Fanning the Fire - Teams Update

Code Changes

We've made numerous changes to the code base that should not only remedy many of the performance issues found in the last major update, but should positively impact other areas of the game moving forward.

Developer Note: This is a very long road we are following towards getting the game more performant. This is a step in the right direction we hope, but still a long way to the finish line.

Meta

Unstable Warpgates

Unstable Warpgates will remain unstable for 3 hours at most before stabilizing. This will help servers like Briggs move through the continent rotations more quickly, as well as participate in continent events outside of peak hours. 

Charging Warpgates

Warpgates now take less time to charge overall, bringing it closer to the three hour mark before you can start triggering a continent-wide alert.

Aerial Anomalies

• Anomalies now spawn closer to the center of the map.
• Anomalies will now never spawn in the same location more than once, and will respawn at every available spawn location before beginning another "loop."
• Anomalies have also received a new look that appears from further away, lines up with the range at which you can receive points, and encourages players to leave the anomaly to do battle with incoming hostiles.
• Added a speculative fix for ASP air vehicle discounts not being applied after an Anomaly alert ends.

Meltdown

Meltdown Alerts now increase experience gain by 25% for the duration of the alert.

Gaining Ground (New Event)

• A new continent event has been added to the lineup.
• The "Gaining Ground" event, similar to Biolab, Tech Plant, and Amp Station Facility Capture events, will ask each faction to control the most Large Outposts on the continent in order to win the event.
• We've greatly reduced the frequency of the old facility capture alerts at the same time, as the intent has always been to phase them out when enough new event types made their way into the game.

Join Combat (Instant Action)

• We've reduced the distance the center of a combat area will search for a valid spawn location nearby.
• This change will reduce the amount of available instant action locations, but it will also be less likely to drop you into spawn locations that aren't very close to fights.
• In short, better quality by sacrificing quantity. We'll be able to adjust this setting (or revert these changes) on Live without downtime, if need be.

Summer Is Winding Down

August 31st marks the last day for the Summer event, so be sure to try to complete directive before it's gone!

Until September 1st, we've unbundled and discounted the Heatwave weapons as well as some summer themed camos. We've also added released a new "Barren Desert" camo that will go back into hiding once this event ends.

In addition, all Infantry Weapons will be 30% off until September 1st.

Squad Improvements

Mentor Squads

Players have been given a new tool to help guide players through the rigors of combat on Auraxis. "Mentor Squads" can now be created in the squad pane.

Players less than Battle Rank 15 are encouraged to join Mentor Squads by prioritizing them when auto-finding squads, and with prompts through the squad pane.

Mentor Squads are stripped down versions of a typical squad, creating an environment that's more straight forward and easy-to-understand for newer players.

Mentor Squads...

• Cannot be converted into Platoons.
• Do not have access to Fireteam waypoints. (More about that further down.)
• Do not have access to Offensive, Defensive, and Colored Smoke markers.

We have plans for more improvements to Mentor Squads in the future, and are looking forward to seeing how these squad types perform for players interested in guiding the next generation of Auraxian soldiers.

Squad Changes

• Waypoints have received new visuals for clarity. No more confusion about which is a squad waypoint, which is a platoon waypoint, which is an alpha squad, but also squad ( ? ) waypoint?
• Players can now modify their squad’s default description, as well as basic recruitment and mentor status in the squad finder before pressing the Squad Create button.
• Squad bans now persist past character logoff, and last until the squad disbands.
• You can now right click on a squad member to access the options dropdown (instead of clicking on the >> button.)
• New squads will be started as public and recruiting, unless chosen otherwise from the squad pane.
• Squads can now choose to auto-fill into a platoon, instead of having to open each squad individually.
• Squads inside of platoons will inherit Alpha Squad's privileges.
• Squad map indicators now show the player's facing direction.
• Squad leaders can now toggle on or off Squad Beacon privileges.

Outfit Hosted Platoons and Squads

• Outfits can now choose to "Host" squads and platoons by enabling the checkbox option when creating a squad.
• Outfit hosted platoons will always pass leadership to another outfit member if the squad leader goes offline.
• Outfit hosted platoons that have no more outfit members to pass leadership to will automatically disband.

Fire-team Changes

• Joining a squad will now filter you into fireteams by default.
• Fireteams now have access to a /ft chat channel, as well as a fireteam voice channel, bindable in the settings menu.
• Fireteam leaders (the uppermost player within a fireteam list) now have the ability to place beacons and waypoints.
• Fireteam beacon privileges can be enabled and disabled by the squad leader.

Misc. Squad and Platoon changes

• /platoon promoteme was removed.
• Orders chat has been removed and refunded.

Construction

New Directive

A new directive has entered the field. The Construction Directive will challenge players to build, support, and make use of construction objects on the battlefield. This directive line can be found under the “Strategic” Directive Category.

Tier 2 Reward

• Solid Wall schematic – A schematic for a “Solid” variant of the Rampart Wall.

Tier 3 Reward

• Blueprint Banner – A faction colored “blueprint” banner to display on your enemy’s death screen.

Tier 4 Reward

• Auraxium Mandibles – A faction colored auraxium variant of the default Mandible ANT weapon.
• “Builder” title – A title to show off your dedication to construction.

Implant System

The pool of implants has been doubled. These implants have been added to the normal implant crates, alongside the ability to craft the implants you want with ISO-4. More about that below.

