Squad Update: V2.9

Hello squaddies,

Today brings the v2.9 Update for Squad containing a slew of gameplay updates and bug fixes aimed at improving your overall experience while playing Squad.

If you missed our latest SquadChat from Friday 25th June where we discuss some of the changes in this update plus future updates that we hope to make, you can check that out here.

If you like what you see, remember that Squad is 25% off during the Steam Summer Sale until the 8th of July.

EDIT: At the time of original posting, the recent HAB Proximity changes were not documented within the release notes, this has been rectified and we will be closely monitoring community feedback in regards to the meta changes this gameplay update brings.

System & Gameplay Updates

• Updated the vehicle ammo rack components mechanic: Designer’s Note: This is mainly a quality of life and UI/UX rework for this component, this is not anticipated to greatly weaken or strengthen vehicle dynamics as it relates to this vehicle component in engagements.
• An ammo rack will now be set on fire/cookoff when the health of the component falls to 0 HP, instead of the previous 30% HP.
• After reaching 0% HP, the ammo rack will no longer be repairable by any means (This is intended to disincentivize player behavior of vehicles camping at repair stations to avoid destruction).
• When the ammo rack is on fire & cooking off, the component health indicator on the driver's UI will start blinking red, notifying the driver of imminent destruction. The SFX of rounds being cooked off will still be present, as another indication of the ammo rack component being destroyed.
• A burning ammo rack no longer deals damage directly to the vehicle hull, but instead starts a timer counting down to detonation. This ensures the VFX gets a chance to play without being immediately interrupted by the vehicle exploding when it reaches 0 HP.
• The amount of time needed for the ammo rack to burn out and detonate is randomized between 15 and 30 seconds.
• Disabled the ability to cause instant detonation of the ammo rack by over damage (i.e. tank AP sabot round previously was causing instant detonation & vehicle kill on IFVs ammo racks, which no longer will be possible) Designer's note: the intention here is to reduce the frequency of one-shot kills, and to give players on the receiving end a clear understanding of why their vehicle was destroyed so fast. This will also increase the survivability of infantry transported in APCs and IFVs, as they will have time to dismount.
• On ammo rack destruction & start of ammo cookoff, the vehicle will now lose most of its large-caliber ammunition.
• Tanks will lose all ammunition for all main gunner weapons, except for the one currently loaded in the main gun, and the coaxial machine gun.
• IFVs will lose all ammunition for all main gunner weapons except the coaxial machine gun. The only exception is BMP-1, which will act the same way as tanks.
• Damage modifiers on the ammo racks were tuned to give more reward for precisely aimed shots, especially with LATs, HATs, and ATGMs. Designer's note: Vehicles have different armor values on different parts, which will affect the amount of post-penetration damage done to internal components when shooting from different angles. All of these changes mean that the visual and audio effects will be more often perceptible when a vehicle has been ammo-racked, rather than skipping to near-instantaneous destruction. However, if a vehicle’s hull reaches 0 HP while the ammo rack is cooking off, the vehicle will still instantly explode.
• Overhauled the ammo rack component code, allowing for more related features to be potentially implemented by developers or modders in the future (i.e. ammo rack that doesn't kill the vehicle on cook-off but makes it lose all the ammo, and applying certain amount of burning damage without violent detonation, simulating the effect of blow-out panels and wet covers on the ammo racks).
• Updated the FOB Exclusion Radius, this has been increased back to 400m (from 300m). This change is intended to reduce the effectiveness of massed FOBs/HABs surrounding an objective, and tone down the FOB spam meta which currently exists. Designer’s Note: We recognize that the ability to deploy multiple FOBs/HABs in close proximity to the surrounding objective area should not be the primary means to take control of an objective, and will be looking at more changes in the future to help mitigate this broader strategic meta, and encourage a wider variety of effective strategies. We want to align this part of Squad gameplay more closely with Squad’s focus on teamwork, communication, planning & coordination, to allow and encourage more often wider strategic options and effective planning.
• Reworked HAB Proximity Scaling. The distance at which a HAB can be proxied by enemies (i.e. the HAB is considered overrun and becomes unspawnable) will scale by the number of enemies in proximity to the HAB. For example: -2 soldiers can proximity disable a HAB if they are all positioned within 20m of it. -8 soldiers can proximity disable a HAB if they are all positioned within 80m of it.
