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Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop News

Upcoming changes to Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces

Starting in Season 20 (February 2024), Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces is gaining two new sources of points. Additionally, we are updating the score multipliers of nearly every mission and many challenges.

[h2]What's Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces?[/h2]
Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces (HoIAF) is a monthly competition to complete as many difficult missions as possible on participating servers (marked with an 🏅 icon in the lobby list).

You earn more points for harder missions, difficulty settings, and challenges, and for marines in your squad surviving to the end if hardcore friendly fire is enabled. At the end of the month, everyone who participated receives a medal, with special medals going to the players in the top 20 and top 100.

You can display medals on your Steam profile the same way you would display any other item in your inventory, as well as equip up to 3 medals on your Commander Profile in-game. Medals are also available from many other sources. Check out the guides on the Steam Community Hub to find out more!

[h2]Scoring Multiplier Updates[/h2]
109 of the 133 rated missions and 28 of the 76 rated challenges have received scoring changes.

In most cases, the difference between challenge score multipliers has been reduced and the difference between mission score multipliers has increased.

The full list of modifier changes is available on the Reactive Drop developer website.

[h2]Personal Best Scores[/h2]
Starting in Season 20 (February 2024), your personal best score for each mission will earn you bonus points towards your season score. Your 5 best scores contribute the most, with each group of 5 scores afterwards contributing half as much.

The point bonuses are generous. For example, if your best single mission score is 500 points, you'll gain nearly one hundred thousand points towards your season score. If you manage to beat your score by 100 points (600 total), you'll gain an additional nearly forty thousand points.



If you want to stay ahead in future seasons, you'll need to hone your skills at a multitude of missions, and super-high scores in endless missions are now worth far more than the points they give directly.

[h2]Mission Bounties[/h2]
It's not just the high-scorers who are getting a bonus this season! A few times per day, the Interstellar Armed Forces will provide bounties for completing specific missions. You can find these in the notifications area on the main menu, and the missions with bounties you haven't claimed are also marked in the mission chooser while you're connected to a participating server.



Bounties grant points for the successful completion of a mission regardless of difficulty settings or challenges. That means that if you were previously getting a measly 1 point per mission on Easy, you can now earn hundreds or thousands of points a few times per day.

Bounties are created every 8 hours and last for 24 hours. Each set of bounties is either a campaign of 3 to 9 missions or 5 to 6 assorted missions. Bounties do not span multiple seasons, so there is a period at the start of a season with fewer than 3 active sets of bounties and bounties at the end of a season are shorter than 24 hours. Each bounty mission can be completed independently. If you don't want to see information about bounties on the main menu, you can disable the notifications using the button at the bottom of the notifications list.

Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Update - January 1, 2024

Happy new year! This month's update contains fixes for controller issues, updates to the Infection deathmatch challenge, and a few miscellaneous fixes and new features.

[h2]Official Missions[/h2]
  • BioGen Corporation: Operation X5: Fixed a door that was inadvertently classified as a ladder.
  • BioGen Corporation: Invisible Threat: Fixed speedrun time being incorrectly calculated.


[h2]Controller[/h2]
  • Fixed doubled cursor movement inputs on in-game menus such as computer hacks and the briefing lobby.
  • Fixed extra inputs being generated when switching action set. This was causing the Override command to close and re-open the hack.
  • Fixed an issue where after starting the game with Steam in Big Picture mode or using the controller, selecting a marine with the mouse would always select Sarge.
  • Added convars rd_input_controller_mode_mouse and rd_input_controller_mode_keyboard to lock the input mode to not-controller (0) or controller (1).


[h2]Menus[/h2]
  • Fixed non-English letters not being enterable into the lobby name field.
  • Fixed 7.1 surround sound missing from 2010 audio settings menu.
  • Fixed incorrect name for Order Specific Marine in the 2010 keyboard settings menu.
  • Fixed download campaign button being obscured by the filters button.
  • Fixed memory leak related to player avatars. This could sometimes lead to a "CUtlRBTree overflow" crash.


[h2]Infection Deathmatch Challenge[/h2]
  • Reduced the amount of bonus maximum health that comes with Last Stand.
  • Reduced the DPS of the chainsaw when using Last Stand.
  • Slightly increased the DPS of the chainsaw when not using Last Stand.
  • Freeze Grenades can no longer be used. (They were already unselectable.)
  • Significantly increased Trip Mine damage against zombies.
  • Significantly increased Gas Grenade damage against zombies.
  • Significantly increased Incendiary Mine damage against zombies.
  • Electro-stunned zombies now take double damage.
  • Medic zombies now begin regenerating health sooner after taking damage.
  • Fixed players falling through terrain when turning into a zombie.
  • Updated custom edits for dm_deima.
  • Added Classic variant:
    • Last Stand mode is disabled.
    • Prime Zombies no longer have shields.
  • Improved bot marine pathfinding across all deathmatch game modes.
  • Fixed sometimes seeing glows for weapons or ammo that have despawned.


