Cepheus Protocol News

Patch - 1.1.18.4 Bug Fixes and QOL changes

[h2]Last two Podcasts[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AfUgBfXTUg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DwKVi2vPUA

Patch Notes

(Click Show details for a full breakdown of the changes)
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Resolved an issue where loaded buildings that have an 'unfold animation' will continue taking up performance costs for roughly 30 seconds or more after the game load completes (math issue in disabling their animation cost after fold animation completion has been resolved) bFrom a user submited save file "Save12", this results in roughly .5ms being saved during each second of roughly the first minute of gameplay
Optimzations to Capture Trucks
Post Process tweaked to make the world look less "Dark"/ washed out
Cassnadra Yates starting operator added to replace the "default" one. We will be rolling out more variations over the next few weeks. Customization will still be a long term goal
Operator Movement and Camera Controls vastly improved
Operator Crouch system revised
Operator Melee revised to be more effective (Middle mouse button)
Adjusted pod trace logic to try to prevent pods from spawning 'on top of buildings' (with 'repeat check trace' that rejects the Pod Trace in the BP if it is outside the target zone)
Increased grace area for constructing the Chelsey/LT hives (since in one test a hive landed smack dab on a bridge in such a way that it blocked traffic successfully)
Minor safety fix to Juggernaut attack logics that would bug him out
Improved safety fix for buildings unfolding when loading saves, to make sure they don't 'stay folded' in some situations
Fixed a loading issue that made vehicles end up in the 'first group position' in the Unit Group Windows at the top left
Updated ZoneManager to also call its civilian destinations updated delegate if one of its registered
Rebuilt collisions for Parking Complex in Grid 6
Collision clean-up for crane in construction zone, readjustment of Zone 7 and 8 borders and Location Volumes.
Updated Mission Objectives widget to be slightly larger (due to new font size) to try to prevent some text-wrapping issues
Mission Objective widget adjusted its show/hide animations to be a bit more effective
Moved quicksave to F8 (from comma, which was also fighting with Select Next Mortar)
Moved quickload to F9
Added a 'JumpToMinimapPing' keybind (to Period key), instead of having it be combined with Slow Motion on the Spacebar. If pressed within a roughly 3.5 second timeframe of a minimap ping occurring, your camera will move to the ping
Fix to pain causing volume incorrectly killing units in horde map 01 in certain spots
Repairs to Golden Gate Bridge ramp collisions causing units to float sometimes
Made several improvements to Attack Move handling- Should no longer 'lock up' if you issue an attack move order to units already in an Attack Move order if said units are also in Run Mode
Similarly, ordering an Attack Move on currently-running units should now properly stop them (though it may take a moment for them to rotate to target if already in combat range: better response than before, however)
Improved some of the spawning logic for Unit Movers to try to stop situations where they spawn 'stuck'
Improved move order logic for non-Assault/Guard unit movers to hopefully stop Infected from getting 'confused' about where to go, resulting in them just clumping up and refusing to move
Fixed completed Turrets not properly displaying 'Are you sure you want to destroy this' text when you manually destroy them via command window
Updated Medic 'CurrentHealingTarget' Medics no longer use rotation animations while they have a valid CurrentHealingTarget (to prevent 'overly fidgeting' while trying to track someone to heal them)
Medics no longer uses a 'glowing yellow' animation to indicate status, but simply changes the icon to Yellow if a status is in effect (to save performance), too
Fixed the Ammo call-in disabling if you were at or above unit capacity
Fixed an issue with the Infection Zone widget show/hide button capturing 'keyboard focus' if you click it
Overhaul of Grid 8 on Presidio and landscape clean-up to increase buildable area on and around the mountain. Location volume revisions to follow.
Bounds fix for orange-tarp boxes that were flashing
The missiles from the Shawnee no longer will permanently gain spread and fire incorrectly
Fix for Road mesh quality when used with splines.
Animation mirroring is now working for when you shift the player camera from shoulder to shoulder
Fixed units not properly marking themselves as not being recently rendered if they're spawned or loaded as visible in-world, but not currently in front of the camera
Shadow Optimzations added so you can limit the amount of Dynamic shadows you can see at once. (Added to Video Options)
Updated the setting's name+description in the Advanced Video Options widget to more closely reflect what it does
Options menu hovertips 'fix pass'
Updated a lot of hovertips not functioning at all in the Pause Menu's options menu
