Insurgency Sandstorm Pre-Order Beta Update Highlights - December 7th, 2018
Hello everyone. Today we’re releasing an update to address feedback we’ve heard from the Insurgency: Sandstorm community in anticipation of the start of the game’s open beta weekend (which runs from Friday, Dec 7 – 5PM CET / 8AM PST to Monday, Dec 10 – 6PM CET / 9AM PST).
The highlights below represent a small portion of the 1,000+ changes to Sandstorm from the last update, but shouldn’t be considered a full change log. We expect to release a full list of changes sometime soon. We look forward to your feedback and we hope you enjoy the beta this weekend!
We also invite you to read the latest blog by our CEO, Jeremy Blum where he discusses the future of Insurgency: Sandstorm and what you can look forward to as we continue to update the game!
New Content
- Precinct map.
- Added Crossing back to the list of available maps.
- Mercenary voice option for Insurgents.
- Training Level in the Tutorials section.
- Improved character models:
- Refitted, reoriented, and further detailed gear with items like flex cuffs, duct tape, paracord, glowsticks, punch knives, etc.
- Added new backpacks. Light and Heavy Carriers now have an associated backpack unique to each faction.
- Added thigh holster and thigh pouches for Security depending on Carrier.
- Thickened Insurgent character proportions.
- Reweighted characters, resulting in more natural movement.
- Localization for all supported languages.
- NVIDIA Highlights support. To activate, go to Settings and it will be under the GAME tab in its own section. To open your saved NVIDIA Highlights, click the Highlights button under History from the main-menu or the dedicated button in the in-game menu (when pressing Escape). Please make sure you are using GeForce driver 417.22 or later.
- Credits in the Main Menu section.
- Temporarily removed M005 to be redesigned and added back as soon as possible post-release.
Optimization
- Pawn reuse system: Characters are no longer destroyed and recreated but instead hidden and teleported to the correct location on death and respawn. This vastly reduces any gamethread hitches on spawns and objective captures.
- Cosmetic pooling system: Appearance items are cached in one of two pools, one for alive characters and one for ragdolls, meaning logic for cosmetics only ever needs to be initiated twice. This creates substantially less hitching caused by cosmetic logic.
Stability Fixes
- Fixed crash related to receiving voice data while loading a map.
- Fixed a crash that would occur when changing resolutions while rendering the SMAA 1x anti-aliasing shader.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed melee attacks going through walls.
- Fixed scope pictures not taking super-sampling into account.
- Fixed the fade out upon death not being propagated to other players that are spectating the dying player.
- Fixed issue where shell ejections would not appear on suppressed weapons.
- Speed reloads now correctly deduct weight from the player.
- Disabled melee when interacting with a grenade.
- Fixes for potential weight and stamina desync.
- Fixed bipod clearance not being rechecked during a stance transition.
- Fixed bipod view when watching a player in spectator.
- Fixed issue where some menus would stay on the screen between map changes.
- Objective and teammate opacity settings will now be saved between sessions.
- Added a one second delay between chat messages to prevent chat flooding.
- Fixed reloading looping when spectating a player using a singly-loaded weapon (shotgun/bolt-action rifle).
- Fixed spectator not allowing you to move in the freecam if you were previously assigned to a team.
- Fixed weapon switching not correctly showing the weapon in spectator.
- Fixed the FOV of low quality scopes in spectator.
- Fixed suppression from rockets occuring after projectile had exploded.
- Fixed magazine not appearing on weapon when interacting with underbarrel grenade launcher.
- Fixed third person mesh for underbarrel grenade launchers not showing weapon upgrades.
- Removed in-game menu being bound to keypad plus (+) by default.
- Fixed crash when joining a server in the process of changing maps.
- Fixed disconnect that occurs when transitioning to the same map that was previously played.
- Fixed issue with not being able spawn after being a spectator and joining a team.
Gameplay Improvements
- Added audio cue for close passes from rocket projectiles.
- Reduced suppression radius of rockets.
- Added “Chemical Gas” spotted VO.
- Added “Ask Status” VO after capturing an objective with teammates.
- Increased Minigun Support hover time from 30 seconds to 40 seconds.
- Increased Gunship hover time from 15 seconds to 25 seconds.
AI Improvements
- Added shotguns to AI loadouts.
- Added “Path Skipping” and “Dangerous Corner” detection to AI drivers, allowing them to drive much faster without crashing.
User Experience Improvements
- All menus now have detailed explanations of settings and options.
- Added options for disabling View Bob and Camera Animations.
- Added separate sensitivity scale options for each zoom level.
- Added direct connect by IP option to server browser.
- Voice muting can now be chosen for individual players or an entire team.
- Muting a player will now mute their text chat.
- Spectating a vehicle in third person will no longer lock the rotation of the camera.
Visual Improvements
- Improved shading for sunglasses with added support for translucency.
- Implemented a new hair shader and added multiple hair color variations.
- Players that have died in vehicles can now be dismembered.
- Reduced ghosting artifacts caused by translucent geometry being composited into the frame before the temporal anti-aliasing algorithms have run.
- Updated the flash bang effect to display an after-image of the moment the player got flashed.
- Reduced the chances of camera clipping when viewing the world from a ragdoll’s perspective.
- Polished multiple weapon models and textures for M16A4, M16A2, M9, AK-74, M24, L85A2, Mk 14 EBR, M249.
- Added new C79 scope model.
- Updated textures for AK foregrips.
- Added belt link ejection for M249 SAW.
Map Balance & Fixes
Hideout
- Optimized assets to reduce memory usage.
- Reworked HLODs to reduce draw calls.
- Reduced particle effects to improve performance and readability.
- Did an interior lighting pass to improve readability and performance.
- Fixed numerous gameplay and visual issues.
- Made various visual improvements.
Farmhouse
- Optimized assets to reduce memory usage.
- Reduced particle effects to improve performance and readability.
- Reworked C objective on Push Insurgents scenario.
- Fixed numerous gameplay and visual issues.
- Made various visual improvements.
Refinery
- Optimized assets to reduce memory usage.
- Reworked HLODs to reduce draw calls.
- Reduced particle effects to improve performance and readability.
- Made various gameplay adjustments to improve Push Insurgents scenario.
- Made various visual improvements.
Known Issues
- Getting killed while vaulting can cause animation issues on respawn
- Trees in the Summit map have broken lighting, so we have temporarily removed the map from matchmaking. The map is still available for play on community servers and in local play. We will reintroduce the map to matchmaking as soon as this is addressed.
- Doors can appear desynced for certain clients after a map change on community servers
- The competitive Firefight matchmaking has been removed temporarily to improve user flow. It will return before launch