- Adjusted misclick circles to be more thicker and slower.
- Misclick circles now blend into the background properly.
- Fixed input getting stuck when editing a text entry and moving your mouse out of bounds
- Attempted to fix FFprobe not getting detected if FFmpeg is present in your system PATH variable.
- Moved start of random length text entry to front.
- Added an animation when clicking the logo.
- Workshop submissions will now only use JPEG (*.jpg, *.jpeg) images.

Last 4 updates listed below. It's working smooth on Linux with Steam Proton, so I didn't include a Linux app yet. Too lazy to compile it on two different computers every time I update. But lemme know if you want to try the Linux .DEB app.

EARLY ACCESS 7.0:

-Fixed Steam Proton compatibility and Steam Cloud (Linux app later).
-Moving through slow tiles now cuts off mobile sprite bottom (deep snow, etc.)
-New command: "mapStepSound" to play sound when given tile is stepped on (updated Builder's Manual).
-Made all sand tiles cause slow movement and play a sand step sound effect.
-Included condition and status effects in tooltips for left-side party bar.
-Increased max number of missiles drawn at one time to 10.
-Extreme weather now makes climbing require more Cunning.
-Removed "mapDrawPri" script command.
-Added tiles: shallows, shallowsSand.
-Added objects: throne, bedNoble.


EARLY ACCESS 6.9:

-Fixed major bug checking range for objects with larger collisions (like attacking doors from the north).
-Unsuspecting targets now have a small delay when attacked for the first time (20 frames).
-Attacking stone or metal objects now always damages the weapon (not just 20% chance).
-You can now play locked stories if you want, but first it will ask you to confirm.
-Fixed script bug with filling empty bottles up at wells, pools, etc.
-Updated all manuals.


EARLY ACCESS 6.8:

-Reworked arrays in source code to optimize for Linux compatibility.
-All filenames in media folder are now lower case for Linux compatibility.
-Merchants now only buy items one time (name then changes to "Happy Merchant").
-Pathfinding no longer gets stuck north of windows (all mobiles now, not just party).
-Setting objBlock to 2 in the scripts blocks non-party members (to keep livestock in pens, etc.).
-Stories with "Demo" at the end are locked as well as main stories in locked list ("Chapter 2" now "Chapter 2 Demo").
-Added new object only visible in editor: aiBlock (placed at gate of livestock pens mostly).
-Added new party members and scripts for Ch.2: Oakia, Minax, Shale, Dustbiter.
-Added new sprites for shelves: shelfBooks, shelfStuff, etc.
-Updated Player's Manual (species, characters section).


EARLY ACCESS 6.7:

-Removed error messages when calling object commands with no object selected.
-New light effect object that reveals concealed mobiles (created by town light scripts at night).
-Large effect object sprites (like explosions) are now centered on Y position (not above like other objects).
-Changed whiskey to spirits, insanity bombs to sleeping bombs, and tweaked some alchemical recipes.
-Fixed milking script to require animal to have 10 meta (meta recharges as of 2 patches ago).
-Fixed script bug from a couple patches ago where you couldn't use Prowling ability.
-Fixed bug where unconscious mobiles were still attacking targets.
-Party member pathfinding no longer gets stuck north of windows.
-Added objects: lightTree, ladders, Hamchop (recruitable boar).
-Resting in beds now autosaves.

Hello, pathfinders!

Hotfix 2.1.5n is here!

Changes:
- Appsflyer is completely removed from the game and all collected data is deleted;
- EULA restored to the previous version. Any reverse is also a change, so we ask you to accept the EULA again.

Thank you for waiting, now you may play the game without any concerns, as you used to. We hope that the whole situation will not affect your impression of the game.
We deeply appreciate your support and we thank you for the honest feedback!

Linux app is working, but Steam Proton is also working fine, so I'm not including the Linux app yet just because I don't wanna have to compile it on another computer every time I want to upload a patch. Let me know if you want the Linux app and I'll include it.

Finally figured out how to cut off the bottom of a character sprite while walking through shallow water or deep sand/snow, and I added sound effects. Other minor fixes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLf2Ed3Ur-c

Complete list of changes:

-Fixed Steam Proton compatibility and Steam Cloud (Linux app later).
-Moving through slow tiles now cuts off mobile sprite bottom (deep snow, etc.)
-New command: "mapStepSound" to play sound when given tile is stepped on (updated Builder's Manual).
-Made all sand tiles cause slow movement and play a sand step sound effect.
-Included condition and status effects in tooltips for left-side party bar.
-Increased max number of missiles drawn at one time to 10.
-Extreme weather now makes climbing require more Cunning.
-Removed "mapDrawPri" script command.
-Added tiles: shallows, shallowsSand.
-Added objects: throne, bedNoble.

