Oct 30, 2020

Project Genesis - o5ca12

Happy Halloween Pilot!

We're marching toward our next major update. But until then, we're sneaking in a seasonal update for some Halloween fun, dropping trick-or-treat goodies that you'll encounter inside capital ships, assault pods as well as on Hacker and Technomancer avatars.

We hope you spend some time with us this weekend checking out the temporary Halloween-Space Combat takeover. Here's what you need to know...

First, make sure you earn your limited time badge!

Remember, the more you play the greater your stats accumulate toward earning up to four seasonal badges. Stats for accumulating badges are measured across any one of these categories:

- wins
- ship kills
- avatar kills
- assists

But it's not just Halloween stuff. There's also some serious development behind this seasonal-update. So here's some of the highlights where we can't wait to read your feedback:

-Brand New Map-

We're calling this map 'Proteus' and it's played in Onslaught mode. Meaning one team must defend the Capital Ship interior bomb and exterior bomb. While the other team plants the bombs. We're debuting it for Halloween so play it and tell us what you think.

-Three Maps Redesigned-

We took three of our oldest maps (Carbonaceous, Enceladus and Solar Storm) and redesigned all three for Onslaught mode (attack / defend). You can see we're really leaning in on this mode and hope you can help us make it more fun by sharing your thoughts. Each have an extra dark look just in time for Halloween.

-New FPS Mechanic-

You asked about this one and we couldn't wait to implement it into the nearest update. The "slide" mechanic in FPS is finally here for your Avatar combat needs. Make use of it and let us know if it meets your FPS needs.

And some quality of life updates:

- An overhauled user interface with new customization screens
- A filter for multiplayer matchmaking preferences
- A firing range so you can test your weapons before going to battle

And don't forget about our limited time supporter's pack! Also the first of its kind.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1454350/Project_Genesis__Halloween_Support_Pack/

Full Release Notes

- Spookified Project Genesis
- Brand New Proteus Map
- Complete UI Overhaul and Customization Screens and still working
- 3 New Onslaught Maps
- New Firing Range Solo Map (still working)
- Move like an assassin with FPS Slide
- Play your preference: Filter multiplayer games with quickplay matchmaking
- FP Interaction Animations
- Cloth prototyping Hacker cape
- Spawn camp blockers on Onslaught maps
- Improved magazine drops
- Ship dynamic camera behaviors on collision
- Updated ship weapon rock impact effects
- CP5 Shotgun animation improvements (less glitchy)
- Updated third person FPS jumping animation to look a bit more natural and responsive
- Onslaught objective detonation VFX improvements
- FPS Healing Beam VFX updated
- Incendiary grenade VFX updated and still working
- Fixed an issue where Turret Emplacements would continue to take damage even after they had been destroyed
- Fixed an issue with placeability on the FPS Placeables failing their placeability test. The Placeable Turret and Placeable Repair Node Ghosts have had their Collisions modified to ensure they can be placed on uneven surfaces.
- Fixed an issue with the ImpactEffects where the bAttachToHitComp property was not operating correctly. This fixes the problem where Grenade impact decals would attach to Avatars feet and follow them.
- Fixed breaching camera angle issues
- Fixed an issue with the ObjectiveMarkers where they would show the incorrect color for the DoubleHardpoint Objectives after being "Interacted" with.
- Lowered railings in FPS environments
- Updated level boundaries
- Badges now selectable in-game profile
- Updated loading screens
- Reduced wreckage bombsite arm/disarm radius in Onslaught. No more sneaky rock camping ;)
- Reduced after action filler sequence time
- Fixed issue with spawning before ready-up timer completes
- Fix to remove seasonal screen from showing after returning from every match
- Fixed in-game loadout visual bug that was showing incorrect bay items upon respawn
- Fixed a crash when initiating a Slide and the Owner isn't valid
- Fixes to reduce other crashes experienced through match transitions

Sep 15, 2020

The Fornax Update

Project Genesis - o5ca12

Hey pilot, it's me, James again, excited to give another update!

As you’ll no doubt know, we name our milestone builds after constellations. This build is called Fornax, which means “furnace” — it suits because we’re coming in hot. That’s devspeak for “we’re trying to cram as much in as we can while not breaking anything (but we’re most certainly, on occasion, breaking things…lots of things)”. Don’t worry though, the team is working like maniacs to ensure that the Project Genesis experience, is a big improvement over the previous milestone.

