=== CryoFall v0.29.11.7 (A29 Patch #1) ===

Changes:
- Added Sand Tyrant boss sounds
- Added a confirmation checkbox to the "Remove faction member" dialog
- Added a dialog window to confirm faction upgrade
- Tooltip for Faction level upgrade now includes information on how many claims the upgrade will provide
- Land claim now can be transferred to faction ownership by any faction member with "Land claim management" permission and access to that land claim (previously only its founder was able to do this)
- Online players (private faction and party members) now have green names on the map
- "Hide helmet" will apply to the faction members on PvP servers (other players will not see a helmet of the faction member that has this option enabled in the Equipment menu)
- Improved factions list menu with better rank display and smoother scrolling (with smaller steps)
- Increased attack sound distance for bosses and Spitter

Fixes:
- Fixed an issue when changing the language or connecting to a no-mods server while having any mods active resulted in an incorrect UI state (as the UI library didn't properly reconstruct its types and properties)
- Fixed a rare random issue with the network library when the server drops connections and players cannot reconnect until the server restart (Hopefully fixed; we're monitoring the servers to ensure the fix is reliable)
- Fixed an issue when deconstructing a middle land claim of a faction-owned land resulted in losing access to some of the split land claim areas
- Fixed a random issue when with the active option "Show healthbar above my character" the offline indicator sometimes appeared over the current player character after login

If you're hosting a community server, it's highly recommended to install this patch even though this patch as it's not mandatory (it doesn't break client-server compatibility).

We are happy to announce that the A29 "Factions" Update is now live!

As you know, the Factions Update has been in active development and testing for quite a while now but it is finally here! It includes many important additions and slowly brings the game towards the finished state. There are still things we want to complete before the full release this year, but it's getting closer and closer to how we envisioned CryoFall to be in its finished form.

Without further ado, let's dive in and see some of the additions and changes.


The Factions System is the key feature this time. You can create your own faction (in both PvP and PvE) and invite other players to join it. Aside from the usual private factions, you can also create a public faction where anyone can join freely. Once your faction is established you can assign roles to its members allowing you to tightly manage various permissions. You can also configure your land claims and doors to ensure that only certain faction roles would have access to them. So, you don't need to worry that if you invite strangers into your faction that they might deconstruct everything and steal your possessions—just don't give them unnecessary permissions.



Another important feature is the faction Leaderboard System. Players can compete for the highest rank on the server. The game will track the progress of all faction members and derive a score for each faction. It tracks a number of various metrics measuring the faction's performance in comparison to other factions.



We didn’t forget about the game world as well. This time we also made massive changes to the CryoFall map adding several completely new locations including two new boss arenas, an entire massive city in the center of the map, a northern desert area, and even a completely new hidden island which is not accessible by the usual means.
Those changes to the map tie neatly with the introduction of the new boss—Sand Tyrant! This also comes along with a bunch of new creatures and entirely new world events including a new creature migration event, a fishing event, and more.



Another thing our community has been asking for a while for PvP servers is the sentry turrets! Yes, they are finally here and can be constructed on your base to protect it from intruders while you are away. Though, if you are going offline for a while you can still use our existing S.H.I.E.L.D. system which makes it possible to go offline with peace of mind that your base will be safe while you are not playing.



If you are more inclined towards creative play there are plenty of new things here too. You can grow new plants such as potatoes and flowers and cook entirely new dishes.


There are also lots of new decorations for your bases, including interactive objects like doorbells or TV (which you can switch on).



Network of alien teleports will now make it possible for you to fast travel around the map, which is especially important as the map keeps growing with new areas with each update. You can also transport your vehicles this way.
This should make many of the world events more accessible as well as allowing all players to reach other biomes quicker. Not to mention—it is a great way to explore the world as each new teleport location you discover will be added to your transportation network.



- lots of new items, crafting recipes, food, plants, fish, technologies, status effects, etc.
- significant changes to UI and overall presentation of the game
- new customization options for your characters including entirely new faces
- new wall type (fence) which you can shoot through (unlocked in T3)
- new quests and changes to existing quests to make them more interesting
- many performance and QoL improvements all around
- major improvements and performance optimizations for CryoFall Editor to help you create your own worlds and experiment with any ideas!
- lots of new steam achievements!