• Note: A minimum of 2 players is required to proxy a HAB. The maximum proxy range now scales up to 80m (this was previously fixed always at 30m). Designer’s Note: This is intended to reward a cohesive Squad that works together with each other while attacking an enemy HAB. It is intended to give an advantage to a team which is organized and has a plan to execute decisive tactics. It’s intended to give less advantage to players who attack independently, without planning, and attack one by one. This is also intended to incentivize FOB and HAB placement further from the frontlines, and to devalue and decrease the prevalence of the spawn-wave mentality. The HAB proximity disable system is static in the live game, with 2+ players within a 30 meter radius disabling a HAB. It’s often observed that when a friendly is seen dying close to a HAB on the minimap, the expected & effective tactic is for the team to quickly spawn on the HAB with enemies just outside, with full knowledge of which direction they are coming from because they had just seen a friendly killed by them. Giving up and quickly respawning with the enemy right next to you is not a tactic that we want to incentivize or reward. The mindset of “Give up, spawn at HAB” is something that has been noted in the existing meta that is often forced on both the attacking and defending teams as the optimal way to play. This is not intentional, and we believe it undermines our efforts to make Squad about Teamwork, Coordination, Communication, & Friendly Communities. We hope this new change will help to avoid needlessly rewarding players for moving recklessly and alone. We’ll be monitoring community feedback on these important changes.
• Updated falling damage and burning damage to no longer cause the player to begin bleeding. The intent is to prevent minor falls from requiring bandage use, costing the player a valuable consumable. This is part of a larger upcoming overhaul of soldier locomotion involving stamina drain, jumping, leaning, etc.
• Updated all Armoured Car RWS turrets to now have a collision mesh which will take component damage from projectiles. Armored Car variants with RWS turrets include: RUS Tigr Arbalet Kord, USA MATV CROWS M2 / M240 variants, CAF TAPV CROWS M2 / C6 variants.
• Updated Admin Access Levels bit flags. This is a small optimization and should make the checks on access rights a lot faster. It does not affect the functionality of Admin Access Levels on servers.
• Updated the Server Browser to add a new reconnect button prompt. This will appear in the Server Browser after a player gets disconnected from a server.
• Updated when a player creates a Squad to now be logged in the server log file. This is an admin quality of life improvement and part of our ongoing effort to support server admins with better monitoring tools.
• Updated the list of names in the IED Phone. Thanks go to all our Community Play Testers, Wiki editors, and all other dedicated testers that have helped us uncover bugs. You may recognize a few of the names next time you're dialing your IED Phone. These dedicated community members have been consistently turning up to report bugs and help us test!
• Optimized the following vehicles by switching to the new turret movement component: RUS/MIL BTR80 APC, RUS Tigr RWS, RUS/MIL MTLB with PKT turret, RUS/MIL MTLB with NSVD turret, MIL MTLB 6MB. All other vehicles are already using this new turret movement component since v2.0. This new turret component is intended to improve overall vehicle network performance.
• Optimized grass shaders with improved wind math on foliage, and improved the grass normals and shading.
• Adjusted M68 and Z-Point red dot reticles to be smaller and brighter. This should make it easier to line up accurate shots with these reticles without obscuring the target.
• Adjusted Transport/Logistics Truck’s and Technical’s engine component armor thickness, reduced from 3mm to 2mm, so now they can be damaged reliably with small arms.
• Adjusted INS/MIL/MEA machine gun shields armour thickness. All shields and guns now have 10mm armor.
• Adjusted the rail on the G3 Rifle’s ZF Optic mount to include the proper hollowed out hole, so in the future the iron sights could be seen thru the rail to support potential backup iron sights.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with players getting disconnected on map change with a "Server is full" error message. The issue would occur when, upon reconnecting after a map switch, the player reached the pre-login stage but had not successfully completed the login, and would lose connection during this time. The player would be removed from the reconnection cache but they would still remain in the pending players list and take up a slot until this connection timed out (InitialConnectTimeout), even though they would never be able to reconnect in this way if the connection had been broken.
• The player should now be correctly removed from the pending players list if they disconnect during the connection process.
• If the player does not reach the pre-login stage of connection, the player will remain in the reconnection cache and will retain the server slot until the reconnection timeout (default 60s).
• If the player does reach pre-login, they will be removed from the reconnection cache and added to the pending players. If the player loses connection during this process they will be removed from pending players and the server slot will be freed instantly.
