Squad 44 News

Greetings!

Last week we unveiled the last Chapter 2 map titled “Maginot” and the features that you can expect from this 3rd map. Our new Halloween game mode titled “Contagion” is now available to all players for free for a limited time.

[h2]HALLOWEEN SALE AND FREE WEEKEND[/h2]

Starting October 29th Post Scriptum will be on sale at 50% off for the entire Steam Halloween sale on top of this a Free Weekend will also be available from October 29th until November 1st.

[h2]CONTAGION[/h2]



To go along with the spooky Steam Halloween sale we are releasing a temporary Chapter known as Chapter Z: The Bloody Undead with a new game mode titled “Contagion”

“Contagion” is our new zombie game mode that pits a group of survivors against a fierce horde of zombies and the survivors need to complete a set of tasks in order to win the match. The zombies have one simple objective which is to kill all survivors.

Below you can read about the game rules for the Contagion game mode.

[h3]Survivor Objective[/h3]

• Find and load 4 explosive supply crates in the M3 half-track MSP. Crates can be picked up by looking at it, press and hold 'F' the press grab.
  
• Bring the supplies back to the truck and unload it using 'F'
  
• Once 4 crates have been loaded, you can drive the Half-track to the bomb objective.
  
• Drop the supplies and build the bomb, then place the fuse by holding 'F' and pressing the button.
  
• Protect the bomb until it goes off.
  

In depth explanation:

• The goal is to collect 4 supply crates scattered across the level and load them in the construction truck and then go build a bomb at the destroy marker.
  
• There are a total of 10 potential areas where supplies can be found, out of these 10 potential locations, only 7 are actually spawned in.
  
• As you are getting closer to the supply marked area, the marker will disappear if no supplies are at that location, or become a supply marker if there is indeed a crate there.
  
• In order to load the crate in the truck, you need to get to the crate and pick it up by looking at it, pressing 'F' and “Grab”. Then you will need to walk within 2 meters of the truck and hold F to load the supplies in the truck.
  
• If done correctly, the game will prompt you with a message telling you that the crate has been loaded in and it will tell you how many more crates you need in order to go build the objective.
  
• Once the 4 crates are inside the truck, you will need to drive the truck to the bridge area to build the bomb. You will see a red ghost of the bomb, as soon as the ghost turns green, the bomb can be built.
  
• Get out of the truck and unload all the supplies by pressing 'F' while looking at the truck and click Unload Supplies.
  
• You should then see a bomb object on the bridge, get your shovel out and build it until you can see ammo and explosives in the wooden crates. When the bomb is fully built, press 'F' while looking at the bomb and click Place Fuse.
  
• Once the fuse is in, the bomb will explode within 30 seconds, you need to protect the bomb until it goes off. The Zombie can deactivate the bomb by attacking it. If they do deactivate the bomb, your team loses.
  

[h3]Zombie Objective[/h3]

• Find and stop any and all survivors from gathering crates and building the bomb. Use your supernatural abilities to get close to the survivors. Survivors will turn into zombies if killed. You can destroy the bomb by attacking it.
  
• Zombies are inherently weak and will die very fast if alone, the best approach playing as zombies is working together with other zombies to get close to the survivors.
  
• As a zombie, you have supernatural abilities like increase jumping height, increased speed and stamina. Use this to quickly advance into position.
  
• Zombies have the ability to spawn almost anywhere on the map.
  
• Fire will burn your flesh, so stay away from fire!

As a Zombie, your goal is to prevent the Survivors from building the bomb on the bridge.
Either by killing all the survivors, holding them off for the entire duration of the round or destroying the bomb once planted.



[h3]CARENTAN & ST MERE EGLISE OPTIMIZATION[/h3]

On top of the zombie game mode and Maginot, we’ve been investigating further into the optimization issues with both Carentan and St Mere Eglise. During that found that the amount of buildings rendered is potentially causing some serious performance issues Carentan. It also serves as frustration for players with the number of open buildings that are scattered throughout the city.

Alongside this, we've optimized multiple shaders and shadows around the map.

As a result, we’ve spent the last month identifying and closing off selected buildings in key areas to declutter the map and help the flow on the map.

The below screenshots show a comparison between version 2.0.944.15560 (Which was the last update before this one) and the new version 2.0.42.1. Images are taken on an empty developer server on Carentan Offensive 01 and St Mere Eglise Offensive 01. Same locations, same hardware, same video settings.

Hardware used for performance test:
I7-7700K @ 4.2 GHz.
Nvidia GTX 1080Ti.
32 GB of DDR4 Memory @ 2400MHz

Game Settings:
2560x1440p @ 144Hz in Borderless Window with No Super-Sampling
Epic Graphics Quality with Epic Textures, Epic Effects, Epic View Distance & Epic Foliage using FXAA Anti-Aliasing
Additional Settings: Distance Shadows ON, Screen Space Reflections ON, VSync OFF, Bloom ON, Ambient Occlusion ON, Pre-Load Textures ON, Motion Blur OFF


OPEN THE IMAGES IN A NEW TAB FOR FULL RESOLUTION

v2.0.944.15560 Carentan Café De Normandie town entry

v2.0.42.1 Carentan Café De Normandie town entry

v2.0.944.15560 Carentan Crossroads

v2.0.42.1 Carentan Crossroads

v2.0.944.15560 St Mere Eglise South Main Road

v2.0.42.1 St Mere Eglise South Main Road


And as per usual you can find your changelog below for the Halloween update.


[h3]CHANGELOG v2.0.42.1[/h3]

• Added: Post Scriptum Chapter Z: The Bloody Undead time-limited event.
  
