Oct 27, 2018

Insurgency: Sandstorm - Jonny-Higgins

Hi everyone my name is Jon Higgins, and I am the Marketing and Communications Director here at New World Interactive.

In an earlier blog post, we went over some of the new features that our team have been working on since the last major update, including upgrading to Unreal Engine 4.20, working on our new urban map ‘Precinct’, further optimisation, improving the quality of character models, polishing animations, refining gameplay, fixing experience-breaking bugs, adding overall polish and working on community features such as third party dedicated server support.

This is a very large update and should bring around many improvements to the game. However, due to the enormity of changes the update is taking a little longer than we hoped. We are in final testing, but with engine upgrade we want to put in some extra quality assurance and polish. While we had aimed for the end of October, the new release date will now be Thursday, November 8th.

While we appreciate many of you are waiting patiently for the next update, we assure you the additional development time will be worth it, and after we complete this engine update, we will be releasing more frequent patches and updates in the run-up to release.

Below is an updated list of what you can expect in the November 8th update and a preview of some of the items.

Migration to Unreal Engine 4.20
A series of new optimizations to push frame rates higher and reduce micro-stuttering.
A new urban map ‘Precinct’
Alpha AK assault rifle weapon for the Insurgent Advisor class (and Security Advisor in Coop)
Community dedicated servers and server browser.
Improvements to the low-quality scope option.
New functionality for the Explosive Drone, which can now enter buildings through windows to be utilized as a unique interior-clearing fire support option for the Insurgents.
A new tattoo cosmetic option, with more varieties to come.
Additional Anti-Aliasing and graphics options.
Improved character models and animations, including caching of cosmetic items to increase performance, higher quality textures, and proportion adjustments. We will be making further improvements to characters after this update as well.
Numerous gameplay tweaks to movement speed, weapon mechanics, armour, fire support, map layouts, and hundreds of bug fixes and improvements.

Precinct - A new map which will feel very nostalgic for Insurgency fans. This map encompasses two classic Insurgency maps, District and Contact, in a single, massive urban environment - offering unique gameplay not experienced before in the Beta.

The Alpha AK, a brand new weapon for the Insurgent Advisor class (and Security Advisor in Coop).

We are also able to add more clarity on how we plan to reward players who pre-ordered the game and have helped provide crucial feedback during this extended beta testing period.

Although player profiles will be reset before launch, as previously announced, we decided that Beta testers will be rewarded with an exclusive tattoo cosmetic along with additional cosmetic appearance credits at launch. We can now clarify that the additional Day 1 credit boost for beta testers will be equivalent to 50% of the appearance credits you earned during the beta, rather than a flat amount. Essentially, the more you play the beta, the larger your carry over into release will be.

As always, your feedback and support are invaluable to our team. We’d like to thank each and every one of you who have joined the incredible number of players participating in this pre-order period and we look forward to seeing you in the servers during the next update on November 8th!

New World Interactive

Oct 11, 2018

Insurgency: Sandstorm Development Update 11/10/2018

Insurgency: Sandstorm - Iyagovos

Hi everyone my name is Jon Higgins, and I am the Marketing and Communications Director here at New World Interactive. It’s been a little while since we last spoke about the development state of Insurgency: Sandstorm, and we’d like to take this opportunity to update our fans on what our team have been working on.

With the PC launch moving to December 12th, our team took a fresh look at the feedback you had provided during the course of the Beta and evaluated what our top priorities should be given the additional development and testing time. This includes optimisation, improving the quality of character models and animations, refining gameplay, fixing experience and immersion breaking bugs, along with giving the game a stronger degree of polish in general. The new date will also provide us additional time to test and implement our planned community features such as third party dedicated server support and the ability for players to launch custom configured games using our server infrastructure.

You may have noticed that updates are not happening as frequently as they were before. This is partly due to our decision to upgrade from Unreal Engine 4.19 to Unreal Engine 4.20 (a significant upgrade to the core game engine which should provide important development benefits going forward), and partly due to us implementing larger gameplay and level changes which require extra testing. After the next update, you can expect more frequent patches and updates leading up to release.

Our next update is planned for the end of October and we aim to include the following:

Migration to Unreal Engine 4.20
A new urban map called ‘Precinct’
Community dedicated servers and an improved server browser.
Improvements to the low-quality scope option.
A new tattoo cosmetic option, with more varieties to come.
Additional Anti-Aliasing and graphics options
Improved character models and animations, including caching of cosmetic items to increase performance, higher quality textures, and proportion adjustments. We will be making further improvements to characters after this update as well.
Numerous gameplay tweaks to movement speed, weapon mechanics, armour, fire support, map layouts, and hundreds of bug fixes and improvements.

In addition to the above changes, we have also been thinking about how we can reward players who pre-ordered the game and helped provide crucial feedback during this extended beta testing period. Although player profiles will be reset before launch, we have decided that Beta testers will be rewarded with an exclusive tattoo cosmetic along with additional cosmetic appearance credits at launch. We will be releasing more information about this carry over and how to claim closer to launch. Be sure to keep an eye on our official accounts for details.

As always, your feedback and support are invaluable to our team. We’d like to thank each and every one of you who have joined the incredible number of players participating in this pre-order period and look forward to joining you on the battlefield in the next update!

Sep 13, 2018

Insurgency: Sandstorm Beta 2 Patch Notes - September 13th, 2018

Insurgency: Sandstorm - Northern Touch

We are releasing a hotfix today to address some issues since yesterday’s patch. If you are still struggling with performance after ensuring you’re running in full screen and trying the new “Auto” video quality preset, please share your issues with us HERE.

Fixes

User Experience
- Fixed “Reset To Defaults” being applied to all tabs, now only affects the currently selected tab.
- Fixed the following being reset to default when switching between video setting presets.
  - Display Mode
  - Field Of View
  - Game Settings
  - Audio Settings
Movement
- Fixed issue with toggle sprint input not always working reliably.
AI
- Fixed an issue where bots would sometimes begin investigating gunshots when attacking an objective, leading them to be overly cautious when counter-attacking.
Ragdolls
- Added a potential fix for T-posing ragdolls when ejected from vehicles.

