Cepheus Protocol News

Revised Walk/ Run animations for all CERC Units plus more variants are being implemented



Finalized Versions of all Treasure Island Buildings are coming or are already being rolled out building colors/designs will be finalized throughout the next few weeks



Video goes live June 23rd at 5:45 PM PST. Featuring a basic overview of the new Atlas vehicle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO9nA2ABYSE

Expect several more patches this week ironing out random bugs/crashes. These will most likely only be documented on our Discord.


[h2]Scouting out San Francisco [/h2]

We spent an entire weekend gathering a total amount of roughly 6 thousand photos and several hours of recordings of various parts of San Francisco to help our artists understand the scope and size of our next major map




[h2]Patch notes to Public Beta, Public Build and Experimental [/h2]

• Fixed a bug that would stop ammo suppliers from supplying ammo from the Atlas
  
• Adjusted the Illumination Flare to have some modularity settings: duration and radius.
  
• Duration set to 5x (making it last close to 5 minutes in total, though part of that time is launching/dying, so it's illuminating for about 4 minutes)
  
• Radius set to 2x
  
• Particle effects made modular at a basic level too to respect duration
  
• Distance checks for launching these (to prevent overlap) also respect the duration change, now
  
• added a minor flicker to the Flare (much more and it becomes a bit strobe-like and hard to look at)
  
• Updated Heavy unlock cost to 2500 (from 7500)
  
• Upgraded unit selection logic to fix a bug where you couldn't select units/buildings
  
• Unit Selection got a total overhaul that is vastly superior to the old method we used to calculate clicks/box selections
  
• Fixed offscreen selections and 'premature' selections on vehicles when box selecting
  
• Added a crash fix to reinitialize unit (safeties around NewPawnSensor accessing)
  
• Fixed units with a greater flight height than regular helicopters (like the Scout Drone) not properly being able to land upon request
  
• Max zoom out height increased
  
• Scar gun no longer causes units to slide around
  
• Adjusted the Fog of War material to 'clamp' instead of 'wrap,' which prevents weird 'light artifacts' from appearing in distant terrain (was technically the Fog of War 'repeating' itself)
  
• Made the Heavy class be unlocked from the start
  
• Fixed an issue with Command Post med/ammo truck purchasing
  
• Updated Walls to not require ownership of a zone to construct
  
• Updated Turrets to no longer require unlocks to construct
  
• Fixed an issue with their 'cannot afford' overlay not showing properly
  
• Fixed the ammobox for the preplaced ammo truck producing an explosion particle effect when it clears itself due to Chelsey System
  
• Updated the Infection Zone widget (that shows zone name, population, etc.) to appear at further distances (disappears at 50K Unreal Units now, as opposed to 35K)
  
• Fixed the Capture Truck producing a default CERC building minimap icon when deployed
  
• Adjusted a grid 5 spawn pod and some spine turrets due to weird positioning
  
• Updated the soldier movement 'blue preview silhouettes' to respect HideUI (Used this to allow selection while a unit is firing off a flare (previously you could not select a unit that was currently in the process of firing a flare)
  
• Presidio Texture and material updates
  
• Adjusted vehicle spawning logic so if you mass-purchase vehicles (such as a bunch of capture trucks), they'll have a bit more of a 'gap' between spawns and vehicles are more likely to move further out of the way after landing
  
• Also includes a 'move outta the way' call for a vehicle dropping in via parachute, to further facilitate clearer landings Result: Fewer 'stuck' situations for vehicles when mass ordering or move ordering them. Not perfect but better.
  
• Fixed an issue with Formation Movement MpW algorithm referencing all SelectedActors when attempting to generate results, instead of SelectedMovableActors
  
• Added vehicular 'speed matching':
  
• Vehicle will try to stay behind soldiers if given a move order with soldiers
  
• Vehicles will try to match formation leader's speed
  
• Formation movement logic revamped for greater modularity and to 'order' vehicles
• after* soldiers, so vehicles properly line up behind soldiers in all circumstances (instead of potentially having a mixed vehicle+soldier selection place a vehicle in the lead, resulting in soldiers running to catch up)
  
• Soldier preview updated to match. (minor visual number issue overhead in CTRL preview vs. right click preview, but not too worried about it for now)
  NOTE: Due to this being an overhaul of the rather large Formation Movement system, there may be bugs introduced by this. Hopefully not.
  
