Cepheus Protocol News

[h2]Additional May 3, 2020 Patch Notes[/h2]
-Shotgun rebalance - will fire more regularly and be more aggressive.
-Flamethrower rebalance - doubled the range to 100 feet (will be more aggressive in how it fires now).
-Spec Ops rebalance - amount of Ammo they hold increased. They now make barely any noise when running and walking becoming even moreso of a stealth class.
-New Infection Pod is now in!
-Various optimizations to fast travel splines.
-Tab now works as intended and will no longer jitter or break when player tells it to auto follow a unit.
-DNA sample crash fix.
-Infected Zone/Infected Zone Manager crash fix.
-Collision redone for Control Points so units don't get stuck when ordered to move past them (Ammo Depot, Medical & main Control Point).
-Grass textures alphas fixed.
-Garbage Truck and various other car textures reduced from 4K to 2K to reduce the memory imprint on RAM and HD usage (build is now 10 GB). It has been reduced by 6 GB in size after this week's round of optimizations.
-Scientist ability to auto collect nearby samples has been disabled while we resolve a crash relating to it.
-Artillery range tripled.
-We are aware the save system is not pushed out and is delayed a few days while we tweak a few other critical systems internally. We're aiming for it to be live at the latest by Thursday at midnight this week. Optimizations are still ongoing and we will continue to work towards maximizing performance.

[h2]May 3, 2020 Patch Notes[/h2]
-This update has made a significant cut to the overall size of the game as we continue optimizations.
-Hundreds of textures reduced and scaled to proper powers of 2 to help the texture streaming engine (game is now 10 GB).
-New layout to Grid 3.
-Adjustment to cars causing navigational issues near pier.
-Doubled sandbag health.
-Doubled range for DNA icon showing.
-Fixed Scientists having access to field construction (only Assault are able to construct).
-Sample drop rates for infected raised by 20% (Infected Type 01: 10%->12%, Type 05: 40%->48%, Type 04: 30%->36%, Type 06: 100% to drop 3-10 to 100% to drop 4-12).
-DNA cost for Shredder Rounds dropped to 150.
-Dropped health for special infected:
1)Type 05 to 750 (from 1500), with blow up threshold to 250 (from 350)
2)Type 06 to 6000 (from 12000)
3)Type 04 to 250 (from 500).
-Imported new suppressor buttons (show on/off text).
-Imported new 'close' button, and utilized it for the Barracks popup, dossier popup, and ROE popup.
-Imported new ROE on/off switches, and applied them to appropriate ROE options.
-Updated Mortar range to be a significantly larger radius.
-Fixed issue with Mortar Barrage button image.
-Added a DNA-grabbing AI to Scientists:
1)They will automatically search for DNA when they exit combat if standing still, or upon finishing a move command.
-Adjusted Chelsey flee logic to require a minimum distance to the target, or she'll prefer just fleeing to hospital.
-Boosted Chelsey's flee timer to 3 min (which will get cut short if she reaches her target first).
-Coming soon: Adding in buildable Missile and conventional turrets that Assault classes can build anywhere in zones owned by player. Still WIP - players can deploy freely and will have a finite ammo resource which will have to be refilled.

[h2]May 1, 2020 Patch Notes[/h2]
-Texture Reductions and Corpse fix in grid09
-BodyBag_Corpses/Textures Reduced to 512x512, finished campsite pack reductions
-Reduced texture sizes across the board for Armored_Vehicle pack, 4k are now 2k, 1k are now 512
-Crash Fix for InfectionZoneManager system
-Updated thermal vision logic:
1)Now has an energy meter (30 units long by default).
2)Costs 10 energy to start, 2 energy per second maintained after that.
3)Recovers 1 energy per second when not active.
4)Keybind updated to respect this.
5)HUD hooks into PC delegate to update display when energy changes.
6)Also created a temporary image for the thermal vision progress meter.
-Added new location volume array logic for managing unit movement between zones to better support team management (shuffling units between away/defense).
1)Updated base volume overlap logic for units, and fixed a bool in the NavalBase to match new logic.
2)Fixed up some logic in the AwayTeamPanel and AwayTeamManagerWidget to allow assignment of units that are in friendly territory, and to re-allow the 'remove' button again.
3)Also fixed an issue with the Remove call potentially removing more than one soldier.
-Helicopter attenuation increased.
-Helicopter VO loudspeaker fx.
-Set Foliage and BP static mesh components to stationary.
-Fixed road collisions being disabled on the right island.
-Changed Grid4 motel colors.
-Lowered Chelsey's DPS flee to base of 5 and increase of 2.
-Meshes set to fully Dynamic - all unused Static Lighting Data has been removed.

