Thanks for continuing to be an awesome community by playing, testing and sharing your feedback with us. Here's another update with your help!
System
- Fixed issue with in-game voice chat where joining late or switching sides wouldn't put the player on the correct channel - Fixed the headshot multiplier - Fixed an issue where sometimes AssaultPods would not be cleared when entering a new Att/Def Round - Fixed an issue where placeables would not get assigned the correct TeamID on the Server side - Fixed an issue where Turret Projectiles would not collide with enemy ship shields
Art
- Massive lightmap datafile optimization (less texture mem usage, much smaller file sizes, faster load times)
User Interface
- Set correct badge material instance to solve for the correct badge showing in the end match personal stats screen
We quickly got to work to address a few items we noticed and heard you echo, since releasing the Enceladus update on July 17th.
Thank you for playing! Jump in again and keep your invaluable feedback coming! o7
Full Patch Notes
System
- Rewrote the Mini Radar Player location to radarmap dot position conversion function so that it is functionally correct. There is now no more offset to the radarmap Dot positions. - Fixed an issue where the Ship Radarmap was not using the correct OwningPawn and placing incorrect Dots for Players. - Corrected the Radarmap Radius distance steps to be more accurate and consistent across both Avatar and Ship modes. - Fix for VoiceChat echoing when it shouldnt. - Removed Score from the "ranking" calculation from the previous match to try and address the Attack/Defend mode causing a massive Player imbalance. - Fixed a memory leak in the flight deck - Potential fix for Bomb Countdown remaining on screen for a Late joining Player when it has already exploded. - Made modifications to the Placeables in order to accomodate directly setting their Lifetime property via Blueprint in order to disable some Placeables from expiring when they are being visualized in the Hangar. - Added the ability for the Radarmap to display locally that your Player visibility has changed when firing your weapon. - Fixed an issue with the ShipWeapon Placeables where they do not start with full ChargeTime. - Added a property to the MatchMaking request data to define which Team a Player gets added to, this was missed in the initial implementation and is directly tied to the RuleSet. This may address issues with MatchMaking and Backfill. - Fixed a small issue where Placeables that are `bAttachToOwner` would appear through the floor when selected in the Hangar, they now have a correct offset. - Fixed an issue where the Placeable Turret was not causing damage to Placeable Shields when firing at a Player that had one deployed. - Small modification to try and address the issue where there is a race condition for when we initiate the Breach and when the Avatar Spawns that causes a Pod to award a Kill when it shouldnt. - Fixed up collision properties for all Grenade Types. They now correctly collide with all Shields as well as Avatars themselves were as before they would not. - Fixed an issue where Placeable Turrets would not target enemies that had a Placeable Shield equipped, Placeable Shields now no long block the Visibility channel. - Fixed an issue where Turrets would continue to fire for a short duration after their Lifetime had Expired or their owning player had died. - Fixed a Replication bug with the VitalSystemsComponent where consecutive LastHit structs were identical causing them to not replicate, this was most prominent with the Placeable Turret. - Fixed an issue where Lazer Weapons on Ships would ignore all Shields. Refactored the Weapons and Projectiles to handle these cases better. - Fix for Talkers not appearing correctly during VoiceChat. - Fixed an issue where attempting to Sprint while Crouched without having forward momentum would desync the Stance state and thus cause you to be stuck crouching. - Fixed an issue with regards to some instances where DOM can lose SpawnPoints for a Team and cause a race condition where the Player has requested a Respawn but the SpawnPoints have gone inactive on the Server. - Fixed an issue where if the Bomb explodes while the match has transitioned into PostMatch, it would trigger another call to Intermission. - Fixed an issue where Actors that represent a Shield of some kind would not be the correct Team color upon swapping Teams.