--------------------------

Original September 13th patchnotes

We are releasing an update today to address issues and make some improvements since last week’s patch. If you are still struggling with performance after running the game in full screen with fine-tuned video settings, please share your issues with us HERE.

General Improvements

Video Settings Menu
- Added Low, Medium, and High overall quality preset buttons that let players overwrite all settings and instantly apply them.
- Added Auto quality preset button which runs a brief benchmark on the player’s system and applies suggested settings.

Gameplay Improvements

Game Modes
- Respawn the defending team when an objective is captured in Push.
Player Movement
- Slightly increase time player is frozen in place during door kicking.
- Slightly increased weight of the following:
  - Light Armor
  - Heavy Armor
  - Light Carrier
  - Heavy Carrier
  - AT4
  - RPG-7
  - M3 MAAWS
  - Panzerfaust 3
- Peeked open doors will open and close much further now when run into.
Weapon Balance
- Underhand grenade lobs (right click) now apply more upwards force.
- Players can now only equip one IED or C-4.
- Players can now only equip one rocket launcher.
- Reduced smoke grenade detonation time to three seconds.
- Improved projectile speed for the Smoke Grenade Launcher upgrade.
- Set arming distance for Explosive Grenade Launcher grenades to five meters (0.1 seconds in the air). Before this point, the grenade will not explode, but will still deal damage to whatever it impacts.
- Improved FOV transition when zoomed in and becoming obstructed or unobstructed while using Low Quality scopes.
Visual
- Fixed characters glowing in certain environments.
AI
- Reduced zero times on bots so they get on target faster. Now averages 5 seconds at max range, 2 seconds at close range.
- Bots can now lean out from cover and fire at enemies.
Spectator
- Switch to a static fixed camera instead of a free-roam camera if there is no one left to spectate on a player’s team.
- Switch to next available living player if spectating a dead player for more than two seconds.

Major Fixes

Fixed an issue with bullets where damage dealt could fluctuate from intended values, improving reliability of bullet damage calculation.

Fixes

User Experience
- Fixed being able to vault through unbroken windows.
- Fixed formatting and strings for loading screen scenario and gameplay rules.
- Fixed an issue preventing ragdolls from showing up correctly when a player ejected a dead body from a vehicle seat.
- Fixed an issue where vehicle acceleration audio was not heard correctly by any player other than the driver of that vehicle.
- Fixed bus prop window not using the correct glass particle on break.
- Fixed issue where destroyed vehicles wouldn’t destroy the characters upon exploding.
Stability
- Fixed a rare server crash related to the Gas Mask.
- Fixed a crash caused by AI path-finding in a Local Game.
- Fixed a potential crash caused by render targets.
Weapons
- Improved reliability of Gas Mask animations playing in first person.
- Fixed an issue where incorrect explosives would be removed when downgrading the Ammo Carrier.
- Fixed Smoke Grenade Launcher 40mm grenade not disappearing after exploding.
- Fixed the handguard disappearing from the player’s weapon when using a Smoke Grenade Launcher on the AKM.
- Fixed an issue with Security Demolitions bots dropping broken M4A1s.
- Fixed an issue where it would be possible to deploy a Bipod on another player.
- Fixed player’s view not aligning correctly when entering a vehicle turret.
- Fixed an issue where equipping a grenade launcher would not allow a player to also equip a launcher.
- Fixed an issue where a magazine could be scavenged from the same weapon that was picked up.
- Fixed an issue where players could have two Primary weapons by picking up a weapon while using their underbarrel grenade launcher.
Fire Support
- Helicopters can no longer take damage from friendly players.
- Fixed an issue where pilot and gunner ragdolls were not destroyed when a helicopter crashed.
- Fixed helicopters exploding in mid air if they were hit by a second rocket while already in their spinning state.
Voice Over
- Fixed an issue where the Support Helicopter would continue playing voice over after it began to crash.
- Fixed an issue with the “Incoming Rocket” VO response that prevented it from playing reliably.
- Fixed an issue where the “Suppressed by Sniper” VO response would play if the shooter was too close to the player.
AI
- Fixed an issue where bots would sometimes not engage players properly based on the weapon they were carrying.
- Fixed bots with custom class cosmetics not working correctly.

Characters
- Fixed an issue that caused the left hand to float with the weapon.

User Interface Improvements

Updated loading screen images.
Improved Scoreboard with new style and formatting improvements including new rank badges.
Added Current Objective display at the top of the Scoreboard.
Added Current Objective pop up on the left side of the screen when leaving a spawn area.
Added fading for Lesson hint pop ups and Current Objective pop ups.
Compass will now show when accessing the Comms or Fire Support radial menus.

Updated Content

Animation
- Improved third person reload animations.
- Added third person fire select animation.
- Added weight shifting based on movement for third person.
- Improved third person sprint animations for knives and grenades.
- Improved third person look animations for binoculars, knives, and explosives excluding launchers.
Weapons
- Added animations for deploying and undeploying the “Bipod Foregrip” upgrade.
- Improved Mosin texture.
- Improved all foregrip textures.
- Improved binoculars overlay.
Customization
- Improved “Buzz Cut” facial hair cosmetic appearance.
- Improved “Mutton Chops” facial hair cosmetic appearance.
- Improved “Hoodie” cosmetic texture masks.
- Improved textures of Security character faces.
- Improved textures of all Torso and Legs cosmetic items.
Textures & Props
- Updated Fire Support call in confirmation marker.
- Increased the size of tile bullet impact decals.
- Improved bus prop windows smoothing for reflections.

