SCP: Secret Laboratory News

Hello everyone.

We’ve made our SCP-079 “soft rework” Patreon post available to everyone! It details the overhaul of SCP-079, which will be coming in the 12.0 “Mimicry” update.


By becoming a Patreon supporter of Northwood Studios, you can get access to more information and sneak peeks regarding upcoming updates. Access our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/HubertMoszka


We have previously mentioned that Version 12.0 will include a full rewrite of our in-game roles system, which sees redesigns of both SCPs, and human-related mechanics. We’ve already shared our improvements to SCP-173 and, recently, there was a public stream showing the development process of the “soft rework” for SCP-079. Whilst there are a few more abilities to come, we’ve dedicated this post to showing our progress.

Our biggest problem with the current version of SCP-079 is that new players find it too frustrating to learn, whilst experienced players grow too powerful. This makes the game unfair to human roles pitted against experienced players, and doesn’t give enough options to fight back. SCP-079’s gameplay is very unique, therefore, it’s nearly impossible to remove these issues completely. We believe our redesigned version significantly improves this. Please note we have avoided providing specific values, as they’re subject to change during beta tests.


Due to the nature of a soft rework, the core mechanics remain, mostly, unchanged. SCP-079 still controls cameras; they can be used to track targets, interact with objects, or activate abilities for the current room. We have, however, made positive changes to the camera movement system.

We’ve kept the mechanics of Auxiliary Power (AP) and Experience (EXP) relatively unchanged. We’ve removed EXP rewards for “general interactions”, such as opening a door, or firing a Tesla gate. Instead, we’ve implemented new ways of gaining experience. This includes separating your teammates from a human charging up the MicroHID, or from people actively shooting them. Another example is a small reward for closing or locking a door in front of a human who’s being chased by an SCP.


The soft rework features a brand-new user interface. Other than improved aesthetics, it now provides more information, which can be helpful to new players. For example, you’re now able to see the exact AP cost of different abilities, as well as why you can’t interact with something. Different abilities are listed in the top-right corner, instead of cluttering the screen with icons. The map has also received a touch-up; it displays all four zones at once, including a Surface Zone map.




The current version of SCP-079 has the ability to lock down all doors and turn off all lights in a room. This has been split into two separate abilities — Blackout and Lockdown.

Blackout is unlocked at Tier 2, and the limit of simultaneously blacked-out rooms increases for Tier 3 and 4. It’s considered a cheap ability, currently costing 15 AP.

Lockdown is unlocked at Tier 3. It temporarily closes and locks all doors in the room. During this time, AP regeneration is paused (and reduced to half at Tier 4 and above). Only one room can be locked-down at a time. It has a high cost of 100 AP, but it’s still cheaper than manually locking all doors in a room for the duration.

Both abilities should work in every room. SCP-2176 (a.k.a. Ghostlight) can be used to inverse the effects of both Blackout and Lockdown. In addition, if it’s used in a room SCP-079 is currently occupying, it’ll temporarily prevent SCP-079 from performing any interaction, and reset AP levels to 0.


Opening and closing doors has not changed. Locking ability has received a nerf. Once a door unlocks after SCP-079 has locked it, there will be a small cooldown before it can be locked again. Continuous locking of a door will gradually increase AP consumption, meaning SCP-079 can’t hold it for too long, even on higher access tiers. The cooldown is also applied after the Lockdown ability, so the lock duration cannot be artificially increased.


At Tier 4, SCP-079 gains the ability to sweep the zone it's in for survivors. This is a toggleable passive ability which appears as a button on the map. Once activated, SCP-079’s power generation is cut by a third. As a result, the current zone is automatically scanned for surviving humans. When a human is found, a loud alarm plays in the room they are in and SCP-079 is given an alert. This ability is considered an anti-camping device. It only works on players who have been sitting in an area for an extended period of time. This feature has not been implemented yet, so we don’t have any footage to share.