[h2]April 30, 2020 Patch Notes[/h2]
-Lowered shredder round DNA cost to 250 (these are the only rounds that can be used to defeat Patient Zero).
-Added a main mission tracker to the Master for showing progress towards victory:
1) Build phase 2
2) Build phase 3
3) Build command center
4) Purchase shredder rounds
5) Kill Chelsey
-Added a side mission to remind player to capture command posts.
-Adjusted HUD to make room for missions.
-Updated loading logic to properly re-initialize the base volume if a CERC building is in it, so player won't have to build a second one.
-Various Texture sizes reduced to help with optimization.
-Fixed spawn nodes 'time leveling up' in the Master, since Chelsey should be the only one to do that.
-Added logic to Chelsey's DPS flee:
1) She now will flee to an owned command post that still has active spawn node spawning (i.e. player hasn't cleared out infected's ability to spawn there) so she has backup to protect herself.
2) On reaching her flee target, she will turn off her inability to fight, so if player chases her, she will have effectively fallen back to a fortified position to re-engage the player from.
3) Also on reaching her location, she will enter a 'command post break', overriding her current flee timer.
This way the player will still have some time before she comes back online, even if she was close to a base when she fled, if the player didn't follow her after chasing her off.
-Updated DetectionSphere to be a separate actor from the player units (since it was counting as part of their overlap, causing players to 'get hit' by melee attacks that weren't nearby), and only spawn it on Military units that have team logic enabled.
-Physics assets for special infected updated.
-Updated Chelsey's DPS Flee logic to effectively shut off when shredder rounds unlock (her threshold and count both get set to 9999, making DPS-fleeing mathematically impossible)
-Added new Chelsey 'low priority' logic:
1)InfectionZones can now be marked as low priority.
2)Chelsey, if she decides against a high priority target (75%+ chance, if any available), will do a low roll (5% chance) for going for low priority, if any low priority targets available.
If that succeeds, she still has to see if she wants to fortify something she already owns, first, and if that roll succeeds she still won't go for a low priority target.
In summary, she's very unlikely to go for low priority zones, but it's still possible.
-Reworked Grid4 motels.
-Grid 3 clean-up
-More LOD materials for further optimizations.

[h2]April 29, 2020 Patch Notes[/h2]
-Audio Options are now properly saved and will re-apply their values upon reopen.
-Build Version has been added to the main menu for troubleshooting reasons.
-Spitter and Blowup ragdolls have been adjusted to not deform upon dying.
-Dialogue has been added to CERC Helicopters for when they fly over the island.
-Launch Splash and Start Menu icons have been adjusted.
-Culling Method has been adjusted for better performance.
-Boats along the Marina have had their collision disabled to stop them from intercepting mouse clicks.
-Crashes should include proper call stacks now.
-UI has been adjusted for better scaling - it should no longer clip/break into the command window for 1K resolutions and above.
-More options are on the way for resolutions (it's dynamic now) based on what the player's monitor actually supports.
-Various LOD and Mesh Optimizations across the island.
-Chelsey's retreat threshold reduced to make it easier when starting new game. First she'll flee when the player does 25 damage, the next time player encounters her it'll take 30, and increase by 5 each time.
-Chelsey's Upgrade time for leveling up a zone doubled.
-Chelsey's idle time doubled.
-Increased distance as to how far Chelsey flees.
-Bounties adjusted so they always give money upon completion.
-Defense Teams should no longer get stuck and be unable to walk through zones player owns.
-Adjusted Zone markers for the bridge and updated it so Defense teams can no longer bug out on it.
-Vaccine button moved to the command window.
-Barracks will no longer make the "Resupply Ammo" button appear above character heads.
-Gas Masks and Sonar removed.
-Draw bridge play area tweaked to better fit its placement.
-Various bugged out corpses replaced with fixed variants across the island.
-Draw Bridge Optimization pass for vertexes.
-Save System is passing certification by Devs internally and will be enabled in 2-3 days. After this, we'll continue bug fixing and working on various adjustments ahead of Early Access launch and beyond based on the feedback we've been gathering from our QA team.