Map Balance & Fixes

Farmhouse
- Fixed several terrain and road misalignment issues.
- Fixed decal bugs.
- Fixed various dynamic prop issues.
- Fixed various LOD issues.
- Fixed various light issues on props.
- Fixed a stuck spot/exploit.
- Fixed Insurgent vehicle spawn on Skirmish.
- Improved the lighting of various interiors.
- Removed the restricted area from the balcony at objective A on Push Insurgents.
- Made improvements to AI to have bots use cover more effectively.
- Improved bot navigation.
- Made various performance improvements.
- Made various visual improvements.
- Fixed miscellaneous bugs.
Summit
- Revised Push Security scenario to improve balance.
- Added a new alleyway near Push Security objective C to improve flanking opportunities for Security.
- Moved objective A to the pool area and relocated the Security spawn on Firefight East.
- Fixed various LOD issues.
- Fixed a corner rock exploit.
- Fixed Insurgent Fire Support mortars and rockets not landing in the correct location.
- Fixed Supply Crates not becoming active on Checkpoint.
- Improved bot navigation.
- Made various performance improvements.
- Made various visual improvements.
- Fixed miscellaneous bugs.
Hideout
- Moved Security Supply Crate on Skirmish.
- Fixed bots spawning on a rooftop unintentionally.
- Tweaked post-processing to reduce brightness.
- Made improvements to AI to have bots use cover more effectively.
- Improved various decals.
- Made various performance improvements.
- Made various visual improvements.
- Fixed miscellaneous bugs.
Crossing
- Added one-way exits for Security Checkpoint starting spawn.
- Replaced destroyed fuel trucks with various other props.
- Added better protection for objective B cache on Checkpoint Security.
- Changed objective F to a capturable objective on Checkpoint Security.
- Added a balcony to the final objective building for Checkpoint Security.
- Improved bot navigation.
- Made improvements to AI to have bots use cover more effectively.
- Made various visual improvements.
- Fixed several terrain issues.
- Improved the lighting of various interiors.
- Fixed road misalignment issues.
- Fixed weapon cache overlapping with furniture on Push Security.
- Fixed a spawn camping issue on Push Insurgents.
- Fixed a small seam in the playable area.
- Replaced broken bus prop with updated version on Firefight West.
- Fixed miscellaneous bugs.

Sep 11, 2018

New Release Date in December

Insurgency: Sandstorm - chaton

Dear community,

Today we are announcing the delay of Insurgency: Sandstorm from its originally planned release date on September 18th 2018. The game will now be releasing for Windows PC on December 12th 2018, and the Pre-order Beta will continue until the release of the game.

This was one of the hardest decisions our team has ever had to make and not one taken lightly. However, we feel it is in the best interest of the game and our community to spend more time working to ensure we deliver the best possible experience.

During Pre-order Beta 2 thousands of players took to the game and gave us great feedback on dozens of topics. Our small, but highly dedicated team has been working around the clock to respond to and address as much feedback as possible; releasing two hotfixes over the first weekend and a significant patch last Thursday. We’ve already seen your positive feedback, as our team have started to address priority areas such as performance, hit registration, and player movement.

Despite the game’s improvement, we are acutely aware that not all of you are having the ideal experience we want to deliver. By extending the beta and moving our launch date to December, the additional time will allow us to make significant improvements to the game with continued input from you. The additional time allows us to target a lower minimum system requirement, address more bugs, work on overall polish, gather additional feedback from the community to refine gameplay, and ensure that highly requested community features which may otherwise have had to be added post launch (such as community servers and custom games) are ready for day 1.

The major goals we aim to achieve with this extra time are as follows:

Upgrade to Unreal Engine 4.20 and continue optimizing
Improve the character models, textures, and animations in the game
Improve the “scoped” experience for both high and low-quality scope settings
Improve the level visuals, gameplay and optimization
Add more cosmetic item variations and a new forearm tattoo cosmetic type which can also be seen in first person
Expand in-game server options to include a server browser, community-run server support, and a custom games system allowing users to specially configure games hosted by our server infrastructure.
Refine the game to the point it has far less bugs, glitches, visual inconsistencies and other issues.

We appreciate that these improvements may mean you have to wait a little longer; however we feel it is important that we deliver a game that lives up to your high expectations and that Sandstorm can be deemed a true successor to Insurgency. Those of you who have been supporting us during the Pre-order Beta tests will be able to continue playing until the release of the game, and we look forward to more of your feedback.

The pre-order discount will be extended until the new release date and we will continue to grant pre-purchasers instant access to the ongoing beta along with the 10% pre-order discount. The additional 10% loyalty discount for owners of the original Insurgency will continue to run until the end of March 2019. Note that the Loyalty Discount does not stack with other promotions.

We thank all of you for your passion and support, and look forward to continuing to test with you over the coming weeks ahead of our launch in December.

Sincerely,
New World Interactive

Sep 6, 2018

Insurgency: Sandstorm Pre-Order Beta 2 Patch Notes - September 6, 2018

Insurgency: Sandstorm - New World Interactive

Today we are releasing our first full update for pre-order Beta #2! The update contains a lot of critical fixes, improvements and optimizations. We look forward to all of your continued feedback as we continue polishing the game.

The game now offers a lot of ways to customize video settings, so please be sure to fine-tune quality and performance depending on your system specs. In particular:

Texture Streaming Pool Size needs to be adjusted depending on your video card. We recommend starting low and increasing to see what your GPU can handle. Setting this too high will cause noticeable hitching because your GPU is overloaded.
Shadow Quality as well as Dynamic Shadow Resolution and Cascaded Shadow Map Resolution have a pretty sizeable performance impact, so we recommend lowering these settings as much as possible if you’re experiencing performance issues.
Full Screen display mode is really important to ensure you’re getting an accurate depiction of performance. If you are struggling with performance and haven’t already ensured you are in full screen mode as was advised in the last hotfix announcement, we highly recommend you switch to full screen mode as soon as possible.

While there are many new settings to tweak, the ones listed above are particularly useful. If you are still struggling with performance after fine-tuning your video settings and ensuring you’re running in full screen mode, please share the details with us HERE.

