Cepheus Protocol News

Patch Notes - 0.7.87 Leviathan Tweaks & Bridge Fixes

Operation Hammer Down continues... and we need your Help!

Starting Friday night we have pushed out the started inklings of Operation Hammer Down. Our first major patch which targets adding more replayability and simulating a larger world to fight in. We want to hear what you folks have to say about how it plays so we can properly focus the aspects that need the most attention. After we feel they are in a good place overall we will shortly afterwards put up a factions public beta.

Finalized Open World Map
Doctrines
Juggernaut
Little Guy enemies
Leviathan
Revised Power Generation System

[h2]Patch Notes - 0.7.87 Leviathan Tweaks & Bridge Fixes[/h2]

The pre-beta opt in will be removed in the next week. Please remeber to finish your old game sessions on them ASAP!

There is an economy rebalance coming soon. Also quite a few refinements are coming to the Worm/Leviathan
Share your feedback here on the Worm/Leviathan
https://steamcommunity.com/app/979640/discussions/0/3113646913571960146/

[h2]Patch notes from this patch[/h2]

Adjustment to hospital roof collisions
Adjusted destructible bridge BP to be more accurate and with more collision 'under' the surface as a safety
Added blocking volumes under the 'connecting segments' of Carnside Bridge
Added a crash safety to the horde saving
Various Collision Fixes in Grid 06
Infected Animations improved across the board
M9 Animations tweaked to look better
Added crash safeties for the patrol path finalization
Added 'Enable' toggle options for Juggernauts and Leviathans to the custom game settings Updated the sliders with an ON/OFF mode for this purpose
Hid the relevant suboptions if Juggernauts/Leviathans are off Ensured said settings save/load
Used Juniardi's new assets to drastically clean up the Treasure Island minimap
Also fixed an issue with that minimap having offset
Also fixed the Lock Icon on Treasure Island minimap
Added a safety to bridge destructible segments to try to 'warp' units that fall through back up on top
Updated DamageCharacters to respect damage resist types when calculating the damage they've taken
Updated the bridge with damage resistances to try to make it fully immune to damage from any source other than powerful explosives (infected could still break it) (result: bridges won't die from infected melee attacking things on top of it, now)
Added crash safeties to the horde controller debug
Fence and other "shoot thru" object collision conversion
Fixed some bridge management actors/move proxies referencing the wrong bridges
Implemented a fix for 'bridge fall through':
Leviathan Reduced size (from .8 to .5)
Leviathan Increased swipe attack speed from .5 to .6
Leviathan Reduced the chance of bite attack usage to 50% when it's available (rather than 90%)
Leviathan Reduced melee cooldown setting (which affects a lot of things) to 1 second, resulting in a more aggressive feel
Leviathan Reduced move cooldown interval to 50 seconds (from 1 min)
Leviathan Increased liklihood of performing a move
Leviathan Started on an 'aerial attack vomit' montage (for later)
Updated the Leviathan extra spawns to deal a new 'LightMelee' damage type
Leviathan Which deals 66% less damage to player structures than it does to other targets
Leviathan Fixed melee attacks not respecting custom 'melee damage type'
Added a safety to when the Leviathan finishes emerging from burrow state to try to prevent falling through the world
Added a safety to try to prevent Leviathan entering an infinite animation loop on emerging from the ground
Started on Leviathan 'horde behavior' (not currently enabled, not quite done):
Changes to Presidio fence collision settings
Fixed destroyed bridges failing to load the ability to be repaired
Fixed destroyed bridges failing to be 'repair-able' if they are destroyed multiple times in a single session (w/o saving/loading)
Fixed a visibility-flickering issue if you repair a bridge multiple times in a single session (w/o saving/loading)

[h2]Patch notes from public beta period[/h2]
Here is a patch list compiled for your convenience so you can understand all that has been changed/adjusted in the public beta.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/3028077442854098574
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/5196558685239608610
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/4492868685540062205
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/2892963558047527966
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/2892962924328296977

Cepheus Protocol Novelization is now available on Steam Store!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1387390/Cepheus_Protocol_Novelization

Keep in mind this book takes place before, during and a bit after Pandemic mode and follows dozens of characters around the events of CP. It will hint to our year 2 content(So spoilers if you analyze it close enough). Its not for the faint of heart (Very violent deaths and all that). You can pick it up for $3.99 now!