• Fixed a problem with the way steam encrypted app tickets were being sent to EAC. This should improve overall stability around EAC authentication, potentially reducing mass disconnects.
• Fixed & improved the error popup coverage for various network errors, where previously the Player would be sent back to the main menu with no popup message.
• Fixed an issue with the FOB request map marker not being auto-deleted when a new FOB was built within its relevant area. This functionality was previously lost during an engine upgrade. Now if a friendly FOB gets placed inside the FOB request icon’s radius, it will be correctly auto-deleted.
• Fixed an issue with logistics vehicles, wherein certain scenarios the vehicle’s ammo supply points would be reset to 50% of the total vehicle supply capacity when a player rearmed directly from the vehicle.
• Fixed an issue with the USA M249 SAW M68 Aimpoint variant having an incorrect weapon zero, the zero is now set correctly to 100m (previously was labelled as 100m but was shooting high to 300m).
• Fixed an issue with the Shielded DShK Tripod mesh, where the shield was not visible. This issue started in v2.8.
• Adjusted the turret skeletal mesh position on the following vehicles: MIL/INS BMP1 IFV, USA M1A2 MBT, GB FV4034 MBT, CAF Leo2 MBT, RUS T72B3 MBT.
• Fixed Mesh Decal Projection Bleed.
• Attempted fix for an issue with HE Autocannon explosions incorrectly showing up as UGL explosions on certain surfaces.
• Fixed an issue with closed turret vehicles turret collision hitting desynced colliders on client-side.
• Fixed an issue with the CAF LAV6 IFV which was incorrectly using the M1126 APC armor values instead of the stronger LAV6 IFV armor values, this issue started in v2.7.
• Fixed an issue with the GB FV4034 MBT which had missing effects when the ammo rack component was in a critical low health state and burning.
• Fixed an issue with the CAF LAV6 IFV where the gunner could shoot and damage their own vehicle. The gunner’s turret pitch curve was adjusted so that the barrel stays above the collision on the right front side of the vehicle.
• Fixed an issue with the INS Modern Technical Transport, which was using a Logi map icon instead of the correct Transport map icon.
• Fixed an issue with the INS Modern Technical Logi which had the player collision clipping through the roof.
• Fixed an issue with certain Closed Turret Jeeps map icons (BRDM2, LPPV RWS, TAPV M2), which were being displayed incorrectly as Open Turret Jeeps. The map icon should now correctly display these vehicles as Closed Turret Jeeps.
• Fixed an issue with the RUS Tigr RWS being displayed on the vehicle list incorrectly as an Open Turret Jeep. The icon should now correctly display on the vehicle list as a Closed Turret Jeep.
• Fixed an issue with the wrecks of BTR80 & BTR82A APC's which were casting to the VehicleClosedTop CPP instead of BTR80.
• Fixed an issue with AT mines not respecting the maximum placed limit for each kit (currently 10). Land Mines will now remove the oldest placed mine when placing a new mine over the limit (10).
• Fixed some issues with wreck meshes for the following vehicles: M1A2, T72B3, FV520 CTAS.
• Fixed a minor issue with the INS/MIL T62 MBT turret wreck falling through the vehicle when the vehicle was destroyed.
• Fixed a minor issue with the CAF TAPV Armoured Car where the displayed names on the UI were not reflecting the different TAPV variants.
• Fixed a minor visual issue with the CAF TAPV C6 Desert Armored Car, which when switching to smoke launchers, the gun model would visually swap to the M2 variant and would also swap to the woodland camo for the turret mount.
• Fixed a minor issue with the USA M1A2 MBT, which was missing its turret wreck when the vehicle was destroyed.
• Fixed a minor issue with the debug function CanDriverSwitchTo3rdPerson which caused a flood of warning messages.
• Fixed a minor issue related to the ban log which caused a flood of redundant debug error messages in the log.
• Fixed a minor issue with GB FV432 APC where the collision mesh had a material with no triangles assigned.
• Fixed a minor issue with the RUS/MIL BTR80 & BTR82A APC, the turret wreck was offset and sometimes glitching inside the wreck of the main hull.
• Fixed a minor visual issue with the CAF LAV6 IFV where a small part of the mesh from the turret base was floating under the vehicle.
• Fixed a minor issue with the USA BFV IFV’s turret wreck, whereupon destruction of the turret would fall through the vehicle body.
• Fixed a minor issue with Admin Cam where a Player who is actively using Admin Cam could be sent to the ragdoll state by a vehicle if the vehicle runs over the location of the Player's hidden unpossessed solder.
• Fixed a minor issue with missing faces on the SKS PU Rifle scope while ADS.
• Fixed a minor issue on the Main Menu Entry Map, where the soldier LOD transition distances were incorrect and resulted in the soldiers looking very low-poly at close range.
• Fixed a minor issue on the Infantry Tutorial where some remaining soldiers had bad LOD transition distances, resulting in the soldier models looking low poly at close range.