General Improvements

Added South America server region. See “Matchmaking Preferences” in the Play menu to select it.
Expanded Video Settings Menu
- Video Settings are now only applied when the user presses “Apply Changes.”
- Advanced settings can override Quality settings if changed manually. This change is represented by a blue tint.
- Added new Advanced options.
  - Super Sampling
  - Ambient Occlusion
  - Anisotropic Filtering
  - Tessellation
  - Screen Space Reflections
  - Texture Streaming Pool Size
  - Maximum Dynamic Shadow Resolution
  - Maximum Cascaded Shadow Map Resolution

Major Fixes

Fixed issue with hit registration which would prevent bullets from dealing damage to an enemy, sometimes resulting in a higher time to kill.
Fixed bullets not properly penetrating arms and hands which was preventing them from dealing any subsequent damage to the torso.

Optimization & Performance

Disabled Nvidia Aftermath as it was a possible cause of some hitching issues.
Improved animation logic processing speed.
Moved all character cosmetics to a new mask shader system.
Improved character cosmetic system logic.
Scaled particle spawn counts for surface interactions based on the user’s Effects Quality setting.
Moved all bullet impact particles to be processed by the GPU instead of the CPU.
Limited the number of bounce effects created on ejected brass to three.
Removed spawning of weapon drop and body fall audio if not audible by the player.
Disabled water tracing for anybody not performing foliage interaction.
Updated Security and Insurgent Weapon Cache objectives to use a material swap instead of mesh swap.
Improved light audio spawning.
Improved textures for the following:
- Russian Transport Truck
- Large Technical
- Gunship
- Support Helicopter
- Destroyed Support Helicopter
- Bomber Drone
- Various small level props
Fixed a bug where dying in a vehicle would continuously play a blood impact effect on the ragdoll that reduced performance when exploded.

Gameplay Improvements

Player Movement
- Reduced player acceleration slightly.
- Force players into a crouch when completing a slide.
- Increased prone to standing transition time from 0.65 seconds to 1 second.
- Cap player speed to prone speed during the prone to stand transition.
Weapon Balance
- Reduced Light Armor effectiveness slightly.
- Reduced Heavy Armor effectiveness slightly.
- Reduced sway caused by stamina loss slightly.
- Reduced sway speed from suppression.
- Melee Bash animation can no longer be used on opened doors.
- Increased bullet drop slightly for 5.56, 5.45, and 7.62 at long ranges.
- Increased Ammo Check speed by 40%.
- Increased free aim recoil slightly.
- Fixed Laser Sight lasers not displaying correctly for other characters.
- Light Carrier no longer gives one extra rocket.
- Heavy Carrier gives only one extra rocket instead of two.
- Reduced the cooking timer for M83 Smoke grenade from five to four seconds.
- Increased M84 Flash grenade draw, put away, and throw speeds by 30%.
- Bipods now allow for more realistic angles based on the deployed surface height.
- Decreased Bipod max pitch.
- Greased Bolt Upgrade
  - Increased supply cost to three in Versus and Coop.
  - Increased supply cost to four in Competitive.
- Mosin Stripper Clip Upgrade
  - Increased supply cost to two in Versus and Coop.
  - Increased supply cost to three in Competitive.
Game Modes
- All
  - Added Gas Mask to the default Loadout for all Insurgent classes.
  - Removed drum magazine upgrade in Versus and Competitive.
- Checkpoint
  - Added Marksman, Breacher, and other unused classes as enemies.
  - Disabled Autocannon Strafe fire support when playing as Insurgents.
  - Added AK suppressors to Security Commander, Observer, Rifleman and Demolitions classes.
  - Added Insurgent sidearms to all Security classes.
  - Added drum magazine upgrades to all classes.
  - Increased enemy AI spawns at the final objective.
  - Improved insertion vehicle navigation paths.
Fire Support
- Gunship and Minigun Support
  - Increased turret angle at which helicopters begin shooting at players, making their initial shots less accurate.
  - Reduced Support Helicopter minigun spread by 10%.
  - Reduced hover time for Gunship from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.
  - Reduced hover time for Minigun Support from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.
- Smoke Mortars
  - Reduced round start cooldown from 30 seconds to five seconds to be consistent with Smoke Artillery.
Supply Cache
- Resupplying will now restore a player’s health to the max.
- Set cooldown for Resupplying to 45 seconds.
- Added UI element which communicates when Resupplying is on cooldown.
Vehicles
- Set Gunner seat to use the vehicle’s full view rotation.
- Set Gunner seat’s aiming to be absolute instead of relative, allowing it to move independently of the vehicle’s movement.
- Improved collision for bus prop steps to stop players from becoming caught on them.
Visual
- Adjust eye exposure levels when transitioning between the Loadout screen and the game world.
- Improved FXAA anti-aliasing quality.

Updated Content

Animation
- Improved body alignment with the ground for characters in prone.
- Added remaining first person weapon animations for the Uzi including Speed Reload, Foregrip, and Drum.
- Improved Grenade Launcher poses.
- Improved Grenade poses.
- Improved Binoculars, C4, mines, and similar item poses.
Weapons
- Added new Compensator for the M45.
Customization
- Unlocked items will appear at the top of the list of variations.
- Female hair, including Covered, can now be used with Headgear.
- Added texture layer for Facial Hair.
- Reduced “Rare” cosmetic costs from 900 to 600 credits.
- Reduced “Very Rare” cosmetic costs from 1800 to 1200 credits.
- Reduced “Rare” cosmetic camouflage costs from 1000 to 800 credits.
- Reduced “Very Rare” cosmetic camouflage costs from 2000 to 1500 credits.
- Assigned Cheap under the Insurgent Eyewear slot to the “Very Rare” category.
- Assigned Shades under the Insurgent Eyewear slot to the “Rare” category.
- Renamed “Shades” to “Stylish”
- Removed Track Top Black/Dark Red under the Insurgent Legs slot.
- Removed Track Pants Black/Dark Red under the Insurgent Legs slot.
- Replaced Dark Brown Cargo with Brown.
- Improved material for Bump under the Headgear slot.
Audio
- Added chemical cough voice over for when taking damage from Chemical Mortars.
- Updated cache rigging audio to be the correct duration of the timer.
- Updated all counter attack music.

