Breach and Board with Tons of New Loadout Combinations
This is the most fun we've been having yet, Breaching and Boarding massive capital ships and space stations!
This major content drop begins with over 40 new weapons, introduces ship and avatar abilities as well as battleground upgrades that will surely impact your combat decisions. It was important to us in this update that we deepen playable content. So we hope you'll play and share your feedback!
[h3]Choose Which Avatar and Space Combat Loadouts You'll Take to Battle[/h3]
To start, we’ve removed the constraints around allocations as there was some candid feedback both on Steam and in Discord about progressive unlocks. It was great feedback, and was very timely as we wanted to significantly expand the arsenal available to the players.
The bigger news is that 40+ additional weapons have been added, and while the weapon artwork is still placeholder, players should now begin to get an early feel of the personality and character of the additional firepower.
[h3]Bringing New Battle Dynamics to Space Combat[/h3]
Deployables are the first major step in developing non-assault class roles. We chose three for each type of unit (both the battle craft and the avatars: placeable turrets, repair drops, personal shields. Even with just these early systems, the Test Pilots are demonstrating huge advances in team-based play. If you’re a fan of support roles, we’re starting the first steps in adding this variety.
[h3]For Capital Ship Engagements and Space Dogfights[/h3]
The biggest news in the land of environments is that there is an entirely new map that accompanies the much sought after asymmetrical mode: Attack / Defend (Onslaught). Asymmetrical play has been one of the most requested types of modes by the community, and it has also been at the top of the priority list for the team to begin developing. Attack / Defend is well on its way to become rated one of the community's favorite maps and modes, just narrowly beating out The Ring and The Outpost.
The environments in Project Genesis received a dramatic expansion in scale and in scope. In almost every aspect of play space, changes have been implemented to increase the flow of maps, take into account high traffic areas, and add additional cover. This counts in both interior spaces and exterior spaces for Carbonaceous, Enceladus, Solar Storm, The Ring, and Outpost.
Up-scaled capital ships have almost doubled in size with the added bonus of additional breach locations as well as turret emplacements. This allows for a much more dynamic play space, especially with the addition of what the community is calling “tactical asteroids”. These asteroids have been hollowed by industrial drones, and provide great hiding places for players who prefer to use brains over brawn. While requiring great skill to navigate the cavernous interiors gracefully and with speed, the new asteroids ensure that slogs are less likely to emerge.
[h3]Calling our Friends in Europe![/h3]
In the Dev Dailies at 11AM PDT, where the community joins us in some good natured space combat Monday through Friday, we have a large population of intrepid Europeans who regularly join.
The morning community is lively and friendly, even though for most of the participants their ping suffers higher pings from the distance across the Atlantic and contiguous US (our first server is on the west coast of the United States). We thought it would be great to make their gameplay experiences more enjoyable while at the same time we would take the opportunity to expand our technical infrastructure. If you’re in Europe want to play Project Genesis, now is a great time to join us.
[h3]Introducing Steam Achievements[/h3]
We’ve also incorporated Steam Achievements into Project Genesis. We wanted to challenge our community of Pilots to tackle some gameplay accomplishments that are not only fun, but also show off the skills of the talented. Here is the current list for players to test themselves with:
- Double Frag: Kill 2 Enemies at once with a Frag Grenade
- No Seatbelt: Kill an enemy by crashing into them
- Smite: Blind 3 Enemies at once with the EMP
- King of Kong: Get 5 barrel kills
- Mr. Wick: Kill 4 enemies in a row with headshots
- Systempunkt: Complete all Detonation objectives by yourself
- Territorialist: Capture all hard points on dominion 1st
- Snow Crash: Break all screens on the enemy ship
- Pentakill: Kill 5 enemies without dying
- Decadence: Achieve level 10
We plan on many more achievements (we’re still working on the details) and look forward to hearing who is able to acquire all 10 before the next update.