[h2]Scripting[/h2]
  • Added a new method to rd_hud_vscript: PaintPolygon(vertices, red, green, blue, alpha, texture). vertices is an array of tables, each containing x, y, s, and t coordinates. There must be at least three vertices and they should form a convex shape in clockwise order. x and y are screen coordinates. s and t are texture coordinates, from 0 to 1.

Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Update - December 2, 2023

  • Spectators will now see the full length laser pointer for the marine they are spectating.
  • Using the healing ability on a medic weapon now dims the laser pointer in the same way that firing any other gun does.
  • Lobbies with no ping information now sort to the bottom of the list by ping instead of the top.
  • Fixed the Create Lobby screen not loading the saved lobby name from the previous lobby you created.
  • Fixed reservations not being properly cleaned up when a player who played a marine in the previous mission fully connects and automatically selects their marines.
  • Fixed sg-servers #2 not appearing as a ranked server (this fix went out as a hotfix yesterday).
  • Custom main menu layouts can now use the commands for the top bar.
  • Fixed a crash related to Steam avatar image handling in some custom layouts.
  • Updated the Infection deathmatch challenge:
    • Attempt to fix a bug that sometimes instantly regenerates all players' health to maximum when another dies.
    • Last Stand users now gain bonus maximum health that scales with the number of zombies left.
    • Fixed a bug that sometimes resets zombie grenades to zero charges when a player dies.

Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Update - December 1, 2023

[h2]Menus[/h2]
We're testing the new main menu layout that will be officially launching on April 20, 2024.
  • The main menu has been redesigned, with information about the current Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces season, recent major updates, and trending Steam Workshop addons.
  • To revert to the previous layout, enter the console command rd_legacy_ui 2017; host_writeconfig. This console command will continue to work after the new UI officially launches.
  • Fixed the 2024 main menu partially showing up when rd_legacy_ui 2017 is set and the resolution is changed without closing the game.
  • Lobby filters have returned, along with new convars: See cvarlist rd_lobby_filter_ for a list.[expand]

    cvar list
    --------------
    rd_lobby_filter_always_friends           : 1        : , "a", "cl"      : always show lobbies with Steam friends in them
    rd_lobby_filter_challenge                : -1       : , "a", "cl"      : challenge preference for searched lobbies. -1=don't care, 0=only off, 1=only on
    rd_lobby_filter_dedicated                : -1       : , "a", "cl"      : dedicated server preference for searched lobbies. -1=don't care, 0=only listen, 1=only dedicated
    rd_lobby_filter_difficulty_max           : 5        : , "a", "cl"      : maximum difficulty for searched lobbies. 1=easy,2=normal,3=hard,4=insane,5=brutal
    rd_lobby_filter_difficulty_min           : 1        : , "a", "cl"      : minimum difficulty for searched lobbies. 1=easy,2=normal,3=hard,4=insane,5=brutal
    rd_lobby_filter_distance                 : 3        : , "a", "cl"      : maximum distance for player-hosted lobbies. does not affect lobbies on dedicated servers. 0=only own region, 1=nearby regions, 
    rd_lobby_filter_hardcoreff               : -1       : , "a", "cl"      : hardcore friendly fire preference for searched lobbies. -1=don't care, 0=only off, 1=only on
    rd_lobby_filter_installed                : -1       : , "a", "cl"      : installed mission preference for searched lobbies. -1=don't care, 0=only non-installed or version mismatch, 1=only installed
    rd_lobby_filter_onslaught                : -1       : , "a", "cl"      : onslaught preference for searched lobbies. -1=don't care, 0=only off, 1=only on
    --------------
      9 convars/concommands for [rd_lobby_filter_]
    [/expand]
  • The public lobby count on the main menu no longer includes lobbies on dedicated servers.
  • Fixed the server list in the lobby browser being empty on the first refresh.
  • Fixed dedicated servers showing as separate entries in the lobby browser from the lobby made on the dedicated server.
  • Fixed wire hacks being interrupted if another tech started hacking.


[h2]Controller[/h2]
  • Controllers should be recognized by the game even if it was started with no controllers plugged in.
  • Aiming with the mouse no longer changes button prompts to keyboard mode.
  • Pressing buttons on the keyboard or controller now changes button prompts. Mouse buttons do not affect button prompts (pressing a keyboard key will cause mouse button prompts to be displayed).
  • You can also controller aim while doing everything else with keyboard keys and mouse buttons if you want.


