SCP: Secret Laboratory News

Today we are releasing version 10.0.4 of SCP: Secret Laboratory. This is a small update which is mostly focused on some anticheat adjustments.

Whilst not contained within this patch, we are aware of an issue concerning some missing files from the server build. We are currently investigating this and should hopefully have a fix ready soon. We would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who brought this issue to our attention!

SCP: Secret Laboratory is always changing. Version 10.0.3 is our latest update to the game, bringing with it some stability improvements and bug fixes, as well as introducing a new feature for SCP voice chat. You can find the patch notes below.

[h2]Role Indicators[/h2]
When playing as an SCP, voice chat is often critical to your team's success. Players use it to communicate their wins, their losses, and everything in-between. It also has other uses, like letting your teammates know that you've revived someone as SCP-049 or asking them for directions. It's a very important part of playing an antagonistic role.

Something we've noticed lately is the confusion that stems from memorizing your teammates. Every SCP is different, with the exception of SCP-939 being able to spawn twice in a match, and having to memorize what role each player fills can be stressful, especially in the heat of a fight or escaping from an engagement that went wrong.

To fix this, we've added graphical indicators to represent what class a teammate is playing. Whenever a player uses voice chat as an SCP, an image representing their role will display next to their name for all other SCPs. This should play a big part in eliminating the frustration of memorizing your teammates, and even allows teammates that don't speak to show their role by tapping their push-to-talk key!



This extends to all SCP classes, including instances of 049-2 or any SCPs that are created after the start of the round by server moderators or plugins. When a teammate starts talking, you'll immediately know who they are and what role they're playing.

Note that this feature is only available for SCPs right now - other methods of voice chat that display names, such as radio and spectator chat, won't display any icons. This was a deliberate choice, to preserve the uncertainty and paranoia created over radio. If you've been alone for a while, and you suddenly hear somebody asking if anyone is on the radio, you can't be certain whether or not they're an ally, or an enemy trying to lure you out.

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
Version 10.0.3 features a plethora of fixes and adjustments, which are as follows:

• Fixed SCP-096 being unable to leave the intercom room.
  
• Fixed the Epsilon-11's flashlight not appearing when dropped on the ground.
  
• Fixed the Hemorrhage status effect causing damage to stationary players who were holding their Sprint key.
  
• Fixed an issue causing ammo pickups to become "ghost items" if not all of the ammunition was taken from the pickup.
  
• Fixed a duplicate RID in the Entrance Zone.
  
• Improvements to nickname sanitization.
  
• Fixed an exploit causing SCP-079's power to not drain at the correct rate when using a speaker while doors were locked.
  
• Fixed the Motion Blur setting not applying in-game.
  
• Fixed non-civilian classes obtaining the "High on the Wings of Caffeine" achievement while passing the escape boundary with SCP-207 active.
  
• Fixed the audio effect played when attempting to fire with an empty magazine playing twice.
  
• The TIX INFO RA command now requires RespawnEvents permission.
  
• The game client should now work on Wine for Linux players.
  
• MTF Scientists now properly spawn with a disarmer.
  
• Added unique messages for escaping while disarmed, instead of showing the normal escape message for your team.
  
• Players no longer collide with generator doors, which fixes several out-of-bounds exploits.
  
• Anticheat improvements and fixes.
  

[h2]API Changes[/h2]
This segment is for plugin developers. You can safely skip these notes if you aren't involved with the creation of plugins or mods.

• Implements the ForceCuff syncvar on the Handcuffs class. When enabled, the player will be disarmed, even if no other players have interacted with them.
  
• Steamworks has been updated.
  

[h2]What about SCP-096's rebalance?[/h2]
We're still working on the balance of SCP-096. Our survey, run in late August of this year, has been very helpful in diagnosing some of SCP-096’s problems and getting the community's input about them. We've now playtested all of the options we presented in the survey, and we'll likely be releasing a more detailed post soon describing our balancing process and our final decisions. In the meantime, however, keep an eye out.