Did a spelling/grammar pass on a lot of options/hovertips
Improved offsets to minimize situations where the hovertip would 'go off the left of the screen'
Matched the scaling of the hovertips on the Pause Menu and on the Main Menu (to 1.25, instead of having one at 1.0 and another at 1.5)
Fixed the Audio Options in the Pause Menu not properly having a background
Added new location volumes for Grid 8 improve CP truck deployment
Splash updated
Added operator only damage multipliers to make TPS more responsive
Fixed UI scaling for spread
Updated the Load Game slot buttons to use a switch to localized text, rather than trying to read the enum value directly, when displaying difficulty (should hopefully fix builds displaying the difficulty using the incorrect text - something which doesn't seem to occur in-engine)
Fixed AI_Vehicle not properly getting enemy vertical position when comparing turret rotation towards target
Updated vehicle AI to always update turret rotation to target instead of only when we're not already facing it
Updated Shawnee's 30mm's animation blueprint to no longer lock its yaw to forward-facing, and to have much greater Pitch freedom ([11, -180] pitch)
Shawnee should be able to fire its 30mm a lot more accurately now.
Shooting logic should be much the same for most units, but the Shawnee now will no longer be able to fire its Rocket Pods unless facing the target (its 30mm however is much more able to rotate and shoot as needed)
Move proxy adjustments to help smooth out movement from Treasure Island North to South
Added a navblock to a part near the docks in TI North G6 to fix a spot where units could get 'stuck'
Updated Player Formation Move Handler to not 're-issue' a move command to itself again periodically if the target location hasn't changed since the last check (and we weren't interrupted/blocked from reaching it), to prevent situations where the Move Handler might 'repeatedly backtrack' due to two similarly-long pathways that it cannot decide between (such as a particular ambulance in TI North G3)
All units have had their focus logic compleltly rewritten to resolve instances where they look in the wrong direction consistnetly.
Helicopters should no longer fly sideways or other nonsense
Improved Garrison/Degarrison logic and Construction logic to try to stop units from failing to see enemies when exiting a vehicle or exiting construction mode: seems to work pretty well
Base infected health lowered to 150
Critical damage stat added to all weapons. Based on weapon different weapons have different critical chances. We will implement UI to add this in the future in alignment with our want to add attachments
Fixed turrets not properly saving auto-reload setup
Fixed the co-pilot and backseat medic meshes in the Capture Truck (they were A-posing due to using updated anims but outdated meshes)
Fixed Juggernaut and Leviathan having references to the old Ragdoll functions
Slight update to hovertip for Restrictor to try to make it more clear that it's for the Leviathan
Updated ammo-refill for multi-weapon characters to try to 'reload' the non-primary weapon if the unit is not in combat, or the weapon was empty at the time of ammo refill
More updates to Formation handling to try to minimize backtracking. Needs more fixes for vehicle setups, but hopefully should be better for all-soldier move orders
Made changes to Helicopter 'building avoidance' logic. They should be a bit more reliable in how they navigate and get into posistion to rappel
Result: Helicopters able to more ably navigate tighter building lineups, such as the western side of Treasure Island north, or the cities of Presidio (test giving a fastrope order on the streetcorner near a tall building, for example!)
Helicopters will now turn towards current combat target if armed (not perfect yet, but fairly good)
Updated some reloading logic to allow the Shawnee to reload its rockets during combat when it would fail sometimes
Updated 'Fire into Air' to not be added to your abilities on the Command Menu if you do have soldiers selected (to stop Cerberus Mortar from being unable to mobilize)
Also improved 'mortar deselection' on mobilizing a Mortar Cerberus to properly remove the Mortar from the SelectedActors array, too, so the radio option will properly appear when mobilizing a Mortar Cerberus that's selected by itself
Updated several issues with Cerberus mortar animation setup to make it properly fold, unfold, and aim
Sockets adjusted for Grenade Launcher and Javelin so their VFX works with the new standards we have implemented.
Added a new collision channel to allow weapons to properly shoot through see-through block all including projectiles from spitters. Fences/Wooden fences things that make sense they could shoot through.
Weapon spread values revised for all weapons based on user feedback on making them not stormtroopers
Speculative fix towards Juggernaut Wallbuster AI crash (again)
Fixed skeleton mapping issues with the civilians male and female
Fixed missing fastrope animations on some classes (like civilians and medics) assigned