• Adjusted vehicular rotation logic to try to account for facing direction of velocity (to make the 'sliding' around other vehicles via RVO Avoidance a little less jarring-looking)
  
• Adjusted vehicular formation logic to 'track' the customizable follow distance of each vehicle in the move order, to ensure vehicles with a longer 'follow distance' (due to being physically longer, like the Atlas) don't pick final move locations that are 'too close'
  
• Ensured movement previews work with this, too
  
• Fixed up formation movement to 'cancel out' when leader is close to their final target, rather than when leader is close to the querier's final target (which wouldn't work in some cases for vehicle convoys)
  
• Fixed an issue with vehicular acceleration sometimes not 'kicking in' for vehicles that are taking non-direct paths to their final move target
  
• Fixed ammoboxes not properly loading their 'nav blocking' when loading a save file
  
• Fixed the Repair Atlas's crane not properly rotating to face its target in a lot of situations
  beach/beach wall fixed and replaced
  
• Fixed up the power component detector to properly auto-connect gates to freshly built buildings or other gates (previously, existing gates would not be properly detected by the auto-wire system, but freshly built gates could auto-connect to other non-gates)
  
• Fixed a crucial bug with the formation 'follow while in motion' system
  
• Fixed an issue where a manually selected full group of units (containing a vehicle) would not properly order the soldiers in their group formation to match their unit card order
  
• Improved formation speed matching: now no longer is restricted to vehicles matching the formation lead's speed, it'll now track everyone's speed and lower to match as needed
  
• Separated out the 'FormationSpeedBuff' to track and utilize it more carefully
  
• Improved its strength (but ensured it caps out) at greater distances
  
• Reduced range at which vehicles decide to start following for formation move orders
  
• Ensured they got a formation speed buff, too, so they can catch up if given a move order from far away
  
• Fixed dead units being 'counted' in formation speed calculations
  
• Applied a fix to 'orient rotation to movement' to combat Civilians 'sliding around'
  
• Some minor performance edits to the Rally Spline
  
• Tested and figured out why the buildings weren't clickable: some units were spawning
• way* outside world bounds, and tracked it down to the Spawning Volumes
  
• As such, added a 'retry' to the SpawningVolumes if someone has a location value in excess of 5 million, and a 'reject load' in the character loading should they have a similarly excessive load location
  May want to put this as the patch note:
  
• Unfortunately, the San Francisco space program had to be canceled, and spawning logic that caused civilians to appear outside the Milky Way is now no longer allowed
  
• Fixed a spawn pod on Presidio that was 'inside' a bridge (spawning units 'in' the bridge and being difficult to target due to this)
  
• Added water to the pool,
  
• Fixed a landscape height issue on the beach front where some props were floating
  
• Added some more cars to the world
  
• Shortened a sidewalk that was clipping with the bridge, removed 2 small patches of rogue grass clipping into a sidewalk
  

Our focus was all builds in the last week to improve performance and pathing

[h2]Patch notes to Experimental [/h2]

• Updated Command Post trucks to hide (or destroy, in the case of ammo/med variants) if the Chelsey System is active
  

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

These optimization changes will be coming to the normal build with path finding tweaks after we've had more time to test.

Revised Walk/ Run animations for all CERC Units Finalized Versions of all Treasure Island Buildings are coming

[h2]Patch notes to Public Beta and Experimental [/h2]

• Revised Walk/ Run animations for all CERC Units
  
• Various optimization tweaks for larger hordes for mid-late game
  
• Added logic to make the 'select location' popup occur later in the Master setup (so the player team can set up properly)
  
• Updated how the Run Override button on the Command Buttons at the bottom right works:
  
• Units moving in formation will stay in formation. They will run if their leader has 'Run Override' active, but not toggle it on for themselves if they do not personally have it on.
  
