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Cepheus Protocol News

We are now in Early Access!

Hello civilians! The Cepheus Protocol team is excited to be welcoming everyone to Treasure Island.

We want to send a quick note and thank everyone that has supported us this far! It's extemely exciting to hear about the battles, tough losses, and encounters you've been having with the infected and Patient Zero herself.

If you are awaiting to buy your ticket to Treasure Island, we have a broadcast on our store page where you can take a look at how the game plays. We have some content creators, our QA testers, and members of the dev team showing off the game. We believe the mix of RTS and tower defense in an open world will keep you coming back for more!

If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback, make sure you join our Discord and come chat with us: https://discord.gg/cepheus-protocol

Year 1 Roadmap and Trello

Hello Everyone!

We're happy to be sharing our Year 1 roadmap. Learn about our planned optimizations, vehicles, factions, and more!



As part of our commitment to continually share what we're working on, we've created a Trello where you'll be able to go in and see what different members of the team are working on.
https://trello.com/b/b5DFiVyv/cepheus-protocol-development

As always, if you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback, you can reach out to us on our Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/cepheus-protocol

See you in Treasure Island!

Patch Notes - May 13

[h2]May 13, 2020 Patch Notes[/h2]
-Changed the approach for playing Slomo SFX.
-Making LOD's more aggressive, adding missing LODs (lots of optimizations!).
-Minor adjustments to prop placement.
-Re-Enabled tree fade effect for high settings only.
-Reduced minimum tessellation on water material.
-Boat LOD adjustments.
-Camera head update.
-Fixed up Chelsey's pose and fixed bug where the camera would snap to Winter in the main menu.
-Reduced Chelsey's break time, fortify time, and boosted her move speed.
-Reduced horde startup time and restart time.
-Removed pitch log.
-Made the horde timer appear for first horde.
-Hooked up the new minimap.
-Hooked up new playercam POI (and updated the legend widget with it too).
-Removed Winter from the minimap priority layer.
-Shrank turret minimap POI.
-Adjustments to how "Add Resource" is handled.
-Grid 2 spline replacement progress.
-Fixed sound in Spitter attack to be a cue rather than a direct sound reference.
-Fixed issue with movement commands to individual unit who are moving in formation not breaking their formation command.
-Updated special spawn logic pod call for help logic to set their movement command number on being spawned, to reduce chance of move failure when responding to pod call for help.
-Made spawn pods run 'call for help logic' when updating their 'respawn target location', so any units that do end up in 'roam' will respond too.
-Added global time dilation respect to camera rotation and lerping.
-Added blacklist logic to infection zones: goes up by one every time Chelsey tries to capture it.
1)If it's not a priority zone, Chelsey will not attempt to capture a zone that has 3 blacklist strikes.
2)Blacklist strikes get reset when the zone changes ownership.
3)Updated Chelsey's DPS flee logic to force her to reset her command post target, so she won't try to move to the same command post again without adding a blacklist strike to it.
-Re-added color randomization to vehicles and adjusted materials.
-Minor adjustments to mesh placement.
-Adjusted Control Point truck placement around grids 1, 2, and 4.
-Fixed up null material IDs in grid 7 and the stadium.
-Updated Spawn Nodes to spawn a second pod after their first pod hits max health (only once per node activation).
1)The first spawn pod in the array will be activated by this functionality.
2)Removed the spawning of the Command Post pods, and moved them to the first spot in the array for each spawn node.
3)Result: Spawn Nodes will spawn a second pod when the first hits max health. This 'second pod' will be on the command post center, giving it 'functionality' over the previous command post pods (which were just punching bags).
-Imported new playercamera POI.
-Inverted the new spawn pod logic to spawn the pod on the Control Point first, then when it hits full health it spreads elsewhere in the zone.
-VO SFX recode.
-Mild attenuation added.
-Car alarm temp sfx added.
-Audio limits to VO.
-Move concurrency added.
-Adjustments for dialogue system.

Patch Notes - May 12

[h2]May 12, 2020 Patch Notes[/h2]

We're happy to share another big update! We've been working closely with our QA testers as well as content creators to improve the game and add those finishing touches before Early Access release on May 15th (don't forget to set your calendars!).

