Today, Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop is 5 years old on Steam. To celebrate its birthday, we're adding two newly remastered community campaigns, some long-awaited weapon tweaks, updated translations, and plenty of other changes.
Special thanks to Mithrand, Dubstep Amber, jhheight, Orange, daemonspring, Stral, Synmachus, Beka, vq, BRAIN IS BACK, Hagon Wyvon, Steffo, trick-master, Duke M, and Efi for major contributions to this update.
Heroes of the Interstellar Armed Forces, Season 1
Alright marines, Interstellar Armed Forces are introducing a new way for you to compete against each other and fight for the title of the most capable soldier. To prove your worth of the title, we will be monitoring the progression of your narrative in the hardest of missions. This includes fails, completions, as well as the kill count of those stinky bugs and, well, team kills. So you better watch your fire! Compete against your allies by uniting in a team and completing the hardest of missions together. The most active and skillful marines will be fighting for the tops of the quadannual leaderboard, which is publicly visible to all members of the Interstellar Armed Forces.
- Play on participating dedicated servers to earn points on the seasonal leaderboard.
- A list of participating servers can be accessed from the main menu.
- Playing a variety of missions on hard difficulties and challenges will earn more points.
- A new season begins every 3 months, in March, June, September, and December.
New Official Campaign: Nam Humanum
April 2nd, 2243. The IAF's U.S.C. Odyssey has received a distress signal emitting from the secluded planet of Cassius-III, whose only human colony went below radars prior to the rise of the alien threat. An incomplete transmission, accompanying the signal with burden, was able to relay the scarce words of a broken man; words spoke of unforeseen consequences, of forgiveness, and of a name: Vesta. Committed to finding out more about Cassius-III's fate, the U.S.C. Odyssey is deploying a military operation with the primary objective to exhume the circumstances that would have called for the total shutdown of all planetary transmissions.
But in the course of its duty, the IAF Marine Squad may shed light on a number of very human questions, the answers of which only to be met in misfortune. What secrets might have the colony of Lugdunum withhold, a mission once proudly defined by its scientific ambitions? Could it have been the prime inadvertent victim in its own blind search for progress? And if not for each others' bodies and souls, what price are we truly willing to pay in favor of Humanity's betterment?
Originally released in December 2021 on the Steam Workshop, Nam Humanum is a linear campaign composed of three fan-made missions. Its action takes place within a colonial installation established on the surface of a remote exoplanet, in the year 2243 at the dawn of the conflict between man and parasite. Through this hellish roadway of cold corridors and clouded truths, face the memory of the forgotten alien strain known as the Hybrid Swarm.
New Official Campaign: BioGen Corporation
Location: New Earth Colony
Time Since Swarm Invasion: 31 Hours
Confirmed Casualties: 34
Mission Objective: Data Retrieval
Originally released in 2010 and 2011 on Swarm Armory as three separate maps, BioGen Corporation has been fully remastered by community mappers.
Note: Due to time constraints, the third mission of BioGen Corporation is not updated in this release. It will be updated in a future patch.
Weapons
- 22A3-1 Assault Rifle: Picking up a box of Rifle Ammo now grants a grenade in addition to the ammo.
- 22A7-Z Prototype Assault Rifle: Picking up a box of Rifle Ammo now grants a stun grenade in addition to the ammo.
- 22A7-Z Prototype Assault Rifle: Increased base damage per shot by 2 (from 5 to 7).
- 22A7-Z Prototype Assault Rifle: Fire rate is now improved by the marine's Engineering skill.
- M42 Vindicator: Picking up a box of Vindicator Ammo now grants an incendiary grenade in addition to the ammo.
- M42 Vindicator: Fixed biomass not being affected by vindicator grenades in certain custom maps.
- M73 Twin Pistols: Fixed a case where the the pistols would fail to fire due to latency.
- M73 Twin Pistols: Increased base damage per shot from 14 to 21.
- M73 Twin Pistols: Increased damage bonus per skill level from 2 to 4.
- M73 Twin Pistols: Added conditional damage bonuses against drones. Does an additional percentage of uber drones' health in damage on hit, and is guaranteed to kill any drone with 105 or fewer max HP in 2 shots or less.
- IAF Heal Beacon: Max healing per beacon changed from 50 plus 10 per level of healing bonus to 120 plus 30 per level of healing bonus. (Faith 100→270, Bastille 90→240)
- IAF Heal Beacon: Healing per second per marine changed from 3 to 4.
- l3a Tactical Heavy Armor: Now blocks 35% of damage (from 20%).
- l3a Tactical Heavy Armor: The damage blocking goes down by 4% every time the marine takes damage, to a minimum of 15%.
- l3a Tactical Heavy Armor: After 2 seconds of not taking damage, the damage blocking is restored at a rate of 4% per 2 seconds.
- Model 35 Pump-action Shotgun: Secondary fire now fires two blasts in quick succession.
- X33 Damage Amplifier: When a damage amplifier is deployed by Special Weapons, it attaches to their backpack rather than the floor.
- X33 Damage Amplifier: Moving a damage amplifier causes its power to deplete at twice the normal rate.
- M868 Flamer Unit: Fixed extinguisher particle effect continuing after the gun is out of ammo.
- M478 Proximity Incendiary Mines: Firewalls no longer instantly ignite allied marines if the marine that placed them is killed in action.
- AVK-36 Marksman Rifle: Reduced the unscoped fire rate.
- AVK-36 Marksman Rifle: Increased the fire rate while scoped.
