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Cepheus Protocol News

Production Dilemma for our team

So our team faces a dilemma in terms of polishing older systems, but you folks voted for Factions and the Civilian management system and currently we don't have the resources to do both as we've have been noticing on social media lately a lot of people having issues with the "new" user experience.

We also feel the initial user experience is not what it needs to be. The list below is well what we feel needs polish before we move onto factions.

Civilian Management will be ready though before Halloween regardless at this rate. But the factions dev time could be used to improve the game across the board a bit more...

BUT we want to give you our loyal fan base again the voice to address your concerns and ensure your voice is heard. Vote in the poll below and talk about it in general-chat

Short list of some issues:

Intro Slides(Removed/Revamped)
Intro Videos
HUD's
Main Menu
Options
Unit Selection Improvements
Bug Fixes
Early-Mid game cleanup in terms of balance tweaking

https://strawpoll.com/19x1x4xs7

Civilian Management Update Catchup - 0.7.128.9 ( Beta-opt in)

Letter from the Producer #2

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/979640/view/2952660987409207609

Work on the Civilian Management System has officially started more updates on our progress next week stay tuned!



This build will require a new save file for any saves 0.7.119 and older we added the old build as a "beta" tab for those wanting to finish their current games. Anything .120 or newer will work as is unless otherwise reported here!

So folks the Civilian Management system is in on a new "beta" opt in called civilian-management. You might have to restart Steam to get it.



We have made a new text channel that will only exist for 1-2 weeks to serve as a discussion point for the Civilian Management system. Use this channel exclusively do not discuss it outside this channel. We will be patching this build extensively over the next few days-weeks and rolling it into the default build in the next 1-2 weeks.

civilian-management-system

Then we will be targeting Pierce and the Factions afterwards and working to close down public beta and roll that into the default build by Halloween

It only includes the following.

1. Civilians will gather outside your base and stand around to be admitted under your protection. In polish we will add animations for this state
2. Once under your control they can be freely navigated across the map anywhere you choose. If they die under your protect well that's a negative karma lost for you.
3. Kill Enough civilians and they will start to attack your compounds/attack you on sight via CERC losing too much reputation. Each zone has a different reputation to CERC
4. Euthanization Unit + Containment Unit are not live yet and will be added over the next week of patches.
5. Civilians will become more and more armed throughout the world as the days go on



[h2]Civilian Management Update Catchup - 0.7.128.9 ( Beta-opt in)[/h2]
  • Added another safety to the degarrisoning of civvies from a Holding Area to try to prevent clearing loops from potentially running on them after they leave(Stop civilians disappearing when you destroy a hold)
  • Civilians now no longer wait until they've reached an arbitrary point near your base to create the 'Accept' widget. Now, the widget will appear over their head when they spot a unit from CERC, if you have built at least one Civilian Hold (regardless of whether or not there is enough room in the Holding Area tents you've constructed) This allows you to recruit civilians out far away from your base and send them back, if you wish
  • Speculative crash fix for garbage collection causing crashes for Holding Areas
  • Updated Holding Area Mesh (Still W.I.P)
  • Fixed Civilian's 'overhead widget' not re-showing if they leave a civilian holding area (for whatever reason) then the player re-accepts guardianship
  • Added a hover tip to the 'Accept Guardianship' prompt for the civvie system which will tell you now basic information about civilians you are intaking
  • Added logic to remove the 'Accept Guardianship' widget from a Civilian on their death so they dont clutter up the game
  • Added logic to show a 'garrison unit' cursor when mousing over a Civilian Holding Area (only if you have Civvies selected and there's space for them!)
  • Added basic Euthanization Center to the Civilian Hold (Allows for garrisoning of civilians - they will be killed quietly shortly afterwards. This has a chance to affect your reputation. This chance will be lower than outright shooting civilians, unless you are funneling massive amounts of civilians into the same small tent.)
  • Euthanization Center UI added to track casualties W.I.P
  • Fixed street lights erroneously having the Fake AOE light spheres enabled (they're not properly working atm)
  • Fixed various landscape splines and paint layer errors.
  • Containment /Holding Cell Added
  • Building type created in the Shops Canvas
  • Updated units with 'bEnableMovementInGarrison', allowing them to wander in Garrisons
  • Improved disabling and restoring of sight/hearing logic for units
  • Used these to make the Holding Cell properly show the unit contained within, let them wander around, and let the Infected members attack the Cell itself if the Cell loses power
  • Updated Infection Carriers to not spread infection while garrisoned
  • Allowed degarrisoning of units within a holding cell
  • Updated the degarrison button to not be available for the cage if it's unpowered (you can't just open up the cage and let the infected who is tearing it apart out to save the cage, now)
  • Updated the Holding Area tent to allow degarrisoning of units (they rejoin you when you do this)
  • Fixed a bug with buildings not removing their 'selection' visuals when you click off of them
  • Fixed a bug where loading a save with Civilian-management buildings constructed would cause 'additional population' to be absorbed by them (i.e. each civilian building that can carry civilians would take up one pop - this is fixed now)
    Location volume and zone marker updates
  • Fixed up damage character collision - should resolve some civilians 'getting stuck' in buildings
  • Fixed up the Civilian Hold not having proper 'repair' points (so engineers won't 'warp' into them to repair them now)
  • Logic added to let the infected try to break out if power is cut to the cage
  • Properly degarrisons the units within to the same position they were at, if the building is destroyed (i.e. units within won't warp if the building blows up)
  • Updated units who start at a higher level (or load) to 'level up' prior to running their Blueprint BeginPlay, so as not to confuse their overhead widget into thinking it needs to play a 'damaged' animation 'additional population' to be absorbed by them (i.e. each civilian )
  • Updated the Holding Area tent to allow degarrisoning of units (they rejoin you when you do this)
  • Fixed a bug with buildings not removing their 'selection' visuals when you click off of them
  • Fixed a bug where loading a save with Civilian-management buildings constructed would fail is fixed now)
  • Fixed up damage character collision - should resolve some civilians 'getting stuck' in buildings
  • Added a global limit to the number of civilians that can 'wait' outside your base (60)
  • Added proper repair interaction points to the Civilian Hold substructures
  • Updated 'repair' logic to resolve an 'offset' issue that made it easier for Engineers to 'reach and repair' a building from one side of the building
  • Added upper+lower limits to reputation in a zone (0-1000)
  • Added a 'Holding Area List' widget: can now see the names, health, etc. of individual units inside of a Holding Area, and individually remove them as needed
  • Fixed civilians showing their 'Want to enter base' widget before the player has built a Civilian Hold
  • Improved infection pod 'dna drop' to hopefully not spawn in the air anymore
  • Cleaned out the old Garrison Widget from the Holding Area, since the new widget list does the same thing


