Hello, survivors!

Today and during the weekend, all of you will be able not only to try out the test version with audio-visual improvements, but also to evaluate how the game physics and handling of cars is going to change for different movement parts.

We remind you that all the new features described in this news are not final and may be changed before they are introduced into the game or may not make it into the game at all. You can familiarize yourself with all the planned changes in detail on the special test server!

A major audio-visual update should not only include improvements to graphics, effects, and sounds. It should give a new, more realistic feeling from driving your own armoured car, and the controls should correspond to what is happening on the screen.

In the case of wheeled vehicles, we tried to achieve several goals at once. The first and simplest one was to make the handling of wheeled vehicles more interesting and versatile. The current “arcade” feeling may have its advantages, but in the realities of the new visuals it doesn’t fit with what the player sees in front of him.

We have seriously refined the vehicle suspension behaviour, and the current simplistic wheel physics no longer meets the required standards.

In addition, we would like to increase the competitiveness of vehicles with standard and steering wheels compared to armoured vehicles that use only the “ST” wheels.

• We have reworked the traction of the wheels on all surfaces, and implemented high friction for terrain materials so that cars with low clearance will brake when they come into contact with them. For all objects that appear as vertical obstacles and so-called “invisible walls”, we implemented low friction and minor elasticity. This will prevent the car from “sticking” to the object after colliding with it.
  
• The turning speed of the wheels was reduced, and the dependence of their turning speed on the mass of the vehicle was increased.
  
• Vehicle suspension now tilts when the speed vector changes.
  
• The handbrake mechanics were also changed. Now using the handbrake will only block the rear wheels.

Vehicles with standard wheels should have a better grip on the road and tend to skid less frequently. The handbrake must be actively used to position the vehicle and for sharp turns.

Cars that only use steering wheels have a smaller turning radius, but tend to skid more often. The handbrake will be used occasionally to make sharp turns.

New settings open up more possibilities for mounting different movement parts, as it’s not just the parts themselves that matter, but also their position on the vehicle.

For example: the “first” 6-wheeled vehicle built on the basis of (in order) ST-standard-ST wheels in some situations will be very different from the “second” vehicle of the same kind built on the basis of ST-standard-ST wheels. There is also some effect of the center of mass: if it is shifted towards the steering wheels, the car will be more controllable.

As a result, if we look at the 2 cars from the example, it will be better for the first car to keep its center of mass in the middle and for the second car to move it forward towards the steering wheels.

In addition to making the handling of tracked vehicles more interesting, we would also like to bring the tracks up to the level of other movement parts. At the moment, the tracks are considered to be one of the most controversial movement parts, especially compared to other chassis with more clear physics.

• The turning speed of the tracked vehicles has been reduced.
  
• The dependence of the tracked vehicle’s turning speed on its mass has been increased.
  
• The turning radius of some tracks has been slightly changed.
  
• Fixed a bug due to which the car could abruptly change its direction after running into a bump or other obstacle.

First of all, we’d like to get rid of the old features that didn’t correspond to the in-game physics. These changes include vulnerability to pushing and difficulties when climbing slopes. We are also aiming to refine the acceleration and braking of the builds with mechanical legs, adding inertia and smoothness to their movements.

• Vehicles on mechanical legs have become more resistant to pushing.
  
• Now vehicles equipped with mechanical legs can climb steep slopes.
  
• The acceleration of the legs on different axes and the rate of turn around its axis are now independent of the current speed of the car. The legs used to be very slow when you started moving, but extremely fast if you started manoeuvring while moving. They now have roughly the same acceleration at any speed, making them similar to hovers.
  
• The speed penalties and other parameters responsible for the acceleration and inertia of the legs have been reconfigured. Now super-heavy builds on mechanical legs should be just as slow as those on wheels (but they can still turn around relatively quickly and push just about anything).

In order to improve these parts and correct the problems associated with their slow strafing, we plan to:

• Add special perks for those parts:
  
  • Omni: Reduces the rate of spread increase by 33% when firing or when turning the weapons. The bonus decreases proportionally with other mounted movement parts.
    
  • Meat grinder: the damage of the augers increases with the increase of the vehicle’s mass. If the vehicle’s mass is less than 5000 kg, then the movement part deals base damage. The multiplier increases linearly up to 300% of the damage dealt at a vehicle’s mass of 15,000 kg.
• Increase the strafe speed on these movement parts when the car is already going in a straight line.