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
This is a small update, but it may be a significant one. Being able to see teammates' roles as an SCP should provide a significant improvement to teamwork potential, and we've fixed several long-standing bugs with the game. We hope you keep enjoying SCP: Secret Laboratory!

Hello, everyone!

We hope that you've been enjoying Scopophobia's release so far. The team has been hard at work squashing bugs and making adjustments; we hope that the improvements offered in 10.0.1 have made the game more enjoyable for you. One of the most challenging aspects of Scopophobia was the rework of the title character, SCP-096. We've heard your feedback, and after extensive internal debate we have a few ideas we think you'll like. We've prepared a brief survey for you to fill out so we can get your thoughts on this.

A link to the survey is provided here!

A note from our Game Design Manager:

Hello, and thank you for your attention in this matter. We hear your feedback on all media outlets. While feedback and communication are good on any medium, surveys are by far the best metric we can use to process feedback data, as we have no metrics system implemented in the game. If you are one of the many who want to see changes or give feedback directly to the developers and design, responding to surveys is by far the best way to do such. Thank you!

-Sin, Game Design Manager, Northwood Studios

Thank you for your time, and have fun!

~Northwood Studios

10.0.1, our latest refinement version, introduced some new bugs that we've now addressed. While this didn't have any major consequences, it resulted in an issue related to SCP-096's health scaling, as well as locking 079 into place if they navigated into the containment hallway of SCP-012. 10.0.2 fixes these problems and a few more, bringing the following changes:

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• SCP-096 can now charge through the heavy gate on the Surface Zone.
  
• Crosshair textures, as well as the texture of SCP-914’s settings panel, now remain legible even with low texture quality settings.
  
• Slight performance optimizations.
  
• Replaced several textures around the map with higher-quality versions.
  

These texture adjustments were erroneously featured in the changelogs for our last version, but didn't actually ship with it. We've included them properly in 10.0.2. You can find an example below - the left image is new, while the right image is old.



[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue causing SCP-096 to not gain artificial health whenever they acquired a new target
  
• Fixed death reasons using the server's localization instead of the client's
  
• Fixed an issue causing doors to leave no destroyed versions when they were destroyed with a grenade
  
• Fixed an issue causing SCP-079's view to become stuck in SCP-012's room when navigating to it through cameras
  
• Fixed checkpoint doors occasionally failing to play their closing sound
  
• Fixes towards a bug causing SCP-096 to become locked in their "Try Not To Cry" state
  
• Fixes SCP-173 being able to move freely while blinded by a flash grenade
  
• Fixed flash grenades flashing players through walls, doors, and other objects
  
• Fixed item pickups not appearing in rooms whose doors are destroyed before being opened.
  
• Fixed being able to display the inventory screen before the round has started.
  
• Various anticheat improvements and several exploit fixes.
  
• Improved HTTP requests on Windows, and fixed HTTP requests on Linux servers.
  

[h2]API Changes[/h2]

• Updated NorthwoodLib.
  
• Doors now have a Vector2 variable called PrySpeed, which dictates the speed that SCP-096 moves through them while prying. This is used to allow 096 to move through heavy gates whose sizes are larger than normal (including the Surface Zone’s heavy gate.)
  

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
This was a much smaller patch than version 10.0.1, but was necessary to assemble and release a (slightly delayed) hotfix in order to address the issues it introduced. We're sorry for any trouble this may have caused, and we'll be trying to make steps to ensure that such an incident won't happen again.

Thank you for your continued support! It means the world to us. Keep your eyes open for upcoming tweaks and balance changes in the near future.

Hey - since Scopophobia’s release, we’ve been continually patching issues that have cropped up, as well as fixing some long-time bugs. Because the release has actually been quite stable, we’ve taken our time with it, but here is version 10.0.1, featuring the following changes:

[h2]Changes[/h2]
[h3]UI[/h3]
Main Menu

• The "Create Server" option is now hidden by default.* The -scs startup argument will cause it to be visible on startup, and the new client commands cst and tcs toggle its visibility on and off. See the bottom of the announcement for more information on this decision.
• The News tab now properly displays news entries with more than 4,000 characters.
  
• "Light Rendering Mode” has been renamed to “Render Lights.”
  
