Aug 19, 2020

Insurgency: Sandstorm - fatherHank

Check out the full changelist and see what’s new in update 1.7.1, in what we’ve dubbed our Clean Sweep update. Clean Sweep aims to optimize and fix bugs, but also deliver a number of little features that will go a long way in improving your moment to moment gameplay. For more information on this update’s production, check out our last State of Production post.

New Features

Added transparent magazine with animated bullets and spring for G36K

Added speed reloads for MG3, PKM, M240B, and M249

Added a “Flat Top” weapon upgrade for M4A1 and M16A4 that removes the front sight post for a clearer view when using 1x optics

Created new first person knife animations

Adjusted the brightness of electronic reticles to make them more visible when using Night-vision Goggles

Added character animation for when blinded by a flashbang

General Improvements

Adding AI controlled enemy gun truck vehicles (which can be stolen by players!) to Co-op Checkpoint mode during counter-attacks on maps that support vehicle navigation
Improved sharpness and clarity of electronic reticles on various optics
Set vehicles to respawn after being destroyed until objective A is captured in Push game mode
Added Drum Magazine upgrade for the Mk 18 CQBR in Domination, Team Deathmatch, Range, and Checkpoint
Adjusted the layering of objects on the Tactical Map so Supply Crates will display above player icons
Moved respawn message in spectate to be at middle center of the screen, with an option in Settings to move it back to its legacy position at the top right
Improved first person grenade sprinting animations
Added the ability for server admins to copy a list of all players in the server to clipboard using the server admin panel
Added the ability to filter by servers with mutators and to view the active mutators on a server in the community server browser
Fixed an issue in the Loadout menu where weapons you select would display in a different initial position from their final position, causing a blinking effect
Added new Welrod animations for when the player is too close to an object and when sprinting
Added mouseover feedback to the region selector button in the Play menu
Improved the contrast between text color and background color in dropdowns in Profile menu
Increased the resolution and compression of the texture viewing cone on the Tactical Map to improve its overall look
Updated the objective reminder pop up at the start of a Checkpoint mode counter-attack to say Defend instead of Hold for consistency with other modes
Created a new loading screen for when loading a custom map
Updated bolt-action rifle reload animations so cartridges are more consistently visible when the weapon’s action is open
Updated all the weapon icons to accurately represent their default layout
Updated the widget system used for loading screens to prevent potential crashes
Improved the physics asset of the player pawn when using different types of armor
Made various improvements to Mods menu
Added key hints for scrolling on grid view
Improved the font size and weight
Updated circular loader for images
Updated fallback images
Improved the mod.io button
Improved the placement of items in the grid menu
Added a background and circular loader when the main images is loading
Replaced all Unreal Motion Graphics bindings from HUD elements and replaced them with more performant setters
Improved consistency between spectator respawn messages and Loadout respawn messages
Improved the consistency of Co-op and Versus terms in various menus
Increased legibility of player names on the Tactical Map
Updated SMAA 1x and T2x shaders to make them compatible with Unreal's new post-processing architecture

Co-op Improvements

Reduced accuracy of enemy grenade and Molotov throws
Fixed an issue where bots were not getting blinded by M84 Flash grenades
Added ability for modders to set configurable vehicle destinations for AI vehicle navigation
Updated perception system for AI. AI behavior should remain unchanged, however it is possible enemies will notice players sooner or later than they did before and in different situations. This system change was recommended by Unreal and was made to lay the groundwork for future AI improvements.

Optimization Improvements

Optimized code aspects of driveable vehicles to improve their performance
Enabled the 4.25 Global Invalidation feature for in-game HUD rendering
Reduced instances of unnecessary swapping of physics assets on death
Removed assets from the main menu that were not visible to players
Optimized character movement to reduce CPU overhead
Removed individually spawning cosmetic components before merging them on the initial spawn in of players on a level. If the loading is taking too long, players will briefly see stand-in cosmetics on other players
Enabled RenderStatic on non-animating components to reduce skinning overhead
Detached inactive foliage interaction capsules to avoid associated overhead when the player is not close enough to interact with them
Improved performance of character master materials
Optimized character movement and rendering at long distance
Disabled unnecessary lookup calls in each frame

Engine Upgrade

Upgraded from Unreal Engine from version 4.23 to 4.25. This has little noticeable effect for most players, but will be important for further development.

