Cepheus Protocol News

Patch Notes - 0.7.65 New HUD and Population System

The new HUD and Population System are now live. The intial starting value of 32 is not final.

Factions Natalie Structures

[h2]Patch Notes - 0.7.65 New HUD and bug fixes [/h2]

Initial population system implemented
Population set to 32 (Not final)
New HUD added (Give us feedback on Discord!)
Added intra-widget card dragging (via right click): will swap the dragged card's position with the card you dragged onto.
Adjusted the text display a bit to be better able to display very short names
Quick fix to weapon button enablement for the Unit Card
flashlight on/off sfx
Number of groups increased to 15
Fixed up some text display issues with weapon ammunition on the unit cards
Updated unit initialization to no longer 'wait' before initializing a weapon
Added 'group visuals' to the in-world unit selection widget
Updated unit recruitment to allow selection of which group to 'recruit to'
Updated Springbok and Sparrow to take 2 population, instead of their original 1
Updated non-vehicles to function with population system
engine start and stop loop volume adjusted to make it less annoying
pods under attack ambience added
Fixed a crash w/ DNA drop (if the DNA sample 'clears itself' by spawning outside of world)
Added 'unit card' scaling to the Video options (by doubling size of each unit card first!)
Added a dynamic HUD scaling widget to the top left (w/ show/hide button) that saves its results and properly syncs with the video options menu
Cleared up a movement bug with units referencing old Away Team logic
Updated the healthbar, medic bar, and gasoline bar on the new unit cards to have black backgrounds (instead of invisible backgrounds). The infection bar already had a black background.
Updated the 'group number indicator' text to be black instead of white, to be easier to read against the circle backgrounds.
Added a little 'click animation' when you click on a unit card, or when that card is freshly assigned to a new group, or when that card trades places with a card within its own group
Updated the group selection button to have a white color w/ transparency so it looks more seamless when hovering+clicking
Updated interaction widget group numbering to have no outline to avoid the number 11 getting 'melded together'
Also adjusted Group 11's color to be more desaturated
Fixed up the 'fullscreen minimap' being below (and not above) the new unit card widgets
Added a 'gray background' to the Unit Group Card +/- buttons, to make them more visually pleasing
Added improvement to group loading to properly ensure Winter doesn't end up in the 'wrong position' within her group on group load
Hooked up logic to 'hide' empty group widgets unless you're dragging a unit card.

[h2]Cepheus Protocol AMA/Showcase[/h2]

Work on our other maps have started officially in the last week and we hope to have more to share in the coming weeks! Keep in mind a LOT of our week this week into the Little bird and doctrine updates so make sure to check out our dev-update channel on discord to see the daily updates we do!

If you missed our AmA you can watch it here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZznhKn8hPU4

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

Cepheus Protocol Novelization is also available on our website! Buy it here!

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

[h3]CERC Operator edition[/h3]
We also offer a new CERC Operator edition for those havent bought the game and novel yet with a launch discount of 5% when purchased together

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15959/CERC_Operator_Edition/

Cepheus Protocol Dev Update #3 and 4 Month in Early Access Overview

Sorry for the delay a lot of scheduling conflicts with our normal voice over actress. So we had one of our developers take over! Check out the latest Dev update video and some new teasers are hidden inside it for the Worm/Leviathan and his little guys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9dINrXfhR8

[h2]Stage 2 Chelsey WIP[/h2]

Animation Revamp

Ever since we heard some feedback regarding the stiffness of our units/animations we have been hard at work finding a solution. We are now working on implementing a better RIG and Animation Blueprint to give us even more control including starting to utilize a Mocap suit to really make these animations shine as we work towards 1.0. Here's a quick preview of what we have in store for you folks in the coming weeks via a total animation revamp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqpNGvAZJ8k&feature=youtu.be

Until next time, good luck in Treasure Island!