Here are some of the major fixes that went in:
  • Horde system: Up until today, the difficulty was a little too easy so we've made it more challenging with bigger waves and more spawns.
  • Infection pod system: Similar to the horde system, you'll see that it's harder to defeat pods and the infected AI will protect other pods nearby.
  • Camera jitter bug: There was a camera bug where it would shake uncontrollably and several players ran into but it has now been fixed!
  • Extreme camera angles have been taken out: we've set limits to how much you can pan the camera. No longer can it go under the map or at an odd forward angle.
  • Ammo box restrictions have been eased as we look into an ammo box bug. We're trying not to break the game loop but you might see unlimited ammo from boxes for now.


Patch Notes:
-Firetruck texture reduced.
-Created an area marker toggle for the HUD with custom button for now.
-Updated player-owned zones to be blue and unowned zones to be white.
-Boosted opacity of area markers.
-Enabled horde capturing of unowned zones.
-Updated priority zones to be unmarked as priority if player captures them.
-Horde tweaks, infected sample overlap area increased, helicopter speed increased.
-Updated Minimap to show bridge.
-Updated horde message when they're not targeting player territory vs. when they are.
-Updated widget to say 'HORDE ACTIVITY' instead of 'HORDE ATTACK'.
-Replaced splines in grid2 barracks.
-Ground popout animation for Type-06 Special Infected.
-Ammo box radius increased as well as Medical truck healing at Control Points. Now there's a cost to calling an ammo box.
-Camera limitations adjusted.
-Updated Refill Ammo logic.
-Updated position + images + background for minimap legend widget.
-Updated position of hotkey indicators on the HUD.
-Updated player camera minimap Point of Interest size.
-Significant updates to the larger buildings on the map (optimizations).
-Fixed minor typo on settings.
-Fix so Little Bird is there on level load no delay anymore.
-Camera clipping fix.
-Removed overridden material references that were causing map errors.
-Overhauled spawn node system.
-Updated navblockers in the Master to block off another building, as well as under the dock as there were infected going under that area.
-Moved some spawn pods near the hospital.
-Hid and removed collision on the hospital capture point to prevent capture.
-Adjusted overlapping bodies on map.
-Fixed fatal compile error.
-Slomo sfx fix.
-Spitter spit sfx has been fixed (although it created some hilarious moments, you won't hear the spitter sfx repeat itself!).
-Lowered DNA spawn rate from regular infected to 5%.
-Added a sound effect to Grenades when exploding.
-Hooked up the explosion sound to the carpet bomb.
-Cleaned up thermal + slomo sound.
-Updated hordes to no longer require player to have built CERC.
-Changed the approach for playing Slomo SFX.
-Making LOD's more aggressive, adding missing LODs.
-Minor adjustments to prop placements.
-Re-Enabled tree fade effect for high settings only.
-Reduced minimum tessellation on water material.
-Boat LOD adjustments.
-Fixed up Patient Zero's pose and fixed bug where the camera would snap to Winter in the main menu.
-Dropped horde time (initial and regular).
-Drastically dropped Chelsey fortify and break time.
-Made horde timer visible for first horde.

Patch Notes - May 10

[h2]May 10, 2020 Patch Notes[/h2]

Before we dive into the patch notes, the team has been working on a new UI and we want to hear from you! What do you like, what would you change, anything else you'd like to see? Hit the "Discuss" button below and let us know!



If you had to pick between ammo showing on top of unit member's heads or notifications like "Reload!"?