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

Cepheus Protocol Anthology


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/

New Weekly Podcast on Twitch (Week Topic : Origins of Cepheus Protocol)

Based on the last poll on discord its clear you folks want us to do a weekly podcast.

This Friday at 5 PM PST, we'll be live on twitch and testing it out with the following hosts. Talking about the origins of CP and our inspiration for making the game, how this week went in terms of development and some casual banter. We will also take the time to answer some questions from chat! Hope to see you all there

We will be also using our fancy new stream room!



Robert - Game Director
Christopher - Game Designer & Writer
Justin - Animation Director
Scott - Concept Artist
Efrain - Lead Level Designer
Ashley - Concept Art Lead

Follow us on Twitch/Watch the stream here
https://www.twitch.tv/halcyonwinds



Cepheus Protocol Anthology


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.

Check out the first 3 chapters of CPA Season 1 on Youtube here!
https://youtu.be/6eWbDibGMrU

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

The Pathfinder Update Fix #10 - 0.7.127.1

Letter from the Producer #2

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/979640/view/2952660987409207609

Work on the Civilian Management System has officially started more updates on our progress next week stay tuned!



This build will require a new save file for any saves 0.7.119 and older we added the old build as a "beta" tab for those wanting to finish their current games. Anything .120 or newer will work as is unless otherwise reported here!

[h2]The Pathfinder Update Fix #10 - 0.7.127.1 All builds[/h2]
  • Resolved crash on using the 'group switcher'
  • Resolved 'wrong group' bug when adding a unit to a group via CTRL+NUM on its own
  • Fixed an issue with units 'leaving themselves in multiple group arrays' (resulting in several weird bugs) if you drag their unit card to a window, then to another window that's not one of the previous two
  • Tweaked vehicles to have more uniform RVO avoidance
  • Tweaked vehicles to not technically have collision toward one another, but still try to avoid directly hitting each other | Result: Vehicular movement should be more reliable
  • Fixed a crash w/ reputation spread
  • Fixed up 'open gates' sometimes causing collision issues 'off to the side' near the moved door pieces
  • Screenspace Global Illumination added (Default to Off)


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

Cepheus Protocol Anthology


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/

The Pathfinder Update Fix #9 - 0.7.127

Letter from the Producer #2

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/979640/view/2952660987409207609

Work on the Civilian Management System has officially started more updates on our progress next week stay tuned!



This build will require a new save file for any saves 0.7.119 and older we added the old build as a "beta" tab for those wanting to finish their current games. Anything .120 or newer will work as is unless otherwise reported here!