Note: This update is for the Steam Deck Beta and Preview channels, and includes new features that are still being tested. You can opt into this in Settings > System > System Update Channel.

The Steam Client Beta has been updated with the following changes:

Steam Input

• Improved navigation in the configurator when navigating from the Preview screen. Repeatedly going to Preview then an input will no longer build up loops in the back stack and you can now go back with a single B button press if you've not interacted with the left column.
  
• Fixed detecting controllers using the Xbox Enhanced Feature Support driver
  
• Fixed changing effects on PS4 and PS5 controllers when Steam Input is not enabled

Hello, Agents,

This is Dongsoo Oh, Creative Director of Blackout Protocol.

It's the Tuesday morning after our first Early Access weekend, and we've received a ton of player feedback. Those of you have shown positive support for the game's direction have given us a fresh boost of encouragement, and those who shared constructive feedback are helping to lay the foundation for the game's future improvements. We're carefully listening to it all.

Here are some of our thoughts on the biggest items...

One of the main pieces of feedback we've received is regarding solo play.

As many of you are aware, Blackout Protocol was designed as a third-person co-op experience first and foremost. However, we know that many fans of roguelike games prefer striving to conquer challenges by themselves. In addition, a lot of players are buying Steam Decks now, so how best to support a solo offline experience is actually something we've been mulling over for a while. (Players who participated in some of our earlier beta tests will recall that we've tried out a few different approaches in the past, including difficulty options and auto-balancing for group size.)

All of which is to say: we've decided to add a dedicated solo/offline mode to Blackout Protocol.

Solo play mode will see a few changes from the existing 3-player co-op mode, including adjustments to the synaptic enhancements encountered during a run, and some minimum stat rebalancing to make a solo run a little more achievable. But the overall level of difficulty will still remain on the high side. Our hope is to offer enough challenge to encourage experimentation and replay.

Players who clear the final stage (in either solo or co-op mode) will receive one of two special badges according to the mode, signifying their achievement on their in-game player ID.

We'll also be making some adjustments to the game's current design, in the area of overall difficulty and map variation.

Our initial goal was to create a few memorable spikes in difficulty as players get deeper and deeper into Section 13, as we feel the triumph of overcoming seemingly insurmountable hurdles is part of what makes this genre great. We've tried to pace out these challenges at a reasonable cadence, both within the context of a single run, and over the course of multiple runs. But it's clear that some of these hurdles are maybe a little steeper than we intended, so we plan to patch in in a few tweaks.

We've given special attention to a particular problem spot for a lot of players (the lobby in level 2), so it'll hopefully feel a little more doable. If you felt the previous difficulty level was just outside your reach, I'd encourage you to give the game another shot after the patch coming in a few hours.

We also had a bug in the system that decides map variation/difficulty. We believe this bug, plus the difficulty spike in the lobby, conspired to create a nasty feedback loop that made the game feel extra repetitive and boring.

We're addressing this bug as well. You should encounter more map variations across multiple sessions once the the patch is love, with difficulty spikes that offer a wider range of experiences. If you felt your time with the game was a bit repetitive and lacked content, I hope you'll give it another look.
Finally, we've made some adjustments to the noise levels of various weapons, and how enemies respond to them. Normal firearm weapons and tactical gear like grenades will still alert and attract enemies, but weapons with silencers should become more effective at providing an alternative approach.

I should mention that these particular adjustments were made with solo players in mind, so I'd encourage you to give the stealthy approach a try and make use of it.

We'd like to mention that our team has no sneaky intentions when it comes to forcing artificial difficulty on players mid-run. If you see enemies spawning into a level, on-screen, with no animation, that's a bug. We're working to stamp out this issue everywhere we're aware of it, but if you come across it during a run, please let us know.

Various other improvements are also in the works. These include minor polishes to perspective and camera angle across various map routes, to reduce moments where the camera is obstructed by in-game objects. Another of our plans is regarding session length – specifically, a shortcut to the Deep Storage Level. In the current version of the Parking Level, you might notice a cargo elevator on your left as you approach the Power Station. In our original roadmap, the plan was always to add a shortcut there, allowing players to speed up content they've thoroughly mastered. But right now, it takes even an expert team almost an hour to complete the current build, so we're accelerating this particular item on the agenda.

We'll have more details to share in the future and continue to work as fast as we can to stamp out any other gameplay-disrupting issues, so please report anything obviously strange on Discord or the Steam discussion boards. (Video is always helpful.)

Thank you for your support. We'll continue working to provide a game that's unique, memorable, and a worthy challenge.