• The button on the HUD will now update any time you change selection, instead of only when you select a Group
  
• Updated Gas Attack collision to not block mouse queries (while still being able to harm units)
  
• Tweaked/cleaned up some door/nav block settings on gates in relation to the vehicles-can't-pass-through bug Tested it on a save that had that issue, and the Springboks can roll on through now
  
• Updated the Garrison Widget for vehicles to properly read the unit's assigned Class Icon (instead of referring to an old 'character class' variable to discern what to use)
  
• Weapon meshes made a bit cheaper on the engine side
  
• Fixed an issue with the Spine Thrower turret's projectile not properly ignoring friendlies
  
• Hooked up units to properly apply their LOD tick rate to their current weapon, too
  
• Applies on equipping weaponry, as well as when hiding/showing from FOW
  
• Hooked up the LOD switching to also affect Movement Component tick rate
  
• Hooked up values for military, civvies, infected, special infected, etc.
  
• Re-tuned military LOD values for the Mesh tick rate, too
  Result: Units (especially civvies) seem less expensive when at lower LODS.
  
• Updated runtime audio plugin for bug fixes
  
• Performance improvements to infected 'overhead' widget
  
• Hooked up Shadow LOD logic: Shadows will now turn off at certain LODS
  
• Hooked this up to LOD 2 for now (since there's three levels of LODs, only at the greatest LOD will shadows turn off for now)
  
• Also hooked up logic to turn off shadows when in Thermal Vision, and to turn off shadows on the Weapon when the character holding it turns off their shadows
  
• Hooked up an option for altering the Unit Distance Shadows setting from the Advanced options menu
  
• Hooked up a 'slo-mo' delegate response in the Base_Character class for the recent LOD mesh/movement component performance updates
  
• Now when slow motion is utilized, visible characters will instantly update their tick rate to something equivalent on the new timescale to avoid 'stutter-stepping'
  
• Shut down shadows on units that die
  
• Adjusted tick rates for Interaction+Health widget components on civvies+military units
  
• Created a basic 'infection area' indicator
  
• Fixed some issues with the 'Select Location Infection Indicator' widgetry
  
• Also made it more transparent so you can still see the map underneath it
  
• Re-added 'civvie clearing' to the Spawn Node 'clear spawns' loop
  
• Updated Fog of War updating to respect time dilation 'faster than' regular timescale, so its performance cost doesn't increase if the game is running on a speed faster than 1.0 (makes debugging more performant for now, likely will be useful if we implement fast-forward feature later)
  
• Fixed 'hidden Civilian clear loop' erroneously clearing civilians who are infected or special infection carriers
  
• Added a 'Civilian Spawn Limit' to the Chelsey System (150 for now)
  
• This includes a 'soft cap', currently at 67% (which is 100 units for now), where spawn rates are reduced
  
• Created a 'render state changed' delegate for the Cepheus Skeletal Mesh component
  
• Hooked up the 'stopped rendering' delegate logic to make Infected clear/re-create their 'overhead widget' as needed
  
• Made infected in a zone that is 'settled' (more than 50% of pods done, if memory serves) start shuffling out, despawning, or mutating at a threshold of 5 infected instead of 30 infected if there are no enemies nearby
  
• If enemies nearby (i.e. players overlapping), the mutation and despawning options for that zone's Order Loop are disabled
  
• Stadium wing fixed UVs version
  
• Made the custom movement component's 'tick group' customizable at runtime: used this to make civilian's movement tick group shift from a less expensive 'civilian rate' to a more expensive 'infected rate' when they go hostile
  
• Spread out pawn sensing via a 'random short duration deactivation' to it on BeginPlay, to reduce the stress of pawn sensing being done all in 'one lump' for groups that were spawned at similar times
  
• Increased pawn sensing interval and max accepted sound age for civilians and basic infected
  