It will also be available on the Steam Store as an DLC on October 1st if you prefer to get it there! Just keep in mind on our website we make 99% of the sale the rest goes to PayPal

Feel free to use the #💬lore-questions on our Discord to discuss the ramifications of what the book brings to the universe and how it will affect the game as we start to work in story elements presented in the novel

Patch Notes - 0.7.86 Horde Improvements & Further Light Tweaks

Operation Hammer Down continues... and we need your Help!

Finalized Open World Map
Doctrines
Juggernaut
Little Guy enemies
Leviathan
Revised Power Generation System

[h2]Patch Notes - 0.7.86 Horde Improvements & Further Light Tweaks[/h2]

Adjusted Dormant horde sphere move order speed to be more often
Adjusted infected horde move order speed to be slightly move often (6 seconds intead of 8)
Fixed an over-tuned movement component optimization that was breaking unrendered hordes/Chelsey from capturing as effectively when the camera was not facing them
Fixed several Presidio infection zones being in the wrong positions (resulted in widgets being misplaced)
Fixed Presidio spawn nodes not being properly scaled or placed (resulted in poor wandering and defensive infected spawning)
Generated weapon LODs.
Weapon Material fixes.
Added Bridge move proxies to smooth out more types of horde attacks
Fixed a 'bridge reference' on Angel Island thinking it connecting to the Treasure Island dockyard when it actually connected to Gold Cove
Added logic for a Horde Controller to bypass the freespawns limit for its first set of spawns (to prevent situations where a horde would initialize while all slots were taken up): should only be about 7 spawns per, so likely not an expensive change in exchange for smoother horde capture attempts.
Fixed Horde attacks erroneously trying to assign 'attack targets' when there were none (resulting in stalled hordes)
Updated Horde Attacks to try to issue a move order anyway even if there are attack targets issued (in case some infected don't think they should chase due to distance or some such, no longer should be a problem)
Added a basic distance limit to the Juggernaut's rock throw (8000 units for now)
Fixed gate navigation being 'too wide'
Fixed gate doors going 'too short', so gates open completely now
Result: Vehicles can fit again (and there's a 'minor issue' if you open two adjacent gates: made a Trello card for it
Fixed wrong JLTV exhaust emitter.
Added a proxy move actor between two nodes on Presidio (PRSG5 and PRSG2)
Adjusted a spawn pod in PRSG5 that was resulting in stuck infected
Result: Infected seem to be able to move between PRSG5 and PRSG2 easier now
Adjusted an infection pod in the Treasure Island Dockyard that may have resulted in some 'stuck infected'
Fixed the Alcatraz spawn node having erroneous bounty spawn and stuckpoint references
Added a new 'proxy move' system for some command zone capture points: in some cases, certain move orders were deemed 'too far' at an engine level, so proxy 'move targets' were added to certain zones to make it possible for hordes to move towards their designated targets without getting stuck or just sitting still
Used the 'proxy move' system to fix hordes having issues moving between Alcatraz and Treasure Island
Lowered Shawnee health to 160 (from 800)
Hooked up basic 'headlights' onto each vehicle
Fixed a crash with the Shawnee
Updated WeatherManager to clear out any existing particle systems if there's a mismatch between incoming FX and current or target FX (for swapping between high/low quality weather effects, or console-command setting weather)
Added 'WeatherEffectQuality' to the advanced video options (for toggling between regular and low quality weather particle effects)
Updated Minimap settings for Treasure Island (new minimap, and new settings to accommodate its size and color)
Also updated Alcatraz to not be auto-captured when playing Treasure Island on its own (Unlike in the Open World map)
Updated the Weapon Flashlight default intensity to 120 lumens (per Dimitry)
Added a safety to the attack-move reissue that was responsible for crashes (should resolve the crash)

Patch Notes - 0.7.85 Further QOL and improvements to the Spine Throwers

Operation Hammer Down continues... and we need your Help!

Finalized Open World Map
Doctrines
Juggernaut
Little Guy enemies
Leviathan
Revised Power Generation System

[h2]Patch Notes - 0.7.85 Further QOL and improvements to the Spine Throwers[/h2]

The pre-beta opt in will be removed in the next week. Please remeber to finish your old game sessions on them ASAP!