This time all of the official servers (both PvP and PvE) are wiped as A29 is a massive update that introduces breaking changes into the game. We welcome you to join all the newly started servers with the fresh economy and all of the new stuff introduced by the update!

As usual, we make a legacy branch for the previous (A28) version client available if you intend to keep using it on a community or a private server. Just open game properties in the Steam Client, navigate to the BETAS tab, and select the "legacy-a28" branch.

Want to know more about the update? You can find detailed patch notes on our forums.

Don't forget to join our Discord server to be aware of all the news and updates. We post a lot of upcoming content, features, and other interesting things there regularly and you can chat with us directly if you have any feedback: https://discordapp.com/invite/cryofall

That's it for now! See you in the game!

We are happy to announce that the A29 "Factions Update" is coming on the 19th of January (Tuesday). We will post detailed information about the update and patchnotes when the update launches. But there's definitely a lot coming in this update, so let's get a quick overview.

The Factions Update has been in active development and testing for quite a while now but it is finally ready for release! It includes quite a few nice additions and slowly brings the game towards the finished state. There are still things we want to finish before release, but it's getting closer and closer to how we envisioned CryoFall to be in its finished form.

Since this update is called Factions Update—as you can imagine, factions are the key feature it introduces. Anyone can create their own faction (in both PvP and PvE) and invite other players to join it. You can also create a public faction where anyone can join freely. Once your faction is created you can assign roles to its members allowing you to tightly manage your faction permissions. You can also configure your land claims and doors to ensure that only certain faction roles would have access to them. So, you don't need to worry that if you invite strangers into your faction that they might deconstruct everything and steal your possessions—just don't give them unnecessary permissions.

And yes, the most important feature of factions is the Leaderboard. Players can compete for the highest rank on the server. The game will track the progress of all faction members and derive a score for each faction. It tracks a number of different metrics measuring the faction's performance and based on your feedback we will continue expanding and tweaking the leaderboard system in future versions of the game.

Some other key additions and changes include:
- massively reworked map with new areas, new boss arenas, large central city, and new secrets
- 3 new creatures and a new boss!
- fast travel through the network of alien teleports which you can discover on the map
- automated sentry turrets to help you defend your base during raids on PvP servers
- new wall type (fence) which you can shoot through (unlocked in T3)
- significant changes to UI and overall presentation of the game
- several new world events
- lots of new items, crafting recipes, food, plants, technologies, status effects, etc.
- many performance and QoL improvements

Anyway, we will have a detailed announcement when the update launches, so stay tuned, it is just a few days away!

For your convenience, here is the local time in the primary time zones we have:
• 7 AM by Central US (CST, GMT-6 winter time)
• 2 PM by Central EU (CET, GMT+1 winter time)
• 16:00 by Russia/Moscow (GMT+3)
• 21:00 by China/Beijing (GMT+8)
• 10 AM by Argentina/Brazil (GMT-3)
• 10 PM by Japan and South Korea (GMT+9)

This time all the official servers (both PvP and PvE) will be wiped as A29 is a massive update that introduces breaking changes into the game. When the update hits—we welcome you to join all the newly started servers with the fresh economy and all of the new stuff introduced by the update!

As usual, we will provide a legacy branch for the previous (A28) version if you intend to keep playing with it on a community or a private server.

Don't forget to join Official Discord to be aware of all news and updates. We post a lot of upcoming content art and other interesting things there regularly.

The Factions Update is ready for testing! As you know, this time we put a lot more time and effort into developing this update, so it includes quite a few nice additions and slowly brings the game towards the finished state. There are still things we want to finish before release, but it's getting closer and closer to how we envisioned CryoFall to be in its finished form.



