• Operation Cleansweep: Storage Facility: Removed tech marine requirement. Added a chainsaw near the first door and twin pistols near the last door.
  
• Research 7: Illyn Forest: Removed "Melee" game instructor hint from blockade. (thanks Dmitriy!)
  
• Research 7: Illyn Forest: Generator no longer takes damage from marines or explosions.
  
• Research 7: Illyn Forest: Adjusted boss bar graphics.
  
• Tilarus-5: Cold Catwalks: Fixed a misaligned railing. (thanks WTF-8!)
  
• Paranoia: Crucial Point: The satellite dish no longer takes damage from marines. (It could previously be damaged with the Tesla Cannon.)
  
• BioGen Corporation: Operation X-5: Fixed a spot where marines could fall out of the map. (thanks Blueberry!)
  
• Accident 32: Information Department: Fixed reactor hack area sometimes being disabled.
  
• Accident 32: Information Department: Made aliens move slower in water.
  
• Accident 32: Powerhood: Changed eggs objective to clearing out any eggs rather than eggs in specific rooms in the map, for challenges that spawn additional eggs.
  
• Accident 32: Powerhood: Unwelded supply room door and added more ammo types.
  
• Accident 32: Research Center: Added a button to blow away the fog.
  
• Accident 32: Research Center: Adjusted spawns.
  
• Accident 32: J5 Connector: Made aliens move slower in the shower.
  
• Accident 32 (all missions): Improved reflective surfaces.

• Fixed the crosshair not rendering correctly for some users. This was most noticeable while hacking.
  
• Fixed the mission chooser no longer showing bonus, endless, or deathmatch missions after viewing the missions in a campaign and then backing out.
  
• Fixed a crash in the new PBR shader.
  
• Fixed the L1/LB button ceasing to function after using the radial menu to activate equipment. This also fixes the marine swap radial menu sometimes dropping commands.
  
• Reverted dedicated server workshop changes as they were causing unreasonably increased server load.
  
• Fixed tech weapons requiring the ability to hack rather than specifically the ability to use tech weapons like weapons for other classes did.
  
• Bots can no longer fire medic guns, the mining laser, or the tesla cannon after a mission has ended.

• Voting to change the mission during briefing or after the mission has ended now only requires a majority of the voters to agree, not a majority of the players in the lobby. Repeatedly calling unsuccessful votes will result in a temporary cooldown. Voting to change the mission during gameplay is unchanged.
  
• Muting a player in a lobby, voting to kick a player, or voting to make a player the lobby leader will now send a mini-report to our ticketing system if you have not performed that action on that player recently. We're using this to test our reporting server while we work on a more versatile in-game reporting system.
  
• The convars r_flashlightdepthres (1024), rd_max_depth_texture_shadows (1), r_flashlightdepthreshigh (2048), and rd_max_depth_texture_highres_shadows (0) can now be changed while the game is running (or added to autoexec.cfg). Changing them should only be done while not in a mission as they will cause your game to freeze for a few seconds while the render targets are reallocated. We might consider adding settings to change these in the future, but for now they're being made available for power-users (people who are comfortable editing autoexec.cfg).

Congratulations to the winner of the 2023 mapping competition: The Gauntlet: Arctic!



All participants have also received the 2023 Mapping Competition Participant medal.




Anti-aliasing now affects alpha-tested materials like grates and foliage. Examples shown below are all at 8x MSAA, with how it was previously on the left and how it will be after this update on the right.











For mappers: LightmappedGeneric now supports parallax-corrected cubemaps and we've also added the PBR shader.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3012996135


We've added more materials and models for mappers to use. These are used by an upcoming campaign remaster we're working on, but can also be used for your own maps.


We've once again tweaked how dedicated servers load Workshop addons to try to fix an issue where addons are sometimes outdated for extended periods on dedicated servers. Challenges that are required on clients (for custom materials, models, particles, sounds, translations, etc.) should now more reliably load in time for the mission to start.

We've also fixed the challenge list not loading images or author names for challenges you didn't have installed locally and fixed console variables not being reset when a challenge is deactivated if they would have been set to an empty string.