Fixes

User Experience
- Fixed an issue where players could sometimes be locked into planting an explosive on an enemy Weapon Cache objective.
- Fixed “High Speed Low Drag” achievement.
- Fixed an occasional crash caused by the movie player during the splash screen sequence.
- Fixed a crash occurring with the Tactical Map.
- Fixed a crash occurring from scavenging weapons.
Weapons
- Fixed AN-M14 Incendiary grenades not showing any effects if they detonated in mid-air.
- Fixed third person shotgun hand position.
- Fixed PK-AS optic reticle alignment.
- Enabled post processing on PK-AS optic.
- Fixed shell in the magazine tube showing for the M870’s empty reload start animation.
- Fixed floating magazine blocking the player’s camera when using an L85A2 with the Extended Magazine upgrade.
- Fixed the G36K stock disappearing when using the Extended Magazine upgrade.
- Fixed audio not playing when deploying a Bipod onto a surface.
Fire Support
- Fixed Rocket Barrage projectiles occasionally bouncing off of terrain.
- Fixed issue with Support Helicopter’s targeting logic.
Voice Over
- Fixed delayed playtimes for:
  - Fire Support Being Finished
  - Observer Thanking Station
  - Helicopter Leaving
- Reduced time to play Kill Confirmed voice over for Gunship and Minigun Support.
AI
- Improved navigation to the objective during a counter-attack
- Improved Vehicle Gunner aiming.

User Interface Improvements

Added empty rank badge icon for players who haven’t completed enough placement matches to be ranked in Competitive.
Added Commander and Observer icons in the Tactical Map.
Added Primary/Sidearm toggle button under Binds.
Added Advanced option to disable the HUD entirely under Video Settings.
Various tweaks to class icons.

Map Balance & Fixes

Crossing
- Landscape optimization pass.
- Moved Security Skirmish spawn a bit further back.
- Moved Security spawns for A and D back a bit on Push Insurgents.
- Tweaked interior lighting to improve readability.
- Fixed various terrain bugs.
- Improved shadows on some level props.
- Fixed insertion vehicle path on Checkpoint.
Farmhouse
- Made various optimization improvements.
- Revised Skirmish scenario to make it less of a spawn trap for Insurgents.
- Particles no longer have a second delay before they become inactive outside players view.
- Fixed AI being able to see through the crop fields.
- Fixed floating issues with roads.

Tweaked post-processing to reduce washed-out look and improve contrast.
Adjusted placement of dynamic level props.
Fixed an issue where Security players couldn't capture objective A in a certain spot on Push Security.
Fixed insertion vehicle path on Checkpoint.
Improved AI vehicle navigation on Checkpoint.
Improved AI’s ability to use cover.
Fixed other miscellaneous bugs.

Hideout
- Optimized terrain to lower triangle count.
- Adjusted playable area to make it feel less restrictive.
- Made river near Insurgents Skirmish spawn more shallow.
- Moved Security spawn closer to the river and relocated D to a different building on Skirmish.
- Moved Supply Crates closer to faction spawns on Skirmish.
- Removed a few balconies that were obstructing firing positions.
- Fixed insertion vehicle path on Checkpoint.
- Fixed other miscellaneous bugs.

Summit
- Optimized buildings to reduce draw calls.
- Optimized background rocks and buildings.
- Modified culling to make it more aggressive at longer range.
- Made particles despawn more quickly if outside player’s view.
- Improved HLODs.
- Switched teams on Checkpoint Security and Checkpoint Insurgents scenarios.
- Removed roads from the hilltop to make them less navigable for vehicles.
- Lowered railing on the bridge to improve defensive positions.
- Improved AI vehicle navigation on Checkpoint.
- Fixed insertion vehicle path on Checkpoint.

Known bugs

If you find yourself with missing cosmetics please just hit the randomise button

Aug 31, 2018

Insurgency Sandstorm Pre-Order Beta 2 - Hotfix August 31st

Insurgency: Sandstorm - New World Interactive

We are releasing a hotfix today to address various feedback and issues. We are aware of frame rate fluctuation problems people are having and some of today’s changes are to help alleviate this. Smoothing the game experience is a high priority for us leading up to release and post-release.

If you are having issues with running the game smoothly, we recommend trying some or all of the following options in the Settings menu:

Set the game to Fullscreen under Video/Display.
Set Scope Quality to Low under Video/Advanced.
Set Frame Smoothing to on under Video/Advanced.
Set Frame Limiter under Video/Advanced to a frame rate just below your average FPS to ensure more consistent and reliable frame times.

Optimization & Performance

Fixed an issue where the game was not launching in Fullscreen even if the Fullscreen option was selected in the Settings menu. This would result in players unknowingly playing in the less performant borderless windowed mode which limits FPS to the monitor’s refresh rate.
Added framerate smoothing option in the Settings menu.
Added framerate limiting option in the Settings menu.
Added LODs to vehicle fire particles and further optimized the emitters.

