Orion Milestone Update - Out Now!
Project Genesis - Orion Milestone Update
We are very excited to announce the release of our latest Project Genesis pre-alpha milestone, Orion - which is full of improvements, fixes and additions to enhance the experience of players new and old.From all of us at 8 Circuit Studios - thank you for your continued interest in Project Genesis! Every milestone we launch is a labor of love and wouldn’t be possible without our community of extraordinary players behind us. If you aren’t already in our Discord server, be sure to join us! It’s not not only the best place to stay up-to-date on all things Project Genesis - but a great way to meet fellow players, find out about upcoming streams and events, and of course - interact with us!
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[h2]AVATAR ANIMATIONS:[/h2]
The team has been working hard on making improvements to how our Avatars both look and feel, adding a layer of depth and immersion to the gameplay from both a first person and third person perspective.
Movement and how you navigate the world has been a big area of focus, and we are introducing new animations for crouch walking, tactical sprint, ladder traversal and beyond.
We have also added new animations for some abilities such as taking a stim to regain your health and made improvements to how avatars interact with weapons and the environment.
[h2]NEW ABILITIES & REFINEMENTS:[/h2]
Since our last milestone update, we have had the chance to see and experience how our newly implemented abilities played out in real time, and have gathered feedback on not only their performance - but also the preferences of our players. Armed with new information, we have not only made some adjustments to currently usable abilities, but also some new additions for players to explore.
In both FPS Avatar and Battlecraft customization, we have introduced new passive, active use and ultimate abilities that we feel will significantly modify and distinguish gameplay from player to player - allowing for more advanced build-crafting and optimization for unique combat experiences.
[h3]NEW Abilities Overview:[/h3]
Mods:
- Thermal Lensing (Avatar/Battlecraft)
- Sensor Insulate (Avatar/Battlecraft)
Grades:
- Sonic Dampener (Avatar)
- Nanoflect (Avatar/Battlecraft)
- Isotopic Coating (Avatar)
Ultimates:
- Intel Mesh Link (Avatar/Battlecraft)
- Jam Scrambler (Avatar/Battlecraft)
[h2]RANKS, EMBLEMS & CUSTOMIZATION:[/h2]
Previously, we tackled changing how rank rewards such as ephemera were earned in order to increase and clarify the reward system in place to show off your progression. In Orion, we spent some time improving upon player rank designation as well as emblem offerings for player customization.
Our previous ranking system focused on overall player level, with no clear “tier” system that allowed players to determine how they measured up beyond seeing an increase in the numerical value achieved. Players can look forward to progressing through a new system consisting of 10 new “ranks” which will expand over time, accompanied by visual identifiers.
In the spirit of customization, we have also added new emblems, kill cards and other customization options for players to choose from in the Persona tab - allowing for an increased range of personalization and flair.
We will continue to improve and expand upon our cosmetic and customization offerings as we continue development and look forward to seeing everyone ranked up and decked out!
[h2]TTK, MOVEMENT & WEAPON BALANCE:[/h2]
Delivering a great combat experience has always been and continues to be something that we strive to achieve - and we have been analyzing and experimenting with how combat feels alongside some of our favorite titles.
We have made some adjustments to player health, weapon damage, and movement values in an effort to deliver a more cohesive and engaging combat experience. The changes introduced in the Orion Milestone Update are still a work-in-progress and will be subject to further evaluation as we continue to develop Project Genesis, and as always - we invite you to share your thoughts to help us find the sweet spot.
[h2]BUG FIXES & CHANGE LOG:[/h2]
We have been tracking, testing and working on various bug fixes and changes in an effort to improve the player experience across various areas of Project Genesis. In Orion, you will notice fixes in many areas from technical issues, stability and squad issues to overall quality of life changes. We have included a full list of implementations and fixes here: [expand]
[h3]IMPLEMENTATIONS:[/h3]
New Abilities
- Mod: Thermal Lensing
- Mod: Sensor Insulate
- Grade: Sonic Dampener
- Grade: Nanoflect
- Grade: Isotopic Coating
- Ultimate: Intel Mesh Link
- Ultimate: Jam Scrambler Cooking Grenades
New & Updated Unlockable Ranks & Emblems
Footstep Audio Improvements
FPS Weapon Impact Audio Improvements
Full Ambient Audio Pass
Weapons Audio Remixing
Subsonic/Supersonic Ballistic & Energy Flyby Audio
Replaceable Placeables (ie. Pick up and relocate the field turret) Avatar Animation Smoothing Improvements
(Crouch, Crouch Walk, Sprint, Blends, Feet IK, Weapon Hand Drift Prevention, Under the hood work to support future improvements) Avatar Tactical Sprint Animations
Mitochron Stim Animations
Weapons Balance (TTK)
Abilities Cooldown Balance
Furthering PvE Core Development
- New & Updated Environments, New Prototype Modes
- Lighting Scenarios
- AI Spawn Pool Advancements & New Melee AI class
- Mini Maps
- Dynamic Music
- Dynamic Player Spawning
- Enemy Health Bars
- Team Health & Downed Status (HUD)
- Listen Servers Progress
- Star Map & General UI
- Enemy Audio Characterizations
- Enemy Animations
[h3]FIXES[/h3]
*Fixes shown are from pre-existing systems. New systems and mode fixes from HIGHLIGHTS not listed as irrelevant to Neo > Orion update*
Crash Fixes
Network Error Fixes
Smoke Grenade detonate on collide
Fixed an issue where TDM Game Mode was incorrectly assigning the default winning team to team 0 instead of evaluating team scores. Resulting in team 0 always being the winning team.
Fixed an issue where the Party Members list would continuously flash as it refreshed Player details such as their Profile Icons.
Introduced functionality to enable Party Members to make a connection to the parties connected session at arbitrary time after session creation. This is to aim for the ability for Party Members to follow the Host at any time, especially if the Host is already playing in the session and a Party Member joins after the connect message had already been sent.
Setup Asset Preloading for Gameplay Abilities so that we can ensure these are always available for Replication and on all Clients.
Corrected Shotgun reload speed and updated the ability to reload individual shells.
Fixed an issue with Awards when replicating their times received where by it would not correctly account for the new value having a more than 1 difference from its previous value, not calling the notifies for those values in-between.
Fixed an issue with the ItemFactory were there was an edge case that could cause it to process overlaps for the Pawn that its just gave an item to multiple times.
Fixed an issue where WeaponFactories that were spawned dynamically would not be correctly cleaned up on the Server side after their lifetime had expired.
Fixed an issue where a crash could occur on an extreme edge case when a Weapon was trying to deal damage but its owner was destroyed (usually because they had died).
Made modifications to the AlwaysRelevantGameplayTags container on the PlayerState to expose a method for applying an arbitrary duration to how long a given Tag will remain within the container before being automatically removed.
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Thank you again for joining us on this journey! If you have any feedback or encounter any issues along the way, you can always find us in our Discord - be sure to let us know!