Map Fixes

Outskirts

Fixed the initial spawn location for Insurgents on Push Insurgents so players would not start floating in the air
Fixed an issue in Frontline where Insurgents would be split into two spawn locations
Fixed an issue on Frontline that would cause the out of bounds message to appear in unintended locations
Fixed an issue causing an unintended playable area restriction after capturing objective B in Checkpoint Security

Crossing

Fixed graphical issues with rocks
Fixed incorrect shadows around the destroyed tank
Fixed an issue in Push Insurgents where Insurgents could spawn in the air around objective B
Removed ability for players to walk on unintended ledges
Fixed collision on a number of empty window frames that would unintentionally block grenades from being thrown
Fixed a problem with some boulders where players could hide inside them
Fixed a hole in one of the caves that exposed the sky
Fixed an issue where players could throw a grenade through a wooden plank on the side of a building
Removed an invisible object players could walk on near the stream

Summit

Fixed some objects with incorrect lighting
Fixed an instance where incorrect lighting and shadows could be seen on a demolished wall
Fixed some spawn points in the Domination layout that did not face objectives
Fixed a small gap between walls and stairs
Fixed an area where players could get stuck on a sidewalk in Push Insurgents
Fixed an issue causing players to get stuck while vaulting over a while near objective C on Frontline
Fixed an issue in Summit Domination where objective C could be captured outside the intended capture zone

Refinery

Fixed general lighting issues on the map where lights would shine through small seams in walls

Farmhouse

Fixed an issue on Push Insurgents where players could incorrectly receive an out of bounds warning near objective B
Fixed an issue where players could get stuck walking up certain stairs
Fixed players being able to capture objective A in Firefight West from an unintended location
Fixed players being able to capture objective C in Firefight East from an unintended location
Fixed floating teacup on invisible table
Fixed the ability to capture objective D on Push Insurgents from an unintended location
Fixed issues where grenades could be blocked by an invisible wall
Fixed an issue in Frontline where it was possible to spawn camp the Security team when objective G was active
Fixed an issue on Push Insurgents where objective B could be captured from an unintended location
Fixed the Tactical Map for Security while objective C is active to accurately display the restricted area
Fixed an area where you can get stuck while vaulting over a wall
Removed a potential spawn camping problem in Firefight West
Fixed incorrect collisions with some small rock props

Hillside

Fixed a seam in the snow that let you see through the side of the hill...side
Fixed general lighting issues on the map where lights would shine through small seams in walls

Hideout

Reduced the size of invisible an collision object that was too large on a pillar in Firefight West
Removed walking obstruction from minor small objects that shouldn’t obstruct movement
Fixed an issue causing an unintended out of bounds message in Push Security
Fixed an issue in Frontline where the Insurgent spawn could be camped while objective C was active

Precinct

Fixed collision spots where players weren’t able to throw objects through various objects they should be able to
Fixed an issue where players could capture objective A on Domination by walking on an unintended areas

Power Plant

Fixed some invisible walls in the Domination layout

Tideway

Fixed an issue in Checkpoint Insurgents where the objective B spawn zone wasn’t active when the objective was active
Fixed a number of instances of light shining through objects that should be solid
Fixed an area in Tideway where players could get stuck after vaulting over a ledge
Fixed an issue where light was able to leak through a bridge
Fixed an issue in Frontline where the Insurgent vehicle wasn’t usable (level designer locked keys in the car)
Fixed an area where players couldn’t quite move through a gap between a wall and railing that should have been big enough to fit through
Fixed an unintended dark shadowy terrain area near the wall of a building

Ministry

Fixed some objects with incorrect lighting
Fixed an issue where players could potentially fall through the floor of the elevator and get trapped
Fixed an issue in Domination where players could potentially spawn in the air if their respawn location was too close to an obstruction