-Significant optimizations have been made and graphics set from Low to Medium will see a huge FPS improvement. The team is still completing optimizations on graphics set on High and above.
-Chelsey AI Update:
1)Chelsey will now always seek to capture a priority zone if she doesn't own it but has territory adjacent to it.
2)If Chelsey has all priority zones visible to her, but owns priority zones that are not already level 2, she will focus on leveling up her owned priority zones that are under level 2.
3)If both of the above are false, she will behave as she did before.
4)She will prioritize a defensive bubble around her starting HQ. She will fortify and maintain these locations more effectively to max them out.
5)She will after a certain period of zone captures switch roles to staying under the protection of Red Zones and alternate between them to stay a moving target every 10 minutes or so.
-Added a 'ClearSaveLogic' call to the PC - to call when loading an empty save slot, to ensure Winters won't spawn alone.
-We made some save system improvement and in doing so there may be some issues with the current system (we recommend you delete your save slots and start over). We're still working on smoothing this out.
-Mini map has now been updated to show bridge.
-Loading a non save game after saving a game doesn't make Winter spawn alone anymore.
-Fixed a positioning issue with the turret ammo widget.
-Fixed stop montage crash.
-Armored Military Vehicle Material ID and texture map merged.
-Committing progress on texture resizing/clearing for optimizations.
-Adjusted 1k textures to trees.
-Downsizing/fixing several landscape textures for landscape and trees.
-HLOD regenerated for high impact buildings.
-Enabling Streaming on some textures as they were requiring more to render (another big win in optimization).
-Resized the title textures and made them streamable.
-Fixed resolution+streaming setting on numerous Team Panel assets.
-Resized+streaming-enabled market-related images.
-Resized+streaming-enabled more HUD images.
1)Due to scale of minimap 'size' button, it was changed as to not scale up with the minimap widget, so pixelation won't show.
-Updated RefillAmmo to loop through for every mag that it can give to available units.
-Updated the notification logic with a structure so it doesn't spam the notification feed.
-Fixed up the OldTown textures folder (they were 1048 instead of 1024.).
-Firetruck completed, uvs adjusted, and fixed.
-Firetruck material LODs generated for cars, some textures lowered, slow motion sound effect added.
-Ambulance texture added and fixed back window.
-SUV update.
-Sports car update.
-Weapon fix for reported crash.
-Improved readability of several fog of war actors.
1)Added fog of war settings to the GameInstance.
2)Updated the OptionsSave to include the Fog of War settings.
3)Added Fog of War quality and update sliders to the Game Options tab of the Settings menu.
-Certain wall collision adjusted for CERC units to fire over
-Fixed ragdolls and other various objects.
-Weapon physics adjusted so they won't roll around when soldier dies.
-Added Stop Montages when a character dies and start the Ragdoll shortly after.
-Added a safety to the Master to (after a short delay) grab Winter and zero out her pitch and roll.
-Added a 'MajorChangeDelegate' call into the LateLoad when reloading characters, to ensure their interaction widget will properly display their name.
-Updated fast travel to utilize a sphere radius and sprite, rather than a visualized box component. Also fixed the Naval Base garrison position.
-Quick fixed a fast travel issue.
-Disabled FOW dynamism and options setting for now.
-Fixed barracks intercepting right clicks.
-Made "cleared-but-uncaptured" infection zones repopulate their spawn node if left alone for two time-updates (i.e. 6:00 and 18:00 call a time update).
-Dropped update rate for Minimap POIs to twice a second (from 24 times a second).
-Added water and landscape materials for lower graphics settings.
-Removed landscape splines from Grid2 park.
-Adjusted LOD for some landscape components.
-"Tilted towers" update to material usage.
-Imported assets for minimap and crosshairs.
-Applied boat/truck minimap points of interest.
-Skybridge mat and mesh update.
-Cleanup of OldTown materials+textures.
-Added music manager shift to Base_Character C++.
-Fixed up some points of interest issues in the Master.
-Updated the POI size for the fast travel points.
-Reduced size of bark and large leaves.
-Fixed broken textures by adding the alpha back in and reduced sizes.
-Resized decals from emergency room and city asset pack.
-Horde system fix for preventing horde countdown from 'getting stuck'.
-Adjustments to pod infected dying oddly.
-Implemented new cursors (with offsets so they're lined up with mouse clicks).
-Car floating fixed across all instances across map.
-Landscape adjustments to fix the sinking goal near the pool in grid 06.
-Gave rain effect a much needed improvement (more opaque, more realistic).
-Resized textures so that they are on a power of two.
-"Defense team cannot move there" cursor update added (now it's easier to know where units can be moved to).
-Nerfed Flamethrower reserve ammo and mag (it was a little too OP).
-Horde is more aggressive towards attacking your zones and neutral zones player doesn't own taking the role of Chelsey around mid-game as the primary aggressor.
-Updated more zones to be marked priority.
-Updated player-owned Command Post icon to blue.
-Updated Hospital to start at level 2.
-Zone markers changed to white when they arent owned
-Zone markers changed to blue after being captured by CERC units.