10.0.1, our latest refinement version, introduced some new bugs that we've now addressed. While this didn't have any major consequences, it resulted in an issue related to SCP-096's health scaling, as well as locking 079 into place if they navigated into the containment hallway of SCP-012. 10.0.2 fixes these problems and a few more, bringing the following changes:
Changes
SCP-096 can now charge through the heavy gate on the Surface Zone.
Crosshair textures, as well as the texture of SCP-914’s settings panel, now remain legible even with low texture quality settings.
Slight performance optimizations.
Replaced several textures around the map with higher-quality versions.
These texture adjustments were erroneously featured in the changelogs for our last version, but didn't actually ship with it. We've included them properly in 10.0.2. You can find an example below - the left image is new, while the right image is old.
Fixes
Fixed an issue causing SCP-096 to not gain artificial health whenever they acquired a new target
Fixed death reasons using the server's localization instead of the client's
Fixed an issue causing doors to leave no destroyed versions when they were destroyed with a grenade
Fixed an issue causing SCP-079's view to become stuck in SCP-012's room when navigating to it through cameras
Fixed checkpoint doors occasionally failing to play their closing sound
Fixes towards a bug causing SCP-096 to become locked in their "Try Not To Cry" state
Fixes SCP-173 being able to move freely while blinded by a flash grenade
Fixed flash grenades flashing players through walls, doors, and other objects
Fixed item pickups not appearing in rooms whose doors are destroyed before being opened.
Fixed being able to display the inventory screen before the round has started.
Various anticheat improvements and several exploit fixes.
Improved HTTP requests on Windows, and fixed HTTP requests on Linux servers.
API Changes
Updated NorthwoodLib.
Doors now have a Vector2 variable called PrySpeed, which dictates the speed that SCP-096 moves through them while prying. This is used to allow 096 to move through heavy gates whose sizes are larger than normal (including the Surface Zone’s heavy gate.)
Conclusion
This was a much smaller patch than version 10.0.1, but was necessary to assemble and release a (slightly delayed) hotfix in order to address the issues it introduced. We're sorry for any trouble this may have caused, and we'll be trying to make steps to ensure that such an incident won't happen again.
Thank you for your continued support! It means the world to us. Keep your eyes open for upcoming tweaks and balance changes in the near future.
Scopophobia Refinement - Version 10.0.1
Hey - since Scopophobia’s release, we’ve been continually patching issues that have cropped up, as well as fixing some long-time bugs. Because the release has actually been quite stable, we’ve taken our time with it, but here is version 10.0.1, featuring the following changes:
Changes
UI
Main Menu
The "Create Server" option is now hidden by default.* The -scs startup argument will cause it to be visible on startup, and the new client commands cst and tcs toggle its visibility on and off. See the bottom of the announcement for more information on this decision.
The News tab now properly displays news entries with more than 4,000 characters.
"Light Rendering Mode” has been renamed to “Render Lights.”
The option to play using DIrectX12 no longer appears if the OS is not Windows 10.
In-Game Menu
Adds a Server Info option to the ESC menu, which displays the current server's pastebin info.
Commands
Adds the "RIDLIST" client command, which displays a list of all room ids.
Adds the "PLAYERINVENTORY" remote admin command, which displays all items that a player is carrying. Aliases: "playerinv", "pinv", "pinventory". Accepts player IDs as an argument.
Adds the "ROOMTP" remote admin command, which teleports a player to a specific RID. ALiases: "rtp", "ridtp".
Adds the "CASSIEWORDS" remote admin command, which displays a list of all valid CASSIE words.
Adds the “STARTHOST” client command, which starts a local server. Aliases: “startserver”
Improvements to the "CMDBIND" client console command.
Remote Admin’s “HELP” command now opens a wiki page, instead of a Google Docs document.
Map
Removed SCP-096's containment chamber's chair - its model was very inefficient, and resulted in a number of anticheat problems and glitches.