At Tier 5, SCP-079 can start the detonation sequence for the Alpha Warhead from the surface zone. If SCP-079 is the cause of the nuke detonation, it will not be terminated by it. This allows it to remain on the surface and assist. SCP-079 does not become immune to losing under any circumstance. If SCP-079 detonates the nuke and the SCP’s die on the surface, SCP-079 will be terminated with them. Similarly to the Breach Scanner, this ability has not been implemented yet.


SCP-079 is a support class, so it can’t do much alone. Due to this, users with no microphone have always been at a disadvantage. We’ve decided to improve non-verbal communication in an attempt to mitigate this disadvantage. We have implemented a pinging system. SCP-079 is now able to place a location indicator, which will be visible to teammates within a limited range. The indicator has an icon which represents what object (or player) has been pinged.




We’ve prepared 2 videos presenting some of the new mechanics. This is a simplified demonstration, as SCP-173 is the only other SCP that is currently implemented. Many items (such as Ghostlight or MicroHID) do not have third-person animations yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzlJ7tFpGsE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOv919IC6hY


Lastly, we would like to share the remodelled COM-18. This will be included in the 12.0 update, so feel free to let us know what you think about it!



~Northwood Studios

Hello, everyone!

As our game continues to evolve, we wanted to get feedback regarding the basics of the game. Please don’t hold anything back. We accept all opinions, and we look forward to your responses.

English: https://forms.gle/evGQ2GmiHtBDDq636
Chinese: https://forms.gle/HT1KkqeYoWHA4iGw8
French: https://forms.gle/DDUEw3u2eh7h2KkPA

See you in the Facility.

~Nostra (Northwood Studios Feedback Manager)

Hello everyone. Version 11.2.1 of SCP: Secret Laboratory has just been released! It features a few minor improvements and bug fixes.

It may not be a big update but we still wanted to inform you of some of the changes made.

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Improved how SCP-173 Tantrum collisions work.
  
• Fixed SCP-173's Tantrum occasionally being placed midair.
  
• Decreased SCP-173's maximum Hume Shield to 1200.
  
• Decreased SCP-096's maximum Hume Shield to 800.
  
• SCP-1853 increases the rate at which SCP-500, SCP-018, Painkillers, High-Explosive Grenades, Flashbang Grenades, Adrenaline, and Medkits are used by 20%. With each consecutive use, SCP-1853 will retain 50% efficacy — the initial use will have 20% increased speed, the second use 30%, the third 35% etc.
  
• SCP-1853 increases stamina usage by 30%, instead of 50%.
  
• SCP-244 will break through SCP Hume Shield and damage health.
  
• SCP-244 will now no longer damage players with spawn protection.
  
• Shotgun damage reduced to 8.33 per pellet.
  
• Changed spread pattern to accurately reflect what a shotgun should behave like.
  
• Replaced the sixth Facility Guard in the default respawn queue with a Class-D personnel.
  

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
We hope to be sharing more related to the next major update and its exciting new features. Thank you for your continued support.


Have fun, and see you in the dark.
~ Northwood Studios

Hello, everyone. Today we’re releasing version 11.2 of SCP: Secret Laboratory! This update introduces two new SCP items, and a plethora of minor additions, tweaks, and fixes.

[h2]SCP-1853, ”Performance Enhancer”[/h2]
Thanks to the inventory rework introduced in Parabellum, it's now much faster to implement new items into the game. With this update, we're introducing another one: SCP-1853.

The Performance Enhancer is a glass vial of sludgy, green liquid. It can be found inside pedestals throughout the facility. When consumed, it heightens the user's physical abilities and reaction speed, especially in combat. This manifests in the form of an increased ability to handle weapons — including fire rate, reloading speed, and so on. It also boosts sprint speed, but at the cost of increased stamina consumption.

SCP-1853 interacts with other SCP items in different ways. Taking it with SCP-207 will poison the user, while SCP-500 will cancel its effects entirely. Taking it with more of itself will stack the effect but with diminishing returns.