• The option to play using DIrectX12 no longer appears if the OS is not Windows 10.
  

In-Game Menu

• Adds a Server Info option to the ESC menu, which displays the current server's pastebin info.
  

Commands

• Adds the "RIDLIST" client command, which displays a list of all room ids.
  
• Adds the "PLAYERINVENTORY" remote admin command, which displays all items that a player is carrying. Aliases: "playerinv", "pinv", "pinventory". Accepts player IDs as an argument.
  
• Adds the "ROOMTP" remote admin command, which teleports a player to a specific RID. ALiases: "rtp", "ridtp".
  
• Adds the "CASSIEWORDS" remote admin command, which displays a list of all valid CASSIE words.
  
• Adds the “STARTHOST” client command, which starts a local server. Aliases: “startserver”
  
• Improvements to the "CMDBIND" client console command.
  
• Remote Admin’s “HELP” command now opens a wiki page, instead of a Google Docs document.
  

Map

• Removed SCP-096's containment chamber's chair - its model was very inefficient, and resulted in a number of anticheat problems and glitches.
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where, if overcharge was initiated shortly before the end of the round, it would occur in the following round.
  
• SCP-096 now properly unloads when a player is forceclassed from 096 to 079.
  
• Fixed an oversight preventing SCP-939 from seeing moving human players unless they were jumping. This should provide a significant buff to 939’s current performance.
  
• Fixed a variable issue which prevented SCP-096's shield effect from being visible.
  
• Fixed the scaling of SCP-096's ragdoll to match their actual body size.
  
• SCP-173 can now correctly move in darkened rooms as long as a player doesn't see them with a flashlight or NV scope.
  
• Fixed resolution related text disappearing.
  
• Fixed Pause Menu elements being positioned strangely on ultrawide resolutions.
  
• Fixed stuck spots involving pedestals in SCP-096's and SCP-173's containment chamber.
  

[h3]Security[/h3]

• Major anticheat rework: anticheat now only kills players as a last resort.
  
• Fixed players being killed when doors closed on them.
  
• Authentication thread is now exited properly.
  
• The Jump and Sneak keys now have functionality in noclip.
  
• Various other security-related fixes.
  

[h2]API Changes[/h2]
Note: These are only important for plugin developers and feature no significant changes in-game. This is by no means all-inclusive; our code is changing constantly, and these are only the most significant changes.

[h3]Pickups[/h3]

• Removes the PickupInfo struct. Synchronized pickup information (ID, durability, and so on) is now stored directly as SyncVars on the pickup script.
  
• Adds a WeaponModifiers data struct, used to track the weapon mods on dropped guns.
  

[h3]Lights[/h3]

• The FlickerableLight system has been reworked. Rooms have a FlickerableLightController component below the root room itself. This replaces the string system, and handles synchronization automatically. Lights can be turned off in individual rooms with the ServerFlickerLights(float seconds) function.
  

[h2]Wrapping Up[/h2]
We are, of course, not done making changes to 10.0.0. There are still changes we want to make, and those changes are on the way, especially regarding balance and 096 (which we’ve been extensively discussing internally to try and decide on a solution that’s healthy in the long-term and not just a temporary fix for 096’s issues.)

We’re also aware of an issue affecting the Korean, Chinese, and Japanese translations (among others) that causes some characters to render as blank boxes. We’ve run into some complications in fixing it, but we’re still working on fixing the problem on our end and will hopefully have a fix for it out ASAP.

Keep an eye out for some upcoming changes in the near future, and stay healthy and safe this August.

[h2]Footnotes[/h2]
* This is because local servers have continually become more unstable, and supporting changes specifically for them both segregates the game’s code and is difficult to sustain with our current team. The option still exists for those who use it, but we wanted to make it clear that the option is not our recommended default.

If you use the Create Server feature often, we highly recommend you set up a dedicated server! Making a dedicated server is usually fast and easy, and you can host it on the same computer you use to play the game. You can follow one of our Steam guides for instructions, or download the SCP: Secret Laboratory Dedicated Server tool on Steam.