• Made non-player units who become carriers 'shift to' the movement tick rate for Infected, so their movement is more accurate if they're moving to spread the infection
  
• Committing early Find Floor optimization for movement components:
  
• Adjusted how often units update their AI when updating their seenlist (first unit added will activate always, but otherwise cooldown will be more respected)
  
• Increased 'seenlist update AI rate' and 'damage update AI rate to 1.5 for Infected
  
• Increased 'seenlist update AI rate' to 5.0 and 'damage update AI rate' 2.5 for civilians
  
• Added logic to reduce the number of redundant combat 'move to location' calls, to hopefully reduce navmesh strain for infected moving in combat
  
• Removed the Unit Detection Spheres from the Faction units for now (needs new collision settings for them, otherwise it constantly overlaps their owners, causing their Detection Spheres to be more expensive than CERC ones)
  
• Implemented new ScoutDrone model.
  
• Set ScoutDrone flight height to 7500 (from 2500)
  
• Changed up some logic for how unit rehiding works after being seen, to be more consistent
  
• Changed up 'DelayedRehideBoost' to 'DelayedRehideInterval,' to directly set how long it takes for a unit to re-hide itself into the FOW after being seen
  
• Changed the LOD optimization for player+faction units to reduce 'close-up stutter' w/ help from
  
• Anim fixes for HEMTT crane
  
• Adjusted how Silencers/Suppressors are handled: They're now spawned in/despawned as needed, rather than always being a component on each weapon unless manually destroyed
  
• Adjusted how often units update their AI when updating their seenlist (first unit added will activate always, but otherwise cooldown will be more respected)
  
• Increased 'seenlist update AI rate' and 'damage update AI rate to 1.5 for Infected
  
• Increased 'seenlist update AI rate' to 5.0 and 'damage update AI rate' 2.5 for civilians
  
• Added safeties to pod/tower clearing in zones to ensure that a Tower won't be erroneously left behind and considered 'alive' after its destruction
  
• Added safeties to 'PassDamageToAI' and and the Infected 'AIDetermineStateTree' to prevent logic from running if frozen or ragdolling at the moment
  
• Added logic to reduce the number of redundant combat 'move to location' calls, to hopefully reduce navmesh strain for infected moving in combat
  
• Removed the Unit Detection Spheres from the Faction units for now (needs new collision settings for them, otherwise it constantly overlaps their owners, causing their Detection Spheres to be more expensive than CERC ones)
  
• Added logic to make Civilians have a different and higher 'not visible tick rate' until they get infected
  
• Fixed some issues with the 'Select Location Infection Indicator' widgetry
  
• Also made it more transparent so you can still see the map underneath it
  
• Fixed some construct widgets being 'reverted' to default settings
  
• Fixed some construct widget performance options (i.e. turned off collision, turned up tick rate, etc.)
  
• Added logic to make the 'select location' popup occur later in the Master setup (so the player team can set up properly)
  
• Added a basic 'ammobox clear' to Infection Pod construction, so if an ammobox is overlapping the pod spot it'll clear out the ammobox (may need more radius, though)
  

[h2]Patch notes to Experimental [/h2]

• Minor BP error fix for Capture Truck
  
• With an extra 'safety check' for if Capture Trucks are enabled, a zone owned by Chelsey will 'revert to neutral' instead of remaining infected-but-yellow
  
• Added a fix to the 'PackUp' logic for the 'select starting location' to prevent units from spawning 'halfway into the floor'
  

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

We want to have an AmA to discuss the experimental build and determine what people feel is needed before we wrap it up and merge it into public build + public beta and close experimental.

Our list for wrapping up experimental(Aside from bugs of course)

#1. Optimization
#2. Attacking/Defending Logic revisement for Chelsey
#3. Rethinking Population limits for Civilians/Chelsey and Factions.


Public beta would keep the factions in the beta stages for the foreseeable future proceeding the merge.

The goal after the merge would be to fix path finding and then go back to work polishing up Pierce's Police AI faction.