Since this update is called Factions Update - as you can imagine, factions are the key feature it introduces. Anyone can create their own faction (in both PvP and PvE) and invite other players to join it. You can also create a public faction where anyone can join freely. Once your faction is created you can assign roles to its members allowing you to tightly manage your faction permissions. You can also configure your land claims and doors to ensure that only certain faction roles would have access to them. So, you don't need to worry that if you invite strangers into your faction that they might deconstruct everything and steal your possessions—just don't give them unnecessary permissions.

And yes, the most important feature of factions is the Leaderboard. Players can compete for the highest rank on the server. The game will track the progress of all faction members and derive a score for each faction. It already tracks a number of metrics measuring the faction's performance, and based on your feedback we will continue expanding and tweaking the leaderboard system during the experimental version and beyond.

Also, if you think the factions are useful only for big teams and big servers—not only, they bring competition even for solo PvP servers thanks to the Leaderboard, and servers like CryoSmall and CryoFive will be able to enforce stricter control of the server rules with the faction mechanics.

Some other key additions and changes include:
- massively reworked map with new areas, new boss arenas, large central city, and new secrets
- 3 new creatures and a new boss!
- fast travel through the network of alien teleports which you can discover on the map
- new wall type (fence) which you can shoot through (unlocked in T3)
- changes to UI and overall presentation of the game
- new world events
- lots of new items, crafting recipes, food, plants, technologies, status effects, etc
- many performance and QoL improvements
- maybe even turrets (!), we will see it it works :)


As usual, the detailed patch notes will be available on our forums in a few days (we will notify everyone in discord and post a link).

To test the update we've deployed two experimental servers (PvE and PvP, with PvE hosted in the USA and PvP hosted in Europe). You can choose either of the two to test the game. The servers will be live for about 2 weeks.

To join you need to manually set CryoFall Steam branch to "experimental-a29". To access it please right click on CryoFall in Steam Client, choose Properties, then open the BETAS tab, and select the "experimental-a29" from the dropdown menu. After the game is updated—launch it and find the A29 Experimental server in the featured servers list.

If you're using our GameLauncher app, just click the "cog" icon near the Update button and you will find an option to enable the experimental branch.

We really need your feedback this time. Please give the experimental a go and let us know what you think about all of the changes and all of the new content. Share your thoughts here in Steam or in Official Discord.


Work in progress for this experimental version:
- Game balance (especially for the new creatures, but also we want to rework balance of the existing content)
- Some sounds for new creatures, structures, items
- Translation (only German and Simplified Chinese are ready and integrated)
- Teleportation animation and sounds
- Some world events are currently disabled, we will enable them soon in the patch
- Turrets (for PvP)—currently they are not present in the game

Greetings survivors!

We've checked the Git repository log and noticed that the initial commit was made in October 2015—over 5 years ago! It was a long journey, starting from scratch, writing a custom game engine, and building the game that we're proud to play ourselves and happy to present to you. There are still several big things in our roadmap before we can consider leaving Early Access. The upcoming A29 Update will be a groundbreaking one!

We would be happy if you nominate CryoFall for Steam Awards 2020. We've chosen the Labor of Love category, made for games that have been out for a while and continue to be supported and improved.

Thank you for playing and best regards from the team!

Greetings, survivors!

Look at the gorgeous art above! This will be our new banner for the game.

Now, we have an important announcement today. If you're a Linux player, you will be happy to hear that we've greatly improved the Proton compatibility. The game is playable right out of the box with Proton 5.13-2! We would be happy to hear your feedback in this topic. Please consider posting about your experience in ProtonDB to help us raise the game compatibility score!

Additionally, we would like to remind everyone that all the Official PvP servers have the usual scheduled wipe this Friday (November 27th).
Wipe time: 1 PM by GMT/UTC time (as usual).
For your convenience, here is the local time in the primary time zones we have:
• 7 AM by Central US (CST, GMT-6 winter time)
• 2 PM by Central EU (CET, GMT+1 winter time)
• 16:00 by Russia/Moscow (GMT+3)
• 21:00 by China/Beijing (GMT+8)
• 10 AM by Argentina/Brazil (GMT-3)
• 10 PM by Japan and South Korea (GMT+9)

Also, we're actively working on A29 Update scheduled for release in December—please join the Official Discord to follow the upcoming features feed!