[h3]Improving Gameplay Accessibility for New Players[/h3]
There’s no doubt about how hard core our early community members are. Add to that switching between game modes, new map configurations, and the merging of two types of gameplay (third person space combat and first person shooter) and new players can find their first experience a little...overwhelming.
There are no silver bullets here. In these early days, with Project Genesis only about 57% complete, there’s going to be a steep learning curve. Luckily we’ve got a very helpful contingent within our community to help ease players into the game.
That said, there are a number of steps that we could take to reduce some of the rough edges for new players. To start, we’ve added a radar indicator that displays friends and foes. The standard conventions are followed for readability (relative height indications, and color coding for friend or foe). There’s still more work to do here but this is the first step in that direction.
The HUD has undergone a layout change to conform to other FPS titles players might be used to and we’ve added key binding iconography for quick reference for deployables, grenades, and ship-to-avatar transfers (also know in the lore as: transference).
We’re looking forward to watching and hearing from players to determine if these new elements help reduce the cognitive overload.
One of the new opportunities for the community and content creators the Project Genesis team is most excited about is the implementation of Twitch drops. Leading up to and through the release of Dorado, we worked with streamers, publications, and other partners to allocate thousands of Steam keys. We quickly exhausted the keys we could give out, and it left many people asking us when our next giveaway program might be.
We’re very excited to announce that on Friday July 17th we will be using the Twitch drop system to give those watching drop-enabled streams of Project Genesis a chance to earn a free Steam key. If you’re a streamer, you’ll have an opportunity to grow with us using this program as well. We will be dropping a key every hour until August 31st for your audience members.
To find out how you can participate, check out our Creator program here.
[h3]And More…[/h3]
The features listed above are the most significant, but over 300 fixes and features have been implemented since the inaugural Steam Early Access build was released on May 22, 2020. If you’re a new player, or if you’ve not played in a while, the progress the Project Genesis team has made might be worth checking out in-game. We hope you’ll come visit and we look forward to seeing you in game.
[h3]Release Notes[/h3]
- Avatar Abilities: Placeable Turrets, Repair Drops, Personal Shields
- Ship Abilities: Repair Drops, Shield Wall Drops
- Up-scaled Environments & Capital Ships
- New breach points added to Detonation maps
- New Capital Interiors
- Added tactical fly-through asteroids
- Added color differentiation for friendly/enemy shields
- Added more emplacement turret options to capital ships
- 40+ New Weapon Types
- Added EU-CENTRAL-1 region to our fleet of servers to reduce latency. Adjust in PLAY menu to find players.
- Added Steam Achievements - Can you get them all?
- New experimental mode in development added to map rotation: ONSLAUGHT (Attack/Defend)
- HUD Mini-radar added for ships and avatars
- HUD Round start notifications to improve player messaging
- HUD Status of weapons and abilities with easy-to-see keybinding indicators
- HUD Added Killstreak Tallying (more to come on this feature)
- HUD Added Kill Confirmation
- HUD Updated Killfeed & Icons
- HUD Added Hit Indicator Damage
- Updated Matchmaking tech to utilize Flexible match queuing and rulesets (more sophisticated matching coming in our next update)
- Improvements to breach pod-destroy time conditions bugs
- Big audio changes to improve space/fps sound attenuation
- Adjusted physics asset bodies for all grenades to improve their bounce
- Introduced the ability to define if a FPS Weapon uses normal Ammo reloading or automatic Ammo regeneration
- Added proper regeneration system to throwables and deployables
- Flight Deck customization - Updated iconography and flow with the ability to switch between bays within the customization widget
- Resolved issue with version mismatch builds getting locked up upon kicking back to main menu
- Implemented the ability to decide if an Interactable Objective accumulates progress towards its completion or not.
- Solved an issue where players would get kicked for inactivity while sending chat messages. We now mark players as Active when they send a message.