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

(Click Show details for a full breakdown of the changes)
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[h3]New Versioning Number system[/h3]
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We are changing the way we do version numbers to simplify them going into the future. The one will represent a "release" version and the octet following it will the title update or major patch version we are on.
1.2.1
1 = Release version
2 = Title Update (Major Update)
1 = Minior Fix/bug fixes etc
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[h3]Letter from the Producer[/h3]
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/3186869726433966739
[h3]New Roadmap system [/h3]
We now have a new system for our community to follow along on development. This website will break down all the major systems that are coming each patch. It will not include hotfixes/bug fixes. Sections inside TBD can be included randomly if we are ahead of schedule
Trello and the old picture Roadmap system will be removed going into the future.
https://www.notion.so/cepheusprotocol/Cepheus-Protocol-31f1b25ce00148d6844825f4a0c0bc08

[h3]Cepheus Protocol Anthology[/h3]
Experience the outbreak of the Pangu Virus from multiple perspectives across as the brave heroes of the Center for Epidemic Research and Control battle tirelessly to stop the spread of a cataclysmic alien virus that has mutated innocent people into monstrous creatures of unimaginable power
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1707120/Cepheus_Protocol_Anthology_Season_1/
[h3]First 40 Minutes of Cepheus Protocol Anthology Season 1 [/h3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eWbDibGMrU
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Patch - 1.1.18.2

[h2]Last two Podcasts[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AfUgBfXTUg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DwKVi2vPUA

Patch Notes

(Click Show details for a full breakdown of the changes)
[expand]

Replaced engine exhaust effects with new Niagara effects.
Barracks price increased from 250 - 550
Added crashfix for https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1034733561619681371/1034733561619681371
ScoutDrones are ignored by Chelsey now
Updated HintTextPopup, Objectives Popup, and the ROE Popup to be larger
Scaled up the Tutorial Widget
Adjustments to the Zone marker UI wise to display a consistent marker so players dont have to look for it
Updated the Capture Truck Call-in cooldown to 3 minutes
Updated starting population size to 10 (and updated difficulty adjuster to make 10 the minimum), so the player cannot soft-lock the game by having too many units to even call in the capture truck
Made some repairs to collision meshes for the water tower and de young museum.
Fixed Radio Speakers not playing sounds at a distance/stopping randomly
Improvements for Units that are targeting units near the barrel of their weapon
Optimzations to the Unit Mover system to improve overall performance in combat encounters.
Additionally, ASSAULT unit movers will not send their devirtualized units who aren't in combat towards buildings in their ASSAULT target if the unit mover itself isn't close yet
Fixed the 'ZONE IS FULLY CORRUPT, CANNOT DEPLOY' popup being majorly offset
Fixed the Infection Zone Widget popup (at bottom of screen) not properly reporting infection corruption (and zone value degradation) if the corruption value hasn't changed since the widget started being displayed
Early version of a Chelsey 'bridge safety response' to prevent her from falling into the water if she's on a bridge when you blow it up
Fixed Winter 'falling out of world' not properly issuing a "Winter Died" game over
Updated Unit Mover logic to try to 'slow down' the mover if it is starting to get far away from devirtualized units and it's moving away from their average position (at least 2000 units away, and the Mover's direction of travel is in a direction at least 90 degrees away from its angle toward the average position of its devirtualized units)
Various VRAM/RAM usage optimization's

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

Known Bugs

(Click Show details for a full breakdown of the changes)
[expand]

Patch - 1.1.18.1

[h2]Last two Podcasts[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AfUgBfXTUg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DwKVi2vPUA

Patch Notes

(Click Show details for a full breakdown of the changes)
[expand]

Wall health T2 increased from 1600 - 2300
T3 increased from 2300 - 3000
Lighting changes to look less washed out
Aimoffset optimizations
Fixed visual bug that was causing the PawnPlayerCamera to override the level post process and cause characters to look bad
Sparrow speed and acc - increased
Charon speed and acc - increased
Shawnee speed and acc - increased
Merlin speed and acc - decreased
Added seasonal options so some users can turn off the Halloween effects
Optimizations to Animation System
Updated Engineer construction order handling to better handle Engineers 'breaking off' of an order (instead of 'sticking them' to the order and re-ordering them back even if you moved them away)
Updated HESCO barriers, sandbags, barbed wire, and other decorations, to not 'clear' their construction points on overlap w/ another structure
Fixed an issue with loading a game with units that were in construction orders
Various Crash fixes added
Speculative fix to crash report https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1034559642291941547/1034559642291941547
Added physics asset to the Medic so that he'll fall over on death
Added 'ShadowUpdateInterval' logic to the NightDay BP to offset the major FPS cost that occurs when updating the 'ShadowAmount' of either the Sunlight or the Moonlight every frame (during periods ingame of roughly 6:00 to 7:00 and 17:30 to 18:30)
Quick fix to Command Widget to fix Fire into Air disappearing if you use another ability w/ only one unit selected
Minor optimizations to gas Tower VFX
Fixes to Horde map 01 spawning issues
Fixes to Horde map 02 Navigation issues for AI
Fixed Game thread flush error that was causing spikes on some hardwware
Medic Cross Texture adjusted

