These optimization changes will be coming to the normal build with path finding tweaks after we've had more time to test.
Revised Walk/ Run animations for all CERC Units
Finalized Versions of all Treasure Island Buildings are coming
Patch notes to Public Beta and Experimental
- Revised Walk/ Run animations for all CERC Units
- Various optimization tweaks for larger hordes for mid-late game
- Added logic to make the 'select location' popup occur later in the Master setup (so the player team can set up properly)
- Updated how the Run Override button on the Command Buttons at the bottom right works:
- Units moving in formation will stay in formation. They will run if their leader has 'Run Override' active, but not toggle it on for themselves if they do not personally have it on.
- The button on the HUD will now update any time you change selection, instead of only when you select a Group
- Updated Gas Attack collision to not block mouse queries (while still being able to harm units)
- Tweaked/cleaned up some door/nav block settings on gates in relation to the vehicles-can't-pass-through bug Tested it on a save that had that issue, and the Springboks can roll on through now
- Updated the Garrison Widget for vehicles to properly read the unit's assigned Class Icon (instead of referring to an old 'character class' variable to discern what to use)
- Weapon meshes made a bit cheaper on the engine side
- Fixed an issue with the Spine Thrower turret's projectile not properly ignoring friendlies
- Hooked up units to properly apply their LOD tick rate to their current weapon, too
- Applies on equipping weaponry, as well as when hiding/showing from FOW
- Hooked up the LOD switching to also affect Movement Component tick rate
- Hooked up values for military, civvies, infected, special infected, etc.
- Re-tuned military LOD values for the Mesh tick rate, too Result: Units (especially civvies) seem less expensive when at lower LODS.
- Updated runtime audio plugin for bug fixes
- Performance improvements to infected 'overhead' widget
- Hooked up Shadow LOD logic: Shadows will now turn off at certain LODS
- Hooked this up to LOD 2 for now (since there's three levels of LODs, only at the greatest LOD will shadows turn off for now)
- Also hooked up logic to turn off shadows when in Thermal Vision, and to turn off shadows on the Weapon when the character holding it turns off their shadows
- Hooked up an option for altering the Unit Distance Shadows setting from the Advanced options menu
- Hooked up a 'slo-mo' delegate response in the Base_Character class for the recent LOD mesh/movement component performance updates
- Now when slow motion is utilized, visible characters will instantly update their tick rate to something equivalent on the new timescale to avoid 'stutter-stepping'
- Shut down shadows on units that die
- Adjusted tick rates for Interaction+Health widget components on civvies+military units
- Created a basic 'infection area' indicator
- Fixed some issues with the 'Select Location Infection Indicator' widgetry
- Also made it more transparent so you can still see the map underneath it
- Re-added 'civvie clearing' to the Spawn Node 'clear spawns' loop
- Updated Fog of War updating to respect time dilation 'faster than' regular timescale, so its performance cost doesn't increase if the game is running on a speed faster than 1.0 (makes debugging more performant for now, likely will be useful if we implement fast-forward feature later)
- Fixed 'hidden Civilian clear loop' erroneously clearing civilians who are infected or special infection carriers
- Added a 'Civilian Spawn Limit' to the Chelsey System (150 for now)
- This includes a 'soft cap', currently at 67% (which is 100 units for now), where spawn rates are reduced
- Created a 'render state changed' delegate for the Cepheus Skeletal Mesh component
- Hooked up the 'stopped rendering' delegate logic to make Infected clear/re-create their 'overhead widget' as needed
- Made infected in a zone that is 'settled' (more than 50% of pods done, if memory serves) start shuffling out, despawning, or mutating at a threshold of 5 infected instead of 30 infected if there are no enemies nearby
- If enemies nearby (i.e. players overlapping), the mutation and despawning options for that zone's Order Loop are disabled
- Stadium wing fixed UVs version
- Made the custom movement component's 'tick group' customizable at runtime: used this to make civilian's movement tick group shift from a less expensive 'civilian rate' to a more expensive 'infected rate' when they go hostile
- Spread out pawn sensing via a 'random short duration deactivation' to it on BeginPlay, to reduce the stress of pawn sensing being done all in 'one lump' for groups that were spawned at similar times
- Increased pawn sensing interval and max accepted sound age for civilians and basic infected
- Made non-player units who become carriers 'shift to' the movement tick rate for Infected, so their movement is more accurate if they're moving to spread the infection
- Committing early Find Floor optimization for movement components:
- Adjusted how often units update their AI when updating their seenlist (first unit added will activate always, but otherwise cooldown will be more respected)
- Increased 'seenlist update AI rate' and 'damage update AI rate to 1.5 for Infected
- Increased 'seenlist update AI rate' to 5.0 and 'damage update AI rate' 2.5 for civilians
- Added logic to reduce the number of redundant combat 'move to location' calls, to hopefully reduce navmesh strain for infected moving in combat
- Removed the Unit Detection Spheres from the Faction units for now (needs new collision settings for them, otherwise it constantly overlaps their owners, causing their Detection Spheres to be more expensive than CERC ones)
- Implemented new ScoutDrone model.
- Set ScoutDrone flight height to 7500 (from 2500)
- Changed up some logic for how unit rehiding works after being seen, to be more consistent
- Changed up 'DelayedRehideBoost' to 'DelayedRehideInterval,' to directly set how long it takes for a unit to re-hide itself into the FOW after being seen
- Changed the LOD optimization for player+faction units to reduce 'close-up stutter' w/ help from
- Anim fixes for HEMTT crane
- Adjusted how Silencers/Suppressors are handled: They're now spawned in/despawned as needed, rather than always being a component on each weapon unless manually destroyed
- Adjusted how often units update their AI when updating their seenlist (first unit added will activate always, but otherwise cooldown will be more respected)
- Increased 'seenlist update AI rate' and 'damage update AI rate to 1.5 for Infected
- Increased 'seenlist update AI rate' to 5.0 and 'damage update AI rate' 2.5 for civilians
- Added safeties to pod/tower clearing in zones to ensure that a Tower won't be erroneously left behind and considered 'alive' after its destruction
- Added safeties to 'PassDamageToAI' and and the Infected 'AIDetermineStateTree' to prevent logic from running if frozen or ragdolling at the moment
- Added logic to reduce the number of redundant combat 'move to location' calls, to hopefully reduce navmesh strain for infected moving in combat
- Removed the Unit Detection Spheres from the Faction units for now (needs new collision settings for them, otherwise it constantly overlaps their owners, causing their Detection Spheres to be more expensive than CERC ones)
- Added logic to make Civilians have a different and higher 'not visible tick rate' until they get infected
- Fixed some issues with the 'Select Location Infection Indicator' widgetry
- Also made it more transparent so you can still see the map underneath it
- Fixed some construct widgets being 'reverted' to default settings
- Fixed some construct widget performance options (i.e. turned off collision, turned up tick rate, etc.)
- Added logic to make the 'select location' popup occur later in the Master setup (so the player team can set up properly)
- Added a basic 'ammobox clear' to Infection Pod construction, so if an ammobox is overlapping the pod spot it'll clear out the ammobox (may need more radius, though)
Patch notes to Experimental
- Minor BP error fix for Capture Truck
- With an extra 'safety check' for if Capture Trucks are enabled, a zone owned by Chelsey will 'revert to neutral' instead of remaining infected-but-yellow
- Added a fix to the 'PackUp' logic for the 'select starting location' to prevent units from spawning 'halfway into the floor'
Cepheus Protocol Novelization is now available on Steam Store!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1387390/Cepheus_Protocol_Novelization