through correctly
  
• Other material tweaks and corrections
  
• Improved 747 fuselage material so it has a bit more detail up close
  
• A bit of landscape painting
  
• Pushed blocking volumes in water a bit further out
  
• Reduced intensity of water waves
  

[h2]Inventory and assets[/h2]

• Fixed heads becoming detached from player if a single skeletal mesh fails to load
  
• Updated hostage sack to add or remove overlay based on view target status instead of player being locally controlled or not (makes sack visible in third person)
  
• Standardized fixed iron sight alignment for the AKM and Wz.88 for consistent behavior
  
• Trimmed female head meshes in the neck/shoulder area to reduce mesh clipping in some postures/animations
  
• Reworked helmet chinstrap morph targets and added new ones for female heads
  
• Realtime Virtual Texture (RVT) incorporated into various maps/landscape materials (for nicer blends between props and landscape)
  
• Mini overhaul of master materials
  
• Fixed broken wrist mesh for "Riot" enemy type
  
• Switched MARPAT Desert skin on the Helmet (HC) to AOR-1
  
• New skins:
  
  
  • Gun Belt: M81
    
  • Ball Cap: DCP, AOR-1 and M81
    
  • Boonie Hat: UCP
    
  • Helmet (HC): AOR-2
    

[h2]Animation[/h2]

• Corrected directional animation blend times to fix hitch when changing directions
  
• First pass on prone and crouch death animations
  
• Adding correct notifies for mag check
  
• Updated character and weapon animations for AK-type rifles
  
• Added new hand poses for the new AK models
  
• Fixed Galil ARM mag check
  
• Fixed wrong position on AK-type fire selector
  
• Updated pose for leaning
  
• Created specific flex-cuffs poses
  
• Updated hostage sack to apply as a mesh
  
• Sway and canting rotation are now applied separately (only applies Z aspect of sight offset while not engaging the sight - fixes issues with firearm being more centered then usual, especially when using canted sight)
  
• Added new drop-down animation to the AI characters
  

[h2]AI[/h2]

• Enabled feature to auto-generate drop-down nav links (uses vaulting animations as a placeholder for now)
  
• Fix for AI tracking the player when just losing sight of him, now shoots at the last known location rather than at the current player position
  
• Updated noise investigation behavior for Guard AI — who will now investigate noise more in the direction that the noise is coming from instead of a more general "scan" behavior
  
• Tweaked AI difficulty, increasing the gap between highest and lowest level to create more variance
  
• Increased memory time for the AI, so they will search longer for lost targets
  
• Added search pattern BT so on lost target they search randomly — the longer they search, the bigger the radius gets
  
• Updated the weights used for more passive/aggressive behavior; generally speaking, Guard AI are now more likely to behave passively (seeking cover, going prone etc.), while Patrol AI will be more aggressive (running, sprinting towards the player instead of seeking cover etc.)
  
• Updated and re-enabled custom AI settings in Lone Wolf and Host Game screens
  

[h2]Gameplay and bug fixes[/h2]

• Fixed dead bodies not being cleaned up in between rounds
  
• Made it so you can go prone under the Ural style trucks in various maps
  
• Stopped massive log spam caused by inventory tags being updated before assets have finished loading
  
• Added Time of Day (TOD) statuses to BP_SkylightOverrideVolume, so it can apply fading or desaturation at specific times of day only
  
• Added actor collision checking to mission validation Lua scripts
  
• Added new actor.IsColliding() lua library function, which determines if the actor is more or less colliding with map assets
  
• Small improvements to mission validation scripts
  
• Defuse game mode now prints to log the actual bomb actor name as well as the selected bomb zone
  
• Added stamina and sway effects for:
  
  
  • Going to prone
    
  • Getting up from prone
    
  • Going from crouched to standing
    
  • Leaning
• Fixed bugged water collision
  
• Modding admin UI update (WIP) and quite a few modding changes behind the scenes
  
• Fixed smoke effects blocking Use/Interact prompts (to be replaced by better fix later)
  
• Fixed Deathmatch loadout issue
  
• Fixed UseFriendlyNameTags entry in DefaultGameRules array in DefaultZooKeeper.ini (should be true, was read as false)
  
• Fixed up Ready Room range door not replicating properly
  
• Optimized tracing for interaction, Ready Room name and in-game player names
  
• Changed PhysMat for dirt to not allow bullet penetration
  
• Added gameplaystatics.TraceVisible() lua library function for doing a simple visible trace between two specified locations
  
• Added gameplaystatics.GetPatrolRouteLinkedActors() lua library function for getting a list of linked patrol route actors
  
• Added full patrol route checking in all PvE validation functions, including a new visible trace to make sure the route is not blocked (as a first approximation check at least)
  
• Minor bug fixes to Team Elimination in relation to fixed spawn missions (Arenas, Paintball) and displaying insertion points in dependence to whether auto-balance is enabled
  
• Removed AI spawn checking from Deathmatch validate script (since opponents are bots now)
  
• Added various new validations and checks for firearm blueprints (in anticipation of modding opening up)
  
• Changed various firearm-related assets to fix issues with sight replication and sights used by non-controlled characters
  
• Updated arm sway values on Main Menu guys to prevent them getting tired
  
• Various crash fixes relating to pointers missing a UPROPERTY() macro
  
• Fixed issue where the light custom collision box was set to not effect navmesh
  
• Restricted Focus Zoom to primary and secondary weapons only (no longer usable with Binoculars, grenades etc.)
  
• Updated modding manager to grab installed mod list from subscribed mods instead of scanning locally (mods soon to come!)
  

[h2]Sound[/h2]

• Removed unused Wwise node that may have been setting voice to male all the time
  
• Fixed AI bark spatialization
  
• Minor tweaks to AI attenuation
  
• Fixed missing suppressor tails
  
• Slightly adjusted footstep audio and some attenuations
  
• Fixed power box audio bug
  
• Added Ready Room ambient music
  
• Fixed audio in City rooms
  
• Loading screen mutes sound until fading away (should stop short burst of sound when joining a map)
  

[h2]VFX[/h2]

• Re-enabled eye adaptation on the VFX material (was causing smoke effects to glow in low-light and under night vision when disabled)
  
• Changed surface link for electronics to use metal bullet-hole decal (was previously using a paper decal) — fixes odd impacts on e.g. power boxes
  
• Fixed up flashbang, frags, big bomb (Defuse) and breaching charges so they won't cause deafness or prolonged visual effects (e.g. for headcam)
  

[h2]UI[/h2]

• Updated skin icons (the triangle/square swatches for item colors or camo patterns)
  
• Updated weapon customization UI to not show the "Muzzle" attachment category when no muzzle device is available for the weapon
  
• Created custom UI for customizing Galil ARM
  
• Progress on Modding menu
  
• Admin modding UI now added to modding menu (from Main Menu)
  
• Tweaked drop-down arrow in mission property array widget to be more visible in mission editor
  
• Added W, E, R controls to the outline widget (as well as main window) in mission editor
  
• New map thumbnails for Small Town, City and The Farm
  
• Loading screens rejigged
  
• Hint widget adjusted to stop shifting/resizing during load
  
• In Spectator Mode, HUD no longer shows distance prompts if camera style is headcam
  
• HUD now correctly hides Next/Previous Player prompt when player is following another character
  
• Partial visual update for Admin Panel (mainly Skin Restrictions menu)
  

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[h3]As always, thanks for testing and providing feedback![/h3]
Until the next build, folks.

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