Cepheus Protocol News

https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/2970672485634875929


[h2]The Pathfinder Update Bug fixes - 0.7.119 All builds[/h2]

• HEMTT mask fixed
  
• Tweaked collision on the Call In Preview Mesh to prevent it from moving units around (i.e. if you move the carpet bomb indicator onto units, it might scoot them, except now that's fixed)
  
• Hooked up Dimitry's new Medical+Ammo tents over the constructible trucks from the Capture Truck
  
• Angel Island fixes
  
• NoVehicle blockers added to catwalks (G3), Double checked presidio and fixed clipping, and minor floating objects
  
• Various Animation improvements for Walking/Running Cycles
  
• Updated the Medical+Ammo tents to use the new buttons+minimap icons from Juniardi
  
• More risky spawn locations are now 'rejected' in favor of BackupSpawnLocations
  
• fix for pod decals.
  
• new launcher Background
  
• fixed dp12 littlebird animation for DP12's
  
• Fixed some math regarding the Spawning Volume backup spawn locations
  
• Fixed up some tents on Angel Island which were distance culling erroneously early
  
• Adjusted some backup spawn locations on Angel Island
  
• Added more backup spawn locations, this time to Treasure Island and Presidio
  
• Fixed up the Treasure Island eastern bridge (between north+south sides) having some move proxy issues (distance checks were too great)
  
• Added some navblockers to stop units from walking off a cliff on the southeastern side of Presidio
  
• Also fixed some trees that were there and hanging out in the water or on the cliff itself
  
• Resolved an issue with spawn nodes not properly loading as 'active' if they have completed spawn pods due to the load
  
• Smoothed some defense response logic to try to make it more quick to respond if no other nodes are defending
  
• Made pod construction completion make a node count as 'activated' under the Mercer System, for defense responses
  
• Resolved a collision issue which caused player wall rubble to block movement
  
• Added logic to prevent airlifted units (or units garrisoned into airlifted units) from firing their weapons
  
• Sea side hotel improvements
  
• Bug fixes to Bounty System compatible with the Chelsey System
  
• Updated move proxy logic to reject move proxies to other landmasses if a move proxy to the target landmass is accessible (though inter-zone move proxies can still be queried) - this resolves an issue with the western landbridge on Treasure Island
  
• Added an additional move proxy to Angel Island to prevent 'looping move order' issue for vehicle move orders moving from the Carnside to South Angel Island
  
• Added several 'ramp' blockers on some points on the western edge of Angel Island to allow units to go up ramps that they have trouble climbing
  
• Updated initial move command order from the Player to make units in the ordered selection 'switch to vehicle nav' if a vehicle is in the move order
  
• Added some 'no-vehicle' nav areas to some spots on Angel Island's western coast to stop vehicles from trying to 'ride the rails' of the island
  
• Added some more vehicular nav to Angel Island near the base
  
• Tracked down and resolved an issue with collision on infected Spine Turrets causing them to ignore bullets
  
• Fixed a crash with field turrets
  
• Added logic to make ammo runners ignore refilling turrets (turrets function on a different system)
  
• Fixed a construction issue with building the CERC building (sandbag construction actors were set to 'player wall' rather than 'obstacle' nav, which caused player units to not want to walk 'into' them to construct them at some angles)
  
• Adjusted collision on the construction silhouette to stop it from pushing units when in Turret/mine/etc. mode
  
• Adjusted turret collision to not block units walking past them (the barrel was blocking movement)
  
• Adjusted turret navigation modifier to not be so tiny
  
• Fixed Duplicating Chelsey bug
  
• Several new zones were added to open world
  
• Adjusted vehicle selection boxes so they properly rotate with vehicles
  
• New Custom Game Options (Set Starting Money, Time Scale (How long each second is ingame), and starting Doctrine level
  

Please note the following going forward (Restart your game/steam to get the update if needed

Hey guys! So this is a little series i wanted to start to talk about the development of Cepheus Protocol . Enjoy!


So we can keep users informed on our current progress and easily connect them to our Discord and help build a larger community



We are also working on a Lore/Tutorial website for CERC that will launch in the next few weeks. Early Preview below!