Fixes
Gameplay
Fixed an issue where, if overcharge was initiated shortly before the end of the round, it would occur in the following round.
SCP-096 now properly unloads when a player is forceclassed from 096 to 079.
Fixed an oversight preventing SCP-939 from seeing moving human players unless they were jumping. This should provide a significant buff to 939’s current performance.
Fixed a variable issue which prevented SCP-096's shield effect from being visible.
Fixed the scaling of SCP-096's ragdoll to match their actual body size.
SCP-173 can now correctly move in darkened rooms as long as a player doesn't see them with a flashlight or NV scope.
Fixed resolution related text disappearing.
Fixed Pause Menu elements being positioned strangely on ultrawide resolutions.
Fixed stuck spots involving pedestals in SCP-096's and SCP-173's containment chamber.
Security
Major anticheat rework: anticheat now only kills players as a last resort.
Fixed players being killed when doors closed on them.
Authentication thread is now exited properly.
The Jump and Sneak keys now have functionality in noclip.
Various other security-related fixes.
API Changes
Note: These are only important for plugin developers and feature no significant changes in-game. This is by no means all-inclusive; our code is changing constantly, and these are only the most significant changes.
Pickups
Removes the PickupInfo struct. Synchronized pickup information (ID, durability, and so on) is now stored directly as SyncVars on the pickup script.
Adds a WeaponModifiers data struct, used to track the weapon mods on dropped guns.
Lights
The FlickerableLight system has been reworked. Rooms have a FlickerableLightController component below the root room itself. This replaces the string system, and handles synchronization automatically. Lights can be turned off in individual rooms with the ServerFlickerLights(float seconds) function.
Wrapping Up
We are, of course, not done making changes to 10.0.0. There are still changes we want to make, and those changes are on the way, especially regarding balance and 096 (which we’ve been extensively discussing internally to try and decide on a solution that’s healthy in the long-term and not just a temporary fix for 096’s issues.)
We’re also aware of an issue affecting the Korean, Chinese, and Japanese translations (among others) that causes some characters to render as blank boxes. We’ve run into some complications in fixing it, but we’re still working on fixing the problem on our end and will hopefully have a fix for it out ASAP.
Keep an eye out for some upcoming changes in the near future, and stay healthy and safe this August.
Footnotes
* This is because local servers have continually become more unstable, and supporting changes specifically for them both segregates the game’s code and is difficult to sustain with our current team. The option still exists for those who use it, but we wanted to make it clear that the option is not our recommended default.
If you use the Create Server feature often, we highly recommend you set up a dedicated server! Making a dedicated server is usually fast and easy, and you can host it on the same computer you use to play the game. You can follow one of our Steam guides for instructions, or download the SCP: Secret Laboratory Dedicated Server tool on Steam.
Scopophobia has arrived!
Hello!
We’re very happy to announce that, after a long and challenging development process, SCP: Secret Laboratory’s next update has arrived and is now fully available to everyone. Scopophobia rivals Megapatch 2 in its scale - this update brings major reworks, large performance improvements, rewritten systems, and more.
SCP-096 Rework
scopophobia (n.) - an abnormal fear of being looked at or seen.
The Shy Guy is among the oldest classes in the game. Although mechanically it mostly works well, it uses an outdated model, and all of its voice files are taken from SCP - Containment Breach. SCP-096 was long overdue for a revamp, and its complete rework is the highlight and namesake of Scopophobia - including a brand-new model, completely revamped sounds, and a fully remade user experience.
SCP-096 is now our most polished and well-presented SCP to date, and we'd like to keep its exact mechanics a surprise for players to discover in-game. As a result, they won't be in these patch notes, but all of the changes to SCP-096, big and small, exist in-game for you to discover and play with - or be killed by. If you've played or followed the beta, you may know already what's in store for you, but if not, then keep an eye out!
SCP-096’s character info screen has also been fully updated to match its new mechanics, to keep you and your teammates up to date. Technically, you can also just go into a local server and view the info screen from there, but is there any fun in that?
