Cepheus Protocol update for 22 December 2021

Well its that time again the Winter Sale!

Windows 7 Support

Windows 7 Support will be ending soon when we update to 4.27 of the Engine Build. We will archive the last stable build for windows 7 for a year after the official update. The windows 7 build will not receive updates/and we will give very basic support

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-7-support-ended-on-january-14-2020-b75d4580-2cc7-895a-2c9c-1466d9a53962

So if your on Windows 7 we highly recommend updating your OS in the future as our engine provider Epic Games has also started to remove dependencies and other runtimes that are needed for the game to run properly.

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/WhatsNew/Builds/ReleaseNotes/4_27/

Old save files will not work with this new build and the old build has been archived under the beta tab

Check out the latest letter from the Producer here!

https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/3111421207515883471

We are investigating reports of some assets appearing as purple and should have a fix in the next few days for it.

Change list

• Infection Growth removed due to performance concerns we are working out a new solution tech wise internally at the moment
• Added a safety to prevent helicopters from being able to start ascending, if landed with no pilot
• Fixed up units leaving a vehicle due to that vehicle's death sometimes improperly disabling their stenciling (resulting in their 'outlines through walls' logic malfunctioning)
• Also fixed a potential crash from units being dumped from a vehicle due to that vehicle's death
• Added a new mouse cursor for when you're hovering over a vehicle which needs a pilot/driver, and you have a sufficient unit in your current selection
• Fixed material error on HEMTT modules
• Made vehicular units no longer have unit levels and get their vetancry from their pilot/driver
• Improved the Unit Recruitment Popup
• Dynamically shows/hides the training duration slider based on if the target unit uses the leveling system
• Dynamically adjusts the training duration slider's maximum based on the target unit's possible max level
• Fixed the Seats display for the Recruit popup to properly not display Pilot seats in the listed amount
• Fixed the Seats display on the Unit Card widget (on the HUD) for vehicles to synergize properly with the Pilot system (and the Ammo Runners on the Atlas)
• Fixed a nav issue in the new horde map
• Added new Juggernaut spawning logic for the old horde controllers to prevent juggernauts from spawning outside of bounds
• Added an extra nav modifier to the Barracks to prevent units from landing on its roof
  (tested with over 1000 unit spawns, no issues)
• Saves that already have barracks will load those barracks without the fix (though building a new barracks, even on an old save, will resolve the issue).
• Adjusted a move proxy on the bridge between Angel Island (Northeast Island) and Treasure Island North inside the old Open World Master and tested repeatedly
• This adjustment resolves a 'backtrack' issue with that bridge
• Fixed a bridge issue on the eastern island (units trying to cross a spot at the end of ab ridge, but it technically blocks them: fixed via small 'step up' volumes)
• Cleaned out an unused movement proxy
• Tweaked another movement proxy to resolve a 'backtracking' issue when moving from Treasure Island north to Treasure Island south
• Fixed a spawn pod in the old Treasure Island/Open World map
• Early version of smoothed formation movement Units will more proactively adjust their speed (when not running) when moving in formation, in order to try to prevent 'jittering' or falling too far behind
• Updated speed logic for vehicular formation movement following to be more consistent and less jittery: not perfect, but it should be a lot smoother
• Doubled vehicular 'de-penetration distance' values, to try to make vehicles more likely to escape on their own should they get stuck
• Added a speculative fix to a crash that sometimes occurs when a vehicle dies with units in it
• Added it in so units fire at center mass when units have a spine_03 bone otherwise they fall back on older code to make units more accurate and better at targeting crawling infected
• Added ax53 icon
• Updated Wallbuilder to use the new landscaping logic, and display landscaping cost
• Updated the wallbuilder to properly be able to clear cars
• Imported new Driver+Pilot+Scout Car class icons
• And new Driver+Pilot purchase button images
• Set up Helicopters to no longer 'wait for a flight' before spawning, once their recruit countdown is complete
• Added ik system for left hand placement on weapons to automate some aspects of animation
• new idles for ars, added tac sprint for smgs
• Converted the setup to a more sophished level streaming system to improve performance
• Trees updated to newer meshes that have better imposters
• Adjusted prices and targeting speed of all CERC Units
• Adjusted rate of fire and damage fall of to help make the m240 out class the u100
• Spread added for lmgs
• Adjusted turret rate of fire to make them more useful.
• Added safeties to GameInstance BP to clean up a crash related to garbage collection referencing invalid sound track refs (there's a very similar crash yet unresolved, but this particular one seems fixed)
• Cleaned up a tree that was intersecting a bridge
• Speculative fix to Auto Gates (should make them more reliable, but not 100% sure if the auto gate bug is fully fixed yet)