=== CryoFall v0.28.5.10 (A28 Halloween Event Patch #1) ===

Changes:
- Milkmelon plant reskinned to pumpkin (as it should be for the Halloween event).
- Milkmelon-pumpkin will produce only a single harvest but it's also made to grow much faster (for already planted plants you may need to apply watering or fertilizer to let the server recalculate the remaining time).
- Super heavy armor will not turn on automatically its night vision device when you log in to the game during the night time.

Fixes:
- Solar generator was not providing power (solar panels were also not degrading, so nothing is lost).
- Lights (floor lamps) were active in the "Auto" mode even during the day time.

CryoFall Editor is updated together with the game client.

If you're hosting a community server it's highly recommended to install this update.

Greetings, survivors! We have a new Halloween event ready and we would like to let you know about the upcoming official PvP servers wipe!

Similarly to last year, this event also introduces a few small changes to the game to get you into the Halloween mood. Among other things you can find new T-shirts, pumpkin hats as well as actual pumpkins you can grow in your farm. You can find seeds the same way as you do with any other seeds, but the probability of finding them is very high. So, give it a try! :)



Aside from the Halloween event, we have also introduced several QoL improvements and fixes into the game as well as general optimizations to ensure that game servers don't have performance issues even when they are alive for over 100 days and have many thousands of registered players in total. You can find the detailed patch notes below.

Additionally, we would like to remind you that all the Official PvP servers have a scheduled wipe this Friday (October 30th).
Wipe time: 1 PM by GMT/UTC time (as usual).
For your convenience, here is the local time in the primary time zones we have:
• 8 AM by Central US (CST, GMT-5 summer time)
• 2 PM by Central EU (CET, GMT+1 summer time)
• 16:00 by Russia/Moscow (GMT+3)
• 21:00 by China/Beijing (GMT+8)
• 10 AM by Argentina/Brazil (GMT-3)
• 10 PM by Japan and South Korea (GMT+9)

Also, we're actively working on A29 Update—please join the Official Discord to follow the upcoming features feed!



Patch Notes:
=== CryoFall v0.28.5.7 (A28 Halloween Event) ===

Halloween event:
- Halloween-themed T-shirts, cloth hat replaced with a pumpkin hat, milkmelon got a pumpkin appearance. Seeds could be easily obtained by gathering grass.

Improvements:
- Added a new general option "Capture cursor". Disabled by default. When enabled, it will ensure that the mouse cursor cannot be moved outside of the game window while the game window is focused unless the Ctrl key is held. Useful for multi-monitor setup or when playing in a windowed mode. (Please note: the menu text for this feature is presented in English only until A29 Update)
- Arrows have a high chance of dropping when hitting a creature (previously they've always disappeared).
- When collecting an item and there is already an item stack of this item type in the hotbar, it will be increased first instead of placing the collected item into inventory.
- Added missing item notification when cutting fish to get fish fillet.
- Server: major performance optimizations by introducing the rare update rate mode for certain objects. Offline players, vehicles, drones, torches, etc will consume much fewer CPU resources (over 50% performance improvement for long-running servers such as official PvE servers that are running for over 100 days now).
- Server: the game server will detect when the Core.cpk file is corrupted or from another game version and prevent server startup. If you intend to use a modified Core.cpk, just use it unpacked or create server mods.

Fixes:
- Sprinkler watering cooldown was applied to all sprinklers preventing player from using several sprinklers at once.
- Fixed various minor issues such as the skill experience not getting synchronized when switching to another game server without restarting the game.
- Fixed multiple various issues with CryoFall Editor. Additionally fixed an issue when Editor was slow when drawing terrain and placing objects.

CryoFall Editor is updated together with the game client.

If you're hosting a community server it's recommended to install this update. Without the update there are might be some minor client-server discrepancies and also the pumpking-milkmelon would be not obtainable by gathering grass.