Hovers have long had a reputation for being rather “toxic” movement parts because of some features that enabled survivors to create the “sideways” builds or to instantly accelerate on lightweight vehicles. We would like to get rid of these features and make the movement part not so versatile.

Solving the problem with the “sideways” builds will also remove a barrier for newcomers who would like to play with hovers, but inevitably face the need to build a “sideways” build.

Our other objective is to improve the handling of the vehicles on hovers using a gamepad, which will be particularly important for console players.

• Refined the suspension and animation of hovers. Now the builds on hovers tend to tilt more from acceleration and speed.
  
• Stabilization of the car with hovers now depends on the shape of the “hover base”: the wider and longer it is, the more stable the build will be. The “hover base” is a rectangle that includes all the hovers mounted to the vehicle. The size of the hover base also determines how much the build leans when moving.
  
• We plan to increase the durability of hovers to compensate for the inability to use the “sideways” builds and the new stabilization.
  
• “Icarus IV” and “Icarus VII” are now more clearly divided into archetypes:
  
  • Icarus IV — the basis for a “medium” build: this hover has higher tonnage, durability and stabilization, but lower acceleration and top speed.
    
  • Icarus VII — the basis for a “lightweight” build: it has lower tonnage and durability, lower stabilization but higher acceleration and top speed.
    
  • We understand that the new parameters are forcing some players to change their hovers in order to keep their vehicles effective. After the update, we will launch a special compensation system — each player will be able to exchange their “Icarus VII” hovers to “Icarus IV” and vice versa as many times as they have had parts on their account. During the exchange, the upgrade of the part you are exchanging will be retained.

With this update, the controls of cars on movement parts with the strafing function will be changed (hovers, mechanical legs, augers, “Omni”). From now on, the driving direction of such cars will always correspond to the direction in which your camera is looking. You can turn the vehicle by rotating the camera, but you can also turn the vehicle using the special rotation keys, which will replace the strafe keys (the maximum turning angle by using those keys will be 45 degrees).

The strafe function will be moved to the turning keys. The forward/backward movement and strafe will work the same way as before. You will also be able to customize the key bindings to your liking in the settings.

In order to look around without turning the car itself, you can use the key responsible for blocking the rotation of the weapon barrels.

For your convenience, we have improved the key responsible for placing the car in the center. Its use in combat allows you to quickly move the camera in the opposite direction and force the weapon to turn in the same direction. It means that you can keep moving forward, while also looking back and shooting back.

We understand that such changes may feel unusual at first, but through inner tests, we have found that they ultimately add more dynamics and make the handling more comfortable once the player gets used to its features.

You can also check out the new perk of the “Breaker” shotgun on the test server. Now, if the weapon doesn’t fire or gets overheated for 0.8 seconds, the next shot will have a significantly increased range, reduced spread and increased damage. The damage bonus depends on the number of radiators: the more of them there are, the higher the bonus.

The previous perk of “Breaker” didn’t match the weapon’s archetype and, in some cases, felt useless or unfair (especially before “Omamori” appeared in the game). It didn’t work in every game situation, but when it did, it was too effective. The new perk is designed to solve these problems: it should be more versatile and won't depend as much on the opponent in a duel.

• One-time power reduction reduced from 9% to 7.5%.
  
• The maximum negative effect is now 60% instead of 72%.

• One-time power reduction and increase in reload time reduced from 6% to 5%.
  
• The maximum negative effect is now 60% instead of 72%.

If you have already participated in testing on a special server, then it will be enough to start the Launcher from the folder with the test client and wait for the update to complete.

• Create a new folder for the game on your hard drive.
  
• Download the Launcher from this link. The file name should not contain numbers indicating that the file is a duplicate. Please note that you should launch the file that does not contain any digits (1), (2), etc. in its name. If, when starting the installed launcher, you get to the live game servers, you need to delete all downloaded launchers from the download folder and try again.
  
• Start the Launcher and install the game to the folder you created (for example: D:\Public test\Crossout).
  
• After the installation is complete, start the Launcher and enter the game with your username and password.
  
• The whole progress of your main account will be transferred to the main server (including parts in storage and levels of reputation in factions).
  
• After logging into the server, to transfer progress from your account, press the “Esc” key and select “Copy account data”.
  
• Please note the schedule of the test server:
  
  • Friday, October 14, 2022 from 13:00 to 19:00 (GMT time)
    
  • Saturday, October 15, 2022 from 13:00 to 19:00 (GMT time)
    
  • Sunday, October 16, 2022 from 13:00 to 19:00 (GMT time)
• Any progress you make on the test server will not be transferred to the live game servers (INCLUDING ATTEMPTS TO BUY PACKS).