We are currently planning to revise all CERC units and models to prepare them for UE5 and use the added excuse to improve and unify their designs. Heres some quick previews on that front.





Our first attempts to rectify the path finding were met with mixed results with some users reporting vast improvements to their determinizing logic and others outright still frustrated by it. We chose to dig deeper and gather more data to ensure that when we move on from path finding its a "true" solution that wont require us to backtrack in the future or affect future maps by what we "can" and "cannot" do based on the technical limitations we artificially created ourselves by a shoody workaround to improve path finding.



Thanks to all that have been weathering the seas collecting the pros and cons of our current implementation of path finding and we are currently working on determining if a viable solution is implementing a vastly improved A* path finding system that will in our opinion far improve the current setup.

We expect to continue to keep rolling out smaller bug fixes to the current path finding system over the next week as we also work to polish this system. But this is an avenue we are actively pursuing aggressively.



Now the big one! Simply said this update will change the very fabric of how the game is played in every regard adding actual repercussions to your actions and how you play the game. This is next up after we are content with the path finding fixes mentioned above.

The rollout will be in waves as followed:

[h3]Stage 1: Natalie's Faction is removed temporarily so we can improve and focus on Pierce and the civilian AI. [/h3]

1. Pierce will gain random starts as with Chelsey. He will gain a personality of a defender/protector of the people, that kind of approach to gameplay. In which he will attempt to continually engage and stop Chelsey from expanding across the map
   
2. As he enters stage two when he realizes hes losing ground and he doesn't have the men to do it anymore he will make the transition to ally and vassalize nearby dynamic civilian groups that are popping up all over the map. They will then form a protective net where they will intend to "Hold out" from Chelsey and any civilian groups that are hostile I.E raiders/cannibals or you (CERC). Pierce will recruit out of these groups to replace his losses
   
3. He will continue this personality till they ultimately die as Chelsey takes the map over X hours/day since she will eventually out play and win as the virus starts to mutate
   

[h3]Stage 2: Natalie enters the Fray[/h3]

1. Natalie's faction will be treated like a force of chaos not erecting and having a central zone or location. They will recruit out of the more desperate survivor groups that are formed I.E cannibals'/raiders more desperate groups on the island that are created from the conflict overall.
   
2. They will not have a central base but small/tiny outposts across the map from where they recruit from the zones they are within
   
3. Natalie will hate/fight Pierce's group whenever she can and carry out hit and run attacks including suicidal bomb runs on his compounds
   
4. Sub factions like Natalie and Pierce can kill each other and they will have hero units that represent them in gameplay.
   
5. Killing a faction leader will effectively "End" that faction making 80% of their units abandon their post and making their territory ripe for the taking by another group.
   

From the onset of our release on Early Access we wanted to properly divvy up zones in a "Shroud" whenever Chelsey took land . The idea was that she is converting the space/zone to something more hospitable to her kind collecting biomass and other things to turn cities into an alien hellscape almost.

We have been working towards that front to expand the visuals and accomplish this over the last few weeks and will continue to expand it with biomass that will grow out from the floors/walls and more as she continues to expand into the zone.

It should be noted that this will expand into Walls/barriers she will form from biomass that will impede player access and lockoff access to certain sections requiring a flamethrower be handy for these situations else aerial insertions will be required to bypass them


More ways of playing the game are being listened to and sought out overall and we want to accommodate more playstyles going into the future.

1. Changes will be made to allow tall/wide gameplay styles I.E expensive upgrades tied to the development of your CP truck that will allow you to increase the amount of population a zone provides (Addon structures) and money zone increases for those that prefer to take a small zone of 3-4 provinces and prefer to build "tall" The cost of these upgrades currently are planned to take into account of how many zones you have to scale the pricing.
   
2. More sliders and launch options like real time mode and more based on community suggestions of what they want to see
   
3. Tactical Pause is being looked into no ETA yet
   

This has been a hidden secret on our discord for myself and Justin that have been the two only developers working on it alongside the other duties we have. I will explain now exactly what this "Feature" is and our hopes for it!

https://youtu.be/hRJAck0prD0

1. The Operator is meant to be a RTS/1P hybrid unit the only of its kind that you can customize and is "your" avatar in the world. I've been talking about making a hero character to work alongside winters well here it is.
   