[h2]Patch notes from this patch[/h2]

Added a safety for turn animations to not freeze movement if the montage fails somehow
Added a safety for loaded soldiers to unfreeze movement on being loaded, in case they somehow load as 'frozen' (had a save file where this occurred, safety seems to have resolved it) I.E units would refuse to move after a save file was loaded
Tanker collision fixed on adjusted so they dont pop in and out based on distance
Fixed the Spine Turret's damage character root being too low such that certain Spine Turrets would become 'untargetable' (due to their target point in some instances being 'belowground')
Resolved an issue w/ right click-on-spine-turret commands not boosting selected unit's Threat Level towards the right-clicked target (i.e. they were basically ignoring that command)
Fixed the Spine Turrets not shooting at the player after fixing the player not being able to shoot some spine turrets
Boosted Vehicular nav agent size to prevent vehicles from trying to 'go up ramps' on some sections of the map (note that vehicles cannot get to certain places, so if there's a lot of road clutter or thin paths, don't be surprised if vehicles just can't find their way in - may need more tuning, though)
Made the hospital give $150 as capture income (was giving $0)
Fixed a missing bridge pointer from Angel Island to Treasure Island (was messing w/ horde logic)
Added a safety to try to prevent some Editor 'warning spam' related to Juggernaut rock throws
Improved Garrison vision logic:
Units in a Sparrow now have double firing range (except for flamethrower) and vision
Spread from sitting in a moving vehicle increased (over 200 units means 30% boost, over 800 means 60%)
If in an aerial vehicle, spread increased by 10% then multiplied by 110% (so units in a hovering Sparrow has 121% spread, but if Sparrow is moving it will either be 154% or 187%)

Patch Notes - 0.7.83 Bug Fixes & Optimization Adjustments

Operation Hammer Down continues... and we need your Help!

Finalized Open World Map
Doctrines
Juggernaut
Little Guy enemies
Leviathan
Revised Power Generation System

[h2]Patch Notes - 0.7.83 Bug Fixes & Optimization Adjustments [/h2]

We are aware of a reloading bug where sometimes units are stuck to fix this simply reload the save file we expect to have a fix out in the next 24 hours or so!

Old saves can be safety resumed from the pre-beta-version available on the betas tab should you want to finish up an old game session before you fully convert to the new setup of Treasure Island

[h2]Patch notes from this patch[/h2]