Patch Notes - 0.7.63 Engine Toggle(Vehicles) and Critical Bug Fixes

Anarchist Faction leader Natalie (Next Month) Preview

[h2]Patch Notes - 0.7.63 Engine Toggle and Critical Bug Fixes [/h2]

Added a safety to DNA to make it delete itself if it's way outside of the level (was causing weird collision issues causing infected to basically be undamageable)
Added some fixes to infected construct spawning to stop it from continuing spawn loop if destroyed after the main pod dies
Added engine toggling for vehicles:
When off, the vehicle will stop consuming gasoline. However, it will also take a few moments to turn the engine on.
When engine is toggled off, a vehicle will stop moving, too, if it's already moving.
When a move command is received and a unit has its engine off, it will turn its engine on, then follow the command.
Added anim BP update to the Sparrow to make it 'wind down' when its engine is off, and 'wind back up' when it's on
Fixed up the engine to be 'toggled to off' on running out of gas
And when it gets toggled off in this manner, to properly update the button if the unit is selected
C++ fix to loading engine stuff really quickly
Cleanup to make loading games faster
Added some 'collision safety' calls on ending lerp and on beginplay, for infected, as a potential stopgap for collision issues that have been occurring (didn't resolve old save issue, though)
Added safety to OnMoveCompleted if the unit is dead, or missing their capsule component
Hooked up saving delegate logic for the PC when saving:
The Pause Menu will now 'gray out' Exit buttons and the Save button if the PC is saving on opening the menu, and restore them when the save is done.
The Pause Menu's "Do you want to save before exiting?" popup will now enter into a 'Saving...' overlay state when pressing 'yes' to save the game before exiting, and will not actually transition to the Desktop or Main Menu until the PC reports the save as completed.
Sandbag and Barbed wire setup sfx added
Fixed a root component issue w/ the 'no build zone' for ammo

Cepheus Protocol Dev Update #3 and 4 Month in Early Access Overview

Animation Revamp

Live stream AmA | October 31 at 12 PM PST

[h3]Overview[/h3]

Example Format of our previous AmA
https://youtu.be/ZznhKn8hPU4

Overview

This will be our second Ama and we plan on showcasing a lot of new features/systems we've been working to bring to completion by December, We'll go over the new Doctrines system, Open World Map and the Levitation implementation. Talk about modding, coop and the newly released Novel as well. We will have various team members from different divisions present and will be answering questions live.

Schedule

Doctrines, Open World & Levitation Updates(Shipped and a discussion on the systems
Post Mortem)
Q&A (Novel etc, any topic except below mentioned ones)
Factions Modding & Coop
Q&A Conclusion (Factions, Modding & Coop targeted)

We will be taking questions throughout the event! These will be huge reveals and we will be broadcasting on our twitch page. Link at the bottom!

Cepheus Protocol AMA/Showcase

We'll be answering your questions live and also discussing the last 2 months of the year and what we'll be implementing.

You can join our Discord and leave questions for us to answer in between intermissions on our discord via the october-ama channel or tune in live and we'll answer your questions live.

Join it here

[h3]Time and Date[/h3]

October 31 at 12 PM PST (Steam will auto convert it to your time zone if you subscribe to the event)

[h3]Broadcast Link[/h3]
Follow our Twitch here so you can get the notification there if you wish!
https://www.twitch.tv/halcyonwinds

Until next time, good luck in Treasure Island!

Patch Notes - 0.7.61.2 New Spawning overhaul & Infected Defense Structures

Do note the defensive pods added will be getting a more final mesh in the weeks to come and we are in the process of adding a better particle effect to visualize the projectile they shoot

We are also looking into adding organic matter that exerts Chelseys ownership of a zone allowing expansion through organic matter taking over zones via creep and other organic matter that would spread. A lot more is on the way in the manner of beefing up the Infected for the new Doctrines update

Faction Updates: As many of you know we are hoping to have shipped the factions update as with huge quality changes to the main cast including the Tutorial girl actually getting a physical avatar and talking to you from prerendered scenes over the next 1-2 months! Check out some of our progress here