In the interest of transparency, though, here's a few highlights you can look forward to: - Full revamp of the rage system, scaling effective health and duration with the amount of targets. - Three active abilities - some used when docile, and some used in rage. - Completely original model, animations, audio, and voice acting made by our amazingly-talented artists and sound designers. - Is now the tallest SCP in the game.
SCP-096 received extensive changes during the beta period for Scopophobia, and right now we hope that they’re in an acceptable state. We’ll be working internally to provide further refinements in upcoming tweaks.
Spawning Tickets
One of SL's longest-standing problems is its respawn system. While it lets players get back into the round after dying instead of having to wait for it to end, it also has no limits; as a result, squads can constantly respawn and go into the facility, throwing themselves at remaining targets until they win through sheer numbers. This never feels satisfying to do, and often results in the game dragging on far past when people wanted it to end - especially if the last squad member is away or hides to wait for a respawn.
Spawning tickets is our solution to this problem. In short, rather than having an unlimited pool of reinforcements, both military teams - the Nine-Tailed Fox and Chaos Insurgency - draw from a limited pool of tickets. Every time a respawn wave occurs, every respawned player consumes one ticket from the pool.
The likelihood of each team spawning is now determined by their tickets. If a team has twice as many tickets as the other, then that team will spawn twice as often. Once a team runs out of tickets, it won't respawn! If this happens to the Nine-Tailed Fox, they’ll be permanently disabled for the match; the Chaos Insurgency, however, can continue to spawn if they gain more tickets somehow. If both teams are out of tickets, the Chaos Insurgency will be the only team that spawns.
Tickets aren't just consumed. Different actions throughout the facility also cause tickets to replenish for the various teams. These actions are as follows:
CI
- Starts with 14 tickets - +1 whenever a Class-D escapes - +1 whenever a Scientist dies - +2 whenever a cuffed Scientist escapes - +2 whenever a Class-D or CI uses an SCP item
NTF
- Starts with 24 tickets - +1 whenever a Scientist escapes - +1 whenever a cuffed Class-D escapes - +1 for every 25% max health lost on an SCP, up to 4 total tickets per SCP
All of these values, including default tickets, SCP health loss intervals, and ticket returns for various events can be configured by server owners in the gameplay config. Additionally, although we highly recommend using the system, owners can opt out of it by simply disabling it altogether.
As a disclaimer, although this is a refinement of the current system and an iteration upon outdated mechanics, we do intend to modify win conditions more heavily in future updates. Spawning tickets may or may not be removed when new win conditions make their way into SL, and we'll likely be refining it as time goes on until that point!
Stamina
From its conception, SCPSL has been a fast-paced game. Human classes can run constantly at a fast pace, and even the slowest SCP classes move at a jogging pace. Going into this update, we wanted to place more emphasis on the movement system without slowing down the overall pace of the game.
In order to accomplish this, we've introduced a new system - stamina, also known as a run meter. While sprinting, you will slowly deplete your stamina, and you can't sprint while out of stamina. Walking, standing still, or sneaking will allow your stamina to replenish so that you can run again.
Default values for this are very forgiving. It takes about 20 seconds at a full sprint to run out of stamina, and it regenerates in less time than that, meaning that you'll still be sprinting more often than not if you like to play the game fast and hard. In order to keep the pace of the game the same, walking speed has received a substantial increase for human classes. Sprint speed has also been increased, but by a much smaller amount.
Stamina's main purpose is as a design tool to interact with various parts of the game in a better way, and we've added a few of these already (as you can see in the Balance Changes segment.) We've been very careful in designing and tweaking stamina throughout the testing period to get it to a point where it doesn't feel strangulating to play with and so that it serves as an addition to make movement more interesting instead of restricting it heavily.
Stamina doesn't currently affect SCPs in any way - only humans. Stamina does, however, play a part in a lot of different status effects, and so disabling it entirely will cause some of them to behave strangely, as well as providing a nerf to revised items such as adrenaline and SCP-207.
