Oct 25, 2023

Steam Deck - Drew Gottlieb

We have just shipped an updated Steam Deck Client to the Stable (default) channel.

General

Display shader cache disk usage information under Settings->Storage.
Fixed external sdcard readers without an sdcard inserted showing up in Settings->Storage.
Fixed a case where turning on the TDP limit toggle for the first time could result in a bad TDP value being set for the system.
Fixed an issue with art for some games not properly updating.
Fixed some DLC art displaying in the wrong language.
Fixed progress feedback for the Eject button in Settings->Storage disappearing as soon as the button is pressed.
Fixed labels for external drives not being editable during a format operation.
Modal dialogs now dismiss when you click the background.
Fixed a case where the Main Menu or the Quick Access Menu would be immediately dismissed after opening.
Fixed a case where the client would fail to handle some open URL requests.
Fixed Discovery Queue background color.

Remote Play

Fixed rare case of the connection hanging when starting to stream
Added support for low latency networking option on Steam Link
Use fixed bitrate in automatic bandwidth mode to improve picture quality
Fixed black screen when streaming from another computer
Fixed black screen when streaming to another computer which has enabled the high quality streaming preset
Added a low latency network setting, which reduces latency at the cost of bandwidth
Fixed audio crackling while streaming
Fixed only streaming a portion of the screen and a doubled mouse cursor when display scaling is enabled on Windows hosts

Steam Input

Restored ability to rename controllers in the Options->Controller menu.
New Gyro Mode: "Gyro To Mouse".
- This is a renovation of the gyro "As Mouse" mode.
- Expect frequent changes to UI and behavior while we evaluate this new replacement. ("As Mouse" will remain for now.)
- Natural Sensitivity Scale: use "Pixels Per 360°" to calibrate both the Flick Stick and Gyro's real world angles into in-game angles. In this way, your Gyro Natural Sensitivity Multiplier can be consistent across games, with "Pixels Per 360°" being the isolated tuning value for each game.
- 1€ Filter: Smoothed low level gyro noise without adding delay.
- Speed Deadzones and Precision Zones will allow you to tune preferences for hand shake during fine aim.
- Yaw vs. Roll Blend: you can now blend between "Yaw" or "Roll" mode.
- Gyro Momentum Option: releasing your gyro activation button can maintain some rotation from the gyro. Tune the momentum on independent axes to bias toward horizontal movement vs vertical movement.
- Gyro sensor timestamps are now used resulting in better overall accuracy of the Gyro.
- Gyro over Bluetooth improvements - gyro motion is extrapolated when Bluetooth packets are delayed, resulting in smoother movement. Any error incurred is corrected gradually over time, during high speed movement to avoid "Ouija effect" during precise aiming.
Fixed Roll axis on Steam Deck for legacy "As Mouse".
Fixed delayed input when opening the standalone On-Screen Keyboard
Fix for Razer Wolverine V2 Pro Dualsense gyro.
Fixed default orientation for Steam Deck and Steam Link Mobile App controllers in the new Gyro To Mouse mode
Fix: Gyro to Mouse preferences can be overridden in action layers.
Fix: FlickStick Pixels per 360 value was defaulting to 2000 the first time it opened.
Fix: Periodic jolts of gyro movement should be reduced/fixed in Gyro to Mouse mode.
Gyro To Mouse mode now has a "3DOF to 2D Conversion Style" dropdown.
- Yaw, Roll, and Yaw + Roll - legacy settings brought forward for easier onramp.
- Yaw + Roll is slightly different from "Yaw & Roll Combined" in the previous mode. It has been re-written to avoid "ping-pong" horizontal output response during figure 8 movement.
- Local Space (Advanced) gives access to more parameters for expert tweaking.
- Player Space (Experimental). Vertical output uses local pitch, as usual, but horizontal output comes from rotation around the gravity axis due to local yaw and roll. Many thanks to Jibb Smart.
A note on gyro orientation convention in the new Gyro To Mouse mode: Previously we considered "pitch", " yaw" and "roll" to be relative to the hardware - Yaw is considered the axis that rotates about a joystick's central axis on any controller. Moving this convention over to handhelds (i.e. SteamDeck or mobile) has caused confusion for many due to how the controller is tilted in order to look at the screen. To address this, we now compensate for that tilt, and consider "yaw" to be "Human Oriented". So, on Handhelds: "Yaw" is the axis that goes from the top to the bottom of the screen (so turning the handheld around that axis generates "Yaw") & "Roll" is considered the rotation axis through the screen (steering wheel motion). This only changes the expected axes on Handhelds - standalone controllers have the same orientation as ever.
Added "World Space" Experimental Gyro Conversion Mode. This modes feels similar to using a laser pointer. It monitors rotation about the gravity axis to determine both horizontal and vertical output. Some may prefer "Player Space" which is a hybrid of world yaw and local pitch.
Fix for "Player Space" Gyro Conversion Mode. Gravity axis is now reliable.
"Pixels Per 360°" Setting value is now copied within the current Action Set rather than across the entire steam input config. This is an accommodation for games with different turning rates in different gameplay states (i.e. Vehicle Mode vs On Foot mode may have a different camera turn rate).
Partial Regression fix for older Gyro "As Joystick" modes, but there are still known issues. Renovation is planned.
New "Laser Pointer" Gyro 3DOF to 2D Conversion mode: The Cursor is driven up, down, left and right due to an imaginary ray pointing out of the front of the controller/through the SteamDeck Screen. This mode is most appropriate for mouse cursor movement/UI interaction.
Fix for SteamDeck Gyro offset angle defaults being set incorrectly.
Minor UI tidying.
Added support for the PowerA Nintendo Switch Nano Wired Controller
Fix for opting into or out of Steam Input on the configurator page not updating the configuration until the next time the configurator was opened
New Experimental Gyro Mode : "Gyro to Joystick (Camera)". This mode re-uses concepts from the Gyro To Mouse system, including Natural Sensitivity, but outputs to Joystick instead of Mouse. It also has the option to "Catch Up" to your desired in game angles in the case of excessively fast gyro rotations exceeding the Maximum Turn Rate. This will replace the old Gyro->"As Joystick" once there is feature parity.
Fix for PlayStation DualShock 4 gyro sensitivity over Bluetooth for new Gyro Modes.
New Gyro Mode: "Gyro to Joystick (Deflection)". This is most appropriate for simulating Steering and Flight Yokes. This mode will eventually replace Gyro "Joystick". It is the last replacement mode for Gyro functionality. It shares the common Gyro Natural angles system.
Added "Joystick Power Curve" slider to both "Gyro to Joystick (Camera)" and the new "Gyro to Joystick (Deflection)" modes. This allows you to counteract the response curve that many games employ for better precision.
Fix for new Gyro to Joystick modes not applying Horizontal/Vertical settings, or Axis inversion settings or Rotation Output settings.
Re-implemented "Lock Extents" for Gyro To Joystick Deflection mode. Rotating the controller further than maximum deflection angle in any direction from the center point results in dragging the center point.
Fix for Gyro Deflection Mode: Joystick output was not centering when gyro disabled.
Fix for stale antidrift values being loaded from the cloud.
Fix for DualShock 4 autocalibration not working unless on the calibration screen.
Temporary Fix for SIAPI GetMotionData and legacy gyro modes using a buggy version of the sensor fusion quaternion.
Fixed a UI error in the controller settings when a controller hasn't been mapped yet
Added the ability to bind the capture button on the Google Stadia controller
Fixed bug preventing user-created templates and other workshop configs from being permanently deleted
Fix for Dots per 360 value not being copied into a new mode in an action set if another mode that used it was already present