[h2]Missions[/h2]
  • Tears for Tarnor: Oasis Colony Spaceport: Fixed a ceiling remaining opaque between the hangar and the baggage claim when it was not intended to.
  • Reduction (all missions): Added music.
  • Reduction: Inevitable Escalation: Improved rendering quality of final cutscene. Fixed cutscene getting stuck when restarting the mission.
  • Reduction: Inevitable Escalation: Final cutscene no longer counts towards speedrun time and can be skipped.
  • Reduction: Inevitable Escalation: Fixed a soft lock if the marine operating the crane managed to die or teleport.
  • Reduction: Nuclear Escort: Fixed a client crash at the end of the mission related to models fading based on distance.


[h2]Weapons[/h2]
  • X-33 Damage Amplifier: Weapons that are not affected by the damage amplification now show a much more subtle beam effect.
  • X-33 Damage Amplifier: Fixed beam effect becoming attached to the marine instead of the weapon when swapping weapons while standing inside the beacon.
  • IAF Medical Gun: Added a subtle gun animation for healing.
  • IAF Medical Gun: Fixed screen staying retracted when equipped.
  • IAF Medical Gun: Fixed healing beam effect attaching to the marine's feet.
  • IAF Medical Gun: Added a visual effect for when the gun is searching for a target.
  • IAF Medical Gun: Fixed heal target glow not updating in first or third person.
  • IAF Medical Amplifier Gun: Applied changes from IAF Medical Gun and X-33 Damage Amplifier.
  • IAF Medical Amplifier Gun: Can no longer spend ammo amplifying weapons that do not benefit from the damage doubling effect.
  • IAF Medical SMG: Applied changes from IAF Medical Gun.
  • IAF Medical SMG: When self-healing in first or third person, aiming at another marine switches to healing them instead, to more closely match the behavior of other medic weapons when aiming at a marine after holding down the trigger.
  • Ricochet Rifle (unreleased): [expand]
    • Fixed dry fire sound playing repeatedly in shotgun fire mode.
    • Increased shotgun mode fire rate.
    • Improved accuracy of laser sight.
    • Increased maximum range.
    • Bullets now also bounce off of non-static objects.
    • Fixed bullets not bouncing off of ceilings and floors.
    [/expand]


[h3]Sentries[/h3]
  • Added assembly, disassembly, and firing animations to all sentries.
  • Sentries now rotate up and down and the camera mounted on the sentry will aim where the sentry intends to turn to.
  • Cannon sentry now consumes grenades from its drum when firing.
  • Modded sentries without support for the new animations will look as they did before.
  • For modders: [expand]
    • For reference, you can find the model source files on GitHub.
    • The default (idle) animation MUST be the first defined sequence on the model.
    • All pose parameters and animations listed below are optional; if it does not exist on the sentry top model, the animation will simply not play.
    • Added pose parameter aim_pitch, which ranges from 45 (up) to -45 (down) (or -90; see below). When the sentry is being assembled, this starts at -30.
    • Added pose parameter aim_yaw, which ranges from 120 (camera aiming far left) to -120 (camera aiming far right).
    • Added pose parameter ammo_remaining, which ranges from 0 to 999999 (although your model should probably limit this range more). Mapper-placed sentries that have infinite ammo receive 999999 for this pose parameter. This pose parameter changes at the end of the firing animation if the firing animation does not loop. For player-placed sentries, the maximum ammo_remaining value is 450 for Advanced, 1200 for Incendiary, 800 for Freeze, and 40 for Cannon.
    • Assembling the sentry uses the ACT_OBJ_ASSEMBLING activity; if this activity does not exist on the model, the sentry top will not render during assembly. The duration of this sequence does not matter; the animation will be played starting at 0% assembly and ending at 100% assembly.
    • When the sentry fires, it uses the ACT_OBJ_RUNNING activity. For the Incendiary and Freeze sentries, this sequence should be looped. For other sentries, this animation runs once per shot. When the sentry is not firing, it returns to its first sequence, which should be the idle state.
    • Disassembling a sentry changes its aim_pitch from 0 to -90 based on the disassembly progress. If the sentry is firing while being disassembled, it aims at the enemy as normal.
    [/expand]
  • Advanced and Incendiary sentries no longer rotate towards the center of their range
  • Incendiary sentry now has a visible pilot light.
  • Incendiary and Freeze sentries now turn 3x faster when rotating towards an enemy as originally intended.
  • Cannon sentry now attempts to lead targets that are running in a straight line.