A Note on Configuration
When we were initially planning stamina, we were nervous of the public response. As a result, when the feature was announced, and public reception was mixed, we said at the time that we would allow server owners to fully configure, or even remove, stamina.
However, as time has passed, and the feature has become more refined, our development teams have gradually decided that allowing heavy configuration of stamina can and will result in an unhealthy dynamic between servers and the game's overall intended balance. So, at least for the time being, we've decided to keep stamina hardcoded. Unless modified by third-party mods, stamina will be the same across servers. Mods or plugins can modify stamina's values rather easily, but configuration won't be a vanilla feature for the game.
Our reasons for this choice are as follows:
Stamina will play a large part in further balancing of the game. SCPs will interact with it, and disabling or heavily modifying stamina will leave future additions or balance amendments feeling incomplete or broken;
Several important new systems now interact with stamina, such as status effects, and without stamina, they may behave improperly or result in errors;
Server-side stamina configurations will result in inconsistent experiences between different players, and cause confusion as to what is and isn't an intended feature.
This doesn't mean that we're done with stamina, or that we're forcing it to remain in its current state. We know this feature - and this decision - will be controversial, and although feedback has thus far been mostly positive, we'll be closely watching general preferences and the overall public response to stamina. If stamina ends up being a feature that the vast majority of people hate, or that no longer fulfills its purpose, then we may remove it entirely.
We ask that you keep a close eye on how matches flow in light of this decision, and let us know how stamina feels, both as an SCP or as one of the game's many human classes. Feedback is a very big part of what goes into our balance decisions, and this choice wasn't one we made lightly.
Status Effects
Our second Devlog spoke about status effects, and they've been fully realized and implemented in this update. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a status effect is a temporary change to your general condition or the way you play the game; for instance, SCP-207 is a status effect that speeds you up while slowly draining your health.
Scopophobia includes a slew of new status effects! All of them can be applied via a new Remote Admin panel and text-based RA queries, and some of them occur naturally in-game. In addition to migrating all old temporary conditions to the new system (like SCP-268, SCP-207, and the Pocket Dimension), this update includes the following new status effects:
- Amnesia prevents you from opening your inventory or reloading. - Bleeding is a damage-over-time that starts out dealing high damage and decreases over time. - Blinded hugely blurs your screen, preventing you from making out any detail. - Burned increases all damage taken by a small amount. - Concussed blurs your screen depending on how fast you turn your camera. - Deafened greatly muffles everything you hear. - Decontaminating is now a status effect, and drains 10% of your max health per second until death. - Disabled cripples your movement speed. - Ensnared stops you from moving at all. - Hemorrhage quickly causes damage while sprinting. - Poisoned is the inverse of Bleeding - it starts with low damage and slowly ramps up.
In addition, there are also some stamina-related statuses:
- Invigorated causes running to cost no stamina, although running will still pause stamina regeneration even if it doesn't have a stamina cost. - Asphyxiated quickly drains stamina, and drains health if stamina is gone. - Exhausted cuts max stamina and stamina regeneration rate in half. - Panic slightly increases all stamina drain.
Some old mechanics have also been moved to status effects. For instance, 939's vision is now tied entirely to status effects, meaning admins can place the effect onto other classes! However, be careful when using these effects with RA; many aren't intended to be placed onto classes they shouldn't naturally occur on, and doing so can cause glitches and oddities for them.
Medical items can be used to cure status effects to varying degrees. For instance, SCP-500 reduces the damage of Bleeding and Poisoned to their minimum values, while painkillers can remove Concussed and Burned outright. With the advent of negative effects on players, it was astute to give some medical items tweaks to balance, and to give them new niches. Almost every effect interacts with medical items in some way - experiment!
As mentioned before, though some of these are already implemented, some of them only exist in code and remote admin. In adding these effects, we wanted to provide a design tool for the future, as well as give plugin devs and server admins a new mechanic to tinker with in different ways.