If you're curious about all the Core-related changes, please check out the commit in the official Github repository. Unfortunately, due to an issue with the patch delta-packing, the Steam update size is much larger than it should be (about 100 MB).

Greetings, survivors!
A28 Update turned up great without any major issues, but there are few things we wanted to fix and improve.
Additionally, if you have missed A28 patch notes, they are posted below!

Changes:
- It's no longer possible to place structures close to the event objects such as space debris and asteroids (some players placed walls to prevent other players from interacting with such objects).
- PvE: increased construction restriction area size around the pragmium spires in the barren biome.
- Updated .NET Core Runtime to v3.1.8 for CryoFall client.

Fixes:
- Switching the selected hotbar slot while a weapon is reloading resulted in the network desync of the loaded ammo count.
- When sending a party invitation to an offline player "Cannot invite an offline player" was displayed even on a server that has disabled Online players list. This way it was possible to determine whether a player is offline by sending a party invitation from a private chat.

If you're hosting a community server it's recommended to install this update.


Fixes:
- Uneven/jumpy vehicle movement when colliding with obstacles.


New features
- Reworked welcome message window. Now it has several separate blocks such as server welcome message, game mode description (PvP/PvE/modded), and scheduled wipe information. Server administrators can easily configure this information with the new built-in editors directly in the game.
- Server description message (in the server browser) now includes the next wipe date if it's configured for a particular server.
- The online players list could now be hidden (it's a server setting). This way for PvP servers it will be much harder to determine the moment when a player group is outnumbered so it could be raided easily. This new setting is now enabled on all the official PvP servers (and some featured PvP servers).

Improvements
- Status effects with known duration now display the remaining duration instead of their intensity (or in addition to it). This way certain status effects that have fixed effects, but could have different durations will be more clear (e.g. you will know when a particular buff will run out).
- Minimap now has a small diamond icon showing your current position.
- World map now displays the name of the biome under the mouse cursor. So you can point at anything and you will know what biome it is.
- When using empty bottle over a water tile the whole stack of the empty bottle will be filled in one go, making gathering water this way much faster (works for fresh and salt water).
- Food tooltips now include a mark for items you have never tried/eaten (so you don't need to jump between the inventory and Completionist menu to check what food or drinks you have not tried yet).
- Quest "Build a permanent base" now includes a task requiring to relocate any structure.
- Improved some quests to make them less annoying if you are doing it for N-th time and especially if you are playing in a group.
- Now you can browse any tech group even if you didn't yet reach its pre-requisites. It makes it easier to plan your technology progression ahead and is especially useful on competitive PvP servers.
- Steam Achievements are disabled when playing on modded servers as some of them provided all the achievements without the player's consent or direct actions.
- In the server browser all servers are now sorted by ping by default and ping is measured only once now to prevent constant reshuffling of the list (you can still measure the ping again by pressing "Refresh" for the selected server or using "Refresh all").

Balance
- Changed recipes for different implants making them more accessible. Especially implants that are not part of the "meta" in PvP. Biomaterial collector is now also cheaper to craft.
- Heavy duty batteries require less lithium to craft.
- Many structures (buildings) are made cheaper to make progression smoother.
- "Well rested" status effect now provides two times more bonus learning points and also increases LP/XP gain from x2.0 to x2.5.
- Recoil/fire spread pattern for automatic weapons is now random (within the configured angle) and is completely independent from the client. Any attempts to compensate for the weapon spread with will only make the overall fire accuracy worse. This change makes client side mods that compensate recoil useless making the game more fair.

PvE-related changes
- PvE: now you can build oil pumps and lithium extractors in any biomes that permit land claim placement.
- PvE: players cannot block each other (passing through) preventing pushing and blocking problems. The same applies to vehicles so mechs (with or without the pilot) cannot be used to block passage to the boss or a mining area.
- PvE: creatures (except the boss) cannot damage vehicles without pilots. This way it's no longer possible to lure a creature to destroy a vehicle by standing between it and a vehicle.
- PvE: it's possible to take vehicles that have "Docked" status from other vehicle assembly bays (previously it was required to go to that particular VAB where it's docked).
- PvE: Destroyed vehicles will drop their content tagged for its owner so other players cannot steal it.