Dongsoo Oh
Creative Director, Blackout Protocol

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2111870/Blackout_Protocol/

• Overhauled the player camera system
  
• Improved camera positioning in walk, stealth, targeting positions
  
• Player/Ally mesh collisions with camera
  
• Smooth transitions between camera states
  
• Improved transitions between gameplay and cutscenes
  
• Updated shaders for all characters
  
• Refactored opening cinematics
  
• Improved lighting
  
• New character shaders provide better detail
  
• Theo escort scene has been redone to provide additional time to read screen text
  
• Greatly improved rendered video quality, fewer compression artifacts
  
• Refactored gameplay cinematics
  
• Staircase pre-lockpick scene
  
• Improved lighting
  
• New animations
  
• Staircase post-lockpick scene
  
• Fully reworked, improved and smoothed camera positioning
  
• Improved scene performance reducing frame-rate drops
  
• New animations, improved choreography
  
• Additional dialogue
  
• Cafeteria Refrigerator scene
  
• Fully reworked, improved and smoothed camera positioning
  
• New animations, improved choreography
  
• Improved lighting
  
• All other cinematics received lighting improvements
  
• Improved Listening/Focus mode
  
• Reduced blurring effect
  
• Need to be in listening mode for at least 2 seconds to expand listening radius for maximum effect
  
• Added audio effect
  
• Resolved bugs listed below
  
• Improved Player Locomotion
  
• Improved player movement when jogging/accelerating
  
• Eliminated strafing during jogging
  
• Improved blending between animations
  
• Sneak/Crouch transitions are smoother
  
• Audio
  
• Improved game audio mix
  
• Reverb effects are now present in all game areas
  
• Doors locked with keypads can now be accessed by interacting with the door, instead of just the keypad
  
• New timed hint system for some obstacles
  
• Opening area
  
• Main fusebox challenge
  
• Performance tweaks
  
• Improved LODs in troublesome areas
  
• Reduced post-processing load in troublesome areas
  
• Improved rendering pass by optimizing unnecessary shadows
  
• Resolved damaged light flickering in destroyed CIPR environment
  
• Reduced walk distance in ending scenes
  
• Save system update phase 1
  
• Added save file version field to save files
  
• Added save file updater to update older save files (hopefully) without corrupting existing ones
  
• Backend encapsulation improvements
  
  
  Fixes:
• Resolved camera collision with player mesh
  
• Resolved camera collision with ally mesh
  
• Resolved camera getting stuck in crouch position when colliding with object
  
• Resolved background music stopping in ending scenes
  
• Resolved issue where listening mode would show highlighted items after exiting
  
• Resolved issue where listening mode key could be feathered and show highlighted items
  
• Resolved bug introduced in V 1.2.1 where non-quittable locks were quittable
  
• Resolved bug introduced in V 1.2.1 where failing lockpick in 4th floor hallway resulted in strange scenario post-load
  
• Resolved bug where starting a New Game would not clear player’s inventory
  
• Resolved bug where starting a New Game would not clear player’s score
  
• Resolved bug where starting a New Game would not clear player’s objectives
  
• Resolved fridge sequence bug where Theo wouldn’t be in camera frame if crouching
  

尊敬的各位玩家：

本次服務器維護工作已完成，遊戲登入功能已開啟，祝您遊戲愉快。

維護及更新內容：
1.更新活動服務器商品資訊；
2.添加攻城戰設定；
3.添加無限者設定；
4.新增BOSS入侵隨機箱子的道具獲得等級限制（100級）；
5.取消商店購買限制，購買道具不再要求等級與線上時間；
6.商店購買的道具可以直接使用，但出於帳號安全考慮，添加了72小時的保護期，在此期間內將無法進行交易。


聖戰科洛斯運營團隊
2023.7.25

Greetings, fellow Sonatians!

We can barely contain our excitement for the upcoming Universe Reset! Brace yourselves for an array of incredible updates and features heading your way with the upcoming patch. Here’s just a taste of what’s to come:
After DGing received a Perilous Space expansion recently, we wanted to continue that trend and add another expansion into a familiar space. Kalthi Depths DGs are finally returning, and have been given a facelift, making them much more interesting than before!

There are 10 new DG bosses to fight and farm — enjoy 5 new ship blueprints alongside plenty of other new items to find. 11 variants of mob guards, some of which are brand new, some of which will be souped up versions of familiar foes from Perilous Space. These DGs have been tuned to be fairly difficult with rewards to match whether you’re farming it solo or together. This expansion even comes with brand new Platinum level Strontium-90 missions, making token acquisition scale into the late game.

The dev team have been in discussions about drop rates across Star Sonata for a few months now. Enkelin developed a tool that allows us to see the real time investment required to receive drops of specific rarities. Using this tool we’ve gone through many popular endgame zones and applied these rates to them as we can.