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

Known Bugs

(Click Show details for a full breakdown of the changes)
[expand]

Scream Fest Patch now out! - 1.1.18

This Haloween(Scream Fest) we have special treat for our fans as this is the first time we will be doing a "live event". Ingame you'll notice tons of Haloween themed changes that will run till October 31st.

[h3]Whats in this patch.[/h3]
We have bundled serveral patches into this update that we have been testing for last 2 months on expermential. We thank our community as always for helping us improve the game through their feedback.

[h3]For those that haven't finished your play session on the older version of 1.1.17.7 you can opt into the older build to finsih your games from the beta tab by right clicking the game in your library. [/h3]

Older saves will not work with this version. As we have revamped and cleaned up a lot of older systems

https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/3346757662575298735
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/3266821940198167472
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/3266821940201457769
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/3284836971978621668
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/3309607313833923590
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/3309607313837536941
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/3556180117868804162
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/3556180117879456516

Patch - 1.1.17.6 [ New Early Game Experimental only]

[h2]Last two Podcasts[/h2]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AfUgBfXTUg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DwKVi2vPUA

We plan to conclude testing for the expemential branch next week on Monday and push all the recent changes to the normal branch then.

Patch Notes

(Click Show details for a full breakdown of the changes)
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Night Vision binding display issue for SteamDeck resolved
New Winters mesh added
Fixed attenuation issues with Music Speakers
Updated Medic Healing animeations
Adjusted the Spread for various weapons to make them more efficent
Further reliability improvements to Grenade throwing
Fixed up the Guard Tower's 'weapon market' not disappearing if the tower dies while it was selected
Fixed some loading issues with 'repair points' spawning around undamaged loaded actors erroneously
fix to make sure damaged buildings properly spawn repair points when loaded, too
Bounty (Dossier Widget) popup improved slightly
Fixed an issue where Buildings would spawn more than one 'rally spline'
Adjusted parachuting logic to better differentiate between operator and not
Operators who parachute while not being directly controlled should now match the speed of other parachuting units
Fixed walls that are in 'rubble mode' not properly disabling their player navblock
Updated 'attack order' voice response to hopefully be more reliable
Added improvement to threat calculation logic to prevent redundant check if we're processing when no enemy has been acquired
Intensified the 'level of priority' units will give towards right-clicked attack targets
When SetTarget runs on an enemy, the character will put them to the 'top' of their current SeenList, to reduce LOS traces when comparing threat costs Result: Right Click targeting much improved. Still not perfect, but should be better.
Quick fix to the 'safety sphere' appearing around Cerberus 105mm targets
Added speculative fix for DIV_0 crash for ammo restoration
Adding Halloween on-death effects for infected.
Adding pumpkin heads for infected (at night).
Improved pumpkinhead spawning logic for Juggernauts+regular infected to be slightly more safe, and to respect FOW
Added safeties to (hopefully) prevent crash from null DamageTypeClass in a damage event
Added safety to hopefully prevent fire damage 'weirdness' from running on a no-longer-valid structure to the point of causing a crash (in response to https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1031237639627624548/1031407868886405162 )
Fixed Juggernauts 'duplicating' when saving/loading
Briges when destroyed should properly kill Juggernauts that are caught in the destruction and fall into the water
Destroyed Bridges destory DNA drops if on the destroyed segement
seasonal art added
Updated ASSAULT virtual unit movers to spawn their units if no player units are nearby, and they get stuck (which is most likely to occur if a wall is blocking their passage)
updated the devirtualization from Unit Movers to respect the Human nav filter, so infected can no longer spawn 'off of' a unit mover that's near a player wall and end up on the other side of said wall
Fixed SMAW mesh not having a laser sight socket
Fixed Turrets spawning as 'Ammoless' (i.e. never running out of ammo) (this likely won't fix saves that already saved them with this feature on, however)
Added safety to prevent units from getting stuck in 'PlayingPositionAnim' mode if they fail to play a rotation animation (due to mismatching skeleton)