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue related to ragdoll physics (often caused by the Suicide Bomber) which could cause the game to crash and removed the temporary fix in our last update which disabled some after death ragdoll physics
Fixed an issue where smoke particles could float away from their point of origin but the smoke overlay on the player’s screen while in smoke wouldn’t move with it
Fixed an issue where mid-round auto-balancing would not trigger at appropriate times
Fixed an issue in Hardcore Checkpoint where players wouldn’t respawn with all their selected upgrades on their Secondary weapon
Fixed an animation stutter that took place while players were slowed down momentarily after taking falling damage
Fixed an issue preventing Speaker Configuration and other dropdown options from saving correctly
Fixed an issue where switching between prone and crouching while holding a grenade would show the wrong animation
Fixed a problem when using the AKS-74U where the animation would break after resuming from an interrupted empty reload bolt pull stage while using the Foregrip upgrade
Fixed an issue where some magazines with weapon skins applied would fall through the world when speed reloading
Fixed an issue with the Insurgent underbarrel launchers where no projectiles would be seen during reloading animations
Fixed an issue with the MICH-2000 Headset and MICH-2000 Cans color variants having the incorrect headphone colors
Fixed an issue in the playlist Feature viewer screen where certain detail images would have the incorrect aspect ratio, making them look squished
Fixed an issue where the Appearance menu’s Loadout screen didn’t reset the position of weapons when selecting new ones
Fixed an issue in the Loadout screen where when selecting a weapon slot and then hitting the Esc button the camera wouldn’t correctly reset
Fixed an issue with the Explosive Launcher and Smoke Launcher upgrades equipped on the M16A4 or M4A1 using the incorrect third person attachment model
Fixed the third person reload animation of the Tavor 7 from clipping into the reloader’s shoulder
Fixed an issue on the Mods screen where rapidly hitting Q and E to scroll the screen could get you stuck in an infinite refresh loop
Fixed an issue with the first person scaling of the Suppressor weapon upgrade on the MP5A5
Fixed an issue with the Flashlight weapon upgrade clipping inside the rail cover on the M4A1
Fixed an issue where if players disabled the death camera they would need to click to respawn in Team Deathmatch and Domination rather than automatically spawning
Fixed an issue with the M240B reload animation where the hand and ammo box would be out of sync
Fixed an issue where some loading screen hints would show as unbound instead of the actually bound key
Fixed an issue preventing player reports from being sent in Replays
Fixed an issue while sprinting with a pistol where the player’s elbow would bend unnaturally
Fixed an issue where when lighting a Molotov while prone it wouldn’t show a flame
Fixed an issue where if a player deployed their Bipod upgrade near a wall that restricted their yaw angles the angle didn’t update if the player crawled away from the obstruction
Reduced clipping when using the Hoodie Up with various face covers
Fixed an issue with multiple rifles where the player’s left hand would appear broken after interrupting a reload
Fixed the Ammo Check animation on the SKS so fingers no longer appear broken
Fixed various clipping issues with the Half Face Shemagh and different Torso cosmetics
Fixed an issue where players performing a melee strike during a reload caused a visual issue
Fixed an issue with the MG3 reload animation where when interrupted the bipod would visibly detach from the weapon then reattach
Fixed an issue where console input was blocked on the main menu
Fixed an issue where performing a speed reload on certain weapons would leave the magazine floating on the screen
Fixed an issue where holding strafe and movement to move on a diagonal would not produce footstep sounds
Reduced clipping with a variety of cosmetics including the Nightstalker Mask
Fixed where when scavenging a magazine from a weapon with a weapon skin, the third person model of the magazine would have the skin, but in the first person model it wouldn’t. This is not yet fixed for the Mk 14 EBR and Honey Badger (see Known Issues below)
Fixed clipping issues with the Shell Camo, and Shell Camo Rolled cosmetics
Fixed an issue where the first time Basic Training prompt being dismissed using the hotkey ESC would also cause the player to dismiss the matchmaking menu
Fixed an issue where M870 and TOZ-194 animations looked incorrect after vaulting
Fixed an issue where the quality preset buttons in Settings would shift in size when selected
Fixed an issue where the prompt displayed after the game first loads when your account has received a warning or ban had two action buttons bound to the same hotkey
Fixed an issue where it was possible to see through smoke when using the Holographic and Kobra sights
Fixed an issue that prevented the explosive drone from correctly navigating through windows when a window was targeted.