- AVK-36 Marksman Rifle: When scoped, the AVK-36 Marksman Rifle deals additional damage and penetrates additional targets. Terrain is not affected by this damage bonus.
- AVK-36 Marksman Rifle: Slightly increased walking speed while scoped.
- IAF Incendiary Sentry Gun: Increased ammo from 800 to 1200.
- IAF High Velocity Sentry Cannon: Increased base damage from 40 to 60.
- IAF High Velocity Sentry Cannon: Increased ammo from 25 to 40.
- 22A4-2 Combat Rifle: Picking up a box of Rifle Ammo now grants a shotgun shell in addition to the ammo.
- IAF Medical Amplification Gun: Reduced primary ammo by half (Faith 90→45, Bastille 80→40).
- IAF Medical Amplification Gun: The secondary fire now uses a separate ammo pool (Faith 90, Bastille 150).
- 22A5 Heavy Assault Rifle: Vertical spread changed from 1.1 degrees to 3 degrees.
Translations
- Updated French translation from trick-master.
- Updated German translation from Duke M.
- Updated Italian translation from Steffo.
- Updated Korean translation from BRAIN IS BACK.
- Updated Simplified Chinese translation from Dubstep Amber.
- Updated Spanish translation from Efi.
- Updated Vietnamese translation from Hagon Wyvon.
- Localization will use the Steam game language setting rather than the Steam client language.
Aliens
- Aliens can no longer turn to face enemies while frozen.
- Added a chance for the director to spawn Rangers, Buzzers, and Xenomites to the default (non-ASBI) alien spawn selection list.
- Giving an alien orders (such as via the asw_order_nearby_aliens entity) causes an AI wake-up.
- The director spawns wanderers facing a random direction instead of always due east.
- Fixed AI frame time limiter.
Campaigns
- Tilarus-5: Area9800 Landingzone: Fixed the first door not automatically reopening after the hack.
- Research 7: Illyn Forest: Added a boss health bar for the generator defense encounter.
- Research 7: Illyn Forest: Fixed a rotating fence door sometimes not fully opening.
- Tears for Tarnor: Oasis Colony Spaceport: Marines are now teleported to the train on mission completion to avoid bots getting stuck.
- Jacob's Rest: Landing Bay: Tweaked scenery to better support camera rotation.
- Jacob's Rest: Landing Bay: Marked interesting spawn locations as director-eligible.
- Jacob's Rest: Landing Bay: Fixed a basketball breaking a window at map start.
- Jacob's Rest (all missions): Made sprites non-networked where possible.
- Area9800: Coolant Pump: Fixed tech requirement not being disabled immediately after the final hack.
- Bonus Missions: Bonus Mission 1: This map has been replaced with a new mission.
Misc
- Improved controller support, especially in briefing.
- Ammo drops show their fullness bar from the side closest to the camera rather than always south.
- Ammo drops that are more than 1024 units away from the player (about 3 stories below marines in third person) no longer show any UI.
- Fixed clearing bots in singleplayer leaving their weapon icons visible.
- Fixed an edge case where leaderboard scores could be uploaded with cheats enabled.
- rda_hide_backpack and rda_draw_backpack are no longer marked as cheats.
- Fixed doors not being able to be destroyed if they had more than 1 HP before being hit.
- Fixed various parts of the UI using different maximum numbers of objectives.
- Fixed level 30 requirements for higher difficulty levels actually being level 31 requirements.
- For consistency, players below level 30 (and not promoted) can no longer create lobbies with difficulties they cannot search for public lobbies in. (They can still change the difficulty level freely once the lobby is created.)
- Players below level 30 can now play on Insane difficulty and on non-ASBI challenges by default.
- Added rd_grenade_launcher_grenade_preview to draw the expected path of a grenade.
- Marked phys_timescale and asw_sentry_friendly_target as cheats.
- Removed FCVAR_ARCHIVE from some replicated convars.
- Added rd_revert_convars (default on) to reset replicated convars when the main menu is opened to avoid keeping the last server's settings when creating a new lobby.
- Added rd_override_fps_max, which overrides fps_max without the need to modify newmapsettings.cfg.
- Dedicated server high resolution timer now uses NtSetTimerResolution, which allows for even higher clock speeds.
- Added ASBI Elite to the allowed challenges list for leaderboards.
- Added keybinding options for "select first weapon" and "select second weapon".
- Added color coding to rda_print_chat_objective_completion_time.
- Tripled medic bot target acquisition range.
- Marines killed by parasites or explosions now gib.
Mapping
- Added ApplyEntity to infodecal.
- Added func_detail_blocker and func_precipitation_blocker.
- Added a setting to asw_ammo_rifle and asw_ammo_vindicator to disable secondary ammo.
- Made trigger_playermovement work on marines for forced crouch.
- Removed unused entities from the FGD.
- Replaced all asw_weapon_* entities with asw_pickup_* equivalents.
- Split spawn rate from director spawn rate (director spawn rate defaults to 4 now even if spawn rate was changed).
- Added a setting to allow director spawns only after an alien has spawned normally. Setting a spawner to this mode during gameplay will wait until the next alien has spawned normally.
- Added OnDifficulty(1-5), OnOnslaught(0-1), OnFriendlyFire(0-1), and OnChallenge(string) as outputs to asw_gamerules, fired at mission start.
- Added prop_dynamic_glow, for making glowing outlines on arbitrary objects.
- env_sprite_clientside has been made fully client-side. This means client-side sprites no longer use edicts. Maps that incorrectly used it with a targetname or parentname should be updated to use env_sprite instead.