GROUND BRANCH News

Today's patch for the V1033 Community Test beta branch has more updates to lighting, skins, audio and more.

[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
  

Steam will begin downloading the files for the new testing branch.

[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!

[h2]Patch notes[/h2]

• Tweaked Distance Field Ambient Occlusion (DFAO) settings globally
  
• Partial fix for crazy VFX stuff happening at map origin
  
• Disabled Subsurface Scattering (SSS) globally
  
• Fixed light portals in Run Down, City and Tanker
• Upped skylight on Run Down a bit
  
• Fixed Ready Room (RR) lights getting shot out
  
• Overhaul of skylight override volumes to balance day and night better (see Storage Facility tunnels and Run Down basement)
  
• Fixed bad laptop in Docks (Intel Retrieval game mode)
  
• Fixed grouped lights so that changing time of day won't switch on lights that have been switched off at a power box
  
• Fixed tedious bug where you see a blue transparent wall in low-light conditions
  
• Moonlight made a bit bluer
  
• [FIRST PASS] Added options to manually cycle bolt- and pump-action weapons (currently M24 sniper rifle and SDASS shotgun) in Settings › Controls
  
• Gun tail audio change and VOIP remixed
  
• Cleaned up mesh intersection issues with helmet chin straps and the Balaclava
• Deleted old/hidden meshes in Creek
• Tweaked some light cull distances in Compound
• Fixed Vudu 1–6x not properly switching reticles for all magnification levels
  
• Removed the target cameras/screens from The Farm's shooting range, and replaced old sandbag meshes with updated ones
  
• Tweaked grey skin for Combat Shirt and Combat Pants: now a lighter grey with black secondary colors
  
• Created grey skin for ACU Coat and Tactical Pants
• Fixed the Combat Shirt's cuff and arm velcro patches being assigned different colors
  
• Fixed subtle red-tinted areas in Combat and Tactical Pants
  
• Added reflection capture scaling option, currently applied to Power Station so less blue ghosting at night
  
• Created additional effect type for bullet casings
  
• Adjusted max bullet impact instances from 30 to 7
  
• Fixed laser flare material being visible while sprinting
  
• Deleted deprecated (unused) pouch blueprint
  

Is it me or are these patches rolling out faster and faster?

Another hotfix out on the Community Test beta branch as we keep getting closer to the official V1033 release!

[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
  

Steam will begin downloading the files for the new testing branch.

[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!

[h2]Patch notes[/h2]

• Added door handles to shoothouse doors (The Farm)
  
• Fixed up lighting in Paintball
• Further small tweaks to dawn/dusk light sensitivity and global skylight settings
  
• Added keybind for Spectator Mode night vision mode (still investigating why not working)
  
• RESET DEFAULT button in Settings › Video now resets both basic and advanced settings
  
• Bots should now respawn in new rounds in Deathmatch
  
• Updated Last Man Standing missions to mirror all current Deathmatch missions
  
• Fixed missed Distance Field Ambient Occlusion (DFAO) value in quality settings; this should fix unlit interior areas being overly bright
  

[h2]Shimmering foliage[/h2]
With the ongoing process of tuning and trying different combinations of settings to fix/improve various aspects of lighting, the shimmering foliage artifact (especially noticeable in grass) is present again in this build.

There's no need to report it—we'll continue to look for a fix that doesn't cause issues elsewhere.

[hr][/hr]
Enjoy the weekend, everyone!

Another patch now live!

[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
  

Steam will begin downloading the files for the new testing branch.

[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!

[h2]Patch notes[/h2]

• Cleaned up some lighting issues in Ready Room due to enabling lit translucency in a previous update
  
• Changed light sensitivity at dawn/dusk (should get a bit brighter)
  
• Fix for slightly offset capture component on ACOG 4x
• Fixed some meshes culling around the bridge to early in Depot
• Fixed slight offset with the Carry Handle Rear Sight
• Rejigged PiP texture scaling to downgrade it somewhat and change available range to 0.4–1.0
  
• Fixed error relating to hit detection on living characters
  
• Fixed Breaching Charge reset removing in-hand charge
  
• Fixed smoke grenades blocking interaction trace
  
• Fixed destroyed doors completely borking physics when resetting
  
• Fixed The Farm (Training mode) having weird time of day and light settings when launched from Main Menu
  
• Wristwatch now responds immediately to level time changes
  
• Switched enemy skins on Docks to "Riot" and Power Station to "Rebel" (previously "Russian")
  