Design
- Changed the Ship Placeable RepairNode to be infront of the Ship when placing so that its clearer you are placing the Placeable. - Fixed n_Satoshi turret locations (Solar Storm) - Added visibility blocker to AI objective to allow capture while looking at it - Fixed position of spawn gate turret in Enceladus
Balance
- Reduced grenade bounciness to .2 for testing - Wasp antidote; accidental multiple shots removed - Pistol -> K-12 - AutoPistol Damage 8 -> 13 - Trio SMG Fire Interval .15 -> .092 - CP-5X 10 -> 16 DMG Headshot 1.1 -> 1.25 2 Shot - The Duchess, fine tune (current revolver baseline) -15 ADS Recoil Dir Y 0.25 Recoil Strength Mult 1.15 Spread 0.095 ADS Spread 0.001 AutoPistol Damage
Environment
- FPS map mods to support view windows - Fixed mirrored intrerior modular pieces, updated lightmaps (Dom maps) - Opened side windows in attack/defend, minor visual bug fixes (Outpost), updated lightmaps - Detonation maps visual bug fixes - The ring - A/B objective visual upgrade, lightmaps - Map interior adustments to accommodate larger doors (prevent clipping), updated lightmaps (Dom) - Wider doors in dom maps, hole fixes, updated lightmaps - Optimized warp gate distortion field (reduced particle count) - Turned off volumetric fog (wasn't adding to visual quality, pretty big gpu perf hit) - Increased ship repair node bubble scale. Now similar to shield. - Fixed collision on cap ship side view windows
User Interface
- PLAYER LIST ITEM Background is now spanning across the width - Levelup: Replaced dismiss button with a new button which spans across the entire screen - Updated loading screens art and copy - SCOREBOARD Top lists (kills, assists and score) are added, sorting, and update on changes - Fixed issue not being able to quit game or enter settings
Settings
- Rewrote the Utility functions for getting the KeyBindings for Action and Axis mappings by name. This now reads directly from the PlayerControllers PlayerInput object which maintains the active Mappings instead of reading from the InputSettings defaults.
Sound Effects
- Foostep attenuation adjustments and increased footstep audio for all characters - Fixed quiet placeable turrets - Fixed players not hearing foosteps from behind - Updated AnimationPoseOptimizationDistance to 3500 to match the footstep hearing with the mini map range. - Fixed Ring Cannon attenuation from being heard everywhere
This is the most fun we've been having yet, Breaching and Boarding massive capital ships and space stations!
This major content drop begins with over 40 new weapons, introduces ship and avatar abilities as well as battleground upgrades that will surely impact your combat decisions. It was important to us in this update that we deepen playable content. So we hope you'll play and share your feedback!
40+ New Weapons, All Accessible
Choose Which Avatar and Space Combat Loadouts You'll Take to Battle
To start, we’ve removed the constraints around allocations as there was some candid feedback both on Steam and in Discord about progressive unlocks. It was great feedback, and was very timely as we wanted to significantly expand the arsenal available to the players.
The bigger news is that 40+ additional weapons have been added, and while the weapon artwork is still placeholder, players should now begin to get an early feel of the personality and character of the additional firepower.
Ability Deployables for Ship and Avatars
Bringing New Battle Dynamics to Space Combat
Deployables are the first major step in developing non-assault class roles. We chose three for each type of unit (both the battle craft and the avatars: placeable turrets, repair drops, personal shields. Even with just these early systems, the Test Pilots are demonstrating huge advances in team-based play. If you’re a fan of support roles, we’re starting the first steps in adding this variety.
Expect Tactically Upgraded Environments
For Capital Ship Engagements and Space Dogfights
The biggest news in the land of environments is that there is an entirely new map that accompanies the much sought after asymmetrical mode: Attack / Defend (Onslaught). Asymmetrical play has been one of the most requested types of modes by the community, and it has also been at the top of the priority list for the team to begin developing. Attack / Defend is well on its way to become rated one of the community's favorite maps and modes, just narrowly beating out The Ring and The Outpost.
The environments in Project Genesis received a dramatic expansion in scale and in scope. In almost every aspect of play space, changes have been implemented to increase the flow of maps, take into account high traffic areas, and add additional cover. This counts in both interior spaces and exterior spaces for Carbonaceous, Enceladus, Solar Storm, The Ring, and Outpost.
Up-scaled capital ships have almost doubled in size with the added bonus of additional breach locations as well as turret emplacements. This allows for a much more dynamic play space, especially with the addition of what the community is calling “tactical asteroids”. These asteroids have been hollowed by industrial drones, and provide great hiding places for players who prefer to use brains over brawn. While requiring great skill to navigate the cavernous interiors gracefully and with speed, the new asteroids ensure that slogs are less likely to emerge.
Calling our Friends in Europe!