• Ceilings (func_asw_fade) now collide with grenades that were thrown from above them and do not collide with grenades that were thrown from below.
  
• Expanded grenade custom collision logic to also apply to mines, beacons, rockets, and flares.
  
• Fixed flares bouncing off of non-solid objects like fire mine trigger areas.
  
• Fixed v45 Electric Charged Armor disappearing immediately when its last charge was activated.

• The mission chooser is now all shown on one scrollable screen.
  
• rd_draw_minimap can now be set to a value between 0 and 1 in order to draw the minimap image semi-transparently.
  
• Added EmitSoundTable VScript function to entities.
  
• Fixed missing "Ignite" input on Biomass in Hammer.
  
• Fixed female colonists with randomized models occasionally appearing as the word "ERROR".
  
• Fixed leadership sound coming from the wrong location.
  
• Added a warning message if certain networking-related variables are changed to dangerous values.
  
• Fixed a several second game freeze when subscribing or unsubscribing a large quantity of Workshop addons at the same time.

We made changes to how Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces servers receive their mission list so it can be modified without requiring a full game update. Added a new command rd_hoiaf_debug to view information about the current ranked server configuration and loaded addons.

We are also adding HoIAF's first three endless missions starting today:

• Infinite Landing Bay by jhheight
  
• IAF Marine Academy by jhheight
  
• The Gauntlet: Arctic by Stral and Synmachus

A higher score inside an endless mission will increase the number of points you receive for completing it. As always, we are looking for feedback on scoring if we accidentally rated anything too high or too low.

View the full list of Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces changes on the developer website.

Additionally, we've fixed some bugs and added two new advanced configuration options and some features for modders.

• Fixed remote turret model appearing much higher than intended.
  
• Fixed Queen health bar being visible during debriefing.
  
• Fixed singleplayer non-campaign lobbies being limited to 4 marines.
  
• Accident 32: J5 Connector: Fixed shower water causing on-damage effects like L3A Tactical Heavy Armor losing charges and aliens moving slowly.
  
• In game modes that allow reviving, knocked-out marines in the escape area no longer count towards finishing a mission and knocked-out marines outside of the escape area now count as dead for the purpose of finishing a mission.
  
• Added a new ConVar: rd_represented_country. By default (empty), this will be set to your country based on the IP address you use to connect to Steam (the same as before). Can be set in autoexec.cfg to a different 2-character country code, or to XX if you do not wish to represent a country on leaderboards.
  
• Added a new ConVar: rd_movement_relative_to_aim. If set to 1, your marine's forward direction in top-down view will be based on the marine's angle rather than the camera's angle. Intended for players who want to bind +forward to a mouse button.
  
• Added new challenge ConVars: asw_marine_gun_offset_x, asw_marine_gun_offset_y, and asw_marine_gun_offset_z. For example, to make marines shoot out of the center of the first person camera, a challenge can set these to 0, 0, and 70.
  
• Added a new challenge ConVar: rd_grenade_gravity. It affects the gravity of the assault rifle's grenade. Default value is 0.05.
  
• Added two new VScript methods to triggers: GetNumTouching() and GetTouching(index)
  
• Added a new entity: rd_hud_vscript.
  
• Reduced storage and memory usage for inventory item icons like medals. They also load faster the first time they are displayed.
  
• The ForcePickUp and ForceDrop inputs and the OnPickedUp and OnDropped outputs are now available on all weapon entities, not just rd_weapon_generic_object.
  
• The Swarmopedia model viewer now supports bone merge, pose parameters, and animation blending.

As a final note, there is one month left before the entry deadline for the 2023 mapping competition. There's still time to get an entry in, even if it's your first time making a map!

A hotfix has been released with the following changes:

• Fixed a crash related to a server becoming empty mid-mission.
  
• Made changes to addon loading to hopefully address some servers not showing challenges they should have enabled.
  
• Marine bots now remember if they were infested or on fire before the bot took over for damage calculations. Removed the restriction on "take a break" while infested.