Decontamination Displays
This was a feature requested a long time ago by our patrons. Now, in Scopophobia, we were able to make it a reality, thanks to our rewrite of decontamination code!
In both checkpoints in Light Containment Zone, you can now find large screens on the LCZ side of the doors. These displays show the remaining time until the zone is decontaminated, featuring animations for starting up and counting down, as well as an appearance change during the final 30 seconds. If the server has decontamination disabled for whatever reason, it'll simply show the Foundation's logo instead.
A little-known fact is that decontamination actually happens after just under 12 minutes, instead of 15 minutes - this was a deliberate choice to keep the game moving at a fast pace while preserving the feeling of rushing to get prepared and armed in early-game. As such, you'll see this happen in real-time on the displays, which will count down at a slightly sped-up rate, slowing down whenever reaching an announcement or during the final 30 seconds.
Alpha Warhead Lights
In the early versions of SL, whenever the alpha warhead was enabled, all the lights in the facility became red, which increased the tension of the match and provided a better atmosphere. Due to the lights having outdated code, we had to cut this feature some time before Megapatch 2's release. Bringing them back has been requested a lot since then, and as a result, for 10.0, we've rewritten the system and put it back into the game.
Once the Alpha Warhead turns on, all lights in the facility - even those in places that previously lacked red lights, like the Entrance Zone - will turn bright red, reflecting the countdown taking place and providing a visual aid to accompany the siren. The lights will turn back to normal once the warhead is cancelled, but will remain on for the rest of the match if the warhead detonates.
Main Menu and UX Overhaul
Although Secret Laboratory's HUD has always been functional enough to accomplish what it sets out to do, it's very simple - especially its main menu. Part of our update cycle for this patch included a careful revamp of our entire user experience. Not only does this include the in-game UI, but it also includes the whole main menu!
The server browser has been completely revamped. You now have a lot more flexibility over how you find, view, and enter servers, including a long overdue system: Favorites. This allows you to 'favorite' servers by clicking a star icon on their browser entry, then switching to a Favorites tab that lets you see only servers that you’ve marked as favorites. This browser also includes a Refresh button and a Rejoin button, to join the last server you were connected to, and you can click on a server's entry to view its info without having to switch screens.
Other tabs of note are Official, which shows all official servers; History, which shows a history of all the servers you've played on before; and Friends, which shows any servers your friends are connected to. In addition, when connecting to a server, you'll see a representation of your connection progress, along with dioramas from around the facility and tips to offer flavor and advice.
We've also overhauled the Settings tab, which features true toggle buttons, dropdowns, and switching between tabs without having to go into submenus every single aspect of the main menu has been iterated upon and tweaked into a modernized, less simplistic version. You should find the menu faster, more performant, and more effective than it ever has been.
Let us know what you think!
Interactables
In Scopophobia, we've introduced a framework to interact with objects in the facility to display an image on your HUD. This feature is currently very small, and only exists in a handful of places, but we felt it was worth mentioning. In the future, it may be used for things such as computer displays, or documents that provide worldbuilding for SL's setting.
Right now, you can interact with the artwork in the Class-D cells to see a zoomed-in detail view of them. Additionally, in light of our first ARG, which happened during the last weeks of 2019, we've also created an interactable in-game plaque commemorating the event and featuring the names of some of its participants, which is located in the place where it all began.
This feature may see a lot of use in upcoming updates. Stay tuned!
Balance
As part of our ongoing effort to spice up the core gameplay, we've tweaked the balance in the following ways in order to accommodate the new mechanics introduced in Scopophobia.
Hi! It's me, the anonymous voice for developer's notes. We've done these in previous changelogs to show transparency in certain changes and why we've made them, and we see no reason to stop, so you can find little tidbits throughout the balance sections about why we did certain things.