In the Dev Dailies at 11AM PDT, where the community joins us in some good natured space combat Monday through Friday, we have a large population of intrepid Europeans who regularly join.
The morning community is lively and friendly, even though for most of the participants their ping suffers higher pings from the distance across the Atlantic and contiguous US (our first server is on the west coast of the United States). We thought it would be great to make their gameplay experiences more enjoyable while at the same time we would take the opportunity to expand our technical infrastructure. If you’re in Europe want to play Project Genesis, now is a great time to join us.
Introducing Steam Achievements
We’ve also incorporated Steam Achievements into Project Genesis. We wanted to challenge our community of Pilots to tackle some gameplay accomplishments that are not only fun, but also show off the skills of the talented. Here is the current list for players to test themselves with: - Double Frag: Kill 2 Enemies at once with a Frag Grenade - No Seatbelt: Kill an enemy by crashing into them - Smite: Blind 3 Enemies at once with the EMP - King of Kong: Get 5 barrel kills - Mr. Wick: Kill 4 enemies in a row with headshots - Systempunkt: Complete all Detonation objectives by yourself - Territorialist: Capture all hard points on dominion 1st - Snow Crash: Break all screens on the enemy ship - Pentakill: Kill 5 enemies without dying - Decadence: Achieve level 10 We plan on many more achievements (we’re still working on the details) and look forward to hearing who is able to acquire all 10 before the next update.
Improving Gameplay Accessibility for New Players
There’s no doubt about how hard core our early community members are. Add to that switching between game modes, new map configurations, and the merging of two types of gameplay (third person space combat and first person shooter) and new players can find their first experience a little...overwhelming.
There are no silver bullets here. In these early days, with Project Genesis only about 57% complete, there’s going to be a steep learning curve. Luckily we’ve got a very helpful contingent within our community to help ease players into the game.
That said, there are a number of steps that we could take to reduce some of the rough edges for new players. To start, we’ve added a radar indicator that displays friends and foes. The standard conventions are followed for readability (relative height indications, and color coding for friend or foe). There’s still more work to do here but this is the first step in that direction.
The HUD has undergone a layout change to conform to other FPS titles players might be used to and we’ve added key binding iconography for quick reference for deployables, grenades, and ship-to-avatar transfers (also know in the lore as: transference).
We’re looking forward to watching and hearing from players to determine if these new elements help reduce the cognitive overload.
Twitch Drops for Free Keys
One of the new opportunities for the community and content creators the Project Genesis team is most excited about is the implementation of Twitch drops. Leading up to and through the release of Dorado, we worked with streamers, publications, and other partners to allocate thousands of Steam keys. We quickly exhausted the keys we could give out, and it left many people asking us when our next giveaway program might be.
We’re very excited to announce that on Friday July 17th we will be using the Twitch drop system to give those watching drop-enabled streams of Project Genesis a chance to earn a free Steam key. If you’re a streamer, you’ll have an opportunity to grow with us using this program as well. We will be dropping a key every hour until August 31st for your audience members.
To find out how you can participate, check out our Creator program {LINK REMOVED}here.
And More…
The features listed above are the most significant, but over 300 fixes and features have been implemented since the inaugural Steam Early Access build was released on May 22, 2020. If you’re a new player, or if you’ve not played in a while, the progress the Project Genesis team has made might be worth checking out in-game. We hope you’ll come visit and we look forward to seeing you in game.