- Full Weapons Balance Pass
- Moved ASCEND default input from LEFT ALT to LEFT CTRL
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
This major content drop begins with over 40 new weapons, introduces ship and avatar abilities as well as battleground upgrades that will surely impact your combat decisions. It was important to us in this update that we deepen playable content. So we hope you'll play and share your feedback!
40+ New Weapons, All Accessible
[h3]Choose Which Avatar and Space Combat Loadouts You'll Take to Battle[/h3]
To start, we’ve removed the constraints around allocations as there was some candid feedback both on Steam and in Discord about progressive unlocks. It was great feedback, and was very timely as we wanted to significantly expand the arsenal available to the players.
The bigger news is that 40+ additional weapons have been added, and while the weapon artwork is still placeholder, players should now begin to get an early feel of the personality and character of the additional firepower.
Ability Deployables for Ship and Avatars
[h3]Bringing New Battle Dynamics to Space Combat[/h3]
Deployables are the first major step in developing non-assault class roles. We chose three for each type of unit (both the battle craft and the avatars: placeable turrets, repair drops, personal shields. Even with just these early systems, the Test Pilots are demonstrating huge advances in team-based play. If you’re a fan of support roles, we’re starting the first steps in adding this variety.
Expect Tactically Upgraded Environments
[h3]For Capital Ship Engagements and Space Dogfights[/h3]
The biggest news in the land of environments is that there is an entirely new map that accompanies the much sought after asymmetrical mode: Attack / Defend (Onslaught). Asymmetrical play has been one of the most requested types of modes by the community, and it has also been at the top of the priority list for the team to begin developing. Attack / Defend is well on its way to become rated one of the community's favorite maps and modes, just narrowly beating out The Ring and The Outpost.
The environments in Project Genesis received a dramatic expansion in scale and in scope. In almost every aspect of play space, changes have been implemented to increase the flow of maps, take into account high traffic areas, and add additional cover. This counts in both interior spaces and exterior spaces for Carbonaceous, Enceladus, Solar Storm, The Ring, and Outpost.
Up-scaled capital ships have almost doubled in size with the added bonus of additional breach locations as well as turret emplacements. This allows for a much more dynamic play space, especially with the addition of what the community is calling “tactical asteroids”. These asteroids have been hollowed by industrial drones, and provide great hiding places for players who prefer to use brains over brawn. While requiring great skill to navigate the cavernous interiors gracefully and with speed, the new asteroids ensure that slogs are less likely to emerge.
[h3]Calling our Friends in Europe![/h3]
In the Dev Dailies at 11AM PDT, where the community joins us in some good natured space combat Monday through Friday, we have a large population of intrepid Europeans who regularly join.
The morning community is lively and friendly, even though for most of the participants their ping suffers higher pings from the distance across the Atlantic and contiguous US (our first server is on the west coast of the United States). We thought it would be great to make their gameplay experiences more enjoyable while at the same time we would take the opportunity to expand our technical infrastructure. If you’re in Europe want to play Project Genesis, now is a great time to join us.
[h3]Introducing Steam Achievements[/h3]
We’ve also incorporated Steam Achievements into Project Genesis. We wanted to challenge our community of Pilots to tackle some gameplay accomplishments that are not only fun, but also show off the skills of the talented. Here is the current list for players to test themselves with:
- Double Frag: Kill 2 Enemies at once with a Frag Grenade
- No Seatbelt: Kill an enemy by crashing into them
- Smite: Blind 3 Enemies at once with the EMP
- King of Kong: Get 5 barrel kills
- Mr. Wick: Kill 4 enemies in a row with headshots
- Systempunkt: Complete all Detonation objectives by yourself
- Territorialist: Capture all hard points on dominion 1st
- Snow Crash: Break all screens on the enemy ship
- Pentakill: Kill 5 enemies without dying
- Decadence: Achieve level 10
We plan on many more achievements (we’re still working on the details) and look forward to hearing who is able to acquire all 10 before the next update.