[h2]The return of SCP-244, "Ice Fog Jar"[/h2]
During 2021’s Christmas event, we demoed SCP-244; the Ice Fog Jar. From the get-go we planned to keep it as a permanent addition, but quickly found that it was performing below expectations. As a result, we held off on re-implementing the item to give it more time in the pipeline. Finally, we believe we're ready to bring the jar back into the facility.

As a refresher: SCP-244 is a re-usable environmental hazard that can be picked up and placed by human classes. When placed, it will spew icy fog from its mouth which will fill the area around it. Doors will block the fog from spreading to other rooms. In addition to impeding visibility, SCP-244's fog is also freezing cold. This will impart negative effects to any class that passes through it.

Some highlights of what we've changed from the Christmas version include:

• Fog now spreads much faster and will reach full size more quickly.
  
• Humans caught in the ice fog have increased penalties to weapon handling and take much longer to pick up items.
  
• SCPs with a Hume Shield will start taking damage to the shield after spending at least 5 seconds inside the fog.
  
• Most SCPs will be debuffed in various ways while inside the fog. For instance, SCP-049 takes longer to revive corpses and has an increased attack cooldown.
  
• The fog serves as a line-of-sight blocker for the purposes of vision-based SCPs like SCP-096 and SCP-173.
  

We're hopeful that this version of SCP-244 will be significantly more powerful than its previous iteration, and that it'll affect rounds in a more meaningful way.

[h2]Win conditions revamp[/h2]
One part of SCP: Secret Laboratory that has remained largely unchanged is the win conditions — how the game determined which team was the winner at the end of a round. In addition to being unclear, some reasons were silly. It wasn’t always obvious why a team was determined as a winner. As part of 11.2, we've completely overhauled these conditions.

Up until now, the win conditions have been as follows:

1. If Foundation forces are the only remaining team: Foundation win if at least one scientist escaped. Otherwise, stalemate.
   
2. Otherwise, if at least one Class-D escaped: Class-D win.
   
3. Otherwise, if at least one SCP is alive: SCP win.
   
4. Otherwise: Stalemate.
   

These aren't great for a few reasons, but the biggest problem is that it didn't account for how many of each civilian class escaped. It only accounted for if any civilians escaped. This meant that even if all scientists escaped and only one Class-D, the Class-D team would still win. This is, as long as the NTF weren't the last team standing. These conditions produced a lot of strange interactions.

Our new win conditions look like this:



We decided to focus on each team's individual performance instead of looking at certain values in a vacuum. At the end of a round, we compare the following values to determine how each team did:

• CI/Class-D: Class-D escapes.
  
• Foundation: Scientist escapes.
  
• SCPs: Remaining SCPs.
  

Civilian escapes is the main influencer of which team is determined as the victor. For SCPs, we look at how many of them are still alive at the end of the round, as this is generally a good indicator of how successful they were in wiping out other teams.

Several other balance changes went into this revamp. For instance, disarmed civilians that escape no longer count as an escapee for any faction. They'll still respawn as a member of the opposing team but their escape won’t contribute towards win conditions. This allows civilians to be escorted out by hostile forces, but now you have a choice: save your own hide, or take the risk to try and bring your team closer to victory?

If the flowchart isn't clear, here's how the game determines the winning team now:

1. If Foundation forces are the last remaining team: Foundation victory if escaped scientists outnumbers or equals escaped Class-D. Otherwise, stalemate.
   
2. If the SCPs are the last remaining team, or the SCPs and the Chaos Insurgency are the last remaining teams: SCP victory if surviving SCPs outnumber both scientist and Class-D escapes; CI victory if Class-D escapes outnumber both surviving SCPs and scientist escapes. The CI breaks ties.
   
3. If Chaos Insurgency forces are the last remaining team: CI victory if escaped Class-Ds outnumbers or equals escaped scientists. Otherwise, stalemate.
   
4. Stalemate as a fallback in case no other conditions are met (i.e. all players dead.)
   

Going forward, we hope that this will result in more sensible victories for all three factions.

[h2]Patch notes[/h2]
SCP: Secret Laboratory — Version 11.2

New:

• Implemented SCP-1853, "Performance Enhancer".
  