We're hard at work on next year's major update, but in the meantime there were some issues we wanted to address more urgently. This release fixes some crashes, oddities with weapons, and issues with new maps, and also contains an improvement to mapper control of objects marines can pick up.


We're a little more than a third of the way to the deadline for our first annual mapping competition. With two months left, there's still plenty of time to make an entry, even for someone who has never made a Source Engine map before!

• Research 7: Research 7: Fixed incorrect music playing.
  
• Research 7: Illyn Forest Fixed incorrect music playing.
  
• Tilarus-5: Yanaurus Mine: Fixed an instructor hint persisting through mission restarts.
  
• Tilarus-5: Yanaurus Mine: Fixed terrain in the mines area that marines could get stuck in near the button.
  
• Accident 32: Fixed the campaign map being blurry on some graphics configurations.
  
• Reversed Rydberg Reactor: Replaced infinite buzzers with a one-time spawn near the mission start.
  
• Reversed Rydberg Reactor: Spread out or removed alien spawn locations near the opened airlock door.
  
• Reversed Rydberg Reactor: Prevented hordes from spawning behind closed airlocks.
  
• Reversed Cargo Elevator: Added a snow wall in the area just after the elevator to avoid seeing out of bounds with a rotated camera.
  
• Reversed Cargo Elevator: Reduced the size of the AI navigation graph and fixed aliens spawning in unreachable locations.
  
• Reversed Cargo Elevator: Removed alien spawn location randomization.
  
• Reversed Cargo Elevator: Fixed drones spawning outside the elevator car or falling under the floor.
  
• Reversed Cargo Elevator: Added logic to clean up aliens left behind when entering the elevator.
  
• Reversed Cargo Elevator: Reduced the number of aliens that spawn when exiting the elevator.
  
• Reversed Landing Bay: Fixed alien spawn locations blocked by terrain.

• v45 Electric Charged Armor: Fixed the deployment count being listed as a duplicate "Damage Blocked" stat. Added a note to the Swarmopedia entry clarifying that this armor blocks 75% of melee damage while active.
  
• PS50 Bulldog: Fixed sending a weapon_fired scripting event every frame when the fire button is held.
  
• IAF Medical Amplifier Gun: Fixed this weapon not having enough secondary ammo capacity for Bastille's default ammo count, causing the gun to become reloadable, which would cause primary ammo to be discarded.
  
• IAF Medical SMG: Fixed this weapon highlighting potential heal targets based on whether it had primary ammo.

• Fixed a crash when starting the game with a version of Proton or the Steam Client that is too old. Added a message explaining how to change the Proton version.
  
• Sending too many commands at once to the server will now disconnect the client rather than soft-locking. The game will write a file that can be used to help figure out what's causing this. We believe this is what has been causing the mission success/failed screen to hang for some players.
  
• Added a workaround for the workshop campaign "Revenant - The Lost Voyage" not loading due to a syntax error in its campaign file.
  
• Delayed demo recording by 50 frames after an instant restart to avoid creating demos that cannot be played back. Configurable with the rd_auto_record_delay_start_frames convar.
  
• Fixed asw_custom_skill_points being classified as a setting rather than a challenge variable.
  
• Changed the default value for rd_chatwipe to not clear chat after a delay.
  
• rd_reduce_motion now disables briefing cameras. You can also set rd_disable_briefing_camera if you want this functionality without the other changes rd_reduce_motion makes.
  
• Fixed joy_pitchsensitivity and joy_yawsensitivity not being used when using a controller in first person.
  
• Fixed the VScript/SourceMod menu persisting through mission restarts.
  
• We've added more options to donate to Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop contributors, this time adding artists, programmers, server hosts, and translators.

• rd_weapon_generic_object can now be assigned an icon (see Haikü's tutorial for how to make weapon icons).
  
• rd_weapon_generic_object now has ForcePickUp and ForceDrop inputs as well as OnPrimaryAttack, OnSecondaryAttack, OnReload, OnPickedUp, and OnDropped outputs in Hammer.

An update has been released for Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop.

• Added several community challenge modes to Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces.
  
• Fixed a bug causing anti-cheat to fail to initialize on the sg-servers and Steampunk ranked dedicated servers.
  