Known Issues

Backwards compatibility of mods has been broken and mods need to be recooked
Scavenging a Mk 14 EBR or Honey Badger with the Midnight Blue DLC weapon skin will give you a normal unskinned magazine, when it should give you a Midnight Blue one
When performing a staged reload the magazine may appear to pop into view during the end of the reload.
In-game hints may show a gap between the text and relevant hotkey under certain circumstances
Gear on ragdolls may sometimes disappear from them upon death
Setting a community server as a favorite does not save
The Welrod may clip with the camera in restricted areas
The third person vaulting animation may show the players leg clipping with the world
Night Maps Replays are played back with the incorrect lighting scenario

EDIT: For the stuttering issue, please add '-NoGlobalInvalidation' as a launch parameter, this seems to help a lot of players. We are continuing on working on a permanent fix.

If you aren't sure how to do that, this link should help.

Jul 31, 2020

State of Production #10

Insurgency: Sandstorm - fatherHank

Hey everyone, my name is Tim Perreault and I’m the Executive Producer at New World Interactive. This past month has seen a lot of exciting things as we released our biggest update yet, Operation: Nightfall, and moved our team into the Clean Sweep update 1.7.1. Clean Sweep has been five solid weeks of time dedicated to making general improvements to the game’s health through bug fixing, code optimization, and an engine upgrade. While the patch notes you’ll see when it’s released will give you a lot of the details, I wanted to speak with a few team members to give you some behind the scenes insight into some of the work we’re doing and why.

Key Points of State of Production #10

1.7 Release and Hotfixes
Update 1.7.1 Clean Sweep
- Community Driven Requests
- Backlog Cleanup and Polish
- Optimization
- Engine Upgrade to 4.25
Upcoming Releases

1.7 Release and Hotfixes

With Operation: Nightfall being released on June 16, we’ve been busy trying to fix some of the issues that resulted from the engine upgrade we undertook. The highest priority issues remaining are a proper fix for the suicide bomber crash (we have temporarily removed ragdoll physics on suicide bomber corpses to mitigate this issue while we continue working) and fixing the remaining cases of floating magazines after resupplying. We’ve been working with Epic to resolve these issues and hope to have them all resolved soon. We will continue to put out Hotfixes as soon as fixes for issues are available.

Update 1.7.1 Clean Sweep

Over the last five weeks, all of our developers have been hard at work dealing with community-driven requests, cleanup and polish from our backlog, code optimization, and finalizing our engine upgrade plan as a part of what we’re calling Clean Sweep.

Community Driven Requests

While there are many small features and tweaks the community has been looking for coming in this release, one important one I’d like to discuss is drivable vehicles in co-op Checkpoint mode counter-attacks. I’ve asked our Lead Game Designer, Michael “Mikee” Tsarouhas and Level Design Director, Jeroen van Werkhoven to talk a bit about why vehicles were removed, why they’re coming back, and what that will look like:

Why did we remove vehicles from co-op?
Jeroen: The initial problem we had with vehicles was performance. We had a lot of issues with how they behaved when there was high ping. Additionally, the AI ran into problems driving into walls and not being able to consistently arrive at objectives which made for a poor player experience and hurt the Fun Factor™ which is really important for us.
Mikee: In addition to what Jeroen said, we felt removing vehicles in co-op would improve performance and optimization of the game. Removing the insertion vehicles in the intro sequence did help with this; however, removing the driveable vehicles that the enemy bot AI drive and the players can steal to drive themselves didn’t make that big of a difference. Not as much as we’d hoped. So we’ll be keeping the insertion vehicles out to keep those performance gains, but putting the drivable ones back so players can enjoy using them.