Here is a list of the major systems we’ve tackled for this release:

- Engine Upgrade to UE 4.25
- Progression
- Yuuuuge audio pass on weapons (FPS and battle craft)
- New awards and events notifications (acknowledging your badassness)
- Hotswap your loadouts between matches
- Ring map exterior expansion
- Kingsguard SMG Implemented
- Leaderboard level-up: phase II (check your new stats!)
- Razer integration
And much more…

The Big Steam Sale: 33% Off

If you have been looking to support Project Genesis, then now might be a good time to take advantage of our very first Steam sale starting on Thursday the 17th of September. With the purchase you will not only be supporting our efforts to bring you a different kind of sci-fi PVP FPS game, but you will also be able to take advantage of the limited time offer of grabbing:

- Founders Badge (show off your stalwart support to others in leaderboards, in-game messaging, and on your ships) — available now!
- Founders Palette — available now!
- Founders Origin Skin
- Remastered OST
- 1999 Credits (a ~$20 value)

Once we launch live with the final build of Project Genesis, becoming a Founder will no longer be an option. There’s today’s dose of FOMO for you.

Updated game mode — Onslaught

Onslaught is our second traditional game mode (the first was Dominion…our take on a territorial capture domination mode) that is designed to focus on asymmetrical gameplay. We’ve reworked our messaging system, objectives, and a whole slew of other mechanics to double down on one of the community’s favorite maps.
Image for post

Additionally, Mark Nicolino has adjusted the interior of the galactic cruiser n-SATOSHI for a tighter game loop.

Evolution: Players, Units & Leaderboards

After Action Report

Our original post match system showed player progress but it was confusing. So we separated the three elements in our game that can evolve:

Player Core DNA
Battle Craft
Avatars

Whereas before we stacked player progress notifications on one line, we now show you exactly what they are unlocking as they progress. Evolving battle craft and avatars will allow extended loadout options in the future.

Leaderboards

We’ve added 4 new stats and refactored our system to allow us to easily add any number of stats. If you’ve got a favorite stat that you’d like to see added, jump into our Discord, or fire off a post on Steam, and hit us with your thoughts.

The new stats are:

Total Objective Points
Ship Kills
FPS Kills
Dominion Capture Points

Whether you’re a new recruit on the climb, or a veteran Ace Pilot, you can now see where you rank against other players.

Moar Audio

Isaac Barry, Designer extraordinaire, has advanced the pipeline for our audio. His home office now looks like a keyboard factory exploded in his living room. His pain is your gain, however. Now we’re doing full weapons audio passes to differentiate how the weapons sound. Many of these weapons will look the same to you as you’re playing in-game (they’re all placeholders). However, you’ll likely notice that they’re starting to feel different.

Loadout Hotswapping

“Loadout hotswapping” as we’re using the term means that the player has the ability to change their loadouts during respawns. This new user interface capability was important to prioritize because forcing you to travel back to the hangar to edit their loadouts was a real buzz-kill. This extra step interrupted the flow of play and we noticed that players would often quit playing the moment they had to leave the match. Based on feedback from our Test Pilots so far, it appears to be a significant improvement.

The Ring Map expansion

Mark Nicolino has expanded the play space on The Ring map. The Ring is currently hosting the Dominion game mode. It is a mode that you can win by capturing and holding key objective locations.

The interior of the mega structure in the space theater has been increased to allow for better combat maneuvering. This also forces some strategic play with the new exterior objectives

Kingsguard SMG Implemented

We’ve removed our sub machine gun placeholder weapon that we purchased off the Unreal Marketplace. This rapid fire beasty is in-game for you to hit your opponents in high-tech fashion.

Razer Chroma Integration

For those of you who have Razer hardware, or are about purchase a device in the Chroma lighting ecosystem…you’re in luck! We’ve partnered with Razer to complete a suite of RGB lighting effects for your Razer Chroma-capable peripherals.

Our Q/A-lead-&-sometimes-Designer, Deejay B. collaborated with our favorite Ukrainian Engineer, Anatoliy G. to create some killer visual effects that will be sure to heighten the intensity of your Project Genesis experience.