Fixed a bug that would cause CERC to not fire on enemies
Fixed a bug that would cause night time to appear to bright
Various Collision adjustments across the grids to fix clipping
Details added to the Angel Island Shipping Docks
Further refinement to the Presido Zone
Reduced sensing interval for regular infected's horde+defense spawns, to improve performance
Reduced Merlin health to 600 (from 800)
Reduced Charon health to 500 (from 800)
Spitter projectiles now deal 60 bonus damage to aerial targets
Juggernaut thrown projectiles now deal 600 bonus damage to aerial targets
Reduced spine turret sensing interval further
Increased 'tick group' logic for unrendered movement and mesh components (to reduce cost)
Fixed up spine turret meshes always ticking even when unrendered
Cleaned up the minimap update loop to be less expensive
Made stunned/ragdolled infected less AI-heavy
Made units update their AI less often on taking damage (especially useful due to guns firing so quickly)
Further slowed sensing interval for defense/horde-spawned infected
-Reduced Shawnee health to 800 (from 850)
Juggernaut now 'leads the shot' when throwing a projectile, instead of aiming directly at the target's current position
With extra logic to make him aim a bit higher at aerial targets
-Updated Juggernaut rock behavior to be more consistent when striking a helicopter (less likely to 'go through' on fringe cases)
Reduced Shawnee 30mm damage (Direct Damage 100->50, AOE damage 50->40)
Increased Shawnee population count from 3 to 10
Doubled the time between a SpineTurret warning of its fire path, and it actually firing (from 0.9 seconds to 1.8 seconds)
Increased the fire rate of the spine turret to 2.5 seconds between shots (from 2.0)
Collison and UV adjustments to stadium area assets in grid 2
Updated call-in logic for Engineers and Minigunners to use 'green' for OK and 'red' for negative (instead of the inconsistent appearance from before)
(NOTE: This likely will not update the colors for the Minigunner call in for existing saves that already have purchased it.)
added audio rain setup to WeatherManagerBP
Replaced the PawnSensingComponent with a new version with 'offscreen rendering' performance improvements
Initial tests indicate this may make this component about 60% more efficient, and it has room to improve
Added Rain with Lightning weathers.
Added PostProcess SceneColorTint curve to the NightDay Timeline.
Added Procedural landscape grass.
Missing coast guard Ships readded
audio lightning bolts and minor adjustments
Various landscape painting and material updates.
grid_03_02 restored coin op binocs and lamps gone, fence fixed in grid3
Fixed the Helicopter garrison widget being 'vertical' rather than properly horizontal and wrapping as it should
Fixed some corruption in the Adrian Winter class
Created 'unarmed turning animation' functionality, allowing unarmed units to use turn animations as well (for Michael to use for giving the infected turning animations)
Adjusted spawn pod 'exit door' logic to use less distance now that infected can get around each other better (to reduce situations where infected 'spawn into' locations where they get stuck)
nav blockers added to housing community so player can't land on slanted rooftops
Fixed the description for the 'incubation rate' setting in custom games (it was incorrectly saying lower values take longer)
Deleted all planters in grid 3 that block nav near catwalks
Made the 'infected widgets' over regular infected dynamically spawn in/out rather than simply show/hide (so if you're zoomed in, or if the infected is not visible to you, his widget is costless - the spawning/despawning doesn't seem to be very costly)
Improved 'move tolerance' for defense responses, to prevent some instances where infected try to 'crowd onto' a single spot before responding to other stimuli
Rearranged planters in grid 3
Updated the new PawnSensor to utilize the Team-based Unit Registry, so units on the same team don't even 'try' to see one another
(this saves close to a millisecond of processing per frame for the infected team)
Updated the Helicopter's 'placeholder spawning' to use a different naming schema (had a strange crash once due to 'same name' issue from constructing a barracks, hopefully this change resolves that?)
Fixed up the Unit Recruitment and Unlocks buttons not displaying Engineering Doctrine 'Price Drop' properly (they still actually only spent the correct amount, but they used to disable 'too soon' by comparing to original price, and would display original price. That's fixed)
Added basic 'invalidation boxes' to InfectedWidgets and the InfectionZoneWidget
Improved the InfectionZoneWidget's scaling logic to be less expensive when collapsed

Patch Notes - 0.7.82 Enhanced Weather FX and Graphics Settings

Operation Hammer Down continues... and we need your Help!

It should be noted the next few patches will also focus on nerfing some of the units like the Apache as they are greatly overpowered. This will include further refinements with the health/damage tables being further adjusted for other units as well. Stay tuned!

Starting Friday night we have pushed out the started inklings of Operation Hammer Down. Our first major patch which targets adding more replayability and simulating a larger world to fight in. We want to hear what you folks have to say about how it plays so we can properly focus the aspects that need the most attention. After we feel they are in a good place overall we will shortly afterwards put up a factions public beta.

Finalized Open World Map
Doctrines
Juggernaut
Little Guy enemies
Leviathan
Revised Power Generation System

[h2]Patch Notes - 0.7.82 Enhanced Weather FX and Graphics Settings[/h2]

Old saves can be safety resumed from the pre-beta-version available on the betas tab should you want to finish up an old game session before you fully convert to the new setup of Treasure Island

[h2]Patch notes from this patch[/h2]

Ammo boxes in saved games not working anymore fixed
Motor pool not allowing you to manually refill ammo fixed
Updated to the Latest 4.26 Engine version
Main Menu water VFX revised
New Rain System added
New Post Process and lighting effects
Fog System added
Rain will now gather on player units making them seem "wet"
Rain will gather in the levels and dynamically change the materials they touch
New Video Options added under advanced for Volumetric cloud simulation features of the engine(Will be expanded upon in the next few updates)
New disclaimers added to the New Game screen
Safeties added to ensure Chelsey always spawns in the legacy Treasure Island map
Chelseys Emissive fixed to make her face glow more
Screen Space quality added to Advanced Video Options
Power pylons will no longer display Built Undefined when construction completes
Fixed the Ammo drop not properly showing its ammobar if units were within its radius during the load
Landscape textures improved
New grass mesh added
Flashlights provide better line of sight at night reducing the penalty applied to units at night