• Re-implemented SCP-244, "Ice Fog Jar".
  
• The size, shape, and color of reflex sight reticles can now be customized at a workstation. Each attachment preset can have its own configuration, and weapons dropped by other players will retain their choice of reticle.
  
• Implemented a new shotgun attachment that fires both rounds at once at the cost of lowering fire rate.
  
• Implemented a 30-round AP magazine attachment for the Crossvec.
  
• Reintroduced the 3-X Particle Disruptor from the Christmas 2021 event. You'll have to experiment to discover how to obtain this anomalous weapon.
  
• Added idle animations and equip sounds to items that were missing them.
  
• Added new audio for SCP-173's Tantrum ability.
  
• Added new audio for equipping and throwing grenades.
  
• Added new audio for the Revolver's inspect animation.
  

Changes:

• Refurbished which team is determined as a winner at the end of the round. As a rule of thumb, it now depends on civilian escapes.
  
• Added more pedestal spawn points for SCP items.
  
• Pedestals feature a small lamp and a label corresponding with the designation of the SCP item they contain.
  
• Throwing an item can be canceled by pressing the reload key. This works with grenades and other throwable objects, like SCP-018 and SCP-2176.
  
• Mouse sensitivity while aiming down sights can be adjusted in the in-game settings menu.
  
• Aiming down the sights can be done using a toggle. This can be enabled in the in-game settings menu.
  
• It's possible to start a reload while aiming down sights with the Revolver and Shotgun. It was previously only possible on automatic weapons.
  
• Players no longer collide with any of SCP-079's cameras.
  
• Reworked all layouts of the Light Containment Zone.
  
• The maximum view distance for the game to consider you as seeing SCP-173 is now doubled on the Surface Zone, to account for the reduced fog.
  

Balance:

• The Alpha Warhead control room on the Surface Zone no longer requires a keycard to access.
  
• The reset time of SCP-079's generators is the same as their activation time.
  
• Reduced the total range of the Shotgun. (Important note: improvements were made to the Shotgun's hit registration that necessitated this — see the Fixes category.)
  
• Slightly increased the damage of the Crossvec and nerfed its base armor penetration.
  
• SCP-173's Tantrum can be destroyed by explosions.
  

Fixes:

• Fixed an issue with the Shotgun's hit registration not properly accounting for latency. It should be much stronger than before.
  
• Fixed the Logicer's ammo belt getting desynchronized with its actual ammo level.
  
• Fixed an issue on high-ping servers where you could accidentally teamkill players that weren't visible on the screen.
  
• Fixed a visual bug with the Epsilon-11 where muzzle attachments weren't positioned correctly on its hotkey thumbnail.
  
• Fixed a long-standing issue where vsync would enable automatically when joining a game.
  
• Fixed subtitles overlapping during multiple announcements.
  
• Fixed the Alpha Warhead's fog being applied to players with godmode.
  
• Fixed the test for the Marauder and Repressor being swapped in Remote Admin's class change submenu.
  
• Fixed escaping from the Pocket Dimension into TC-01 allowing you to clip out of the map.
  
• Fixed a visual glitch in SCP-939’s starting room.
  
• Fixed the Settings tab in the main menu being unusable until switching away from and back to the menu.
  
• Fixed the Bloom setting being forced on when joining a game.
  
• Fixed being able to use the radio after dropping it from the inventory.
  
• Fixed players becoming a target of SCP-096 when they shared a moving elevator with SCP-096 itself.
  

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
Although version 11.2 features plenty of content, it's mainly a maintenance update. We aim for this to be the final update in the Parabellum series; barring any hotfixes we need to release for outstanding balance or technical issues, of course. Work is already underway on the foundational work for our next content patch (as we explained in our latest devlog). We're excited to show you what comes next, when the time is right.

See you in the dark.

~ Northwood Studios

Hello everyone!
We've just released a new Devlog, presenting features for Version 11.2!

We'll also have a Q&A and presentation stream on out Twitch channel at 8PM UTC.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

~ Northwood Studios