PvP-related changes
- PvP: upgrading land claims from Tier 2 to Tier 3/4 will no longer change S.H.I.E.L.D. recharging cost.
- PvP: improved detection of the enclosed base in PvP to prohibit usage of S.H.I.E.L.D. on it. This is required to prevent the abuse of shield with such a base layout (see http://atomictorch.com/Files/Images/CryoFall_A27-ShieldAbuse-Fix-Patch5.png and https://atomictorch.com/Files/Images/CryoFall_A28-ShieldAbuse-Fix-HoneycombLayout.jpg ). We've implemented a new algorithm that detects any such case (before A28 a honeycomb layout was still possible).

Medical system
- Almost all medical items now have a usage cooldown period. This prevents it from being abused with automated macro (mods) or spammed in combat. Now you have to carefully think if you actually need to use a particular medical item.
- While you have "medical cooldown" you cannot sprint, use your weapons or use other medical items.
- Some items have been rebalanced with this new system in mind to make them more useful. Such as anti-toxin medicine is now more potent, etc.
- This new system also makes previously unused items more useful now. For example hemostatic medicine is not only more potent than bandages, but it is also faster to use (shorter cooldown).
- Toxin from pink mushrooms recipe moved to T2 from T3.

Weapons balance
- Some balancing changes to weapons based on recent feedback. Even arrows are more useful now as they deal slightly higher damage and could be a useful alternative to early firearms.
- All pistols are much faster to draw now (i.e. you can start shooting almost instantly when switching to pistols). This gives you a chance to quickly switch to your pistol if your primary weapon is out of ammo.
- All T3-T5 ammo (10mm, 12ga, .300, 50SH, grenades, etc.) made cheaper to be closer in line with lower tier ammo (T1-T2) which was made cheaper last version.

Bombs balance
- Rebalanced bombs. Or rather not really... we simply changed their damage to 1/2 AND changed their price to 1/2. Which effectively means we didn't change anything! However it now takes slightly longer for attackers to raid (though it will still be the very SAME EXACT AMOUNT of resources). This just increases granularity for this item type and makes combat more interesting.
- Explosives (material, not bombs) stack size increased from 100 to 250 for convenience sake.

Items
- Laser sight - you can equip it into your device slot and use it with any weapon helping you aim and also showing the range of the weapon you are currently holding.

Technical improvements
- Decay-related structures removal refactored to prevent CPU spikes and ensure 100% smooth gameplay (especially noticeable on densely populated PvE servers).
- Updated NoesisGUI to v3.0.6 (various fixes and improvements).

Security changes
- Implemented several layers of protection against modifications and executable tampering with various integrity checks. The engine part is completely obfuscated and critical sections of code are virtualized to enhance security.
- Implemented secure client mode when it must use a vanilla executable and Core without any client modifications. The game server could be configured to require the client to switch into this mode and permit a connection only with the secure "no client modifications" clients.
- Implemented network traffic encryption for the game servers that permit only secure "no client modifications" clients to prevent tampering.
- Implemented network rate limits for remote commands. Each remote method now has its own customized call rate that cannot be exceeded normally. The client will automatically stay within the rate. The only way the limit could be exceeded is through client modification. The server will detect such cases to kick the client temporarily and warn for the rate limit violation.

Server administration and settings improvements
- Improved formatting of the ServerSettings.xml file to make it easier to read and edit.
- Added new server configuration setting to prohibit usage of client modifications and require secure client connection ("<no_client_mods>" in SettingsServer.xml).
- The online players list could be hidden now by the server administrator—configurable in ServerRates.config (PvP.IsOnlinePlayersListHidden, disabled by default).
- Added server scheduled wipe date editor. Now it's possible to specify the next wipe date. It will be displayed in the welcome message and the server's description. It's automatically translated and converted to the player's time zone for max convenience.
- Now it's possible to specify the kick reason when using the kick console command. The syntax is as follows: /kick playerName timeInMinutes "kick message in quotes"
- Server rate settings PvpIsFullLootEnabled and PvpTimeGating renamed to PvP.IsFullLootEnabled and PvP.TimeGating respectively.
- Added support for [color] bb tag. E.g. will make the text red.