How are vehicles coming back to co-op?
J: We’re bringing back the vehicles back where they were in the previous iteration of coop vehicles. The big difference is we’re looking at a new system that will allow the level designers more control over the directions where they’ll come from, where they’ll stop at an objective and overall they will be more reliable and know where to drive. The old system was more of a gamble. Sometimes they knew where to go but they didn’t know how to get there. With the new system we can actually add new locations into the level itself where the vehicles can go. The new system will give level designers more options on where vehicles will go when driven by AI which will make the counterattacks feel more exciting. Removing vehicles from counter-attacks removed a lot of the challenge for the players. It was a lot more difficult when a vehicle was attacking you while you were on the objective. It was more like a cinematic experience.
M: Not to mention it was just more interesting, having vehicles attacking.
J: Yeah, definitely more interesting.

Final Thoughts
M: I think this is actually a really good example of how our team needs to be sure it keeps its ear to the ground and that we have a good feedback loop with the community. The reason we’re doing it is because the community asked for it and because it made sense with our production schedule and the health of the game. We removed something, we thought it would have a positive effect with performance and it didn’t as much, the community said they wanted it back, so we’re bringing it back hopefully better than before.
J: I’m with Mikee, we need to listen to our community. With the vehicles, we learned a lesson about how much more investigation and testing we should do before making decisions. I’m really excited that vehicles are coming back, I think it’s an important part of the co-op experience.
M: Even though it might not seem like a natural and clean progression, and you can go back and say “You shouldn’t have removed them in the first place,” well frankly this is a part of what we’ve been doing with Sandstorm where we’re not afraid of being experimental and trying different things with our game. If we need to revert something we’ve done and try making it better, we’re not afraid to do it. It’s a really good example of iterative game development and more evidence that we’re not done with Insurgency: Sandstorm.

Backlog Cleanup and Polish

Since Sandstorm’s release there have been plenty of ideas that ended up on the cutting room floor for one reason or another. Clean Sweep was an opportunity to act on a few more minor things we'd always meant to do or would have liked to have, not to mention address a couple of community requests. While we’ve taken on lots of bugs and polish during the last few weeks, Mikee and I spoke with Ben “Mr. Brightside” Turtell about one special feature that he worked on, a transparent magazine for the G36K:

Where did the transparent magazine idea come from?
Ben: It’s a thing that’s been bugging me since we first implemented it. I haven’t seen anywhere that a G36 doesn’t have a transparent mag and I wanted it to be true, as close as possible, to how it should look. It’s also really cool to just see your ammo going down and have that visual cue of your ammo going down.
Mikee: It’s both aesthetically cool and gameplay cool. You can just look at your mag and see how much ammo is available. So you’re saying you’ve been wanting to do this since release, because the G36K was one of the guns we had at release.
B: Yeah. I don’t think when we released I had the time to look into this option because there were a lot more guns waiting to go in and a lot of other things that needed to be done. Clean Sweep really gave me the time to think about things I’ve wanted to update and this was definitely one of the top ones. I don’t know if we can mention the upcoming guns (Producer note: Not yet!) but it’s going to be really useful for at least one of the future guns we have coming. Even for some of our current guns, we could potentially use this feature on.

What were some of the challenges with creating a transparent magazine?
B: Oh god [Laughs in Weapon Animator], probably the rig for the spring and the follower and all the bullets in there. With the extended mag there are 35 bullets in there, each with their own bones each with individual bullet meshes weight painted to the bones. The whole thing is animated with the spring moving and the bullets moving when they get to the top. I had never really rigged a spring or weight painted a spring so that was a challenge. Also just the logic for the whole system and getting it to work. I had a lot of help from the team working out those details. When I first implemented it we couldn’t get the info of how much ammunition was in your magazine when you reload because that all gets updated when the magazine is fully inserted, so we had to get an extra function from code so we could finalize it.

Optimization

One of our big goals with 1.7.1 Clean Sweep was to dedicate some time to review older systems to see how they could be optimized, similar to the efforts spent late last year to optimize our art. We’re aiming to increase the overall performance of the game, especially on lower-end systems. The general approach we took was to run profiling tools on specific gameplay recordings and look for areas where we noticed the heaviest resource requirements or hitches. These issues were investigated, documented, and assigned to other developers to fix. The original investigator reviewed the same recording to confirm performance improvements were successful.