[h2]The Pathfinder Update Fix #9 - 0.7.127 All builds[/h2]
  • You can now unassign units to general population by dragging them out of a squad + use Ctrl + (Number) key to reassign them or add them to a preexisting squad
  • Fixed a sizing issue with the Gas Tower's navigation box
  • Enabled 'Hidden Shadow' on leviathan when traveling under the map
  • Updated the World Infection actors to not be 'Visible' unless needed, rather than using 'Hidden In Game' (which apparently still renders them)
  • Updated how fire spots are handled on Infection Pods to be more modular
  • Initial 'Target Prioritization' system added
  • Units can now be tagged with a TARGET_ tag to designate what type of target they are
  • Weapon's WeaponConfig now has a list of Target Priorities, so they can define threat multipliers/threat caps based on the tag of the thing they're targeting
  • Each unit also has an 'UnarmedTargetPrioritiesList' for their melee attacks, too, so Infected types don't miss out on this
  • Most weapon types have a threat cap of 1 for TARGET_INFECTEDBUILDING, so they target pretty much anything else first
  • Javelin has prioritization for giants, buildings, etc.
  • Flamethrower has lower chance to target mutants (in order to prioritize burning regular targets), and prefers targeting pods, infected defenses, infected buildings, etc.
  • 105mm on Cerberus prioritizes most hard target types
  • Spitters prioritize support units and player defenses
  • Chelsey and her LTs do the same, while also prioritizing player helicopters
  • BlowUpGuys prefer player vehicles (in order to try to get in the way and explode to take them out)
  • Juggernauts prefer player buildings and walls
  • Target types were added that setup new conditional rules for units on how they target/shoot at
    //TARGET_UNARMED - for regular infected. Normal targets.
    //TARGET_CIVILIAN - for unarmed civilians, etc. Normal targets, but generally not a threat.
    //TARGET_MUTANT - special infected. Relatively normal targets, but more dangerous.
    //TARGET_GIANT - big biological units, like Juggernauts, Leviathans, etc. Generally tougher than normal.
    //TARGET_SOLDIER - Armed humans. Pretty normal targets, but might be slightly resistant to certain damage types.
    //TARGET_SUPPORT - Support humans, like medics.
    //TARGET_LIGHTVEHICLE - Light vehicle. Lightly armored.
    //TARGET_HEAVYVEHICLE - Heavy vehicle. Tougher to take down, likely resistant to bullets.
    //TARGET_LIGHTHELICOPTER - Light helicopter.
    //TARGET_HEAVYHELICOPTER - Heavy helicopter. Possibly armed, much more valuable target.
    //---OTHER---
    //TARGET_WALL - self-explanatory.
    //TARGET_BUILDING - regular constructed buildings, like Barracks, etc.
    //TARGET_DEFENSE - some active form of defense, like a Turret.
    //TARGET_INFECTEDPOD - infected pods. Weak to fire, somewhat resistant to bullets.
    //TARGET_INFECTEDDEFENSE - similar to DEFENSE, but for infected. Likely weak to fire.
    //TARGET_INFECTEDBUILDING - infected building. Practically immune to bullets, but damaged by heavy weaponry and fire.
  • Cleaned up some group-setting/updating logic
  • Updated group setting to be 'additive' rather than replacing, so moving units into a group from groupless (in upcoming update) is smoother
  • Updated the Interaction Widget (the widget 'over' a unit's head): Consolidated the Healthbar widget (which was on the unit's root) into it, reducing the number of widgets
  • Adjusted the Interaction Widget's design to be more akin to the example in the Update Box
  • Also for the Unit Card and Interaction Widget, updated several of the meters to use Color and Opacity instead of Tint (easier to add animations to them that way)
  • Above-head weapon market logic added: weapon button now appears above unit's heads if they can access the weapon market, and that button can be used directly (instead of the unit card) (Not propagated to vehicles yet)
  • Combined the Interaction Widget and Vehicle Interaction widget into one
  • Smoothed out several interactions for the Interaction Widget, especially in relation to ammo display
  • Updated the HUD Widget recruitment logic to allow recruiting a unit without assigning them to a group (new PURCHASE button, with a select group button bringing up the old menu)
  • Fixed a serious movement bug for groupless/mixed group movement commands
  • Updated unit selection to properly get the 'average' formation from units, if you select a mixed group or your selection contains groupless units
  • Fixed the new purchase button being enabled even when the new unit would put you over population limit
  • Added new gameplay options for when to display unit information in the world
  • Made the new 'hide unselected widgets' option default to True for new players
  • Zone income upgrade price 1 Upgrade now scaled up by 75% in terms of cost
  • Zone income upgrade price 2 Upgrade now scaled up by 150% in terms of cost


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

Cepheus Protocol Anthology


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/