[h3]Improving Gameplay Accessibility for New Players[/h3]
There’s no doubt about how hard core our early community members are. Add to that switching between game modes, new map configurations, and the merging of two types of gameplay (third person space combat and first person shooter) and new players can find their first experience a little...overwhelming.
There are no silver bullets here. In these early days, with Project Genesis only about 57% complete, there’s going to be a steep learning curve. Luckily we’ve got a very helpful contingent within our community to help ease players into the game.
That said, there are a number of steps that we could take to reduce some of the rough edges for new players. To start, we’ve added a radar indicator that displays friends and foes. The standard conventions are followed for readability (relative height indications, and color coding for friend or foe). There’s still more work to do here but this is the first step in that direction.
The HUD has undergone a layout change to conform to other FPS titles players might be used to and we’ve added key binding iconography for quick reference for deployables, grenades, and ship-to-avatar transfers (also know in the lore as: transference).
We’re looking forward to watching and hearing from players to determine if these new elements help reduce the cognitive overload.
Twitch Drops for Free Keys
One of the new opportunities for the community and content creators the Project Genesis team is most excited about is the implementation of Twitch drops. Leading up to and through the release of Dorado, we worked with streamers, publications, and other partners to allocate thousands of Steam keys. We quickly exhausted the keys we could give out, and it left many people asking us when our next giveaway program might be.
We’re very excited to announce that on Friday July 17th we will be using the Twitch drop system to give those watching drop-enabled streams of Project Genesis a chance to earn a free Steam key. If you’re a streamer, you’ll have an opportunity to grow with us using this program as well. We will be dropping a key every hour until August 31st for your audience members.
To find out how you can participate, check out our Creator program here.
[h3]And More…[/h3]
The features listed above are the most significant, but over 300 fixes and features have been implemented since the inaugural Steam Early Access build was released on May 22, 2020. If you’re a new player, or if you’ve not played in a while, the progress the Project Genesis team has made might be worth checking out in-game. We hope you’ll come visit and we look forward to seeing you in game.
[h3]Release Notes[/h3]
- Avatar Abilities: Placeable Turrets, Repair Drops, Personal Shields
- Ship Abilities: Repair Drops, Shield Wall Drops
- Up-scaled Environments & Capital Ships
- New breach points added to Detonation maps
- New Capital Interiors
- Added tactical fly-through asteroids
- Added color differentiation for friendly/enemy shields
- Added more emplacement turret options to capital ships
- 40+ New Weapon Types
- Added EU-CENTRAL-1 region to our fleet of servers to reduce latency. Adjust in PLAY menu to find players.
- Added Steam Achievements - Can you get them all?
- New experimental mode in development added to map rotation: ONSLAUGHT (Attack/Defend)
- HUD Mini-radar added for ships and avatars
- HUD Round start notifications to improve player messaging
- HUD Status of weapons and abilities with easy-to-see keybinding indicators
- HUD Added Killstreak Tallying (more to come on this feature)
- HUD Added Kill Confirmation
- HUD Updated Killfeed & Icons
- HUD Added Hit Indicator Damage
- Updated Matchmaking tech to utilize Flexible match queuing and rulesets (more sophisticated matching coming in our next update)
- Improvements to breach pod-destroy time conditions bugs
- Big audio changes to improve space/fps sound attenuation
- Adjusted physics asset bodies for all grenades to improve their bounce
- Introduced the ability to define if a FPS Weapon uses normal Ammo reloading or automatic Ammo regeneration
- Added proper regeneration system to throwables and deployables
- Flight Deck customization - Updated iconography and flow with the ability to switch between bays within the customization widget
- Resolved issue with version mismatch builds getting locked up upon kicking back to main menu
- Implemented the ability to decide if an Interactable Objective accumulates progress towards its completion or not.
- Solved an issue where players would get kicked for inactivity while sending chat messages. We now mark players as Active when they send a message.
- Full Weapons Balance Pass
- Moved ASCEND default input from LEFT ALT to LEFT CTRL
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]