Fixes

Increased Easy Anti-Cheat and initial connection timeouts to 150 seconds to assist with connection to matchmaking servers.
Fixed Class Selection menu occasionally not showing any classes to choose from.
Fixed an issue where awarded cosmetic items were showing as locked until the game was restarted.
Fixed an issue with Smoke Artillery not blocking visibility for bots in Checkpoint.
Fixed destructible objectives crediting players with assist damage when they didn’t destroy them.
Fixed an issue with Supply Crates which stopped their UI element from showing reliably.
Fixed third person animation poses for grenades, pistols and items.
Fixed an issue where changing weapons while using a bipod would cause the third person animation to break.
Fixed an issue where moving away from a deployed surface with the bipod would temporarily break third person animations.
Fixed foregrip hand poses for the third person AKM and MP7.
Fixed an issue with third person grenade launcher animation poses.
Fixed an issue with the SVD with bipod breaking third person animations in the Loadout room.
Fixed an issue where resupplying with a foregrip would break third person animations.
Fixed characters T-posing when killed inside an exploding vehicle.
Fixed an issue with the Lessons menu where clicking outside of the video would unload it.
Fixed broken UI texture for Skirmish in the Versus match preferences menu.
Fixed an issue where the character would be rotated 180 degrees in the escape menu and Loadout screen.
Fixed an issue where Smoke Artillery would sometimes trigger its audio twice on detonation.
Fixed issue that caused the Anti-Aliasing video setting to list anti-aliasing options that are currently unavailable.

Gameplay Improvements

Weapon Balance

Decreased recoil by 20% if using a weapon’s burst fire mode.
Increased recoil of M16A4 and M16A2 slightly.
Increased horizontal recoil for drum mags slightly.
Increased horizontal recoil when in free aim / hipfire.

Fire Support

Added a cooldown to the Support Helicopter’s minigun burst time.
Removed player damage from Smoke Mortar and Smoke Artillery shells.

Gamemodes

All Modes

Extended Magazine with 5 extra rounds now costs 1 supply.
Extended Magazine with 10 extra rounds now costs 2 supply.
Extended Magazine with 20 extra rounds now costs 3 supply.

Checkpoint

Reduced the chance of counter-attacks using lethal Fire Support to create more diversity in enemy Fire Support attacks.
Added 2x Kobra sight for Security Coop classes.
Removed 1x Holographic sight from all Insurgent Coop classes.

Updated Content

Added vehicle death animations.
Added idle animations for characters in third person.
Added sidearm melee third person animations.
Improved ragdoll impulse values for ballistic ammo to allow them to react to impacts from bullets more realistically.
Improved the lighting of third person items and weapons.

User Interface

Updated Customize screen with new cameras and lighting.
Display Competitive rank when hovering over Competitive in the Play menu.
Competitive rank display will always be shown even when unranked and will default to “Unranked” until you have completed the required number of placement matches and earned a rank.
Bots in Local Play’s Checkpoint are now named after their chosen class.

Map Balance & Fixes

Summit

Added missing actor merged mesh.
Scatter rocks no longer fade out on lower settings.
Reduced skylight intensity slightly.

Hideout

Reworked exposure settings.
Reduced bloom.
Increased contrast.

Crossing

Reduced skylight brightness.
Potential fix for Security Checkpoint A bright spot.
Added vehicle nav modifiers for Checkpoint.
Adjusted vehicle spawn number for Checkpoint.
Added more cover actors for bots for Checkpoint.

Aug 30, 2018

Pre-Order Beta 2 is open!

Insurgency: Sandstorm - Netheos

Hi everyone,

We are excited to announce that the second Pre-Order Beta of Insurgency: Sandstorm is now open!

You can jump into the Beta and play right now by pre-ordering the game on Steam at a 10% discount. Owners of the original Insurgency, which now boasts a player population of over five million, will receive an additional 10% loyalty discount, available through the end of the year. Note that the Loyalty Discount does not stack with other promotions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DheJOeInks
Pre-Order Beta 2, which is now live, features two new maps compared to the first Beta, for a total of four maps and four modes, including offline coop, from the final version of the game, character customization, dozens of weapons, and hundreds of loadout options (including explosives, armour, and ammo carriers).

Thanks to all the positive feedback Insurgency: Sandstorm received during the first Pre-order Beta earlier this month, the team will be using your feedback to continue to polish and optimize the game up until launch and beyond. We are now happy to let players experience the the intensity of modern combat in this Pre-order Beta phase.

Beta 2 is still a development build of the game and an on-going work in progress. We use betas as an important tool for gathering player feedback, studying system performance, and balancing the game. As such, it is important to stress that this is not a representation of the release version of Insurgency: Sandstorm.

As you can see in the Pre-Order Beta 2 changelog, the team has worked hard on this new version, but you may encounter, bugs, balance and/or performance issues. We encourage all participants to use the and forums to report any issues so that our team can continue working on them for the release.

Before playing, please check out:

Join us to celebrate the Beta 2 launch with a Dev Q&A and giveaway at 18h00 (CEST) on www.twitch.tv/focushomeinteractive

There are no NDAs or streaming restrictions on this test, and we're greatly looking forward to getting feedback from all across the gaming community as we work on the launch build. Pre-Order Beta 2 will stay open until the release of the game, September 18th.

Insurgency: Sandstorm releases on Windows PC in September 18, with Linux and Mac support coming later, and on PS4 and Xbox One in 2019.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/581320/Insurgency_Sandstorm/

Please find the Pre-Order Beta 2 Changelog below.

----------------------------------

Insurgency Sandstorm Pre-Order Beta 2 - Update 30/08/18

Optimization

Large reduction in draw calls across all maps to improve framerate.
Full LODs added to all cosmetic characters & gear.
Full LODs added to all 3P weapon and equipment assets.
Full LODs added to all props in the world.
All maps actor-merged.
Large particle optimization pass, set proper render bounds, LODs and tick rates on all particle effects.
Nativize most Unreal blueprints allowing them to run faster.
Improved bot spawning timings for Checkpoint.
Bullet projectiles now trace against lower LOD collision meshes.
Vastly reduced triangle counts on many larger environment rock prop sets.
Gunship and Support Helicopter rounds now use a simple collision trace.
Changed player spawning, to spawn one player per tick instead of two players per tick.
Improved material instances for various cosmetics.
Reworked the bullet hit validation.
Increased performance for player movement in water.
Ensured character cosmetics are not being spawned multiple times per cosmetic slot.
Characters now use data-only blueprints.
Items no longer tick by default.
Reduced the amount of times cosmetics spawn and despawn.
Made weapons only tick when equipped.
Interactable gear now use timers instead of tick functions.
Allowed only certain crew member characters to tick in helicopters.
Utilized texture atlases for certain cosmetic items to reduce draw calls.
Doors and Supply Crates only tick when they are in an opening or closing transition.
Destroyed prop vehicles will now extinguish their flames after 40 seconds so the fire/smoke particle doesn’t stay forever.