• Added ASRD Tennessee to the Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces server list.
  
• Fixed menuselect commands not being forwarded to VScript.
  
• Fixed menus created by VScript or SourceMod disappearing after 5 seconds even if their timeout was longer.
  
• Updated Steam API to version 1.57.
  
• Prevented servers from running non-whitelisted console commands on clients. Please report any case where this breaks something.

An update has been released containing the following changes:

• Accident 32: Confined Facility and J5 Connector: Reduced networking overhead from minecarts.
  
• Tilarus-5: Yanaurus Mine: Fixed scripted doors not visually falling.
  
• v45 Electric Charged Armor: Improved visibility of this gear. No longer disappears immediately when using last charge (similar to Assault Jets).
  
• AVK-36 Marksman Rifle: Fixed zooming causing auto-reload to become disabled.
  
• PS50 Bulldog: Fixed this weapon using visual effects meant for dual weapons.
  
• Menders no longer heal biomass when it is on fire.
  
• Fixed a crash when starting a mission without a key bound to "use offhand item".
  
• Fixed medals not appearing in lobbies hosted on dedicated servers.
  
• Weapons with aiming improved by crouching now work on moving platforms. Fixed stationary marines being detected as moving due to rounding errors.
  
• Fixed lighting issues with marine gear in areas with complex shadows.
  
• The 8th marine is no longer hidden on the HUD for certain values of asw_hud_scale.
  
• Fixed marine bots aiming throwable items at the player's crosshair even if it had moved since the command was given.
  
• Uber drones now use the model set for them in Hammer.
  
• Improved gib positioning for marines and sentries.
  
• Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces medals, starting at the end of this month (season 11), will use an updated design. You will no longer receive multiple medals per season if you are in the top 100 or top 20.

An update has been released to address the following issues. Some of these issues were addressed in hotfixes yesterday and today.

• Firing projectiles causes lag.
  
• Marine bots in follow mode cause lag.
  
• The Hot Enough achievement is unobtainable. There's no special trick needed to earn the achievement; just escape the volcano zone without any marines dying.
  
• Players who completed Accident 32 missions on the beta branch are stuck at 6/6 on the campaign difficulty achievements. Players in this state can un-stick the achievements by completing any Accident 32 mission.
  
• The capsule model in Accident 32 missions has broken rim lighting.
  
• Rich presence shows an untranslated string for official missions and challenges.
  
• Item descriptions for Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces medals render incorrectly.
  
• Combine Striders produce an error particle effect when firing their gun.
  
• Marine combat rolling unintentionally changed.
  
• Medical weapon ammo count unintentionally changed.

Addons can now include a file named cfg/autoexec_[workshop addon id].cfg, which will be run when the addon is loaded on the client. For example, an addon that replaces the marine model and uses the backpack body group to give each class a unique model could add an autoexec file with:

Today, Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop celebrates 6 years on Steam. You'll earn double experience points all week, but we know what you're really here for. Let's unwrap some presents:


Mysterious green glowing gems are discovered under the ground of a populated area due to abnormal radioactivity levels. The company "AMBER" comes to study this supernatural material. Findings are frightening and undocumented, and kept away from the public. The gems are identified to be extremely dangerous, extraterrestrial materials comprised of mostly muons. Emitted radiation modifies all biological structures in a big vicinity.

Originally released in May of 2020 and May of 2022 on the Steam Workshop, Accident 32 is a six-mission campaign which combines two three-mission campaigns into one. Marines are set out to explore the mysterious complex and headquarters of the company called "AMBER" and face many threats. A bonus "AMBER Complex" mission is included which is the first three missions combined into one.




As promised when the Collections screen was added, the Swarmopedia has returned, better than ever! Unlock stats, tips, and short stories about aliens by killing them in the field. Add-ons can also create their own Swarmopedia entries or add content to existing ones.

The new Swarmopedia entries (and this sentence) were written by the Internet's beloved Grace Lovelace!

With the Swarmopedia revamp comes a new screen for selecting weapons using a grid intended to speed up finding high-level weapons and help with muscle memory. Unlocking weapons by leveling up now also gives you access to their fact sheets, with precise statistics about range, damage, and more.