Items
Stamina will undoubtedly change how players move through the level, and so as to not make it an "island" (a mechanic with no interconnecting parts to the rest of the game) we've implemented it in different ways throughout the base game, including shifting some of adrenaline's power to a new stamina-preserving effect. - Flashbangs now cause the Deafened status effect - Frag grenades now apply Burned and Concussed to human players, with duration scaling with range; at point-blank, these effects are applied for 10 seconds - SCP-500 now removes the Concussed and Deafened status effects, and reduces the damage of Bleeding and Poisoned to their lowest possible value - Medkits now remove the Bleeding and Burned status effects - Adrenaline now removes the Concussed status effect - Adrenaline now grants 30 AHP, from 50 - Adrenaline now grants the Invigorated status effect for 20 seconds - Painkillers now remove the Burned and Concussed status effects - When consumed, SCP-207 grants infinite stamina while its effects remain on the player
Logicer
- Deals half damage against SCPs - Magazine size reduced to 75, down from 100
This is a tremendous change, and one with large ramifications. The Logicer has consistently been the strongest weapon since the game's release, sporting a huge magazine, high damage, and rapid rate of fire. Coupled with the fact that all Chaos Insurgents spawn with the weapon, and it meant that nearly any SCP could be consistently killed with relative ease in any situation where more than a few players encountered it at the same time - especially the new SCP-096 - which obviously breaks intended balance.
Next update, we'd like to rework the Logicer into something completely different, or even replace it entirely. However, in its current state, it would be difficult to do this without making the update take even longer or adjusting more weapons, and so, as such, we're greatly reducing its power against SCPs. The weapon still remains a powerhouse capable of effectively dispatching threats at close range, but it should no longer be a guaranteed death sentence for SCPs that aren't 939.
Attachments
The Heavy Barrel in conjunction with the Gyroscopic Stabilizer was an incredibly strong combination, being a straight upgrade in nearly all situations unless you wanted to use a silencer. Both attachments have received adjustments in Scopophobia. - The Heavy Barrel now reduces firing rate by 20% on the E-11-SR and the P90 - The Gyroscopic Stabilizer now greatly widens the crosshair on the E-11-SR
Our intent with these changes isn't to nerf them outright. Heavy Barrel is no longer essentially a straight upgrade, and instead deals the same DPS as the base E-11. The goal of the change is to shift the attachment to be stronger at medium and long ranges (because of the higher damage per shot and thus its decreased falloff) but worse at close-ranges than the normal weapon (because of the slower firing rate making it easier to miss shots.) This change applies to the P90 as well, both for consistency and because the heavy barrel turned the P90 into the weapon with the highest DPS in the game.
The Gyroscopic Stabilizer is another attachment with a straight buff - except in this case, instead of a negligible downside, it has no downside. Rather than a numbers nerf, which feels like a temporary change, we decided to give it a unique downside. This allows it to be a strong attachment for players who prefer to aim-down-sights or use long-range scope attachments without penalizing them for playing to its strengths.
SCPs
SCP-049
-Movement speed increased to 6 m/s (was 5.6 m/s)
SCP-049 has been the slowest SCP in-game for quite some time, and with the increase in walking speed conferred by the addition of stamina, we discovered that people now walked so quickly that SCP-049 could simply be out-walked. Because 049's slow speed has been a consistent problem in the past as well, we've decided to tentatively bump it up to match that of SCP-106, in hopes that the good doctor will now perform better in a post-stamina environment.
SCP-049-2
- Windup on attacks has been removed (was previously 0.2s) - Hands are now less prominent on the screen - Attacks now destroy windows
Zombies have been one of the most inconsistent classes in SL since their original conception due to outdated code and design practices. We recently revisited their code, where we adjusted some of these old elements and removed the windup on the attacks to make them feel less clunky to use. They should now feel much more consistent to play.