After testing the changes, we invite you to leave your constructive feedback on the planned rework in the comments to this news.

The public test server is intended only for testing of the upcoming update, and may not accommodate all players without exception. However, absolutely anyone can join the server, as long as there are free spots.

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Hello!

Due to recent problems caused by DDoS attacks on our servers, we have decided to extend the current season “Big chase” for one more week. Now the season will last until 23:59 GMT on October 23.

Players who have not reached the maximum level will now have the opportunity to complete the accumulated challenges and receive all of the season’s rewards. We remind you that in order to unlock access to all additional rewards of the season, you must purchase the “Battle pass” or “Elite battle pass” packs, and the “Battle pass level” will allow you to get to the desired reward faster.

Please note that there will be no new weekly challenges during the additional week. The event is extended so that the players can complete the already accumulated tasks and complete the season.

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In the Crossout 0.14.0 update, which will be released on October 25, 2022, a significant improvement will appear in our render.

We have added to the lighting model the calculation of indirect, or in other words — Global Illumination.

Before/After

Up to this point, simplified lighting algorithms from the environment were used in our render. They accurately took into account direct light from light sources, and indirect light was modeled approximately using a pre-calculated diffuse cubemap on the level. Thanks to the refinement and implementation of the “Scalable Global illumination” technology from the Dagor Engine, which is used by our publisher Gaijin Entertainment, it has become possible to simulate indirect lighting much more accurately.

Before/After

Now the indirect propagation of light is simulated taking into account the surrounding geometry, so that in addition to direct light, reflected and scattered light from various surfaces and extended light sources (sky, surfaces that emit and reflect light, shading from massive objects and buildings, etc.) will appear. Such an improvement noticeably improves the quality of the image in poorly lit and completely shadow-covered areas — it will become more voluminous and textured, and reflected incident light (reflex) from surrounding objects will also appear.

Before/After



In addition to updating the global illumination system, the mechanism for rendering shadows and reflections was also improved, and SSCS (Screen Space Contact Shadows) and SSLR (Screen Space Local Reflections) techniques were implemented. Both effects work according to similar principles — we launch a ray for each pixel in the screen space and try to find its intersection with objects in the frame, which are described by the “depth” of the scene. And, as a result, It turns into some kind of ray tracing!

Before/After

In the case of contact shadows, the ray is launched in the direction of the light source for a very short distance near the camera, and for many tens of meters on the horizon. This allows to draw shadows for small objects near the observer (such as stones, grass, etc.) and for giant mountains and rocks in the distance, complementing and improving the classic shadow rendering technique, as well as saving computer resources (for example, we don’t need to prepare additional information on the CPU because the data about the depth of the scene is enough).

Before/After

With updated local reflections, we replaced the previously used SSPR technique, which required additional calculations on the CPU, and also had a number of limitations, such as: the number of reflective surfaces on the screen, the ability to draw reflections only on plain surfaces, as well as not entirely true reflections for water surfaces. The new SLR technique is completely devoid of these disadvantages, and now you can draw honest reflections for all types of surfaces, in any configurations! The algorithm repeats the logic of contact shadows, but this time we let a long ray in the direction of the intended reflection.

Both techniques work only in conjunction with MSAA temporal anti-aliasing, or the most advanced types of smoothing, such as NVidia DLSS or AMD FSR 2.0. This is due to the technical nuances of the implementation of techniques that require accumulating the result of the algorithms for several frames to achieve the highest quality and optimal performance. Both technologies fill the picture with lots of details, complementing the work of the updated Global illumination system.


In update 0.14.0, the image post-processing stage was improved, and new effects were added. They simulate the imperfection of photo and video equipment, bringing the final image closer to a realistic one with a small expenditure of computer resources.

Before/After

The effect of Motion blur appeared on the battlefields of Crossout. It is designed to make the scene more dynamic and make the gameplay smoother and more enjoyable. We have carefully calibrated the effect to add cinematography and convey the feeling of speed in the best way, while not overshadowing the gaming experience in battles. The player will be able to independently adjust the blur intensity in the graphics settings.