This year, we're hosting our first annual community mapping competition, and what better place to start than at the end? The theme for this year is Boss Fight.

Create a mission or short campaign that contains a boss fight - a scripted encounter with some big bad that the marines must overcome. Will the boss be an alien, a group of aliens, or something completely new? Where will the mission take place? Why are the marines there? All of these questions and more are things you'll have to consider in the coming months.

Or, if you have a better idea, go ahead and make that instead! AS:RD mapping competition themes are optional.

Entries must be tagged with BossFight2023. Competition starts today and ends August 1st. Prizes include unique ingame medals. If you need help getting started, check out the Modding / Mapping Help and Tips forum.


In 2022, marines killed 985,092,535 aliens in official missions and an additional 56,154,088 aliens in missions from the Steam Workshop. 575,108 players tried Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop for the first time last year. Including returning players, marines spent 1,590,427 hours in 17,674,520 missions. 10,947 players took part in at least one of the first six seasons of Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces by playing on participating community dedicated servers. December 6th saw the highest player count of the year, with 16,080 players logging in - over three times the average. Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop was played from 85 different countries in 2022.

Killing that many aliens takes a lot of ammunition - you fired 5,303,484,897 bullets last year - that's about half as many bullets as are manufactured in the entire world each year - and that doesn't even count weapons that don't fire bullets. Marines also fired 232,409,109 shotgun shells, deployed 11,307,827 mines, and used 104,722,710 grenades. You launched 274,157,391 missiles and fired flamethrowers for a total of 86 million seconds, not to mention using chainsaws for over 1.4 billion seconds. (That's over 45 years!)

It wasn't just handheld guns and explosives, either. Last year, marines deployed:

• 905,280 doses of Adrenaline
  
• 3,890,668 ammo stashes
  
• 1,501,644 X-33 Damage Amplifiers
  
• 10,282,887 IAF Heal Beacons
  
• 3,783,431 IAF Advanced Sentry Guns
  
• 523,062 IAF Incendiary Sentry Guns
  
• 261,255 IAF Freeze Sentry Guns
  
• 260,971 IAF High Velocity Sentry Cannons
  
• 3,822,448 IAF Tesla Sentry Coils

Marines also brought 105,866 flashlights along on missions.

You've destroyed 2,147,368 pieces of Biomass in 2022 since we started tracking it in late August. Between when we started tracking alien deaths in mid-June and the end of 2022, marines have killed:

• 582,811,354 Drones
  
• 28,956,762 Parasites
  
• 27,244,232 Xenomites
  
• 16,772,012 Rangers
  
• 15,897,059 Eggs
  
• 14,968,328 Buzzers
  
• 11,929,443 Grubs
  
• 2,940,237 Harvesters
  
• 2,863,582 Boomers
  
• 2,190,344 Menders
  
• 1,945,290 Shieldbugs
  
• 1,851,113 Mortarbugs
  
• 577,023 Antlions
  
• 186,411 Headcrab Zombies
  
• 3,489 Queens

Here are some highlights from updates since the previous anniversary:

• Workshop addons can now contain videos, and missions can define their own briefing background video, or even show part of the world as the background during briefing.
  
• We're Steam Deck verified! The game runs great on the Steam Deck, and players on Linux or who use a controller have also seen improvements.
  
• There are now medals you can earn by helping with the game's development, contributing to the Steam community hub, or participating in a season of Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces.
  
• The slow-opening vault doors used in many missions now have more accurate collision data, allowing you to step or shoot through a partially-opened door.
  
• The all-new mission selection screen includes support for bonus missions and new "endless" missions.
  
• We've added an advanced settings menu and an advanced audio settings menu.
  
• Restarting a mission no longer requires a loading screen.

• Area 9800: Wastelands: Fixed a harvester getting stuck in the exit during the finale gauntlet introduction scene.
  
• Tears for Tarnor: Oasis Colony Spaceport: Fixed train station announcements being too quiet to hear in some cases.
  