Chelsey V2

Winters V2

Swat Faction leader Pierce

Swat Faction Updates More variants on the way

Rebel Civilians

[h2]Patch Notes - 0.7.59 [/h2]

Fixed infected units being 'shown' after spawning from a pod also causing their widgets to remain permanently shown
Added logic to make sure that vehicles will not 'continue moving to their last destination' as soon as they get more gas, if they stall out due to running empty
Added logic to better cause vehicles to not respond to movement commands while out of gas (because they're out of gas)
Added logic to prevent Helicopters from being able to receive fuel while in the air (even while just taking off)
Added logic to make the 'fast rope' button gray out if a selected helicopter is currently landing.
Added logic to make a helicopter 'stop landing' if you issue another move command to it while it's landing, instead of finishing landing before immediately starting ascent.
Hooked up a new image for the vehicle 'supplybox bar' for when the supplybox supplies ammo
Vehicle wheel fixes and adjustments so they properly move
Truck anims a bit more varied for units sitting in the back of the CERC transport vehicle
Potential crash fix that was reported on Discord
Adjusted navigation for various structures across the island
Nav and Collision fixes for Grid5 buildings.
infected pods and gas towers ambient sfx added
Silencer Equipped/Unequipped sfx added
Removed the old 'SpawnRadii' setup, instead preferring SpawningVolumes
Cleaned out a bunch of old 'horde pod/wavemanager' logic (that was primarily for the old 'player can only build at the naval base' setup)
Set up SpawningVolumes in the Master for each spawn node (and deleted some old Horde stuff, and a duplicate SpawnNode in G9)
player shots sound mix adjustment(Gun SFX more varied)
Medic healing sfx added
Created logic to spawn units from inside the spawn pods 'lerping out' rather than from random points around the pod
With 'walk out' montages while they 'lerp out' so they're not 'idling and floating' while doing so
(this still needs to be applied to hordes and tested a bit more)
Updated the horde spawning to 'come from' pods (needs more polish)
Updated character 'lerp' logic to disable gravity+collision until lerp is done (For smoothing out spawning)
Started improving 'post-lerp movement' for hordes
Further tweaks to horde spawning from pods
Result: Infected now spawn for both hordes and defensive spawns more effectively, coming from within spawn pods, rather than 'appearing' around the pod in 'mini pods'
Tweaked a Grid 6 Hotels pod
Tweaked the 'lerp distance' for one of the spawn pod doors to be less likely to cause congestion
Unit being healed sfx
Better vision behavior, and automatically hides now at BeginPlay
Fixed an issue with InfectedConstruct's "DamageCharacter" sometimes spawning at world origin
Added logic to make customizing of 'how long' a unit will remain visible after being seen easier, and used that to make infected constructs not disappear too quickly
setting rally point on buildings sfx
Setup the basics for an infected Spine Construct across the map
Hooked up healthbar, tweaked thermal vision response, etc.
Hooked up custom weapon BP logic to make a custom weapon for it, then used that custom weapon logic to create a 'spine-launcher' gun for it!
Deals a 25 damage AOE after 2.5 seconds of 'prep time.' You can see when it's prepping to fire, to move out of the way.
Does traces to see if its shots are 'blocked', so if you're behind something, it won't hit you.
Has a 'fire indicator' pointing out its direction of fire and range.
The indicator will be hidden if you cannot see the Spine Construct!
Targetable by Right Clicking!
Started placing spine turret constructs for the pods in the Zone 0 Spawn Nodes map
Also updated the SpineTurret to have a sensing update interval of 1 second (instead of .5 seconds) to make it less expensive
And made it not have to 'rotate to shoot'
Also made some spawn pods in the master be better rotated/positioned so they hopefully wouldn't spawn units 'into walls'
Also adjusted the G10 tower to be in trees (since they can clear trees on spawning, now)
Fixed spine turrets 'duplicating shooters' if you saved/loaded
Fixed the medic sound causing some BP errors
Fixed the medic sound to stop it from causing some BP errors
Minor changes to spine projectile

Cepheus Protocol Dev Update #3 and 4 Month in Early Access Overview

Animation Revamp

Patch Notes - 0.7.59 Further Fixes and Novel is now live on Steam Store

[h2]The votes are in and our community helped choose the final Novel cover check it out below![/h2]

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

Cepheus Protocol Novelization is also available on our website! Buy it here!