AmA on Discord June 7th at 5 PM PST in the AmA channel

We are aware of a bug where the ammo runners/ammo suppliers stop working we are looking into a fix for Monday/Tuesday

Hey CERC Recruits! So over the past few days I've been collecting data on the pros, cons of the CP trucks and how we are doing . Here is a rundown of some fixes i believe are needed after discussing it with the community but i want to mention it here to signal boost and make sure you folks are in the know!

This is what i feel is needed to get experimental closed up and merged into public beta

#1. Cut the amount of zones by half / increase CP income for what was lost
#2. Add a bonus/incentive to go deeper into a zone ( zone money increase based on the strategic importance of that location) For #2 we would zone important areas potentially in a zone like a hotspot where it could be scored based by importance No color normal income-> all the way to red maybe for giving more income or a special resource in the future
#3. Optimization
#4. Ammo Runners bugging out at times

After the merge to public beta

Enemy #1 is path finding then back to factions


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

[h2]UI Updates Pending for Polish stages[/h2]



[h2]Experimental Build[/h2]

A few weeks ago we talked about Early to Middle game improvements and how our team can learn from games like Prototype and how they handled the simulation of a viral outbreak. You guys wanted the virus to be a bit more alive, deadly and wanted improvements to Chelsey across the board.

As an early showcase of the new system we now have put up an Experimental build for all to play and give their input. In some cases you might have to restart steam to see it but everyone can now opt into a new branch to try out the new direction and give their feedback. Again it will have TONS of performance issues and we are aware of them and working towards a tech solution to fix them as we speak.

As a reminder only talk about the Experimental build in #experimental-build-feedback or it will be buried in the day to day chats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2ST3DM5sI4

Recap of what im talking about :
Discord Post

We are aware of a bug where the ammo runners/ammo suppliers stop working we are looking into a fix for Monday/Tuesday

[h2]Patch notes to public beta & Experimental [/h2]

• Fix for Character's weapon fire montages not properly respecting their Rate Scale
  
• Hooked up the new Roadmap images to the tutorial screen slide widget (that opens when starting a new pandemic game)
  
• Fixed the Electrified Gate upgrade being available for Electrified Gates (allowing you to erroneously upgrade something into the exact same upgrade, wasting money)
  
• Unit Card double-clicking and related also updated to work with opening the shop properly (selecting the group the deployed truck is in will not do open its shop, but directly clicking or double-clicking on the Truck's card will)
  
• Fixed the Capture Truck not properly 'overlapping' the zone it spawns in without leaving/re-entering it
  
• Made Capture Trucks purchaseable from the CERC tent (if the Game Instance option for capture trucks mode is enabled)
  
• Improved the Capture Truck shop's "Destroy" button to instead be a functioning 'Undeploy' button (with separate image, hovertip, and 'are you sure' text)
  
• Added logic to enable an 'Emergency Call In' for the Capture Truck (if you have none left)
  
• Fixed a hovertip issue on the capture truck
  
• Floating fences fixed
  
• increased zone income by 1.5X, increased assault price to 2k, decreased heavy to 3k , increased sniper to 5k, increased ammodrop price, increased airstrike price
  
• Presidio buildings adjustments across the board
  
• Lowered Tier 1 wall price by 80%
  
• Made the 'Objectives' indicator (on the bottom right of the HUD) auto-close after 30 seconds if you do not interact with it
  
• Smoothed out some navigation settings on player walls
  
• Towers no longer are 'null nav' but 'player wall' nav (which infected ignore, so they won't psychically go around a fully walled path)
  
• Added 'capture progress' saving to the Capture Truck (if it's in the process of capturing a zone when saved, it'll remember how long until it finishes)
  
• Improved the loading for the capture progress bar for the Capture Truck to be more visually accurate (instead of starting at 'zero' but filling faster if it already had progress)
  
• Added a 'SetTargetThreat' value in 'WeaponConfig', so each weapon can have a threat override for right-click-to-target logic
  
• Boosted this value for Grenade Launcher and Javelin to 10,000 (from 750 default)
  