New Implants

• Jockey: Increases shield health when in a vehicle rumble seat.
• Survivalist: Increases shield recharge rate and grants a sprint speed boost when at low health.
• Athlete: Increases sprint acceleration, deceleration, and how quickly you get your hold-breath back.
• Gunslinger: Kills with sidearms increase your reload speed for a short time.
• Heavyweight: Grants a major reduction to flinch received from being struck by a projectile, but passively reduces your movement speed.
• Response Jacket: Grants a resistance to successive explosive damage hits for a short time after you take explosive damage.
• Ransack: Killing enemy vehicles at close range will restore a tick of ammunition for you and the vehicle you are in.
• Critical Chain: Headshot kills grant increased rechamber speed for a short time.
• Sidewinder: Increases strafing speed at the cost of lower strafing acceleration and deceleration.
• Fortify: Interact with capture points to bolster your shield health for a short time.
• Symbiote: You receive a passive small arms resistance so long as you've taken small arms damage recently.
• Covert Drop: Taking damage from a fall will cloak you on landing.
• Failsafe: When your shield breaks, it restores ability energy.
• Salvage - MAX only: Killing other MAXes will instantly restore a chunk of health.
• Paratrooper - Light Assault only: Taking damage restores jump jet fuel.
• Electrotech - Engineer only: When your shield breaks, you send out a pulse that repairs nearby equipment.
• Mobility Mesh -Heavy Assault only: Reduces the mobility penalty while your overshield is active.
• Mending Field -Medic only: Nearby allies who are critically wounded heal passively up to a certain amount of health.
• Firewall - Exceptional - Infiltrator only: You can now "hack" allied turrets to embed them with a firewall which increases their health pool.
• Disengage - Exceptional - MAX only: When Emergency Repair is activated, you will knock back nearby enemy infantry and increase your sprint acceleration speed slightly for a time.
• Avoidance - Exceptional: You no longer trip proximity mines, and spitfires require you to be 50% closer to acquire you.
• Bionics - Exceptional: Reduces health pool by 400 while increasing personal shields by 400.
• Cold Heart - Exceptional: Increases heat cooloff for a short period after a headshot kill.
• Experimental Stims - Exceptional: Gives a random movement speed, reload speed, or small arms resistance buff when consuming a Medical or Restoration Kit.

Crafting Implants

Lady Luck not on your side? Players can now craft their desired implant by using ISO-4 in the Implant Foundry. Currently, all implants except Exceptionals can be constructed through ISO-4 alone.

Construction cost is based on the rarity (drop rate) of that implant.

Implant Adjustments

Minor Cloak

• Uncloak delay for firing your weapon from 1.25sec. to 1sec.
• Moving within Minor Cloak will no longer immediately reset your cloak countdown (but will immediately uncloak you per usual.) Now, short bouts of movement after being cloaked will allow you to re-enter cloak more quickly.
• Firing your weapon now resets the Minor Cloak countdown, ensuring that players no longer accidentally fall into minor cloak while engaged in combat.

Sensor Shield

• Detection range reduction has been buffed for all ranks, and the rank 5 benefit has been modified.
• Rank 1: From within 45m to within 30m
• Rank 2: From within 42m to within 26m
• Rank 3: From within 35m to within 20m
• Rank 4: From within 15m to within 10m
• Rank 5: While walking, you are not detectable by recon devices at all.

Aerial Combatant

• Fuel restorations are now the same percentage of maximum fuel, regardless of jump jet type.
• Vehicle kills at rank 5 now restore 30% jump jet fuel.
• Deployables no longer trigger Aerial Combatant.

Assimilate

• Tier 5 benefit from 30% of current energy restore to 10% of maximum energy restore.
• Dev Note: Restructuring this benefit reduces the overwhelming synergy with Adrenaline Shield, while resulting in higher energy returns in situations where you’d normally deplete or get close to depleting your energy, since it no longer bases the regeneration on your current energy supply.

Nanomesh Specialist - Heavy Assault

• Your overshield abilities now decay 50/55/65/80/80% slower while stationary, and 25/28/33/40/40% slower while moving. Rank 5: Your depleted overshield no longer has a delay before it begins recharging.
• Dev Note: The rank 5 bonus and progression from ranks 1-4 have been swapped, and increased to be more useful in more situations.

Deep Operative – Infiltrator

• Whenever you spend longer than a total of 30/26/20/12/12 seconds outside of cloak without taking damage, your cloak's visibility will be reduced by 75%. Dying or taking damage from enemy sources will reset the benefit countdown. Rank 5: Killing an enemy will remove 3 seconds from the countdown.
• Dev Note: The small cloak visibility reduction of the previous Deep Operative was too weak to be noticed, and increasing that benefit as a passive could have turned out too strong. The middle ground now requires the Infiltrator to spend some time outside of cloak in order to accumulate the benefit of having a deeper one. We've also removed the rank 5 scan mechanic in place of a benefit that lets the player more quickly return to their enhanced cloak state.

Misc. Implant Fixes and Changes

• The ISO Recycler found in the Depot no longer gives players common implants, and will now only yield implants that are of uncommon or higher rarity.
• The "Breakdown Duplicates" button now shows the proper breakdown value if you happen to own an exceptional duplicate implant.
• The currency cap on ISO-4 has now been set to 100,000.
• The breakdown value of Exceptional implants has been reduced from 1500 to 500.
• Unowned implants are now filtered from the loadout screen by default.
• Breakdown Duplicates button now works if you have a filter active.
• Overdrive Implant works once again.