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

[h3]CERC Operator edition[/h3]
We also offer a new CERC Operator edition for those havent bought the game and novel yet with a launch discount of 5% when purchased together

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15959/CERC_Operator_Edition/

Cepheus Protocol Dev Update #3 and 4 Month in Early Access Overview

Animation Revamp

Sandbags damage sfx added
Cleaned up some rope bugs for the Sparrow rappelling
Added dynamic scaling to rope deploy, so if the helicopter's a little higher or lower than normal at deploy time it won't cause any major visual weirdness
Delayed rope 're-coil' by a bit more seconds to stop it from coiling up too soon
Added Juniardi's fast rope sprite as a ground indicator for deploying troops
Added simple 'move around after lerp' logic for units to use after montage
Sped up the 'land montage' playing for the helicopter
Sped up the lerp speed for the unit lerp by 40% for rappelling
Tuned down some 'movement freezing' logic: it's more reliable and the helicopter can start moving sooner even during the 're-coil' anim
Supply truck wheels setup corrected
Committed a bounds tweak to the Mesh of the vehicle classes to stop the LOD issue (per Dimitry's research)
Fixed the depth stencil settings on the garrison ropes
Fixed units A-posing after loading a save, if they were in an armed garrison seat
Turrets damage sfx
Added visible garrison seats to the Supply Truck
Updated the 'visible-but-unarmed' garrison seat logic to support multiple animation sequences, so a sequence could be randomly selected from a group, to add some variety to such seats
Improved array logic for garrison UI to 'add a second row' to the widget when going beyond 8
Updated the Supply Truck to 16 seats (from 8)
Updated Supply Truck's description metadata
Set transport truck middle wheels to copy rear wheels.
Removed 'group deselect' from pressing a group button
Removed the helicopter/vehicle lockout bools since they're live (and related functionality)
Also removed the fast travel logic from the master, since that's replaced with the vehicle system
Added 'random idle start offset' for garrison seats
Added 'outside of world bounds' override to kill+clear units that 'fall out'
Added logic to improve Helicopter 'dismount on destruction'
Units will hop out at where the mesh is when the helicopter explodes
If there's no navigable terrain nearby, they
will die* Otherwise, they'll just take damage
Added a fix to the 'degarrison sprite' remaining on the ground if you cancel a rappel command
Added a fix to units 'getting tilted' in some circumstances after/when doing a rappel
Added a fix for the 'rappel loop' continuing if a helicopter dies while units are fast roping (existing guys will finish their fast rope anim, but nobody will start doing it too while the helicopter's still blowing up)
Building textures, collisions, nav mod (named HEIGHT MOD, and UNDERGROUND MOD), minor landscape tweaks
Ammo box sfx added for landing and dropping
Imported Juniardi's Supply Truck UI assets and applied them
Quick minor crash fix (For if a garrison idle array entry is created but left null)
Added logic so GroupingMode and AddSelectionMode
both* will just add units to selection - so holding CTRL or SHIFT will allow you to add units to your selection.
Same for clicking on team panels
Also, units will no longer be deselected on a 'missed click' if you're holding either CTRL or SHIFT
grenade throw sfx
Added a fix for vehicles parachuting in: if another vehicle is 'in their spot' and hasn't had time to move out of the way, the newly-landed vehicle will 'warp' nearby rather than getting stuck
Made blocked out buttons have an even darker color scheme and a darkened cost text, with a new 'Requires Previous Unlock' popup if you click on a blocked button
Also made the 'lines' between buttons in a column brighten up if the button above the line is unlocked
Lowered Supply Truck price to $2000 (from $8000)
Added a fix for units ending up 'in the ground' when exiting a vehicle that's on the ground
Speculative fix for horde map not counting down properly