• Tears for Tarnor: Oasis Colony Spaceport: Reduced networking overhead in areas where the path through the mission crosses.
  
• Tilarus-5: Arctic Infiltration: Fixed uber drones appearing and disappearing shortly after the start of the mission.
  
• Tilarus-5: SynTek Hospital: Made alarm sounds louder. Dramatically reduced networking overhead.
  
• Lana's Escape: Lana's Bridge: Significant performance optimizations to lighting, rendering, and pathfinding.
  
• Lana's Escape: Lana's Sewer: The radioactive barrels in the arena deal more damage to menders.
  
• Paranoia: Unexpected Encounter: Fixed bugs related to grenade launcher aiming.
  
• Paranoia: Hostile Places: Fixed bugs related to grenade launcher aiming.
  
• Nam Humanum: Logistics Area: Increased speed run time limit from 1:10 to 1:15.
  
• Nam Humanum: Platform XVII: Increased speed run time limit from 3:02 to 3:10.
  
• Nam Humanum: Platform XVII: Fixed bot marines refusing to stand on the moving platform.
  
• BioGen Corporation: Operation X5: Increased speed run time limit from 3:28 to 3:35.
  
• BioGen Corporation: Invisible Threat: Increased speed run time limit from 1:13 to 1:20.
  
• Bunker: Removed collision from an invisible ceiling beam.
  
• Landing Bay + Cargo Elevator: Fixed a soft lock caused by completing the objectives out of the intended order.
  
• Added an official bonus mission based on Accident 32.
  
• Added four new official bonus missions based on Jacob's Rest.
  
• IAF Marine Academy: Added a new official Endless mission.
  
• All official missions have been given custom loading screens.

• ML30 Laser Trip Mine: Improved network prediction for throwing animation.
  
• L3A Tactical Heavy Armor: This equipment now changes the appearance of marines wearing it.
  
• Hornet Barrage: This equipment now changes the appearance of marines wearing it.
  
• CR-18 Freeze Grenades: Freezing now kills buzzers, and marines can be frozen in Deathmatch mode.
  
• K80 Personal Defense Weapon: This weapon now shows a different icon for magazines on the HUD instead of counting each magazine twice.
  
• M868 Flamer Unit: Fixed fuel tanks only granting half a reload worth of ammo.
  
• v45 Electric Charged Armor: This equipment now changes the appearance of marines wearing it.
  
• Flashlight Attachment: This equipment now changes the appearance of marines wearing it.
  
• IAF Power Fist Attachment: This equipment now changes the appearance of marines wearing it.
  
• Chainsaw: Bots now use this weapon from a more reasonable range.
  
• MTD6 Smart Bomb: This equipment now changes the appearance of marines wearing it.
  
• MNV34 Nightvision Goggles: This equipment now changes the appearance of marines wearing it.
  
• IAF Medical Amplifier Gun: Primary fire now self-targets when aiming with the right stick or holding the crouch key (shift), or when in first or third person, if the target being aimed at is not valid for healing.
  
• TG-05 Gas Grenades: Updated the item's appearance to help differentiate it from other types of grenades.
  
• IAF Medical SMG: Secondary fire now self-targets when aiming with the right stick or holding the crouch key (shift), or when in first or third person, if the target being aimed at is not valid for healing.
  
• Flechette Gun (hidden): This gun has a new appearance and now fires timed sticky explosives (the same ones Combine Hunters fire) rather than auto-aimed rockets. Now fires directly at the aim location rather than parallel to the ground.
  
• Ricochet Rifle (hidden): This gun has a new appearance and no longer requires the secondary trigger to be held to bounce shots. Instead, holding the secondary trigger switches the gun to a shotgun-like burst fire mode. Bounced bullets can now hit the marine that fired them.
  
• Displacement 'Blink' Pack (hidden): This equipment now changes the appearance of marines wearing it.
  
• Short Range Assault Jets (hidden): This equipment now changes the appearance of marines wearing it.
  
• Fixed the scanning animation for sentries desynchronizing from the gun's idle angle.
  
• Fixed inconsistencies in collision-checking code, most notably related to bot marines and projectiles.
  