  
• Gameplay: New Contagion Game Mode
  
  
• UI/UX: Added FG-42 Icon
  
  
• Level Design: Added Contagion layers for Best, Carentan, St Mere Eglise, Stonne
  
• Level Design: Made several optimizations passes on Carentan & St Mere Eglise.
  
• Level Design: Closed off buildings in Carentan to improve performance and game flow.
  
• Level Design: Closed off buildings in St Mere Eglise to improve performance.

Lastly, we want to thank every single one of our Community Testers that have helped test and give important feedback on the game mode. Without their help, the undertaking wouldn’t have been possible.




Sincerely,
Periscope Games


[h2]JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON DISCORD[/h2]

Greetings!

Last week we unveiled the last Chapter 2 map titled “Maginot” and the features that you can expect from this 3rd map. You can find a link to that at the bottom of the post.

We are announcing our new Halloween game mode titled “Contagion” which will be available for free for a limited time to all players starting tomorrow.

[h2]CONTAGION[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

“Contagion” is our new zombie game mode that pits a group of survivors against a fierce horde of zombies and the survivors need to complete a set of tasks in order to win the match. The zombies have one simple objective which is to kill all survivors.

[h2]HALLOWEEN SALE AND FREE WEEKEND[/h2]

Starting October 29th Post Scriptum will be on sale at 50% off for the entire Steam Halloween sale on top of this a Free Weekend will also be available from October 29th until November 1st.


[h3]MAGINOT DEVBLOG FROM LAST WEEK[/h3]
https://steamcommunity.com/games/736220/announcements/detail/5342917415237290194

Sincerely,
Periscope Games


[h2]JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON DISCORD[/h2]

Greetings!

It’s been a couple of months since we last gave you all a brief look at the 3rd Chapter 2 map which has now been in development for quite some time and for good reason. Let’s chat about it.

The map has finally reached a stage where it’s presentable and we can finally unveil the location of this 3rd location from our 1940’s Battle of France.

[h2]MAGINOT[/h2]


Meet the “Maginot” map which will be the up until now mysterious 3rd Chapter 2 location. The Maginot map as you can imagine is based on the most northern part of the Maginot Line specifically the Secteur Fortifiée des Vosges (Fortified Sector of the Vosges) part of the line.

The Vosges region is an area of low mountains in the northern region of France, close to the Ardennes.

We chose this location as it offers some truly unique fighting conditions that we feel mix all the good things about our other maps.



Being the same size as our other maps at 4 km² Maginot features plenty of varying terrains, like rolling hills, mountainous terrain, dense forest areas, villages, open fields and of course the Maginot Line itself making its way through the map



The Vosges sector was one of the few places that saw any or limited combat during the 1940 Battle of France. It was attacked by the 215th Infantry Division from the German Wehrmacht, while the French 154e and 163e RIF were primarily in charge of the sector defence.



Fighting in the Vosges region kept going until July when France’s official surrender and capitulation was announced, so while the Wehrmacht preferred to avoid the Maginot Line we have a chance to relive the fighting that did occur on this rather infamous defensive line.



We hope you enjoyed getting to know this 3rd map that will be joining our large roster of maps in the near future. We cannot wait to see how players will tackle the difficult challenges that lie within the Vosges region and the Maginot line that it features.

Sincerely,
Periscope Games


[h2]JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON DISCORD[/h2]

Greetings!

Sometime late last night Post Scriptum's Server Browser started having issues with showing and loading servers. This is a global issue affecting several games including our Publisher. We have been working with our publisher and Steam to fix the issue and we are awaiting Steam on the matter.

As it affects our players we've got a hotfix which aims to alleviate some of the issues with the Server Browser.

If the fix does not work please try applying our temporary workaround as detailed here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/736220/discussions/0/2843417619892457336/

As per usual get your changelog below!

[h3]Changelog v2.0.944.15560[/h3]

• Server Browser: Changed the server browser timeout to 60 seconds. This might help alleviate missing servers.
  
  
• Level Design: Fixed some water shaders.
  
  
• Effects: Fixed some grenade and HE explosions rotating with the camera while leaning.
  
• Effects: Fixed new White Phosphorus blasts rotating with the camera as you lean.

Sincerely,
Periscope Games


[h2]JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON DISCORD[/h2]

Greetings!

Last week we launched our new Tank Deck System and we're actively monitoring its implementation within the game and the meta changes. One notable issue has been that games were ending very fast due to the number of tickets each vehicle costs their teams, to help alleviate this we've reduced the vehicle ticket cost across the board.

We are still evaluating balancing between decks and will likely be making some changes soon.

This update also addresses community concerns that the new tank kick hampers armoured events where 2 sections are not enough. This we've also addressed by allowing all admin spawned vehicles to be entered by anyone.

As per usual get your changelog below!

[h3]Changelog v2.0.939.15538[/h3]

• UI/UX: Renamed Daimler AC Shot Mk. 1 APCBC to Shot Mk. IXB/T
  
  
• Gameplay: Lowered Kill Death Ruleset ticket cost for all armoured vehicles.
  
• Gameplay: Rebalanced M51B1 & M71B1 Pen Curve for M5 Stuart & M8 Greyhound.
  
• Gameplay: Replaced M51 with M51B1 for T17 Staghound.
  
• Gameplay: Admin spawned vehicles not being considered section vehicles to allow non-armoured members to use. (Leaving a section will still kick you.)
  
  
• Effects: Fixed MG-42 muzzle flash effect being offset.
  
• Effects: New White Phosphorus Bangs for grenades and mortars

Sincerely,
Periscope Games


[h2]JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON DISCORD[/h2]