Map Updates & Bug Fixes

• Added 5 new map layers: Mutaha Invasion v2, CAF Al Basrah Invasion v3, CAF Narva Invasion v1, CAF Mutaha Invasion v1, and CAF Yehorivka RAAS v2. Also updated the server config to add those new maps.
• Mutaha Invasion v2 is a clone of Mutaha Invasion v1, but with Midday lighting instead of Night lighting.
• Fixed an issue with the following 3 new map layers not being listed on the default server config: -Kokan_AAS_v2 -Sumari_AAS_v2 -CAF_GooseBay_AAS_v2
• Updated Tallil Outskirts Soviet Air Base POI: 3 of the Soviet tube air hangars are now updated with two new entrances and additional props.
• Updated Tallil Outskirts bomb craters to be more smoothed out.
• Updated the lighting on Al Basrah Invasion v1 (Sunset lighting layer), replacing the HDRI and adjusting lighting for a more realistic look.
• Adjusted most Invasion map layer vehicle timer initial delays so Attacker’s have better odds on the first objective. Increased the initial delay for Defender’s MBTs & Mobile ATGMs to 15min (some 20min), and IFVs to 10min.
• Adjusted Skorpo Invasion v1 map layer balance to give Attackers better odds of winning. Moved the Militia initial forward spawn point from the Fish Oil Factory to Vaagen Beach. Replaced Militia Spandrel and BMP1 with Technical SPG9 and Technical UB32.
• Adjusted vehicle balance on Chora AAS v2 - USA with 2x M1126 APC & 2x MATV versus RUS with 1 BTR82A, 1x BTR80, 1x Tigr.
• Adjusted Kamdesh RAAS v4 vehicle balance, removed MEA Simir Kornet Mobile ATGM.
• Fixed an issue on Yehorivka Zolota Hillside Bunker POI, the bunkers had an opening where players could access under map.
• Fixed an issue on Fallujah RAAS v2 where GB team’s transport truck did not spawn when it should have.
• Fixed an issue on Sumari where there was an invisible collision above Souk.
• Fixed several issues on Fallujah: Prevented FOB Radio placement behind the grates in the sewers; Fixed floating road splines near the Crash Site POI; Removed duplicate building at Crossroads.
• Fixed an issue with Physmats on plaster materials.
• Fixed an issue with several Map Loading Screens which were using older Full HD images which did not have the best quality rendering settings for the image.
• Fixed an issue on Fallujah Skirmish v2 with the northern out of bounds not being lined up with the road edge.
• Fixed some visual errors on the Yehorivka minimap.
• Fixed various issues on Fallujah with some floating and clipped objects.
• Fixed an issue on the Al Basrah Refinery POI where a Warehouse building had a very small unintended exploitable gap in the wall; this gap has now been closed.
• Fixed an issue on the Belaya Tunnel POI where an invisible collision existed at the tunnel entrance due to a landscape visibility mask.
• Fixed an issue on Yehorivka AAS v2 where both teams’ IFVs were incorrectly delayed by 20min, now correctly set to 15min.
• Fixed an issue on Sumari AAS v2 where the Checkpoint POI map name was offset from the actual capture zone.
• Fixed a minor issue on Manic-5 with a floating rock.
• Fixed a minor issue with a static mesh having missing faces; the end of the wooden beams on a slanted damaged village house roof could be seen through.

SDK Updates

• Updated the file names of Layer Overhaul delay data assets to include the time of initial delay in the file name instead of using “Short”, “Long”, “Very Long”, etc.
• Removed the combined stairs from Skorpo Fish Oil Factory Building, since this was an unfinished asset.
• Restored the original version of the Aircraft Hangar Bunker Tube and converted the new version with the side door to be an alternative version.
• Removed yeho_compound_v2 merged static due to physx errors. Due to prior issues, this asset has already been replaced with a BP variant, so this is just a cleanup to remove the error.