Desktop Mode

Fixed microtransactions dialog failing to reopen if the Steam overlay was closed without canceling the transaction.
Fixed small mode dimensions not restoring correctly if previously sized smaller than the minimum large mode dimensions
Fixed resize grip showing sometimes when windows are maximized

Steam Community

Fixed friend profile Message button not working

Oct 25, 2023

Introducing SteamVR 2.0

SteamVR - Aaron-W

Update Highlights

Today we are excited to ship SteamVR 2.0 to all users!

In this release we’re bringing all of what’s new and exciting on the Steam platform into VR. This is our first big step in a larger ongoing effort to better unify the Steam ecosystem for all users, providing a more consistent experience across devices. This update also allows us to add new Steam features in the future much faster and more frequently.

Some things you’ll discover today:

Most of the current features of Steam and Steam Deck are now part of SteamVR
Updated keyboard with support for dual-cursor typing, new languages, emojis, and themes
Integration of Steam Chat and Voice Chat
Improved Store that puts new and popular VR releases front and center
Easy access to Steam notifications

To see the latest SteamVR features ensure your Steam client is updated. To update the Steam client go to: Steam > Check For Client Updates.

We appreciate all the valuable feedback that we received from players during this recent beta period. If you're interested in taking part in future SteamVR betas, follow these instructions to opt in to SteamVR Beta and Steam Client Beta.

If you encounter issues with this update, please post in the SteamVR Bug Report forum. If possible, please include a system report to aid in tracking down your issue. Replies to this post are not tracked for bug reporting purposes. Please use the forum linked above to report issues.