In addition, the Lens Flare effect was added to the game — glare, simulating the refraction of light rays in the camera lens. This effect is used for a more natural display of bright light sources, creating complex-shaped glare that is characteristic of the lenses of any optical camera. Vignetting also allows you to reproduce the effect of shading from the camera aperture along the edges of the image, which adds expressiveness to the frame, giving it an artistic look and placing light accents.


The Bloom effect has been completely reworked. Previously, we used a simple technique of scaling the scene image using contrast — this gave a very approximate result of low quality and low resolution, in most cases the bloom effect was generally invisible. Now the image is being prepared taking into account the camera exposure, and then several stages of Gaussian blur are applied with varying degrees of importance. Thanks to careful optimization and the use of modern techniques, we get very cinematic highlights of different textures (from micro-glare of wet surfaces to bright flashes from explosions) for about the same performance cost. You may notice how armored cars in the rays of the sun now give pleasant photorealistic highlights from chrome and painted vehicle parts.

That’s all for today. Next week we plan to release one more part of the devblog which will be devoted to the major audio visual update for Crossout. Stay tuned!

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https://youtu.be/vxGdykuHJs0
Riders of the Apocalypse! We welcome you to our weekly Show, made so that you - the Waste’s best mechanics and riders, can earn some Gold! New episodes every Friday! Anyone willing to submit a video, must send a letter to CrossoutShow@Gaijin.team containing the link to your video, your in-game nickname and the email address registered with your game account, so we can send you the Prize… should your video win!
When you leave a comment competing for the best comment of the week, don’t forget to include your account name, with all the right capital and lowercase letters, so that we can find you...and give you your well-earned Gold!

In this episode:

• Grind Down
  
• You’re The Prey
  
• Reverse Fishing
  
• Last Second Comeback

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Hello survivors!
It’s bonus XP days in the Wastelands! During these days you will be able to become more powerful and gain any favour from the factions faster! On October 7, 8 and 9 the bonus to all reputation earned is 50%.

Moreover, we suggest you try out the battles with accelerated base capture process once more. We’ve taken into account your feedback on the previous event and lowered base capture acceleration rate. Now it’s 25% (instead of 50%).
You are welcome to leave you constructive feedback right after you give this small event a try!


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Survivors!
Sometimes there's nothing better than a good old habit... What are we talking about? Find out in the new chapter!

Chapter 3. Past life habits.







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Survivors!
Another Crossout Movie-Brunch is here and here is new best videos of the previous week.

Today:

• What might be more interesting than “Goliath” tracks? Quad “Goliath” tracks! Insane? The Salty Redneck checks it on his own.
  [expand type=details]
  
  [/expand]
  
• Do the old fashioned tactics still work? JBRider decided to join the battle on the real oldest builds.
  [expand type=details]
  
  [/expand]

See you next week!

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Hello, survivors!

This weekend we’ve increased durability of all the parts by 30% and suggested you to test this change in PvP-battles. Today we launch a short in-game survey, so you could tell us, what’s your attitude towards this change.


Best regards,
Crossout team

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https://youtu.be/FKQfikaqSPU
Riders of the Apocalypse! We welcome you to our weekly Show, made so that you - the Waste’s best mechanics and riders, can earn some Gold! New episodes every Friday! Anyone willing to submit a video, must send a letter to CrossoutShow@Gaijin.team containing the link to your video, your in-game nickname and the email address registered with your game account, so we can send you the Prize… should your video win!
When you leave a comment competing for the best comment of the week, don’t forget to include your account name, with all the right capital and lowercase letters, so that we can find you...and give you your well-earned Gold!

In this episode:

• Denied!
  
• Hat-Trick
  
• 1+1
  
• Lucky Shot

For more information on Crossout, follow these channels:

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Over the years of Crossout’s existence, certain battle scenarios have developed in the game. Actions taken by players on the battlefield often lead to the expected result. For example: a team that has decided to go on a frontal attack on the enemy will either destroy the enemy, or just as quickly lose vital parts and will not have time to adjust their actions.

We would like to add more variety to the battles, give players the right to make mistakes, provide an opportunity to change tactics and turn the course of the battle due to well-timed competent actions. Without important parts on the car, this becomes impossible. Therefore, our goal is to increase the survival rate of the car parts in battle.

In order to assess the impact of changes in the scale of numerous real battles, this weekend we are increasing the durability of all parts by 30%.

The change will apply to all missions (PvP battles), except for battles for beginners. Please note that the durability values will not change in the storage interface — the durability will only change directly in battles.


Share your constructive feedback and unusual situations from the battles in the new conditions in the comments!

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