Matched Play Beta 4 - Update 342 Released

Changelog

Tweaks / Improvements

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  Added a Top Bar UI toggle to the advanced options menu.
  
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  The Observatory’s scanned Status Effect icon will always show for Aliens within range, regardless of HUD detail settings. (Similar to the Parasite status effect icon for Marines.)
  
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  Re-added the Railgun Exo’s target outline HUD effect on all Aliens and resolved the performance issues when looking at something far beyond the effect’s maximum range. (Thanks Axtel!)
  
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  Three additional status effect icons added: Nerve Gas, Spores and Armor Healing.
  
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  All status effects are now clearly marked as buffs/debuffs.
  

Matched Play Changes

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  New Friends Group feature where you can invite up to 2 other friends before joining a public lobby, to end up on the same team! There is a maximum of two friend groups per public lobby, and one group per Team.
  
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  New Private Lobby feature where only those whom you invite can play in your match! Note that Matched Play rewards are disabled for this mode.
  
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  Penalties are temporarily removed until they can be administered in a more fair and accurate way in a future update.
  
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  You should now be able to reconnect to an in-progress match after crashing, unless steam has gone offline or the lobby no longer exists.
  
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  New and improved shuffle algorithm which ensures Friends Groups will stay together and evenly balance teams around them.
  
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  Lobbies now robustly handle users leaving and joining after the lobby has reached 12/12 players. Lobbies will correctly roll-back the lobby state as long as the lobby has not reached the Planning Phase.
  

Matched Play Fixes

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  Fixed known cases where player names and avatars would not show up in the Planning Phase screen. All players on the same team should now be visible to team-members after a short delay.
  
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  Fixed known cases where a lobby would fail to spin up a server due to lobby authentication issues.
  
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  Fixed known cases of users being assigned to Team 0 and thus kicked from the match.
  
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  Fixed the lobby status UI (waiting for commanders) not updating properly in some scenarios.
  
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  Fixed some instances where a client could get into a desynchronized state with the lobby UI.
  
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  Fixed users who volunteered to command not being able to see their voted maps during the map voting stage.
  
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  Fixed users not being able to see the Map Vote button after a lobby was rolled back to Waiting for Players.
  
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  Fixed the volunteer to command button showing up after a map vote.
  
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  Fixed a case where Waiting For Commanders timer could get stuck at 0 without progressing the lobby.
  
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  Fixed an issue where players who left during the Map Vote stage would still appear to be in the lobby if the Map Vote screen was open when they left.
  
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  Fixed several issues with player names and avatars being in an incorrect state in the Lobby screen after multiple players left/joined.
  
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  Fixed ability to join a match that just completed using steam friends.
  
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  Fixed ability to join a lobby that had progressed to or beyond the Planning Phase (the user would be kicked from the server when they joined).
  
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  Fixed inconsistent behaviors with in game lobby invites and steam friends invites.
  
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  Fixed numerous script errors and other scenarios that would break a lobby.
  
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  Fixed multiple issues where clicking too fast on some UI elements caused script errors.
  

Mod System Changes

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  Trigger reinstall of hotfix mods if they are failing consistency check.
  
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  When a file fails consistency check the mod it belongs to is now listed in the log when failing to connect to a server.
  
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  Force caching the current version of a hotfix mod if it was updated outside the game by steam to reduce chance of “mod out of date” errors connecting to a server.
  
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  Switch to auto updated steam runtime libraries for the dedicated server to try and fix mod download issues.
  

Fixes

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  Fixed that the Marine Flashlight rate was tied to moverate.
  
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  Fixed Marine structures taking too long to build in some cases. They were affected by server performance or even latency. The TSF has issued a mandatory firmware update to all build tools to resolve this issue.
  
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  Fixed Exo Crosshairs not being included in the default consistency exclusion list. 
  
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  Fixed Marine tutorial not progressing when asked to open Map if binding was set to toggle instead of hold.
  
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  Fixed base tutorials not automatically progressing to the next tutorial after completion.
  
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  Fixed Ambient Occlusion graphics setting being turned off on every client restart.
  
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  Fixed Hallucinations not using the player skins of those they were copying. Hopefully they never learn how to copy Marines.
  
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  Fixed player names that used certain special characters causing the Windows error sound during server joining, chatting, or death. 
  
• 
  Fixed Atmospherics graphics setting defaulting to 1.0 even though the UI reported 0.15, the intended default. 
  
• 
  Fixed seasonal throwables (snowballs and candy) causing console errors and not being rate limited. We’ll be sad to see the infinite streams of candy go.
  
• 
  Fixed Bmacs getting hit with the Axe making flesh sounds. It creeps us all out just a little bit less now. 
  
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  Fixed weapons dropped upon death near an Armory still having a decay timer. (Thanks Axtel!)
  
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  Fixed the Revert button not working correctly when making changes in the Options menu.
  
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  Fixed old hooks\console commands of hot reloaded lua files not being cleared.
  
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  Fixed the menu sometimes being restarted from Lua errors.
  
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  Fixed hallucinated Drifters occasionally making Marine footstep sounds when they moved about. It was terrifyingly funny, but an unfortunate evolutionary dead-end.
  
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  Fixed that Nano Shield could not be used on unpiloted Exosuits. 
  
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  Fixed Power Nodes not playing their critical sound effects for players who have left relevancy range and returned. You have no excuse for not welding the Power Node now.
  
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  Fixed outdated Alien commander tutorial that required manually infesting tunnels.
  
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  Fixed outdated Marine commander tutorial that blocked progress due to Robotics Factory size change.
  

Maps
Descent (Thanks Salty!) 

• 
  Gravity Control - Fixed death trigger.  
  

Summit (Thanks psyk!)

• 
  Fixed death trigger issues in Crevice and Crossroad
  

Tools

• 
  Map editor workflow improvements (Thanks Axtel!)
  
  • 
    Added reliable transform gizmo planar handle selection.
    
  • 
    Added Ctrl-click and Alt-click to selection filter toggles.
    
  • 
    Fixed multiple editor state corruptions that could result in an unusable editor.
    
  • 
    Moved “select object layer” functionality to Alt-LMB with Select tool active.
    
  • 
    Negative texture scales are properly preserved when using the paint tool.
    
  • 
    Reduce unintended viewport freezes when manipulating objects.
    
• 
  Improvements to supporting light placements in a level file when flipping rooms or entire maps. (Thanks Axtel!)
  

SDK

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  Event.RemoveHook is now an engine function instead of Lua and the table of registered hooks can now be accessed from Event.HookTable.
  
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  Scripts are now passed a hot reload depth as toplevel parameter if it's being hot reloaded otherwise it’s nil.
  

Known Issues

• 
  The Matched Play “Team Imbalance auto-concede” feature that is triggered when too many players have left one team, does not work well with reconnecting players just yet.
  
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  Clicking the “Find Match” / “Cancel Searching” button in the Friends Group screen multiple times in quick succession can trigger script errors that require the group host to restart their client.
  
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  When entering the planning phase the First Team splash screen may sometimes  show up twice.
  
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  There is currently no visual indication of which players in a lobby, if any, are in a friends group.
  
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  Chat messages received while the Map Vote screen is open will not be visible after closing the Map Vote screen.