[h2]Aliens[/h2]
  • Boomer blobs are now affected by melee attacks. Added the related convars rd_vindicator_grenade_pushed_by_explosions, rd_boomer_blob_pushed_by_everything, rd_boomer_blob_punch_force_multiplier, and rd_boomer_blob_push_force_multiplier.
  • Updated the Queen model to more closely match the art style of other aliens.


[h2]Deathmatch[/h2]
  • Added the "Infection" team deathmatch challenge to the official challenge list, including first- and third-person variants.


[h2]Modding[/h2]
  • Added rd_map_texture entity, which can draw an arbitrary material over the minimap. Can be rotated, enabled, and disabled.
  • Fixed env_screenoverlay getting stuck on instant restart or when the entity is killed.
  • Fixed marines being able to roll, melee, or shoot while fully frozen.
  • Added a Thaw script function to inhabitable NPCs.
  • Added a global Deathmatch object for VScript. [expand]
    • int TEAM_UNASSIGNED
    • int TEAM_SPECTATOR
    • int TEAM_ALPHA
    • int TEAM_BETA
    • void Deathmatch.ResetScores()
    • int Deathmatch.GetKills(handle MarineOrResource)
    • void Deathmatch.SetKills(handle MarineOrResource, int Kills)
    • int Deathmatch.GetDeaths(handle MarineOrResource)
    • void Deathmatch.SetDeaths(handle MarineOrResource, int Deaths)
    • int Deathmatch.GetTeamScore(int TeamNumber)
    • void Deathmatch.SetTeamScore(int TeamNumber, int Score)
    • bool Deathmatch.CheckFragLimit(handle MarineOrResource) - returns true if the round is over.
    • void Deathmatch.ResetKillingSpree(handle MarineOrResource)
    • void Deathmatch.IncreaseKillingSpree(handle MarineOrResource)
    • int Deathmatch.GetKillingSpree(handle MarineOrResource)
    [/expand]
  • Added a method named GetMarineProfile to marines, which returns the marine's profile number. Use this if your script needs to do different things for different marines instead of relying on the entity name (GetName()) or the translated marine name (GetMarineName()). Returned values are currently between 0 and 7, or between ASW_MARINE_PROFILE_SARGE and ASW_MARINE_PROFILE_VEGAS if you are using the named constants (recommended).
  • Fixed the weapon_reload game event not being sent for weapons with 1 shot per reload (Precision Rail Rifle).
  • Improved the MarineFinishedMission input on asw_gamerules:
    • Can now handle both marines and marine resources (if you want to mark all marines, dead or alive, as having finished the mission early, you can use asw_marine_resource as the input parameter.)
    • Now properly handles keywords like !activator and !caller.
    • Now affects speedrun times for achievements and experience.
  • Added convar rd_debrief_timelines, which can be used to disable the timelines sent at the end of a mission. This can be used by challenges that support a high player count to reduce lag at the end of a mission.

Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop Update - November 7, 2023

This patch addresses some issues in the November 1st update.
  • Reduction: Silent Station: Increased speedrun time limit from 4:40 to 4:50.
  • Reduction: Silent Station: Removed a dialogue trigger with no associated dialogue.
  • Reduction: Operation Sandstorm: Increased speedrun time limit from 3:00 to 3:15.
  • Reduction: Operation Sandstorm: Fixed a missing objective description.
  • Reduction: Operation Sandstorm: Fixed the guide bot getting stuck when the last node is activated within 3 seconds of the previous node.
  • Reduction: Operation Sandstorm: Moved some spawners to avoid aliens falling through the ground.
  • Reduction: Fallen City: Increased speedrun time limit from 1:38 to 1:40.
  • Reduction: Inevitable Escalation: Increased speedrun time limit from 6:00 to 6:30.
  • Reduction: Inevitable Escalation: This mission is no longer eligible for the Hardcore achievement.
  • Fixed a medal being awarded to all players in the lobby rather than just the player who performed the required action.
  • Fixed screen-space motion blur being enabled.
  • Fixed a crash when viewing materials using certain proxies in -tools mode.


Additionally, since the release on Wednesday, we have released hotfixes for the following issues:
  • Fixed favorited game servers appearing on the lobby list even if they aren't Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop servers.
  • Fixed certain graphics settings not being saved after being changed in the Advanced Settings screen.
  • Fixed Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces scores not being updated on the leaderboard.
  • Fixed an advanced setting for marine names using the wrong labels for each option.
  • Fixed gas grenade particle effects disappearing for players far away from the grenade.