Gaze in wonder! (but never lose focus, lest you become space dust)

Engine Upgrade 4.25

And last, but certainly not least, we have upgraded our Unreal Engine to 4.25. These kinds of upgrades are always quite risky because there are so many systems that need to be verified as functional. However, our lead Engineer Matt B. has performed a number of these upgrades for us, and with his skill we navigated the endeavor in record time with minimal impact to the team.

Networking Improvements

There are a ton of new capabilities (like in VFX) that we can take advantage of in UE 4.25, but the biggest gain we’ve had our eye on is using Unreal’s replication graph. We anticipate that this system will improve some of the “rubberbanding” we’ve been seeing as allies and opponents slide about in PVP matches. This seems to be exacerbated if you are using a server that are quite far from them geographically.

In Conclusion

As always, the community (and Test Pilots especially) have been giving us lots of great feedback on areas to improve. Additionally, once we implement a new feature, the Test Pilots get special access to private builds before anyone else, and they help us determine how close or far from the mark we are.

If you’re looking to get involved with a community supporting a team that is obsessed with making big strides in indie development, Project Genesis might just be the game for you.

If so, we hope you’ll join us today!

Full Release Notes

https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/700240/view/4042499938193767950

James
Chief Navigator

Sep 11, 2020

Update is Live!

Project Genesis - o5ca12

Fornax Release Notes

- Engine Upgrade 4.25

- Updated Vivox VC Plugin Version

- Improved Progress Reporting

- In-Game Loadout Hotswapping

- Kingsguard SMG Implemented

- Leaderboard level-up phase II

- Razer Chroma integration

- New impact animations

- Expanded 'The Ring' Dominion map

- Refactored End Match Sequence

- Improved ragdoll physics

- Improved weapon responsiveness

- Weapons Balanced ADS

- Weapons Balanced Recoil

- Weapons Full Audio Pass

- Weapons Full Balance Pass

- Improvements to Third Person Sprint Animations

- Improvements to ONSLAUGHT (Attack/Defend) Mode

- Improvements to ship camera movement

- Improvements to Objective Indicators

- Map Boundary Alert System

- Player nameplate consistency between Ship/FPS

- Early look at new HUD in progress

- Ship projectile impact VFX work

- Emplacement Turrets: Increased range, speed, pitch, added impact decals, adjusted collision properties on warp gate warp-in volume to prevent turret fire from colliding with it

- Fixed an issue with a Font not referencing its Font Asset and thus causing it to appear malformed

- Fixed an issue where Slate code for the ObjectiveManager DetailsCustomization was referencing an old font that doesnt exist anymore in 4.25.3

- Fixed an issue where ImpactEffects for Ship Projectiles would spawn at World Origin in the Projectile did not hit anything and instead "aged out"

- Fixed an issue where a crash would occur when polling the status of the server Fleet

- Fixed a crash when joining a match that was returned by the MatchMaking Request

- Fixed a crash caused by ShipWeapons not swapping in/out correctly

- Fixed an issue where Grenades would collide with the Pawn that threw them causing it to prematurely explode.

- Fixed bad LOD material assignment

- Turned off pawn collision on "Plane" element to prevent blocking avatars

- Fixed access none errors on the FPSHUD Widget that was causing log spam

- Turned on impact FX for new rock pieces

- Turned off Projectile Overlap collision property - was blocking ship projectiles

- Added function that returns a boolean value depending on whether the Client has made changes to the Loadouts that havent been confirmed by the Server, this can prevent the UI from allowing the Player to spawn when the Server and Client are out of sync with their PlayerData.