Clear Cache to resolve residual issues

• If you are experiencing issues, be sure to go to Settings -> “CLEAR CACHE” after updating. /list]

  Known Issues

  • Occasional Player (Client) crashes in various circumstances. Detailed crash reports help us fix things faster, and we truly appreciate those that have filled out and sent in crash reports.
  • Various Kit icon issues - Occasionally the kit and weapon in the deploy screen squad list will show up as a white square instead of the kit.
  • The deploy screen squad list will sometimes display incorrect players that are not actually in the squad.
  • SL icons sometimes incorrectly show up for player kits in the spawn screen squad list (and outside of the squad list).
  • SL icons show up for every kit on ammo crates when rearming.
  • Player kit role icons are sometimes not being displayed on certain menu screens.
  • HAB will sometimes show up as "red/unspawnable", even when it is in fact spawnable. Fix has been applied but there still remain some alternative ways to reproduce this issue.
  • Some players may be experiencing very low-res textures after the v2.0 release. If you are experiencing this issue, you are likely under the minimum recommended specs for VRAM (4GB). This may be mitigated by ticking the “unlock pool size” box in the settings menu under the textures tab, but it may come with more performance stutter.
  • Player (Client) occasional crash at the end of a round, upon map switch, due to a UE4 Particle Crash bug upon seamless map travel. Actively pursuing a fix for this crash.
  • “Missing Turret in Vehicle Issue” - Occasionally vehicles have their turrets missing from the round start. This issue is a high priority for us to fix.
  • “Ghost Player in Vehicle issue” - Occasionally entering a vehicle makes a player permanently take up a seat in that vehicle. This issue is a high priority to fix.
  • "Mass EAC disconnect issue" - Occasionally upon the end of a round and when a map switch occurs, the majority of a server population will be disconnected with a “Server Closed Connection” message. Closely working with EAC to resolve this issue.
  • "FOB teleport bug" - Occasionally upon digging a FOB down, players within a certain radius of the FOB will be teleported outside of the FOB radius in a random direction.
  • Commander – When the commander changes to the UAV camera, he cannot hear local audio anymore, even though he still sees local audio transmissions in the bottom left corner. Others can still hear him when he talks. Additionally, when leaving the UAV camera, he hears all of the local audio broadcasts at the same time, originating from the point where they were initially transmitted from – even if the person doing the transmission has moved afterward. This will be addressed in a future update.
  • Vehicle Reset Feature does not currently work with Helicopters. This will be addressed in a future update.
  • Vehicle Reset Feature can freeze a vehicle in the air if used too close to a tree.
  • Occasionally a player does not spawn at a Rally Point. This often happens when numerous players are spawning in at the same time — This will be addressed in a future update.
  • Server performance may periodically dip when a server has a high population and high load. We are continuously working to improve server performance and optimization.
  • ATGM projectiles desync for other players that are not the gunner, however, what the gunner sees should be the actual synced projectile. This is an inherent problem, and the solution is currently in long-term development.
  • “Alt-tabbing” out of Squad during a loading screen freezes the Player (client). The recommended solution, for now, is to run Squad in the “Borderless” mode. This can be changed in Settings -> Graphics.
  • The audio module for Squad is initialized at the game start. If a player does not have a microphone plugged in at launch, or accidentally unplug their microphone and then plug it back in, Squad needs to be restarted to get the microphone to work again — This issue will likely require an engine upgrade to UE4.25 to be fixed.
  • SFX bug while Firing in full auto. If the player presses the fire button for a short period, the sound effect gives the impression that you fired more rounds than you did — This will be addressed in a future update.
  • Localization for most language translations is currently out of date. We plan to push a full localization pass in a future release as we lock down the text that needs to be translated for the game.

  Local/Offline Issues & Bugs (these currently have a lower priority)

  • Local/Offline Bug with Commander – Insurgent / Militia Handheld Drone does not move in local.
  • Local/Offline Bug with Commander – UAV hovers in one position instead of moving along the flight path in local.
  • Local/Offline Bug with Commander – CAS does not do damage in local.
  • Local/Offline Bug with Vehicles: When playing offline on Jensen’s Range, Tracks, Wheels, and other components are not destructible while on the Jensen’s Range in Local play.
  • Local/Offline Bug with Weapon damages: When playing offline on Jensen’s Range, Weapon damages with both Infantry and Vehicle weapons are not accurately replicated.
  • Local/Offline Bug with Scoped Emplacements: When playing offline on Jensen’s Range, if a player exits an Emplacement while looking through the scope, the Scope remains on the Player’s HUD until they get back in the Emplacement and then Scope out.