• Fixed up the 'money/DNA added' animations to properly play from 'below' rather than 'above' their tallies at the top right (due to the new design, them 'animating from the top' often could result in simply not seeing them)
• fixed weird body movement when cerc units would walk and fire.
• Added mp5 ui icon.
• Fixed rate of fire for ump, mp7, m4 & ax53
• Fixed a 'jitter' that occurred when highlighting the Pandemic button
• Updated the Pandemic button text to be better centered (to not look 'off' compared to other buttons)
• Adjusted move proxy to stop a backtracking issue when traveling from the Treasure Island Power Plant to Angel Island (seems to have resolved the issue)
• Speculative fix for Command Tent/Capture Truck/Civilian Hold 'build radius visualization' sometimes sticking around when the building is not selected
• Parachute safety added to prevent parachute from 'blinking in' when units make small height adjustments while moving along uneven terrain
• This also prevents Engineers from accidentally deploying their parachute while constructing something, resulting in them getting stuck
• Adjusted Zheights of bridges in the Open World v2 to make construction of walls much smoother
• And adjusted the ZHeight of Blue Crest Estates to prevent 'deadzones' on the area where the bridges touch the land (in TI South)
• Added functionality to stop the game window from 'grabbing the mouse' if you ALT-TAB out and the window still thinks ALT (free look) is being held
• Cleaned out some old door logic that was conflicting with auto gates: auto gates should work 100% of the time now
• Auto gates' 'overlap volume' also made a bit taller vertically, just in case
• Added speculative fix to garbage collection crash from SpeakerTracks for custom music radio
• Optimized body bags and added a small merged cluster.
• Replaced planters in TI Grid3 with a new merged model.
• Minor material updates.
• Updated Main Menu scene and Operator preview.
• Asset merges and optimizations.
• Minor Landscape road/painting adjustments.
• Occlusion settings tweaked for engine
• Updated build to 4.27.2
• Added a fix for civilian hold subbuildings (holding area, cells, etc.) not properly 'landscaping' away trees and the like (may not retroactively affect saves)
• Updated the Weapon Customization Widget: It is now 'tall' enough to not require scrolling when the default categories are all that are shown
• Selecting a mod to apply to the weapon will auto-jump back to the category menu, for snappier customization
• Added UI hiding support to Radio call-ins (and fixed an issue where the AC130 call-in would have the plane itself hide)
• Added UI hiding support to the Infection Gas Tower's 'gas radius'
• Added UI hiding support to the Chelsey System 'red circle' radius
• Updated it to support hovertips in the pause menu and to have a 'pause menu' mode w/ background
• Added a new 'Auto Control Operator' Game Option (defaults to false)
  =If true, you automatically control the Operator upon their arrival (and will have to pull the parachute manually)
  =Otherwise, they'll act like a regular unit. The Operator will send a message to the message queue at the top left, when landing, telling you how to assume FPS-mode control of them
• Updated some of the Operator parachute logic to function with this new setup
• Added logic to make the Operator tutorial pop up by default when switching to the Operator for the first time
• It will also disappear after 10 seconds, if not interacted with
• Saves/loads whether or not it has been shown once, so if you load a save after seeing it, it won't pop up again automatically
• Animated its showing/hiding
• Added a Game Option to allow disabling of the Operator tutorial popping up the first time you enter FPS mode
• Improved the Shooter tutorial popup to not accidentally cancel itself out too early
• Added logic to prevent the Civilian faction from 'marking itself' as an enemy of CERC (fixing this may have resolved the the 'target civilians' error for turrets and the like)
• Open World V2 and Treasure Island V2 now replace the current older maps
• Cleaned up the new version of Treasure Island a bit more, fixing up the bridge(s), an issue w/ some proxies, nav, and some BP errors
• Added some safeties in response to reported crash: https://cp-bug-reporting.nolt.io/244
• Removed the 'landscaping' SFX from wallbuilder+building builder
• Fixed Cerberus 105mm cannon starting with more ammunition than its magazine could hold (resulted in 'refill ammo' bugs)
• Adjusted its max ammo, as well: it now has a magazine of 8 and a reserve of 10.
• Added safeties when loading to ensure Camera returns to regular height
• Boosted minimum zoom-out speed for camera scrolling
• Added compression to build from 4.27.2 update to improve game loading time
• Culled Angel Island Grids down to 8.
• Moved all assets into their new grids.
• Renamed all Angel Island Levels
• Added safety for a crash reported by Robert for the AI Spawn Nodes
• Updated the Pandemic New Game screen to not refer to the new maps as 'v2' Same w/ the Load Game screen
• Fixed up some 'step up volumes' on the Angel Island-side of the bridge between Treasure Island Power Plant and Angel Island
• Crash fix for Chelsey system 'transferring' of infected sometimes pointing at the wrong targets (fatally)
• Updated the Command Tent's second upgrade to have a more accurate and safer 'move out of the way' check for units that might get otherwise stuck by the addon to the tent+
