January 2020 Game Update - Empire Strength

PC servers will be taken offline Wednesday, January 15, 2020 at 5:30 AM PST (1:30 PM GMT) for extended downtime to bring the January update and make hardware upgrades. Downtime is expected to last up to 4 hours.

PS4 servers will be taken offline Thursday, January 16, 2020 at 9:00 AM PST (5:00 PM GMT) for to bring you the January update. Downtime is expected to last no longer than 2 hours.

Continent Rotation and Empire Strength

Territory now matters at all times, as each empire gains strength when key facilities are captured, and when continent events are won.
When a faction reaches 100 Empire Strength or more, a Meltdown alert fires off (provided no other events are currently active,) and the victorious faction will lock the continent.

Gaining/losing Empire Strength is as follows:

• Maintaining a link to an enemy Warpgate is worth 50 strength, (both is 100 strength.)
• Maintaining ownership of the center base is worth 15 strength (or 30 on Esamir).
• Maintaining ownership of a major facility is worth 15 strength (or 20 on Esamir).
• Each continent-event win is worth 10 strength, and is the only permanent form of Empire Strength.
• Cutoff territories do not contribute to Empire Strength.

Prior to this change, continents were standardized at 3 continent events (like Aerial Anomalies, Maximum Pressure, Gaining Ground,) before requiring 41% territory control from a single faction in order to trigger an end-of-continent Meltdown alert. With this update, factions can force continents to turn over more quickly by completing strategic map goals, and continent event wins will progress players toward the final battle over a continent.


Koltyr

• Koltyr has been disabled for the time being, and will be re-introduced as a standard combat zone at a later date.

Dev Note: Koltyr has been in kind of a weird spot, in addition to being plagued with technical issues. As a VR zone, it often stood as more confusing for new players than helpful as its intended testing ground. In a future update we'll be converting Koltyr to a standard combat continent that opens and closes during off-peak hours. This should help reduce the frustration of finding and sustaining combat in times of low population, and add some gameplay variety for our nocturnal players.


Infantry
T7 Mini-Chaingun (Terran Republic Heavy Weapon)

• Minimum refire rate from 100ms to 80ms.
• Maximum refire rate from 75ms to 71ms.
• Ballistic Rapid Refire Toggle no longer reduces maximum refire rate (as that's now built in by default.)
• Ballistic Rapid Refire Toggle no longer has a hidden projectile speed benefit.

Dev Note: Always treated like a support weapon, but without the traits that make it successful as one (most support weapons sacrifice damage for accuracy or splash damage,) the Mini-chaingun is hard to justify bringing onto the battlefield over other LMG options. This update offers a significant boost to its 1v1 potential, and increases its overall ferocity.

Revive Grenade (Combat Medic)

• Reduce detonation time by 1 second to increase responsiveness.
• The thrower no longer receives a UI notification in an attempt to revive yourself.
• NSO Defector units are no longer revivable with Revive Grenades.

Proximity Mine(NSO Engineer/Infiltrator utility)

• Renamed "F.U.S.E."
• Fixed medal tracking issues.
• Refunded skill lines associated with these mines.
• Now works with Mine Carrier suit slot.

Tank Mine (NSO Engineer)

• Fixed medal tracking issues.
• Refunded skill line associated with these mines.
• Now works with Mine Carrier suit slot.

MAX and Defector
Nanite Auto-Repair (Defensive Slot)

• Repair from 0.5/0.75/1/1.25/1.5% health restored per second to 1/2/2.5/2.75/3% health restored per second.

Dev Note: Rarely in competition Kinetic Armor and Ordnance Armor, Nanite Auto-Repair has received a buff.


Defector (NSO Infantry Unit)
General

• NSO Defector units are no longer revivable with Revive Grenades. (As mentioned above.)
• We've decided to let Defectors continue to contest capture points for the time being.
• Defectors now receive the Maximum Pressure event discount.
• You can now hear this unit's footsteps in first person.
• Adjusted Defector's loadout screen camera.
• Fixed various animation-related issues.