- The LoadoutCustomizationComponent is attached to the PlayerController and currently only available when playing a Match

- PlaceableShieldWall sound fix

- Added multi UV vert paint to asteroid material, lighting polish, updated lightmaps (The Ring)

- Filled holes in bridge, updated lightmaps (Outpost)

- Visual/collision bug fixes

- Fixed an issue with the Killfeed not showing Notifications that occur to close together

- Fixed an issue with Hit Indicators not pointing to the correct location onscreen

- Added a new property to the FPS Weapons to allow for more flexibility with the Animation Graph and
the different Poses that individual Weapons will need to use

- Fixed gap between wall panels (Cap ship interior), updated lightmaps

- Disabled Garbage Collection calls in Notification Widgets to try and address a hitch occurring on the Client

- Setup Beam Emitters for the Placeable Repair Nodes for both Avatars and Ships where the Beams will attach to Units being Healed by the Repair Node

- Fixed an issue with the HitIndicator not correctly showing the location of the Instigator Pawn for Ship Projectiles

- Fixed an issue where a Player that was talking during VoiceChat that changed Team would have their VoiceChat icon remain onscreen for other Players indefinitely

- Fixed an issue where Damage Indicators would appear through geometry. Potentially giving away the location of enemies.

- Fixed an issue where ShipWeapon Charging sounds were not attached to the Ship and instead would remain at the location where Charging began

- Fixed an issue where Avatars could Tranfer to Ships while commandeering Turret Emplacement

- Fixed an issue where the FPS Weapons were not attaching their underlying root component to the Pawn that Owns them, causing distance based NetRelevancy issues that had further consequences for Remote Clients and the Third Person Weapon.

- Potential fix for an issue with RelativeHitLocation not be correct when replicating the LastHitInfo

- Upped gamma in Onslaught, multiplied avatar base albedo (character visibility)

- Added a `MaximumDrawDistance` property to the ActorDetails Component to help with visibility over long distances as they were spamming the screen a lot. Also fixes a issue with seeing Enemies through walls

- Fixed an issue where Placeable Turrets were not using the correct Object Channel when searching for Targets, causing them to not work at all

- Fixed some errors associated with adding Notifications to the screen multiple times

- Fixed some access none errors when attempting to add some Widgets to the screen

- Added missing call to Super on the GameInstance::Shutdown method.

- Update Objective Notification, Size, Text clarification

- Added in Weapon Switch verification on the Server for the Client to try and address an edge case issue where sometimes Clients would not successfully switch into a valid Weapon when spawning.

- Adjustments to KG SMG, KG Rifle, and KG Revolver fire animations

- Disabled Ranked Team Balancing for the Onslaught Gamemode to try and address an issue where Teams become uneven when switching to this Mode

- Introduced a more comprehensive RoundEndingState property and event pairing to ensure that we can manage to pass round ending information to Clients at the correct times without having to wait for multiple replication stages. This small overhaul has been done to address further replication race conditions on the Victory/Defeat Widget at the end of a Round where some Players were getting inconsistent results

- Removed the old EndMatch Widget as its been replaced fully by the Victory/Defeat Widget.

Aug 5, 2020

The 5 FPS Weapons Test Pilots Love Most

Project Genesis - o5ca12

Hey! I'm PilotPrecise, aka Isaac, and I'm behind the scenes trying to balance, nerf and buff weapons across many different scenarios. We asked Test Pilots for a closer look into their load out selection. And in this article I want to share some thoughts on the weapons they're using most in avatar combat.

And while this is pretty much the current hitlist of OP weapons at the moment, I might become the guy that gets the abuse (lol)! Still, I'd love to read your own experience with FPS weapons. Let me know what you think on our forums or in Discord.

Before the Enceladus update, we had put a whole bunch of work into ship weapons, ignoring the FPS side. So for quite a long time, we had just an SMG and a hand gun. And we had been working with these space weapons with all these big energies and lasers and railguns and what not. And when it came time to come back to avatar combat, I started with where I have the most experience and love for playing: first person shooters. So it feels good to just get in and have that familiarity with the role of each weapon. Still, this is a work in progress. And we're continually modifying the use profile for each weapon.

And Now, to the Top 5 FPS Weapons:

The Kingsguard, being our first assault rifle, set the standard that I balance all the other assault rifles around.

It's kind of supposed to be this stock, standard infantry rifle. So I’ve given it this very archetypical role. But it’s perhaps just a little less directly iconic since there’s two other assault rifles you can choose that kind of fit, also, as an infantry (single shot) rifle. They’re all definitely in that assault rifle category although their fire rates are a little bit lower, punchier and heavier.

Using these archetypical roles, we’re trying to reimagine them for what avatar combat would be like. There’s no sniper rifles, no LMGs and what not. But I try to give the flavor of utility and sense of power of those kind of weapons into something that might be carried into an assault rifle. They have multipurpose use but I'm working on extending that a little bit too.