• Fixed up a bug where canceling a right click by left-clicking BEFORE releasing right click would leave an arrow floating around at the click spot
• Cleaned up some settings on the Active Denial System and Mortar (they were able to be infected, for example: fixed now)
• Fixed a BP error in the Vehicle (where it may rarely try to access some engine sound logic when that's no longer valid)
• Replaced all trees with new high quality Megascans assets.
• Trees will no longer fade out in first person.
• Disabled Discord plugin and removed files for the plugin
• PostProcess fix to improve all textures in the game and make characters seem more photorealstic
• Cleaned up several spawn pod locations:
  Moved SpawnPodLocation_PRSG5_05a a bit further away from some buildings
  Rotated SpawnPodLocation_PRSG6_06a to prevent spawning into a building
  Rotated SpawnPodLocation_PRSG6_06b to prevent spawning into a bus
  Moved SpawnPodLocation_PRSG6_06c slightly to prevent spawning into a fence (hopefully)
  Moved SpawnPodLocation_Alcatraz_01b to prevent spawning into a crate (hopefully)
  Moved SpawnPodLocation_Alcatraz_01d to prevent spawning into a house
  Rotated SpawnPodLocation_Alcatraz_01e to prevent spawning into a silo (hopefully)
  Rotated CPSpawnPodLocationG1Military to prevent spawning into some clutter
  Rotated SpawnPodLocation_G01_01a to prevent spawning into the corner of a building
  Rotated SpawnPodLocation_G01_01d to prevent spawning into clutter
  Moved SpawnPodLocation_G02_01f to prevent spawning into tents, hopefully
  Rotated SpawnPodLocation_G03Marinae to hopefully prevent spawning into tents
• Updated the Switch to Operator button to not appear unless the only selected unit is an Operator
• Removed the old 'X' button from the ROE widget (the button used to open ROE should be used to close it, or the hotkey 'P' anyway): it was erroneously permanently hiding the ROE tab
• Updated several call-ins to properly appear 'red' if your mouse is outside their call-in zone (rather than defaulting to 'green' even though they're not yet overlapping the valid call-in zone)
• Weapons renamed to Fictional Versions
• Further CERC unit price adjustments
• Loading screens revised for Christmas event
• New splash added for our partnerships with other companies added to further develop and provide resources to the company
• Added a Scope Socket for the 3P version of the MK14CQB (mimicking the 1P version) to ensure default attachments can spawn on it properly.
• Prevented the 'away team is under attack' notification from playing when you take damage as an Operator
• Fixed the Operator 'leaving behind' invisible attachments when you equip new attachments or switch weapons
• Updated the Operator's weapon range to not get 'reduced back to RTS mode' when you switch attachments (by making it a dynamic modifier that updates any time you switch weapons)
• In FPS mode, Operator's weapon range is no longer affected by night time or infection gas
• Fixed a bug where switching weapons on the Operator after loading a game would cause the new weapon to not have default attachments
• Greatly improved the accuracy of the 'onscreen damage taken indicator' when in Operator mode
• Fixed up a potential crash when switching weapon attachments
• Fixed up the attachment swapping logic related to magazines to prevent some situations which would cause the Operator to continue 'holding up' the weapon after closing the menu
• Added another GC crash fix attempt (hopefully this one works, seems promising)
• Fixed up the Operator's weapon customization menu to not display categories that have only one option (i.e. 'None')
• Updated proxy collision+nav for Zone 0 Master z
• Added some safeties to Game Over (to make it re-show mouse, end freelook, and try to stop key panning)
• Assigned soundclass settings for grenade launcher sound cue
• Updated the Holding Cell to properly prevent the occupant from being able to attack units who get too close to the cell's walls if the unit is NOT fully succumbed to the infection when put into the cell, but the succumb while within
• Added a crash fix for loading weapon attachments

More Operators adjustments will be forth coming as we work to polish it amongst the RTS aspects to get back on civilian management. We expect to wrap up polish and be back on civilian management in the next 2 weeks

Please note the following going forward (Restart your game/steam to get the update if needed

Cepheus Protocol Anthology

We will be launching a new weekly series that will see several chapters added every Friday after release and will cover the chapters of the Novelization with 5 chapters added to expand upon the story and give more value to those itching for more lore/story information. It will delve into and show more about a secret new faction that will become the Anti-CERC in the Cepheus Protocol universe.

Don't forget to wishlist!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1707120/Cepheus_Protocol_Anthology_Season_1/

Cepheus Protocol Podcast #2 URL is now live

Swag Store

The Halcyon Winds Store is now live to support development and profits go towards expanding the team. This is in response to several requests I've gotten quite a few times about those that don't want to do patreon but want to support via merch.(Posters, Jackets etc) Check it out we'll add more over the next few weeks-months! :WinterSmile:

https://halcyon-winds-store.creator-spring.com/