Hello, survivors! Recently we have shared our Survarium development plans with you. Today we are glad to announce that some of the promised features will make it into the Survarium Update 0.42 which is to be released pretty soon.
Read about the new gameplay mode, monthly rankings, improved network synchronization and other changes!
New Game Mode: Artifact Hunt
In this mode two teams fight to acquire a rare artifact called Radiance of the Forest which spawns in a random location on the map. The team that finds and delivers the artifact to its base scores a point. The first team to score 5 points wins. Or, if the match time runs out, the team with more points wins.
At any given time, only one Radiance of the Forest will appear on the map, and its location is displayed to all players. The position of the player who has the artifact is also shown to everyone else on the mini map. If the artifact is successfully delivered, the next round begins: both teams start back from their bases and fight to get the artifact again.
The character that has Radiance of the Forest receives increased health regeneration from the artifact, but is slowed down and can’t sprint.
We hope that Artifact Hunt will be to the liking of both new players and veterans.
Monthly Rankings
Survarium 0.42 introduces a new system of monthly rankings. By participating in any battle, you will receive stars for wins and stars for defeats. When you have enough stars you will automatically move up the next league. Each month players’ positions in the leagues are reset.
The higher you get, the harder it is to proceed, but the rewards are well worth it. Say, for reaching The 9th League you will receive a few silver coins, but for reaching The 1st League you get a chance to obtain some of the best items in the game (levels 9-10) with 3 modifiers.
New Weapons and Equipment
In Survarium Update 0.42 the game factions receive several new items.
Level 10 Scavengers get access to a new high caliber sniper rifle ASVK which replaces Barrett M82. The weapon characters currently have will be replaced by ASVK when the update goes live. You will keep all modifiers and modules, as well as kill progression to unlock the rest of modules. The Barrett M82 sniper rifle will be temporarily removed from the game.
Black Market fighters will get access to a legendary MP5A1 – level 6 submachine gun. Engineered back in the sixties, it is still a popular weapon thanks to its simplicity, reliability and common 9x19mm Parabellum cartridges.
Moreover, the game factions will receive full sets of mid-tier gloves and boots (levels 4-7).
Changes to the London Location
We have significantly reworked London in Survarium 0.42 so it’s faster to get to the key points of the location from the respawn point. The topology of the level inside the tower has also been revised. These changes aim to increase the dynamics of battles on the map, increase the role of alternative routes and make shootouts in the central part of the location more frequent and important.
Pixel Perfect Hit Detection
Experienced online-shooter players know that achieving pixel-correct hit/damage registration is a hard task. In the majority of online games the image you see on your monitor differs from the situation on the server. Several factors attribute to that. The main is that the pings between the players and the server are higher than zero, and, more importantly, diverge from each other.
Another important parameter is the server tickrate: how often the server updates and sends the information back to the clients. These and other factors lead to the enemy hitboxes (simplified 3D models which are used to register the damage) being different from the real positions of the characters on the screen.
In one of the previous updates we significantly improved the gameplay by introducing a delay for drawing characters in the past (and registering the damage correspondingly). Thanks to this, characters no longer have micro stutters, and animations are now more fluid, so it’s easier to aim at and hit an enemy.
Survarium 0.42 introduces the “unlimited tickrate” technology, which basically comes down to the fact that the tickrate doesn’t affect hit and damage registration. For you this means that when firing at a moving target, you only need to take bullet speed and enemy position into consideration. Previously random factors (we mentioned the most important ones above) affected that, so the enemy positions on your PC could be different from the ones on the server. Now, if an enemy is near (so the bullet travel time is insignificant), you only need to have the enemy in your sights, and the bullets will hit the target.
These are only the most important features of Survarium 0.42. As always, there will be more changes in the update. You will find the details in the complete list of changes at the start of PTS soon. Stay tuned!