Fixes
- Fixed an issue when Steam Achievements were not granted properly in some rare cases. (Unfortunately, if you have already started playing on a server before the A28 Update, some achievements may still be not tracked properly—get ready for A29 to have that resolved)
- Fixed various issues with weapon fire sequences. Such as the inability to fire the last round of a particular ammo type, or when the game reported that the player doesn't have ammo to reload, or when the server reloaded the weapon before firing all the shots the client has requested. Also, it's much more reliable now in bad network conditions (high ping and packet loss).
- It's no longer possible to place structures on a higher/lower ground than the current player location.
- Slightly increased Pragmium Queen ranged attack range as it was possible to attack her with the artillery cannon without getting attacked back.
- Sometimes Pragmium Queen was unable to deal melee damage to the player.
- Started game server allowed network connections before the spawn scripts have been completed. It was especially confusing on freshly-wiped servers as some players started in a completely empty area.
- Inviting an offline player into the party displayed an error message "your party is full". A proper error message will be displayed now.

We are happy to announce that the A28 "Justice" Update is now live!

This time it is not our usual huge content release, but rather an equally important technical update. Those of you who play on PvP servers didn't like that certain mods offered certain advantages to its users, so in order to improve the balance for PvP players, we have introduced several changes to the game that remove any possibility to gain an unfair advantage and reignite the fire of competition on PvP servers. But obviously, these are not the only changes in this version. A28 introduces a large number of different QoL and balance improvements.

Some major changes include:

• New improved security with executable anti-tampering, binary integrity checks, network encryption, critical component obfuscation, and code virtualization to prevent any client-side modifications when playing on special secure PvP servers. And as always, our existing authoritative server model makes server-state hacks categorically impossible. You can read more about new security features in the patch notes. We feel confident it will put away most hackers but we're also keeping our hand on the pulse to act quickly if we notice anything suspicious.
• Reworked medical system, now you don't need to spam different medical items in combat and instead need to carefully choose what and when to use, especially in PvP, but it is also important in PvE.
• You can now see the contents of ALL technological groups regardless of their prerequisites. This will make it easier to plan your technological progression.
• In PvE you can now build a lithium extractor and oil pump in any biome, so you don't have to have several separate bases. But you can definitely still do that if you want.
• Significant changes to weapon and ammo balance, the biggest of which is making T3-T5 ammo significantly cheaper. This should make those weapons more useful and you won't have to continue using lower-tier weapons even though you have access to better weapons just to save resources.
• New laser sight item which can be equipped into the device slot to give all of your weapons laser aiming.
• Lots of different UI improvements to make things easier to use or more convenient.
• Many important fixes that address different issues in the game, such as the ability to destroy mechs of other players in PvE. We've ensured that all the reported issues are now fixed.

We have also continued working on the game balance to make progressing smoother and more rewarding. Especially when playing solo and without access to help from other players. You will now be able to access more T4 and T5 technologies easier without the need to farm resources.

As always, you can find detailed patch notes on our forums.

Obviously, it is not the extent of the work that was done. Originally we planned to have "Factions Update" released as A28 but had to postpone it for A29 because the game urgently needed fixes that we mentioned above and in patch notes. But thankfully none of that work has been lost and while the aforementioned fixes were implemented we continued working on new content and features and when A29 finally hits it will include double the amount of new content and features, so definitely stay tuned! Massive changes are inbound! Not only the faction system, but completely reworked map (with warp points!), all new raid-boss and new monsters, and a massive amount of new items, buildings, and new features in general!

Don't forget to join our Discord to be aware of all the news and updates. We post a lot of upcoming content art and other interesting things there regularly and you can chat with us directly if you have any feedback: https://discordapp.com/invite/cryofall

That's it for now! See you in the game!