Release Notes
- Avatar Abilities: Placeable Turrets, Repair Drops, Personal Shields - Ship Abilities: Repair Drops, Shield Wall Drops - Up-scaled Environments & Capital Ships - New breach points added to Detonation maps - New Capital Interiors - Added tactical fly-through asteroids - Added color differentiation for friendly/enemy shields - Added more emplacement turret options to capital ships - 40+ New Weapon Types - Added EU-CENTRAL-1 region to our fleet of servers to reduce latency. Adjust in PLAY menu to find players. - Added Steam Achievements - Can you get them all? - New experimental mode in development added to map rotation: ONSLAUGHT (Attack/Defend) - HUD Mini-radar added for ships and avatars - HUD Round start notifications to improve player messaging - HUD Status of weapons and abilities with easy-to-see keybinding indicators - HUD Added Killstreak Tallying (more to come on this feature) - HUD Added Kill Confirmation - HUD Updated Killfeed & Icons - HUD Added Hit Indicator Damage - Updated Matchmaking tech to utilize Flexible match queuing and rulesets (more sophisticated matching coming in our next update) - Improvements to breach pod-destroy time conditions bugs - Big audio changes to improve space/fps sound attenuation - Adjusted physics asset bodies for all grenades to improve their bounce - Introduced the ability to define if a FPS Weapon uses normal Ammo reloading or automatic Ammo regeneration - Added proper regeneration system to throwables and deployables - Flight Deck customization - Updated iconography and flow with the ability to switch between bays within the customization widget - Resolved issue with version mismatch builds getting locked up upon kicking back to main menu - Implemented the ability to decide if an Interactable Objective accumulates progress towards its completion or not. - Solved an issue where players would get kicked for inactivity while sending chat messages. We now mark players as Active when they send a message. - Full Weapons Balance Pass - Moved ASCEND default input from LEFT ALT to LEFT CTRL
Pilots looking for fame and glory have one week of dev daily playtest sessions to make their final mark in the current Dorado build!
Beginning Monday, July 13th, we're resetting all public leaderboard stats before our major update hits.
Next Friday's major update includes a ton of new content including, but not limited to, a significant expansion of FPS and ship combat weapons, a new mode, a new map, new avatar archetypes and redesigned battleground interiors within capital ships.
There’s a lot to play, test and derive feedback from within the next major update. And we think that you'll have your hands full if you're interested in helping us decide what to do with all the implemented updates, striking your impact on Project Genesis' game design and development.
Leaderboards
http://www.projectgenesis.com/leaderboards Get recognized** by reaching the top in any of these stats categories: - Ship Kills - FPS Kills - Objective Points - Total Score - Total Wins
**Top three in each category receive a special Discord role
Dev Daily Playtests
Say goodbye to the Dorado build with us as we host one final week of playtests with devs, twice daily: - 11am PDT (6pm UTC) - 5pm PDT (12am UTC)
Once the major update launches, the leaderboards will be reset once again. At which point all scores will reflect stats to the newest update code named Enceladus.
You can find the pre-alpha Project Genesis leaderboards here.
The team is heads down, crunching development for the next major update, Enceladus. So we came up with a fun challenge to test your pilot skills without requiring teammates nor opponents.
This is the Drift King Challenge! You'll need: - A Scout Ship - The Enceladus Map
What's at stake? The unofficial, honorary title of Drift King!
First, you'll want to work your way up to the challenge by sharpening your piloting skills using these videos as a guide.
Start with the Basics
Map: Enceladus Ship Type: Scouts or Fighters Boost: Always On
Begin by asserting control over your ship. And test your scout or fighter's ability to simply fly through the narrowest of obstacles. And make sure you can do this without even scratching the paint off your ship!
Then Try Drifting Through Obstacles
Map: Enceladus Ship Type: Scouts or Fighters or Heavies Boost: Just enough to drift
At this point you can perform the drift mechanic and now you'll test your ability to manipulate the maneuver around large obstacles. Drifting between the gap made by terraformers and their arms can be executed with any ship.
Finally, Up Your Drift Game
Map: Dominion Ship Type: Scouts or Fighters Boost: Always On
When the map rotation arrives to Dominion, look for either outpost and fly to the top plate. Once there, time your entry because that space windmill is unforgiving! Fly through the middle and drift your way out the other side.
And Now You're Ready for the DK Challenge
Map: Enceladus Ship Type: S301 Scout (only) Boost: Always On
So far this is the mother of all drift king challenges! Once on Enceladus, take your Scout ship to the top of any Terraformer. Your goal is much like the 'Basic' challenge from earlier. However, this time your challenge is to drift through the other side! Give yourself enough space so that your boost will last through your journey. We're looking for flawless execution, meaning not even a single scratch against your ship.
We've only seen this performed with the S-301 Scout. Feel free to try another ship and show us that it can be done! And if it proves to be too easy, raise the bar for us by submitting a more challenging drift for the community.
If you successfully perform any of the stunts above, let us know via any of our social media platforms, including: - Steam Forums - Discord - Twitter - Facebook - Reddit
If you can show us video of yourself successfully performing the Drift King challenge, we'll give you a much deserved a shout-out on our social media platforms recognizing your "Drift King" status! As well as the highly coveted Drift King role on Discord to call out your Drift King status!