• Updated the 'pack up units' logic of the initial 'Select Starting Location' logic to not 'duplicate' unit images when putting them in the Helicopter garrison
  
• Made the Capture Truck call in 'parachute in' instead of being dropped by a Sparrow
  
• Removed population cost for capture trucks
  
• Lighthouse area, adjacent to actual building previously unbuildable now fixed (location volume
  raised)
  
• texture swap/resize (Financial spelling error on billboard)
  
• Updated unit-purchasing logic to allow for purchasing a zero-population unit even if your unit population is currently maxed out (for capture trucks)
  
• Combat movement will now also avoid moving into an area where there is an active Restrictor
  
• Safeties added to prevent 'false emerges' which cause the Leviathan to emerge 'partway' and get permanently stuck
  
• Safeties added to prevent the Leviathan from getting stuck in 'burrow mode' and never emerging again
  
• Updated the 'generic mouse following widget' to work as a hovertip for this
  
• Crash fix for ordering civilians around in horde mode
  
• Added custom hovertips to each vehicle that has DeployMode available
  
• Fixed the Capture Truck being able to purchase a BMG at the Motor Pool (may not be retroactive with previous saves)
  
• Fixed the 'rally point' for several buildings being incorrect
  
• Fixed Atlas ammo runners taking up unit population
  
• Improved 'ammo restore' logic for Ammo Runners to 'stop short' rather than move into the target
  
• With an extra 'safety check' for if Capture Trucks are enabled, a zone owned by Chelsey will 'revert to neutral' instead of remaining infected-but-yellow
  
• CP Truck can now place down an ammo station & Medical station
  

[h2]Patch notes to Experimental[/h2]

• Fixed an issue with fully-corrupted zones not properly marking themselves as such for Capture Trucks
  
• Made Capture Trucks in a fully-corrupted zone 'undeploy' should the zone get ousted by the infection
  
• Made Capture Trucks not be able to deploy in a fully-corrupted zone
  
• Added safeties to pod/tower clearing in zones to ensure that a Tower won't be erroneously left behind and considered 'alive' after its destruction
  
• Fixed an issue where clearing all pods from a zone could result in losing zone control
  
• Made Aggressive Roaming infected target 'random' units in their zone rather than merely the closest (so large groups of infected don't 'stick together' and beeline the same unit) Made Aggressive Roaming infected not get despawned by the clearing logic
  
• Made Aggressive Roaming infected not get despawned by the clearing logic
  
• Made the 'Civvie Spawn Goal' (how many civilians appear in a zone when the other units are nearby) customizable per zone, and increased the numbers for Civvie spawns in some of the larger Infection Zones (like in Presidio+Angel Island)
  
• Tweaked the Civilian Population numbers for some of the zones (tweaked it up for some of the Angel Island zones that had really low numbers, and tweaked it down for some of the Presidio zones that had really high numbers)
  
• Added a slight delay to the Chelsey System's 'startup set location' logic, so if the Factions are active the Chelsey System can evaluate which territories are owned before it moves
  
• Made the Chelsey System not try to relocate into Faction-owned territory (Previously it didn't care, but faction combat in a sparse zone can 'stifle' Chelsey's start pretty significantly, so added this change)
  
• Fixed Chelsey (in the new Chelsey System) not properly initializing her stuck-fix logic
  
• Expanded the 'critical' stuck fix to require 8 'stuck calls' in a row
  
• Restored the 'minor stuck warp forward' logic, but made it less likely to occur
  
• Improved her critical stuck fix to coincide with the Chelsey System's positioning (instead of a 'universal start' at the hospital)
  
• Improved Infection Zone 'corruption' It now 'progresses' smoothly between its current infection level and the new 'ceiling' introduced by new infection pods (i.e. instead of jumping to 25 or so from a single pod, it'll rise to 25 over time). This also works in reverse for when pods are destroyed.
  
• If a zone hits 100% infection level, it'll start a five minute timer to oust the current Zone Owner. This timer is displayed on the Zone's widget.
  
  

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