Copied over montages from XBren to SPAS12 (since SPAS12 was using old rig animations, thus is why units with SPAS12 often got 'stuck' being unable to turn)
Adding Pumpkin headshot effect
Updated the Winter-spawning logic to better deal with 'duplicate' cases by also clearing their weapon (should help deal with some situations, such as Horde Mode, where a Winter duplicate may end up leaving behind a floating gun)
Updated Grenades to have options to ignore Allies, Enemies, corpses, and/or Main Target while in motion
SMAW Drastically reduced spread
SMAW rocket will now hit its main target while in motion (still ignore allies and other enemies, and now ignores corpses too)
SMAW rocket now has a new collision type to make it more reliable in the world (such as being able to go through static fences already in the world that have the SeeThruBlockAll collision type)
Explosives in general will now also always ignore the actor throwing/launching them, while in motion
if said actor is in a Garrison, that GarrisonActor will also be ignored (this doesn't mean the explosion itself cannot dam
Updated a truck's simple collision to make it easier to 'shoot around it' (for more reliable SMAW shots, etc.)
Improved safety for crash: https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1032155687725318207/1032155687725318207
Made 'Right click to set target' logic skip over units who fail the CanDamage check (i.e. if you have units who
can* damage something and units who cannot - example, some units with guns, others with flamethrowers, and your target is an Infected Wall - only the units who
can* damage target will accept the right-click to attack order)
Improved doctrine popup padding to make close button+borders look nicer
Quick commit of a door update for Efrain for customizing door auto-open box location and extents
Improvement to devirtualization to catch some 'devirtualization' cases that were not correctly adjusting the spawn height based on unit capsule size ('pure' virtuals didn't get the safeties that 'regular' virtuals did, which may be the reason why some reports of 'infected stuck in ground' have been popping up)
Updated Male Sniper to use Assault's 'right click on target' voiceline for now, instead of playing Assault 'out of ammo' line (there's currently no Male Sniper 'Right click on target' voiceline to use, so subbing in the Assault's for now)
Fixed up the old Command Post Truck ammo+med truck buttons (for the factions beta)
Fixed up Police Shotgunner to only reference SPAS-12 via soft-ref
Also made melee attacks always try to 'hit' our attach target, if we're attached to something, so Chelsey/LT should no longer be able to 'attach to a helicopter' then fail to hit it
Intensified accuracy penalties when in a moving vehicle:
Initial layer of accuracy penalty now starts when the vehicle is moving at least 150uu horizontally (down from 200uu), and applies a 50% penalty (instead of 30%)
Higher tier penalty (From above 800uu) still 60%, and aerial penalty same as before too
Added new 'construction interaction points' to the CERC Building and Barracks to make units less likely to 'ignore' them in favor of constructing everything else first. Ex: Units were getting construction points close enough to these buildings that the path thought it had to go through an 'obstacle,' making the pathfinding assume the path to the barracks/CERC building was really far, and thus less desirable to build first. Should be mostly resolved now for these buildings
Updated BuildingSkeletal to be able to debug construction interaction points properly
Added 'double-click selection' support: Double-clicking on a unit will now select all other units of the same class that are currently onscreen (i.e. double clicking an assault will select all onscreen assaults)
Fixed Horde map 1&2 nav bugs and added extra entry points for horde map 2 infected to increase difficulty.
Updated walls that are under construction to no longer block infected units (or Operators) They also no longer will be seen by infected until construction is complete. Made sure they still block other construction checks, though, with the above updates!
Walls that are under construction now should save/load, and no longer 'instant-complete' if you save/load before they're done building
Improved save/load logic of units to enable units who are building things to remember that they were constructing things (They don't yet remember the exact actor they were building, but they remember the order as a whole and will resume on the point nearest to them after the load)
Further improved save/load of construction orders. Should better prioritize the construction order that units were originally moving towards. More of the references are centralized to the Manager rather relying as much on copied values, making this more robust and safe
CERC Units will now target enemies based on distance Under 1000 UU will target the head and
above 1000 UU will target Spine_03
Improved unit turning sync with aim node
Updated Chelsey start zones to allow her to start in Presidio (instead of only starting on Treasure Island)

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

Known Bugs

(Click Show details for a full breakdown of the changes)
[expand]