Engine Upgrade

As part of our ongoing improvements we’ve finished upgrading to Unreal Engine 4.25. There were a number of great features that we’re already taking advantage of including some of the improved Unreal Insights which helped drive our optimization work. While this engine upgrade wasn’t a trivial effort, it did result in a net gain of features and has opened up possibilities for the future of Sandstorm as well.
Upcoming Releases
With Clean Sweep mostly completed and getting finalized for a release in early August, the team is starting to transition into working on the 1.8 release. As much as I’d like to Tell you about what’s coming in 1.8, it will have to wait for SoPs in the coming months.

That’s it for this month’s SoP, until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Jul 17, 2020

Community Update Blog #4

Insurgency: Sandstorm - fatherHank

Changing of the Guard

Hey all, DaraDef here. It is with a heavy heart that I announce my departure from New World. I have the utmost respect for my coworkers and for the awesome members of the community who have been so welcoming and kind to me this past year, and it will be hard to walk away. This has certainly been a wild ride with all sorts of ups and downs, but I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. While I am sad to be leaving, I am looking forward to a new step in my career in video games at a AAA studio. I will miss many of you dearly. I leave my position in the incredibly capable hands of fatherHank, who I have no doubt will excel in Community Development.

Thank you all for your kindness,

DaraDef OUT!
---------------------

Hello Gamers™, it’s me, fatherHank. This is a really bittersweet day for me and for all of us at New World. Dara’s been given an amazing opportunity so we’re extremely happy for her… at the same time someone has been cutting onions at our desks, and we are incredibly sad to see her move on.

Dara has done a lot with and for this community in a short amount of time. Luckily for me she has also taught me a hell of a lot in an even shorter amount of time and I’m hoping I can fill her shoes. Her real feet may be small, but those metaphorical boots are pretty big. I’m going to do my best but the bar has been set high.

I am DaraDefinitely not happy to see her go though, New World is a little less bright today.
---------------------

With our personal sentiment out of the way, let’s move on to more game-related info:

1.7 has been released since the last blog. There were some issues with the initial release including audio that made some of you want to throw their headphones, ghost attachments and magazines, and even a suicide bomber harnessing an explosive so powerful it could crash the entire game.

Bugs are a part of life but we realize this release was a bit worse than normal. With 1.7 came an upgrade to our engine which tends to complicate things. With that being said we are talking about ways to improve information gathering from our public CTEs in the future.

We currently have a survey available that is helping us gather feedback on what everyone thought about having night maps available in PvP. If you played and want to let us know what you thought, please do by clicking here!

We will have another broader community survey coming up that will help us refine just what you all want from the continued development of Sandstorm. Please keep in mind we can’t act on all the feedback you give us, that sometimes it’s not something we can act on yet, and that sometimes you straight up will not agree with a choice we make.

We are actively doing what we think is in the best interest of keeping the game healthy and fresh. If there were a way to keep every single one of you happy all the time, that's how I would operate. It's part of my job to make sure that even when the community doesn't agree with a decision we make, that you're at least feeling heard. I’m here to pass on your feedback and I will continue to do that, so please keep it coming.

Soon we will have a release date and more details about 1.7.1, affectionately known as Operation: Clean Sweep. While most of the changes are not considered exciting (unless you’re a fiend for patch notes like I am) we do have some community requests up our sleeves that are in the works.

One small change we are working on is reducing the amount of glare on optic reticles while wearing NVGs. We have heard you loud and clear that you think the reticle itself is too bright so we are adjusting it.

Before

In Progress

That’s it for now, we are hard at work finalizing 1.7.1 and have even fleshed out most of the content being added in 1.8 👀. It’s looking to be a great update come autumn, and we’re excited to start sharing more details as they become nailed down.

I’ll talk to you all soon, let’s pour one out for my homie Dara,

fatherHank
Community Manager