New Features

Doors can now be breached by being kicked down.
Added visual feedback system for Commanders, Observers and teammates to indicate where Fire Support is being called in and what type of Fire Support it is. Colored smoke appears on the target area.
- Security
  - Gunship - Green
  - Autocannon Strafe - Yellow
  - Explosive Artillery - Red
  - Smoke Artillery - Blue
  - Minigun Support - Purple
- Insurgents
  - Rocket Barrage - Green
  - Bomber Drones - Yellow
  - Explosive Mortars - Red
  - Smoke Mortars - Blue
  - IED Drone - Purple
  - Chemical Mortars - Pink
Servers will now kick players who have been idle for 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
Tessellation has been added for improved terrain visuals. The quality/performance of this can be scaled by adjusting the effects quality in your video settings.
New Local Play experience which allows you to play solo with AI teammates. This game mode is based on Checkpoint, but adds objective-based reinforcement wave gaining similar to as in Push.
Lesson system including browsable menu texts which explain game mechanics and video hint pop ups when performing certain actions for the first time in-game. The full collection of Lessons will be added during Pre-order Beta 2.
Add game options for the following:
- Always show compass.
- Enable and disable contextual key kints for use and vault.
- Enable and disable in-game Lesson hint pop ups.

New Content

New maps “Crossing” and “Summit”
New Greased Bolt upgrade option for bolt action rifles under the new “Chamber” upgrade category.
Added Hoodie Camo cosmetic and variations.
Added Leather variations.
New optic rail for AK’s.
New water explosion particles for artillery shells.
Proper third person meshes for C4, IEDs and detonators.
New bus model and textures.
New music for the Loadout menu.

Gameplay Improvements

Player Movement
- Reworked character equipment weights which impact top sprint speed and stamina.
- Reduced top sprint speed for characters by 5% before weight and stamina based slowdowns are applied.
- Removed sprint speed increase for players when they were in a suppressed state.
- Slightly reduced standing movement speed.
- Reduced standing move backward speed.
- Decreased sliding speed.
- Increased slow walk speed.
- Increased slow crouch walk speed.
- Slightly increased jump height.
- Slightly increased vault radius.
Characters
- Increase the brightness of certain Security camo textures for gameplay balance.
- Removed black and dark grey variations from Insurgents torso and leg items for gameplay balance.
Weapons
- Increased ADS speed.
- Increased 5.56 and 5.45 top damage slightly.
- Reduced effectiveness of hip fire by increasing free aim recoil and radius slightly.
- Balanced FOVs for optics when using Focus to be more consistent between low and high quality scope options.
- Increased G3 recoil slightly.
- Decreased FAL recoil slightly.
- Decreased AK-74 recoil slightly.
- Decreased UZI recoil slightly.
- Increased reload speed for the M249 slightly.
- Decreased lateral recoil on the MP7 slightly.
- Increased lateral recoil for the AKS-74U slightly.
- Increased Mk 14 EBR’s supply cost to 5.
- Increased supply cost of Extended Magazine for MP7 from 2 to 3 supply.
- Adjusted Mosin and M24 penetration power to be more balanced.
- Vehicle mines are now throwable.
Gamemodes
- All Modes
  - Removed Mk 14 EBR from Advisor class for gameplay balance.
  - Team kicks for team kills will now use the cooled down value instead of the total value when defining if a player has killed enough teammates to warrant a kick.
- Skirmish
  - Increased match length by adding a second round, with a team swap beforehand as in Push.
- Checkpoint
  - Added all available weapon upgrades to all Insurgent coop classes.
  - Ensured Security Coop classes get all Insurgent weapon upgrades.
  - Added Flashbang to all Insurgent coop classes.
  - Added M4A1 to Rifleman, Demolitions, Commander, and Observer
  - Insurgent Coop classes.
  - Added M870 to Breacher Insurgent Coop class.
  - Add M249 to Gunner Insurgent Coop class.
- Versus Firefight
  - Match length is now 6 rounds, with a team swap after 3 rounds.
  - Reduced player count to 24 players.
  - Removed Commander, Observer, and Demolitions classes.
- Competitive Firefight
  - Increased supply costs for various weapons and upgrades.
  - Added more primary weapons to the Assaulter class.
  - Added 1x and 2x optics for the Sharpshooter class.
  - Removed Mk 14 EBR and SVD from the Sharpshooter.
Explosives
- Tweaked explosive penetration.
- Frag grenades now only penetrate weaker materials.
- Fire Support will still penetrate most surface types, but deal reduced damage.
- Increased time taken for Incendiary and Molotov grenades to detonate cache objectives.
Fire Support
- Gunship
  - Increased autocannon burst cooldown to 4 seconds instead of 2.
  - Decreased minimum and maximum burst times.
  - Increased flyover time to 15 seconds from 10 seconds.
- Bomber Drones
  - Increased explosive radius slightly.
  - Improved positional audio.
- IED Drone
  - Increased explosion radius.
- AI
  - Bots who are directly exposed at mid range will crouch and fire at their target instead of rushing to cover.
  - Bots suppressed in cover will reload if there's a larger magazine and they haven't fired recently.
  - Bots should turn slightly faster.
  - Bots should react slightly faster.
  - Bots will fire in a much tighter cone before zeroing on target.
  - Increased target zeroing time by a few seconds.
  - Reduced accuracy of suppressed bots.
  - Encouraged bots to sprint to objectives if the round timer is low allowing bots to arrive faster during counter attacks.