Empyrean, Ruined Sanctuary, Akuq’ba, Anomalous Passageway, Dragon’s Lair, Olympus, Zaphragi Emperor, and Bonnet have been adjusted so far, and more will be coming! This tool will allow us to make loot drops much more consistent going forward for newly introduced content zones as well.
Ruined Sanctuary has been given new drops including 3 new ships and many items alongside the previously mentioned loot buff.
This zone has also been made to be Star Sonata’s only duo (two player) instance, so you and a friend can go in and conquer these enemies together.
A few zones have been noticeably harder than they needed to be for a while now, and are being toned down to more appropriate levels for their target audiences.

• 
  Olympus has been rebalanced towards a medium-sized squad of tech 20 players.
• 
  Subspace Ubers and minibosses have been given the same treatment but for a squad of tech 21 players.
• 
  Empyreal Fleets and regular mobs have been toned down similarly for a squad of tech 22 players.

These should be much more achievable now for aspiring players to finally be able to earn their own skills and loot, progressing naturally without relying on the help of much more powerful characters.
The AI empire HQs have been improved. There are now four unique and worthwhile galaxies that any wild space conqueror may want to look into taking next universe:

• 
  Scorpius, the mining galaxy.
• 
  Citadel, the tiered commodity galaxy and has centralized T0 extraction.
• 
  Paradise, the perfect colony galaxy.
• 
  Dorado has lots of T0s, but no metals!

The idea behind this expansion to the AI empires was for these galaxies to each have a unique spin on what they offer. Instead of being generally good like an exotic galaxy, they specialize — being better than exotics in some areas but weaker at others

The Anatolian Expanse and the emperor system have been a hotly debated topic in the community. Generally, we agree that our current system is missing some of the key things that made our historical emperor contest and the politics around it exciting.

Our end goal is to bring back some of that intrigue and a bit more risk in the emperor contest than what we have now. However, Rome was not built in a day. We still want to retain having an emperor system in the meantime while we work on this goal. To support this, we’ve lined up some changes for the current system to address some of the biggest pain points, including benefitting smaller groups rather than rewarding only the biggest teams taking part in the system.

Emperor contests will now only take place once a universe, around the middle or a month into each universe. This should address various concerns around the constant slog that was being created by multiple contests per universe.

There will be rewards taken from the emperor team’s spoils and given to the top ten teams with influence above a certain threshold. More will be given to the teams higher on the leaderboard at the time that emperor is awarded. To support this, all teams entering the expanse will require a team HQ somewhere in the universe to receive that reward.

There are some other slight tweaks regarding the layers layout that should improve the experience as well. We’ve made three new galaxies that connect the arms in the layer and removed the gate guards and static turrets to make moving around the layer not unnecessarily cumbersome.

We hope these tweaks make engaging with the expanse clearer, more streamlined, and more rewarding for any pilots who are interested in a dynamic experience! Stay tuned in the future for greater iterations to how the Emperor’s Crown may be obtained!

There are rumors of a shadowy force roving through the multiverse. If true, we face a dire threat from interdimensional wanderers. Wielding the power of temporal travel, it is said that they hop through the parallel universes with ease. If they find a way to our universe, their insatiable hunger for plunder and power threatens to unravel the very fabric of our existence.

In response the Paxians reach out to you, the chosen few. Embark on perilous odysseys, infiltrate the lairs of the unknown, and thwart their sinister machinations. Traverse through uncharted locations, sabotage their progress, and gather vital intelligence. Together, we shall defy the odds and restore order to the infinite tapestry. Brace yourselves for a journey through time and space…. Right after the universe wipes itself!

Dev Notes

• Extractors other then space oats shut off, colonies will no longer make purchases to/from user stations, AI stations will no longer decay goods 7 days before end of the universe. Will be a reminder post.
• Stations, permanent drones, and the credits on active bots will be lost.
  • Player ships will not be affected.
• If you’re docked during the reset, you will spawn into the new universe using your docked active ship.
  • Careful not to spawn into the new universe in an immobile ship!
• Wild Space will be scrambled and receive a new map shape.
• All other layers will have the systems scrambled but contain the same shape.
• After a universe reset, all of your docked ships will be in a state of limbo allowing you to dock them all at any non-player station.  You can use the /limbo chat command only once to bring all of your docked ships back into limbo to dock them elsewhere. There is no longer a time limit.
  • You can purchase additional limbos via Limboing Tow Service at Friedman station in Free Market for 5 billion credits each.

PDT: 10:00
MDT: 11:00
CDT: 12:00
EDT: 13:00
UTC: 17:00
BST: 18:00