• Auto-aim weapons such as the 22A7-Z Prototype Assault Rifle and the S23A SynTek Autogun now apply their bonuses in first and third person.

• Fixed an issue where server-triggered achievements such as speed runs and Outstanding Execution could be skipped due to momentary packet loss.
  
• Fixed a crash when an alien tried to throw a physics object at a target who had died.
  
• Fixed a crash when leaving a screen with a dropdown menu open.
  
• Fixed the game instructor recommending marines to weld a door that is already damaged to the point where it cannot open or close.
  
• Fixed marines being unselected in the lobby when restarting a bonus mission that was started via a vote.
  
• The chat panel can now be opened in singleplayer (for use in custom challenges).
  
• Improved bots in Deathmatch maps. They should get stuck less, turn at more reasonable times, and will now automatically join if you start a Deathmatch map in singleplayer.
  
• Fixed the game instructor giving incorrect information about how to respawn in Deathmatch mode, and tidied up the prompts on the HUD.
  
• Improved bots' ability to avoid danger and flank shieldbugs.
  
• Bots are now much less likely to teleport in front of a player.
  
• You can flush the toilets in official missions.
  
• Marines no longer always face east when starting a mission in first or third person.
  
• Fixed some tooltips being too small to comfortably read.
  
• When selecting a text input with Steam Big Picture enabled, the on-screen keyboard will open.
  
• Added a mission recording list and an option to automatically record missions.
  
• The game now updates its state more frequently during slow motion.
  
• Performing an override on a locked computer now always goes to the menu rather than downloading critical data or doing nothing.
  
• When finishing a bonus or deathmatch map, the game now selects a default next mission.
  
• The Leadership skill can now be triggered by any officer within range, not just the officer with the most points in the skill.
  
• Added a visible and audible indication for when Leadership affects damage dealt or taken.
  
• Challenges can now set "required_on_client" "1" if they wish to include assets, which will cause the workshop addon to be automatically downloaded when the challenge is activated.
  
• Challenges can now be marked for use in deathmatch with "allowed_mode" "deathmatch". Challenges that are able to be used in both deathmatch and cooperative play can additionally specify "allowed_mode" "coop".
  
• Fixed several Nam Humanum campaign achievements re-locking unexpectedly.
  
• Fixed the Perfect achievement requiring no challenges in the current lobby rather than the current mission attempt.
  
• Updated the weapon unlock notification to include a description. This screen is now also used for medals unlocked through gameplay.
  
• Added advanced settings to highlight your character, play sounds when you hurt an enemy, and more!

• Added npc_crow, npc_pigeon, and npc_seagull.
  
• Added npc_combine_s, npc_combine_shotgun, and npc_combine_elite. These soldiers lack the "swarm sense" of aliens, instead relying on sight, sound, and information from their squad. Mappers can optionally add info_node_hint to mark spots with cover for the Combine soldiers to use.
  
• Added npc_zombine, with mapper-configurable grenades.
  
• Added npc_hunter, for use with other Combine NPCs.
  
• Added npc_strider, npc_combinegunship, and npc_combinedropship for use in cinematics.
  
• asw_colonist is now randomized using a wider range of appearances. Set the skin number to change the color of their clothing.
  
• asw_env_shake can now be flagged to bypass user settings (a new convar has been added for disabling all shakes regardless of this flag).
  
• Added env_headcrabcanister.
  
• Added script_intro.
  
• A new material proxy, LanguagePreference, can be used to change a texture based on the viewer's language preference. For example:
  
  UnlitGeneric { $basetexture "example/translated_texture_english" Proxies { LanguagePreference { default "example/translated_texture_english" schinese "example/translated_texture_schinese" french "example/translated_texture_french" resultvar "$basetexture" } } }
• TileGen now expects rooms to be built for -alldetail mode (world brushes turn into func_detail, func_brush with a name starting with structure_ turns into a world brush).
  
• Improved the randomization of rd_tilegen_instance.
  
• rd_tilegen_instance now searches in reactivedrop/tilegen/instances rather than reactivedrop/tilegen/instance/ThemeName.
  