Weapons
Grenade Printer (Primary Weapon)

• Grenade Printer's cooldown speed increased by 20%.
• Weapons medals are now properly tracked.
• Mini-map firing signature from 1 to 60.

Defector Claws(Melee Weapon)

• Now earns weapon medals.

Abilities
Time Bomb

• Time Bomb's movement speed penalty from 25% to 10%.

Seraph Shield

• Now has new audio.
• Seraph Shield can now be toggled off manually.
• Seraph Shield movement speed penalty from 50% to 40%.
• Seraph Shield duration from 8 seconds at all ranks to 8/10/11/12 seconds at ranks 1 through 4.

Defensive Slot

Ablation Mesh

• New Defensive Slot Certification
• When Time Bomb or Seraph Shield are first activated, the damage mitigation received from those abilities is increased by 50% for 2 seconds.

Hypermatic Servos

• New Defensive Slot Certification
• Removes the movement speed penalty of Time Bomb, and reduces the movement speed penalty of Seraph Shield to 25%. In addition, you accelerate into a sprint more quickly at all times.

Javelin (NSO Ground Vehicle)
General

• Vehicle terminal cost from 200 Nanites to 100 Nanites.
• Javelin now uses its own experience type, instead of the Flash's to award experience.
• Using a repair tool on the Javelin will now show particle effects in the correct location.
• Spitfire Turrets will now fire at riders.
• Vehicle now bounces less while moving along rough terrain, is slightly less prone to nose-up while airborne, and is all around a bit more stable.

Performance Slot

• Speed Chassis now increases afterburner fuel recharge by 30%.
• Combat Chassis now allows greater control of side to side movement while afterburner is engaged.
• Agility Chassis now provides lift from the ground when the afterburner is engaged.

Dev Note: We've made some adjustments to the chassis options to more dramatically alter how each of them makes the Javelin performs.


Misc. Fixes, Changes, and Additions

• NSO's Tankbuster Nosegun (Liberator) now correctly tracks directives.
• NSO's Zephyr Bellygun (Liberator) now correctly tracks directives.
• NSO's Shredder Bellygun (Liberator) now correctly tracks directives.
• NSO's Dalton Bellygun (Liberator) now correctly tracks directives.
• NSO's LB00 Python (Lightning Main Cannon) now correctly tracks directives.
• NS-W Survivor weapon medals can now be earned.
• SR-200's Tier 3 Long Rifle directive no longer requires an Auraxium Medal, instead of a Gold Medal.
• Fixed an issue where removing camo in the UI selector would not remove it from your character in-game.
• Locked continents should no longer show unstable icons from the map dropdown.
• Nano-Armor Kits and Medical Applicators granted from the Third-Year Anniversary bundle now work correctly on NSO characters.
• NS-03 Thumper and MGR-A1 Vanquisher's Disruptor Ammunition no longer saps energy from vehicles.
• Fixed additional edge cases related to falling through the floor.

Looking Forward

Hey there. In this month's update (on top of the bug fixes and NSO tuning,) we've reintroduced and rebranded the Victory Point system as Empire Strength. Doing this now sets us up for our big update later in Q1, gets players used to taking territories for strategic value (hint hint,) and alleviates the arbitrary "3 continent events then Meltdown" alert cycle we were in before. This cycle led to continents staying open for 5 hours or more if players were unable to achieve 41% territory control after the 3 continent events were complete. We'll be having a Livestream later this month (the 31st or sooner) to reveal all the hush-hush-super-secret stuff we've been working on, and will be announcing the Livestream date once we've got the full loop feeling cohesive. It's. Going. To. Be. Awesome. We'll continue teasing out some bits and pieces as we move closer to the announcement/release, so be sure to check www.twitter.com/planetside2 every now and again.