2. You can call Him/Her in at any time initially for free practically but each time they die you will have to pay an expensive cost and it will scale with overall level and proficiency.
   
3. You will be able to pick and choose what abilities from the other classes you give and name him/her from a creator character screen on the main menu. They will be accessible to all current and future games from the call in window
   
4. In 1P the operator will be able to climb objects, Dive/Slide, Melee, Enter vehicles and drive them, be a passenger, and command them from a basic selection/order menu . It should be noted we will rollout their abilities and expand upon him over time giving him more weapons and abilities as we listen to our community.
   
5. Their level will be persistent over play sessions so you can grind him out and get him to max level
   
   
   For the Halloween release the plan is to have it so he can access and switch between all the current CERC weapons/command units/RTS-1P in fully functional in swapping / But vehicles might be delayed to a latter time as we have no intention of neglecting the RTS elements of the game as they are a priority first and foremost!

We are waiting till the engine is more stable and out of the beta phases so we can transition the project from UE4 to UE5 cleanly as doing it too early will cause stability and new crashes that we wont be able to fix or support in earnest because Epic Games will be developing and expanding on those systems. As they have notated it shouldn't be used for "Live" projects just yet because of its unpredictability and that its lacking features even enabled by default on Unreal Engine 4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1ZnM7CH-v4


As an update here is the revamped UI that will be adjusted following the factions changes.




We will be launching a new weekly series that will see several chapters added every Friday after release and will cover the chapters of the Novelization with 5 chapters added to expand upon the story and give more value to those itching for more lore/story information. It will delve into and show more about a secret new faction that will become the Anti-CERC in the Cepheus Protocol universe.

Don't forget to wishlist!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1707120/Cepheus_Protocol_Anthology/

AmA on Discord August 14th at 12 PM PST in the AmA channel.

Talk to the developers behind CP. There will be three developers from the following sections of development

We will probably add/remove as we finalize schedules for those on the team

Game Director - Robert Smith
Level Designer - Myles Taft
Animator - Justin Patterson

Discord join url:



Bring your questions and see you then!


In case you missed out last developer update video
Watch it here!
https://youtu.be/nVrwXehllzg

In case you missed out last developer update video
Watch it here!
https://youtu.be/nVrwXehllzg


[h2]The Pathfinder Update Bug fixes - 0.7.118[/h2]

• Various floating objects and improper collision assets were refined
  
• Chainlink footstep sfx assets
  
• Collision system revamp for how we handle interactions between objects
  
• Fixed command post truck locations 'blocking out nav' even when Capture Trucks are enabled (it wasn't properly removing its nav in reaction to Capture Truck enablement)
  
• Fixed Capture Truck, Scout Drone, and HEMTT purchase buttons not displaying why they're not purchaseable if you don't have the money
  
• Updated the Medical Truck and Ammo Truck purchase buttons from the Capture Truck to better display their name when you cannot afford them, and made that portion of text on the button shrink instead of wrap if it doesn't fit
  
• Added new 'ThreatBoostToStructures' value to Base_Character, to boost their perceived threat from enemy structures (Used this to make the Juggernaut more likely to target structures, so he doesn't get as easily confused by walls)
  
• Updated unit entry to garrison(s) to offset the garrison entry by the garrison capsule's halfheight, so units won't get easily 'confused' when trying to move to garrisons (in short: units are less likely to ignore an 'enter vehicle' order)
  
• Brake lights for vehicles that are not moving
  
• Made the Capture Truck call-in button 'highlight itself' when it's added
  
• Bolstered Chelsey System's hive health by 3x, and made it less vulnerable to fire
  
• Tons of Misc level design changes across the board to improve navigation and accuracy of shots
  
• Updated Barbed wire meshes
  
• Added a new option to the Engineer doctrine for double layered barbed wire
  

Please note the following going forward (Restart your game/steam to get the update if needed

Our next developer video will be premiering at 9:30 PM PST.

Watch it live here!
https://youtu.be/nVrwXehllzg