In addition to the new dashboard interface, this update brings a number of changes:

Release Notes - SteamVR 2.0.8

General

Fixed crash on exit for some Unity titles.
Increased the system layer resolution limit. This was previously 1.5x the recommended render target scale, but is now applied to width and height independently.
Fix a case where controller configuration would not be localized in the user’s preferred language (as configured in Steam).
Added a prompt to install the Bigscreen Beyond Driver when the headset is detected.
Improved double click reliability in desktop view.
Added a button to toggle multitasking view for desktop overlays (Windows 10 and 11 only).
Fixed scaling issues with floating dashboard overlays.
Fix for SetSkyboxOverride always showing only the last texture.
Fix issues caused by running vrstartup from a different SteamVR install when SteamVR is already running.
Laser pointer smoothing, click, and double-click refinements.
Added support for dual-laser typing on the new keyboard.
Fixed a bug where dismissing the keyboard would dismiss it forever in controller binding UI.
Fixed cases where binding callouts would stay up even when they should be dismissed.
Desktop windows now show their actual icon in addition to their name.

Dashboard

Refreshed styling of the VR Settings and Now Playing overlays when using the new 2.0 UI (connected to a Steam Beta client).
Sound effects are more consistent across SteamVR UI elements.
Adjusted more UI colors for consistency.

Index Controller Firmware

Fixed a bug where haptics could stop responding after playing certain repeated haptics events.
Restored grip input functionality for EV3 developer controllers that was broken in the previous update.
Only EV3 and older developer hardware will be flagged for this update.

Meta

Hide the SteamVR IPD slider since Meta already shows one.
Meta controller dashboard default bindings: B and Y navigate 'Back' through Steam UI, and right clicking in desktop view has been moved to thumbstick click.

Linux

Transition to the Steam Linux Runtime 3.0 (sniper) for improved compatibility.
Fix runtime configuration to launch in Steam Linux Runtime 3.0 (sniper), addressing startup issues on some systems.
Fix vrcompositor to launch under legacy scout runtime, addressing startup issues on some systems.
Fix SteamVR Home to launch under legacy scout runtime.

Drivers

For drivers which provide a manifest but don’t specify "resourceOnly", default to true if there is no bin directory.
Add a manifest entry "showEnableInSettings" which can be set to force a driver to appear in the "addons" settings even if default rules would hide it.
When a specific driver is forced with the "forcedDriver" setting or the VR_FORCE_TEST_DRIVER, load it even if it is disabled.
When a specific driver is forced with the "forcedDriver" setting or the VR_FORCE_TEST_DRIVER, only allow an HMD to activate from that driver (even if other drivers are loaded due to "activateMultipleDrivers" and they activate an HMD first). The forced driver always had the first opportunity to activate an HMD before, but now we will wait for it to hotplug an HMD rather than letting another available HMD win.
The "LastKnown" section in settings (which updates with the manufacturer and model of the last used HMD) now also keeps track of the "ActualHMDDriver" (e.g. "lighthouse") that provided the HMD.

Release Notes - VR Changes in Steam Client - October 25th, 2023

General

Remove warning messages that came up when you started a 2D game when in VR.
Fix crash in SteamVR when certain notifications were sent. This fixes the crash that could occur when taking screenshots from within SteamVR.
Fix notifications not showing up when a game's desktop window was focused.
Dashboard Tabs are now horizontally scrollable if you add a large amount of desktop windows or dashboard overlays.
Fixed back button occasionally taking you back twice.

Interface

Added mouse- and touch-friendly sort and filter buttons in library when in VR.
Improved reliability of clicking on Dashboard and Steam UI elements with the laser mouse.
Tab bars now show clickable arrows instead of L1/R1 bumper glyphs.
Fixed the dashboard UI not working if Steam is in a Logged Out state (e.g. asking you to pick a user.)
Hide the search bar from the header when Steam is in a Logged Out state.
Some purchase flows weren't showing up in the Dashboard when started from within a game.
UI takes up full width of the display in several cases where it was being centered such as the Friends tab.
Filter options won't show Steam Deck compatibility filters when viewing from VR.

Linux

Fix an issue that prevented SteamVR from starting on Debian/Ubuntu systems.

Additional changes in today's Steam Client release can be read here.

Oct 25, 2023

OverNight: Resurrection

OverNight - ClickToPlay Games

OverNight v0.5 is live!

This is a major update for OverNight Early Access.
It is a huge milestone in our development, as it sets the base for what's to come.

Summary

- New Ghost hunting/exploration game mode
- New Ghost AI mechanics with 16 Ghosts
- New map
- New items
- New Journal mechanics
- Player sanity
- Player progression
- Player inventory
- New UI

- Game difficulty
- Ghost challenges
- Ghost Totems

- More Ghosts
- Ghost traits (abilities) mechanics
- Ghost communication improvements
- Haunted Ghost events
- Energy Fields

- Steam Achievements
- Steam Cloud
- Offline mode

New Features

PLAYER PROGRESSION AND INVENTORY

Leveling is introduced with our new Progression System v1.0.