• Fixed up foliage collision in Depot and AI interaction with foliage
  
• Cleaned up some cover point issues in Depot's compound area
  
• Adjusted cull distances on a few lights in Depot
  
• Some settings changes to try to optimize texture streaming: upped RenderTargetMinPool for all post-process (PP) settings, turned off Contact Shadows for "Low" and "Medium" Shadow Quality settings, and upped StreamingPoolSize for all Texture Quality settings
  
• Increased dynamic shadow distance from 5k units to 10k in Storage Facility to fix lighting artifacts, and improved AI interaction with foliage
  
• Fixed being unable to crawl under wall at back of Antenna yard in Depot
  
• Fixed ghosting on broken glass material in Depot
  
• Fixed some interior props not accepting any lighting in Compound
• GPNVG-18 model tweaks to front lenses area
  
• Added FDE mount for FDE NVGs (automatically assigns depending on NVG device skin)
  
• Adjusted some light culling distance and light portal issues on 747
• Fixed Plate Carrier (MPC) and Fleece Hoodie intersection issues in Customize Operator screen
  
• Fixed some light switch issues in Tanker (outside lights not turning off properly)
  
• Added door handle meshes to The Farm doors
  
• Reset night time sensitivity on Compound to default (was overly bright at night)
  
• Fixed inventory.LimitSupplies() lua library call, so WeaponRestriction mutator should work fine now for all things (via Mutator menu)
  
• Tweaked moonlight to be a little darker and bluer
  

Just a little hotfix for this morning's V1033 testing branch patch.

[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
  

Steam will begin downloading the files for the new testing branch.

[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!

[h2]Patch notes[/h2]

• Fixed issue where closing door was not properly interactable
  
• Changed Ambient Occlusion (AO) settings to stop shimmering grass and trees
  
• Enabled Global Dynamic Field Ambient Occlusion (DFAO) again
  
• Standard (Element-based) callsigns now apply properly
  
• Fixed Binaural reverb bug
  

We have also removed the password from the Beta branch, so new testers can opt in by simply selecting it from the drop-down menu.

Today's V1033 Community Test patch has an attempted fix for doors not resetting, time/date issues and crashes, as well as ongoing work on effects and skins.

[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
  

Steam will begin downloading the files for the new testing branch.

[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!

[h2]Patch notes[/h2]

• Big update on doors: should now reset properly, though some glitches remain
  
• Replaced doors on Depot with new system ones
  
• Added missing door handles to previously replaced doors
  
• Fixed VFX particles glowing when viewed through optics and NVG
  
• AffectTranslucentLighting enabled on base light blueprints to provide better illumination of VFX particles (less glowing in the dark, especially)
  
• Added a soft noise texture to NVG effects
  
• Audio preset settings changed
  
• Updated industrial fans attenuation in The Farm, and weird reverb in Small Town
• Fixed fire selector switch sound for MK17 DMR
• Global Tonemapper Sharpness increased again
  
• Fixed tac light flare VFX stacking on top of itself, causing the texture to blow out
  
• Added lens flare VFX to AN/PEQ-15's visible and IR lasers
  
• More tentative crash fixes in AI light detector component
  
• Tentative fixes for continuing time/date desyncs
  
• Optimized PiP scopes by restricting frequency of render texture resizing
  
• Added new PiP Scope Resolution Scale setting to Settings › Video to allow better performance (when set below 1.0) or last-ditch fixes for persistent pixelation issues (when set above 1.0; performance will most likely be affected in this case!)
  
• Fixed players being kicked when voting a map change (disables match setting option for non admins)
  
• Updated grey skin for Combat Shirts and Combat Pants
• Added new AOR-2 camo swatch and updated AOR-2 assets
  
• Updated brightness of ACU Coat in AOR-1 to match other assets in that camo
  
• Fixed "sunken" patch slot at center/rear slot of Helmet (AF)
• Spectator Mode night vision now working, with new NV effect
  
• Disabled global Distance Field Ambient Occlusion (DFAO) to reduce foliage flickering
  
• Re-enabled collision for leaning, i.e. fixed leaning through walls
  
• Fixed a LOD issue for some architecture on Tanker culling out too soon
  
• Fixed 747 generator culling out too soon
  
• Improvements to light portal system on 747 and Run Down
• Ragdoll collision improved, with itself and with other objects
  
• Enemy AI now register hits for a short time after death
  
• Fixed broken variant names and default filename generation in mission editor