Updated Content

Animation
- Updated animations and blending for character movement.
- Reworked ragdoll physics to use correct weight and limb rotation limits, resulting in more natural looking ragdolls on death.
- New animations for characters using bipods.
- New animations for characters using binoculars.
Weapons
- New model and texture for the M9 pistol.
- New smoke effect for rocket and grenade launcher barrels.
- Improved textures for the M249.
- Improved textures for the rail mounted pistol laser.
- Added drum magazines to the following weapons
  - AKM
  - AK-74
  - AKS-74U
  - M16A2
  - M16A4
  - M4A1
  - Uzi
  - L85A2
- Added grenade launcher sight for the M16A2’s M203.
- Compensator and Flash Hider upgrades will only use a mesh if it’s meant for that weapon.
Cosmetics
- Updated cosmetic costs and rarities to be more based on the item rather than its colors.
- Improved dirt layer on all cosmetic items.
- Added gender switch button.
- Added ability to save a preset of a character’s cosmetics.
- Updated camo scaling to be more consistent across all cosmetic items.
- Renamed DPM camo to Desert DPM.
- Improved glasses under Insurgent Headgear.
Gear
- Made Gas Mask goggles less opaque.
Audio
- Improved audio experience in Loadout rooms for all maps.
- Added muffled effect for players wearing a Gas Mask.
- Sprint breathing and Focus breathing with and without Gas Masks are now character voice specific.
Vehicles
- Disabled leaning out of vehicles.
- Disabled the use of all weapons in vehicles except pistols.
- Melee can now be used in vehicles to break vehicle glass.

Fixes

User Experience
- Taglines now populate correctly into the player’s profile.
Characters
- Characters seen at longer ranges through scopes should now tick at the correct rate.
- Fixed an issue where a ragdoll’s skin tone would be set incorrectly.
- Removed hit reactions from fire damage, preventing characters from bleeding when damaged by fire.
- Fixed player’s camera from clipping into their head if they had the Loadout menu open when spawned.
- Fixed finger posing on the Binoculars to prevent fingers clipping through gloves.
- Fixed certain torso cosmetic assets that had clipping issues.
Weapons
- Fixed weapon audio breaking if previously killed by a headshot.
- Fix an issue where the weapon overheat audio would not be terminated when exiting the Gunner seat.
- Prevent cases where weapons get multiple Foregrip, Compensator or
- Suppressor options.
- Fixed Laser Sight not working correctly when equipping a grenade launcher.
- Fixed AR Scope not showing correctly on the M16A2 world model.
- Fixed Hunting Scope not showing correctly on the Mosin world model.
- Fixed 2x Kobra Sight not showing correctly on the AK-74 world model.
- Fixed Mk 18 CQBR secondary magazine showing during the up and down animations state when using a Foregrip.
- Fixed some optics not being correctly aligned when in ADS.
- Shells and secondary magazines on weapons should no longer show in the Loadout selection.
Explosives
- Updated Molotov and Incendiary grenades to they align properly to surfaces and leave the correct sized scorch marks.
Voice Over
- Fixed a bug where flying vehicle pilots would not play their “Leaving” lines.
- Fixed a bug where objective destruction lines were not being played.
- Fixed a bug where helicopter radio events continued playing after the helicopter had left or crashed.
- Create a queuing system for both proximity and radio VO.
- Melee VO lines will now only play if an enemy is in front of you.
- Fixed suppression response VO for machine guns and snipers.
- Fixed a bug where enemy bot VO was showing in the chat menu for dead or spectating players.
- Fixed a bug where death VO would not be attached to the ragdoll of the dead player or bot correctly.
AI
- Removed grenade launcher bots.
- Bot will no longer flee from grenades they can’t see.
- Bots now have very short visibility inside smoke.
- Various bot pathing fixes.

User Interface

Penetration is now represented as “PP” (Penetration Power) instead of “Joules” in the Loadout menu.
Rearranged the upgrade category order in the Loadout menu.
Movement and vehicle controls can now be bound to the same key.
Weapon in the Loadout menu can now be rotated slightly.
Added generic Extended Magazine description.
Added weapon selection icons for the GP25 Explosive and GP25 Smoke.
Compass can now be toggled on and off in spectator mode.

Map Balance & Fixes

Crossing
- Actor merge pass.
- HLOD pass.
Farmhouse
- Actor merge pass.
- HLOD pass.
- Made minor gameplay tweaks.
- Tweaked Checkpoint scenarios.
- Tweaked restricted zones for Push scenarios to add a bit more breathing room for defenders to set up a defensive perimeter.
- Tweaked playable areas.
- Adjusted spawn locations and spawn point angles in all scenarios.
- Tweaked Checkpoint scenarios.
- Tweaked interior lighting throughout the map.
- Small adjustments for global lighting.
- Fixed several issues across all scenarios.
- Particle gameplay/optimizing pass.
- Blocking volume pass.
- Road fixes and polishing.
- Made foliage placement tweaks to improve readability.
- Visual polish interior and exterior.
- Soundscape polish.
- Loadout selection room polish pass.
- Decal polish pass.
- Fixed miscellaneous issues to improve both gameplay and visuals.
Hideout
- Reduced sun flare effect.
- Actor merge pass.
- HLOD pass.
- Made minor gameplay tweaks.
- Tweaked Checkpoint scenarios.
- Tweaked restricted zones for Push scenarios to add a bit more breathing room for defenders to set up a defensive perimeter.
- Tweaked playable areas.
- Adjusted spawn locations and spawn point angles in all scenarios.
- Tweaked interior lighting throughout the map.
- Made small adjustments for global lighting.
- Fixed several issues across all scenarios.
- Particle gameplay/optimizing pass.
- Blocking volume pass.
- Road fixes and polishing.
- Foliage placement tweaks to improve readability.
- Visual polish interior and exterior.
- Soundscape polish.
- Loadout selection room polish pass.
- Decal polish pass.
- Blocking volume pass.
- Fixed miscellaneous issues to improve both gameplay and visuals.
Summit
- Reduced sun flare effect.
- Actor merge pass.
- HLOD pass.
- Decal polish pass.