Severs are open and available 24/7 so you can try the Drift King challenge at any time.
This contest is open until the Enceladus major update goes live.
We've been sitting on this badge for some time. Now we're excited to roll it out!
We want Project Genesis to be the kind of title that encourages healthy competition. And although we’re still a small, growing community, we’ve already identified players who separate themselves from the rest. Now we’re going to enjoy learning from, watching and even broadcasting what happens when our top players compete against one another.
If you're competitive enough to hang with the most elite players in our growing community, then you're the player we hope to see enrolled in our Ace Pilot program.
What's the Ace Pilot Program?
The Ace Pilot program will help drive Project Genesis' evolution toward its aspirations of a fun and competitive title. The program invites the most competitive pre-alpha pilots, matching them against each other in weekly organized events. Ace Pilots will play a critical role in helping us balance gameplay as well as identify opportunities to address around team dynamics.
How do I Join?
Although the Ace Pilot badge is awarded by invitation only, anyone can get noticed by their ranking on public leaderboards and by playing regularly in Dev Daily playtests held twice every weekday: - 11am PDT or 6pm UTC - 5pm PDT or 12am UTC
When are Ace Pilot Matches Held?
Ace Pilot only sessions will begin by being held once a week. With scheduling to be negotiated between all available Ace Pilots worldwide.
How do I Find Ace Pilots?
Once a player accepts their Ace Pilot invitation, their account is accredited with an Ace Pilot badge that progressively ranks and appears in several locations: - In game on combat ships, inside assault pods and on score cards - Official Leaderboard - Role designed within official Discord community
We're giving each Pilot Badge a cosmetic overhaul which you'll soon recognize on combat ships, inside assault pods on performance stats and leaderboards!
And we have an official badge to recognize contribution to the Project Genesis pre-alpha community within one of four categories:
Ambassadors fulfill the role of moderators and hosts for new community members as well as extend that role across platforms. They excel at helping others have a great experience with Project Genesis and play emcee within our growing pre-alpha community.
Test Pilots
Test Pilots enjoy breaking things, are obsessed with quality, and will help reproduce and sleuth bugs. They will often get the earliest access to builds to verify the game or run new features through testing to ensure a stable enough build state for wider release.
Creators
Creators are the content creators in the Pilot Program: artists, partners, streamers and content producers. They are the kind of early adopters who blaze trails in new territory for others. They examine and demonstrate what is worth experiencing in Project Genesis to their audience in fun and creative ways.
Ace Pilots
Ace Pilots are competitive community members who help refine play balance, find and quash exploits and help create the most visceral experience that is ‘easy to play, hard to master’. They often have experience as competitive players in shooters or space combat games, and may even find themselves on ranked lists in their favorite game genres.
That's because we fixed the 'fake bomb issue' as you've been calling it. But we also snuck in some menu items to support the last update which include video, notes and graphics.
Since we're a brand new title releasing in Early Access just recently, we want to make sure we're keeping player count high in matches. We're running servers only out of Seattle/Oregon (west coast USA) for now to help ensure this objective. Once we start seeing a rise in player count, we'll start running servers in the highest player count locations thanks to some heavy lifting by our engineers. We're fortunate in that we can spin servers up at almost any place on the globe
For now, running out of USA West Coast might result in you experiencing high ping times. We want to let you know we are working on it as it is a high priority. Dynamic server locations are one of the feature upgrades next on our list to tackle.
Player Matching
Currently we are matching folks randomly and mixing teams up between games. Once we finish with the "triaging" necessary to release on Steam Early Access, we will be spending time enhancing player match making and getting you into teams with your friends.
Full Games
Even though we're keeping servers on the USA west coast, we are seeing an increase in player counts. That means sometimes you might start a game with only a few people in matchest on what looks to be a busy day for playing. This usually means a new multiplayer server has spun up. If you wait a bit, you'll often find new people joining in short order to play. If you are finding that you are waiting longer than you like, try leaving your current match and then pressing the "Play" button again. A new slot in a game that is fuller may have opened up.
Thanks for your patience as we scale up. We are looking forward to seeing you in Project Genesis!