Hi everyone,
You can now play a preview of Major Update 2! Any feedback or bugs you tell us about really help us put the finishing touches to the upcoming release and are therefore greatly appreciated.
To gain access, you’ll need to switch to a beta branch:
- Find SENTRY in your Steam library and right-click on it, selecting “Properties”
- In the menu that pops up, choose “Betas”
- Select “Beta Branch” in the “Beta Participation” drop-down list
- In your Library you should see “[betabranch]” appended to the game name
When you play the new version, the most important thing to consider is that while your profile saves will carry over (i.e. all your equipment you’ve unlocked thus far), your current escape run will not – so if you’re in the middle of a run and you don’t want to lose any new blueprints you haven’t banked, reach a gate and bank them before switching to the new version.
It’s also generally good practice to back up your profile saves ahead of any Major Update, just in case you’re the one that finds an obscure bug. You can find your profile and save folder here:
C:\Users[Username]\AppData\LocalLow\Fireblade Software\SENTRY\Saves\Steam[SteamID]
Headline Additions
The major additions are full campaign co-op and three new levels: Storage, Chasm and Logistics. The latter was one of the levels you could play in the Combat Co-op Test.
Most of the existing levels have been reworked. Some, like Central Processing and Fuel Exchange have had comprehensive changes; others have had smaller but important adjustments, from general flow to individual deployable placements.
There’s been a lot of smaller changes too that generally improve the game or deal with popular community requests; I’ll cover everything in greater detail for the post that’ll accompany the full release of MU2.
Co-op
Our general ethos with co-op is that you should be able to have friends dive in and out of your game as much as you want – and importantly, the client should be able to take any new equipment they find with them back to their own games (or other co-op games).
We felt this approach would be the best experience, because the alternatives (although easier to develop) would have been disappointing for the co-op partner.
Here’s some useful information to get started with co-op:
- Outside of the tutorial, any game – whether it be a new or existing one – can be opened or closed to co-op. This is achieved through the co-op settings menu.
- If you’re starting a new profile and want to dive straight into co-op, you can skip the tutorial. Obviously if this is the first time you’ve played SENTRY we wouldn’t recommend that though :)
- The co-op settings menu can be accessed through the Pause or Ship Launch menu. If you’re playing co-op, it’ll also be viewable in the Navigator and Overview screens
- You can have a co-op partner join at any point outside of combat. Similarly, your campaign isn’t tied to co-op once you start, they can leave any time and you’ll continue in Singleplayer (or can have someone else jump in).
- You can matchmake co-op games marked as ‘Open’ and invite friends via the Steam overlay. We’re working to add in-game friend invites.
- A co-op partner brings their own Equipment into your campaign. When you gain Equipment from a Supply Beacon, you’ll gain your own items. If your co-op partner banks this new equipment, then they’ll be able to use it in their own Singleplayer or other co-op games.
- This works with the campaign and vessel unlocks too – basically if you would have unlocked it if you were playing in singleplayer, it should unlock through co-op.
- New equipment that is found is only kept by the profile that found it. If a different co-op profile joins, they’ll be given enough resources to spend on equipment unlocks and upgrades so they’re not left behind.
- Generally speaking, you’ll find co-op easier than singleplayer – if that’s the case, play Starfarer campaigns over Initiate.
- That said, combat will be dynamically harder in co-op through the breach points during a wave. Roughly speaking, if a wave would have come from two breach points in singleplayer, it’d come from three breach points in co-op.
- You can’t mute or kick co-op players yet, it’s on the way.
The update and co-op have been extensively tested by both ourselves and our Discord community, but there’s nothing like volume of players to flush out bugs – so we’re particularly keen to hear any feedback.
In order to not mix up beta branch feedback with the main game, there’s a dedicated area on the Steam forums to post your beta branch comments: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1252680/discussions/0/
We’re still busy improving the balancing and fixing bugs before Major Update 2 releases, but your feedback will really help and is appreciated.
We endeavour to respond to comments and feedback as much as we can, but rest assured that even if we don’t personally reply we do read and note everything. Here’s a bunch of useful links to where you can reach us:
Once we feel the beta branch has been sufficiently tested we’ll release Major Update 2, and my accompanying post will include the details on all the changes.
Thanks for your continued support!