The Autotac is our main SMG. And the SMG has always been our core primary weapon. We built it around the score asset so it was one of the first models we had to use. There was nothing else for it to be more or less powerful than.

But SMGs are so standard in shooters as a multipurpose gun. So it’s always going to be a safe bet to choose that in your loadout. Everything is tuned around “Does it feel good in combat?” And it just sort of sets our base line time to kill and everything else.

After we started making small adjustments around it, as we built out other weapons, it's become that perfect balance between lethal and convenient.

It's the most powerful avatar weapon. And it's putting out a lot of damage every time it fires. And all of that's just compensated by its short range.

I call this (our music composer) Casey's weapon because it carries his particular set of initials. And when I threw a numeric designator at the end of his initials, well, you’ve got yourself a model number: The CP-5!

The Duchess and the R Zero, oddly enough, are the only variants in this list that are actually weapon variants and not base weapons.

The Duchess came about after introducing a single shot hand cannon. But it was kinda disconcerting for people to see a revolver get reloaded that was a single shot. Because there’s the whole cylinder spinning and everything else in that reload sequence. So a simple fix was to make this variant a revolver itself. So I made it match the same hand cannon role if you had to do it with a few more bullets. I lowered the damage, adjusted the head shot, and now it feels like a three-round hand cannon where if you land all three shots then you’re pretty much guaranteed a kill.

So now it’s a secondary that’s got three shots on it and a fairly slow time to arm between each shot. It definitely feels heavy and powerful. The Duchess is hard for me not to recommend in all situations.

Again, along with the Duchess, the R Zero, oddly enough, is the only other variant on this list that's not a base weapon.

The R Zero’s intention is for it to be an anti-shield sidearm. So eventually, when we get the damage model working with damage types, that will help differentiate the R Zero from what is, technically, the R One, which is the main revolver. This is why I call it the R Zero. R for revolver. And the 'zero' came about because I was looking for something that would perform a charge particle, anti-shield type of role. So it would be like a slug thrower that had a little bit of tech applied to it and was just given that name as an antidote to a sort of thing.

How Do I Approach Balance

When I'm considering rebalancing a weapon, I first think about that weapon's role. For example, JimJimFace (James) will often, when we’re digging through a hairy problem, help us resurface against the goal that we’re trying to solve. And it's the same thing with tuning and balancing. You can’t just take the first bit or first idea of what you want. You should take that at face value rather than as a directive. So you get feedback that some weapon is too powerful and does too much damage. First, I have to accept that the feedback is totally valid. And then start to dissect what the feedback is actually getting at. Because sometimes the solution will point to what is believed to be the problem but won’t necessarily be the actual problem. So usually what I’m thinking about is:
- what are the goals?
- what are the sort of final goals for the ideal form for this weapon to have?
- what’s this weapon supposed to be doing?
- and what is this weapon doing now that’s not letting it do whatever it’s role is?

There’s lot of bugs to find in terms of balance. And it’s very situational in helping us learn where we need to change our interface and flows. I’ll be in a fight and I’ll sense myself wanting a different weapon that I know we have. So getting familiar with the weapons and the roles they’re useful in is key to the process.

What's Next For FPS Weapons

We're conveniently in the middle of an engine upgrade, so we have the project locked down. Working in assets that don’t touch code is the safest thing to be up to. So I'm working on audio to help further differentiate how each Avatar weapon feels.

I do this with an Ableton project that has each weapon kind of called out on its own line. I export out from that. I go to audition to clean everything up and trim it. But it all means I have reference for each sound all the way back to their master. Then switching back and forth between an AR and a Pistol always just sounds right. It’s dope. Every gun just feels more different now. We aren’t just working with stock samples. We’re going to sound real good.

Let me read your think!

What's an FPS weapon or attribute you'd like to see us introduce into Avatar combat?

Jul 27, 2020

Patch to Major 'Weapons' Update

Project Genesis - o5ca12

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

Visual Effects

- Alternate Missile explosion VFX Disable GPU sprites, performance fix f/FPS drop

Jul 17, 2020

Breach and Board with Tons of New Loadout Combinations

Project Genesis - o5ca12

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}.

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