• TileGen now flattens instances before sending the map to VBSP, allowing TileGen room sets to be distributed in VPKs or on the workshop. This also means rd_tilegen_instance can be used within instances.
  
• TileGen maps now use toolsskybox for a level seal, allowing the use of light_environment and light_directional.
  
• asw_vehicle_jeep is now functional. Available vehicles without add-ons are the dune buggy from Half-Life 2 (models/buggy.mdl, scripts/vehicles/jeep_test.txt) which allows one driver, and the muscle car from Half-Life 2: Episode Two (models/vehicle.mdl, scripts/vehicles/jalopy.txt) which allows one driver and one passenger.
  
• trigger_asw_button_area now has options for overriding UI hints with custom text.
  
• trigger_asw_computer_area has been made more customizable:
  
  • Mail and news articles can now optionally end with an image. Use Image, ImageWide, and ImageTall to add an image to a news file. For mail, use MailBody1Image, etc.
    
  • Reactor status can be controlled via an input on the computer area, as an alternative to the old method of having an objective with a specific icon.
    
  • Weather, reactor status, and stock market info can now be customized with keyvalues files. Additionally, the current temperature is no longer randomized every time the weather report is opened.
• The buildcubemaps command now requires sv_cheats to be enabled.
  
• func_asw_fade now ignores collisions with grenades by default.
  
• Added asw_weapon_ar2 and asw_ammo_ar2. The Pulse Rifle can only refill ammo from these specific ammo packs and cannot use generic ammo stashes.
  
• Added asw_ammo_grenade_launcher, asw_ammo_sniper_rifle, and asw_ammo_heavy_rifle.
  
• Added info_marine_hint_dynamic, which can be assigned a parent and moved.
  
• Added rd_hud_counter, which can be used to display an dynamic arbitrary number to all players or to one specific player.

• Added a new method to marines: SetMarineRolls, which allows maps and challenges to change whether individual marines can jump.
  
• Added a new method to marines: SetNightVision, which can be used to enable night vision mode on a marine regardless of whether they have MNV34 Nightvision Goggles.
  
• Added methods to marines: IsInfested and IsElectrifiedArmorActive.
  
• Added methods to marines: OrderHackArea, OrderUseItem, OrderFollowSquadLeader, OrderHoldPosition, and OrderMoveTo.
  
• Fixed GetClips, GetMaxClips, and SetClips on weapons to work properly when the weapon is dropped. It will also return -1 for weapons that can't be reloaded.
  
• Inhabitable NPCs (such as marines) have a new method: SetControls, which overrides the value of asw_controls for anyone playing or spectating that character. Negative numbers cause the character to use the global setting.
  
• Added a new method to Inhabitable NPCs: SetGlow, which can be used to add glowing outlines to aliens and marines. This does not affect characters that would normally glow without a call to this function.
  
• asw_vehicle_jeep has methods to override its camera, SetCameraControls, SetCameraPitch, SetCameraDist, and SetCameraHeight, with corresponding Get* methods. Setting a negative value causes the vehicle to use the global setting.
  
• asw_vehicle_jeep has methods to query the occupants: MaxPassengers(), GetDriver(), and GetPassenger(seat).
  
• asw_vehicle_jeep has methods to retrieve statistics: GetSpeed, GetMaxSpeed (in miles per hour), GetRPM, GetThrottle, HasBoost, and BoostTimeLeft.
  
• Added SetSpawnZombineOnMarineKill to inhabitable NPCs, SetSpawnZombineOnDeath to marines, and a convar rd_marine_spawn_zombine_on_death_chance, all of which can be used to spawn a marine zombie with the Zombine AI when a marine dies.
  
• Added methods to players: SetNPC and SetSpectatingNPC.

It's Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop's 6th birthday on Steam! Later today, there will be a big update with lots of changes and new content, but before we get to that, we're trying something new.

This week, any mission you complete will award twice as many experience points. Mathematically, there's never been a better time to unlock your arsenal or work towards that next promotion.

The double experience week will start at midnight UTC on April 20, 2023 and run for 8 days.