Along with that we have the in-game currency called OverNight Coins, which you can use to buy Items.
Inventory system is also implemented as a part of the Player Progression.

MULTIPLE GHOSTS PER SESSION

There can can up to 4 Ghosts in a Session at the same time.
With each Ghost possessing 1 Area (House) on the map.

GHOST HUNTING GAME MODE

We are introducing new game mode to OverNight.
The goal is to find and guess the right Ghosts possessing the Areas (Houses) on the map.

You can use Items for detection and evidence gathering, but you can also observe the Ghost behavior and make a guess based on its unique traits (abilities).

GHOST MECHANICS

We have also completely redesigned our Ghost behavior.

Once the Ghost possesses the Area (House) it will usually pick its favorite location (mostly around a specific room) and spend most of the time there.
Ghost can occasionally leave that location and roam the possessed Area (House).

Ghost Events are physical manifestations and can happen around the Ghosts favorite location only.
Ghost Hunts are also physical manifestations but it's also a time when Ghost can kill Players.
Hunts happen when sanity of the Players inside the possessed Area (House) reaches certain limit (threshold).

Each Ghost has its own set of unique traits (abilities).

ITEMS

We brought back all original Items with the addition of new ones:
- EMF
- Thermometer
- Motion Sensor
- Penta Pod
- Thermo Flash
- Photo Camera
- Video Camera
- Smudge Sticks
- Sanity Pills

DIFFICULTY

Difficulty is now in the OverNight.
You can choose between Easy/Normal/Hard.

CHALLENGES

We have implemented our original idea of Challenges as being fun addition to the game.

You will be able to choose between many interesting challenges, including Clap Clap, Estes Method, Spirit Board Session and others.

Stay tuned for more updates!

If you want to share any feedback, follow the progress or report any issues, join us on Discord: OverNight

ClickToPlay Games

Oct 25, 2023

Object 775: The Flattened Pancake

War Thunder - magazine2

This Soviet experimental missile tank featuring a 125mm gun-launcher is coming to War Thunder as part of the upcoming “Kings of Battle” major update!

Object 775: An Anti-Tank Missile Carrier for the USSR at Rank VI.

Features:

Anti-Tank Guided Missiles!
Very low profile (these images are not cropped)!
Very slow reverse speed.
2 man crew.

Meet the Object 775!

With the upcoming “Kings of Battle” major update the Object 775 will be added as a missile-firing capable tank, coming to the USSR’s research tree at Rank VI. This tank certainly has many advantages and some… “short”comings in terms of its appearance, which is both ridiculous and quirky — let’s see what this tank has to offer!

The Object 775 was born as one of the variants of a promising Soviet medium tank that could fire anti-tank guided missiles. Receiving the Rubin anti-tank missile, this tank could fire these directly from the barrel. In the game, these missiles are quite effective, although they are not the be-all and end-all. This ATGM can penetrate up to 500 mm of armor, which is generally enough to defeat almost any tank with regular homogeneous armor. However, the warhead of this missile is not tandem, which therefore means any ERA protection may be difficult to penetrate with this missile.

Did you know? The Object 775 was the first Soviet tank that was built with the ability to launch ATGMs through the barrel.

If you’re wondering — no, our art team didn’t accidentally crop the images in this dev blog to funny proportions. With that being said, the Object 775 is quite wide and noticeably has a remarkably low profile which does give it an advantage, similarly to Soviet ATGM tanks like the Shturm-S. However, unlike this vehicle the Object 775 has a turret, which is the only place where the crew are located. Coming onto this topic, it’s interesting to note that this tank’s crew is only two people, a commander and a driver. Between them is a drum-type automatic loader for 7 ATGMs, which provides an excellent rate of fire.

The Object 775 is surprisingly well protected for an ATGM carrier. The upper and lower frontal parts of the hull converge at a large angle, and the very flat rounded turret will allow you to ricochet enemy shells. The Object 775’s armor has a combination of hardened steel and composite materials, plus some aluminum. The reverse speed is only a measly 5 km/h, and another disadvantage is the lack of thermals, although the regular old NVD is still on this tank.

In your matches: Pro-tips when using the Object 775 by Tom (Oxy), WT Community Manager (TL): "Normally range is the best spot for these kinds of vehicles, but considering its armour, reload and manoeuvrability it can easily perform well when played as a conventional tank. It’s very capable of baiting shots with the front plate at close range — make sure to keep moving as even weaker guns can get through the optic and cupola, so don’t give them an easy shot!”

In the “Kings of Battle” major update, the Object 775 ATGM carrier will arrive at Rank VI in the USSR ground forces tree. Until then, keep an eye on our website for other interesting additions to this update that we’ll be revealing to you soon. Until that though, enjoy your matches!