SCP-939
- Attacks now inflict Amnesia for 3 seconds - Multiple attacks will add onto the duration of the effect - Attacks now consistently deal 65 damage, instead of a random amount between 50 and 80
SCP-939 fills a strong role right now as a brawler, able to catch up to humans in a chase and bring them down. Stamina may be able to make SCP-939 much stronger, as it'll be able to catch humans after they become exhausted, and so we felt this was a good time to adjust its balance a bit.
Randomized damage numbers are something we've been moving away from, as you can see with the standardization of weapon damage and past changes to SCP-049-2's damage. 65 is the average of the old numbers, meaning its balance will stay statistically unchanged, but players should no longer be able to survive more bites than they should be able to if the damage rolls low, and conversely, they won't be able to survive too few bites if that damage rolls high.
Finally, Amnesia is meant to serve as another way to apply pressure to humans if they're hit once - 3 seconds isn't much, but it incentivizes getting out of range and neuters combat effectiveness towards 939 at point-blank.
Quality-of-Life
- SCP-106 can now walk through windows - Allowed SCP-079 to lock down rooms in Entrance Zone as well as more rooms in Heavy Containment
Miscellaneous
- Tesla gates now do more damage per tick, but only tick three times; the net effect is that the damage per blast is greatly reduced but is still immediately lethal to humans, SCP-106, and SCP-049-2, but will no longer one-shot high-health SCPs
Afterword
These are wide-spanning changes, but they're not final. In fact, it's highly likely they'll receive changes after they've had some time to exist for a bit. For Megapatch 2, we released 9.1.0 - Megapatch Minipatch - as a response to ongoing feedback and to further refine the changes introduced in the update, and it's likely the same thing will happen here. Let us know your thoughts!
Other Changes
This update also includes a bunch of smaller changes that didn't fit into any of these other categories. In no particular order:
Adjusted compression and import settings across many of the game's assets. This has resulted in a dramatic improvement in RAM usage with no drawbacks and no visible difference in quality!
Dropped flashlights now have a light source
Players now leave behind ragdolls and drop their items when leaving the server; disconnected SCPs will play their recontainment announcement
Ragdolls now maintain the velocity their player had on death; this includes SCP-173's broken chunks, each of which have independent physics
The info screen now toggles on and off, instead of requiring a held keypress
The info screen fades in and out, instead of simply appearing and vanishing
Revamped the appearance of the hitmarker to be more consistent and intrude less on the crosshair. Did you know that the old hitmarker was off-center? You do now.
Updated the textures of the Research Supervisor keycard and the Cadet keycard to show their new names instead of their old ones (which were Major Scientist and Senior Guard, respectively)
Remade keycard inventory icons in neutral lighting - they previously had a blue tint applied to them
The health bar now has a more stylized appearance
Artificial health now always displays separately, and shows its remaining amount as a number
AHP is now visible to spectators
Status effects, such as SCP-268, are now visible to spectators
Improved the appearance of the overlay that displays when at low health
Expanded CASSIE's vocabulary, as well as adding prefixes and suffixes to it, such as "pro-", "anti-", "un-", "-ish", and "-like"
Implemented a custom parser for CASSIE so that different localizations of decimal points produce the same result
Trying to fire a gun while it has no ammo in its magazine is now audible to all players, instead of just the person trying to shoot
The MicroHID now breaks windows
Pickup up items now shows a circle around the cursor that gradually fills, instead of a simple progress bar
Picking up items is now handled on the server, preventing cheats from allowing instant item pickups and equalizing pickup times between players with different ping
Decontamination is now handled server-side, and should perform slightly better
Added a new "PLEASE WAIT" screen when launching the game
Updated translations with community contributions
Updated the credits list
Updated the RA interface with new panels for status effects and spawning tickets and added new command queries pertaining to these
Added a new RA command, pfx, to assign status effects to players with the given intensity (syntax: pfx (list of IDs) [effect name]=[effect intensity].)
NOTE FOR ABOVE: Not all status effects utilize intensity; for most effects, you'll want to use tpfx, listed below.
Added a new RA command, tpfx, to assign status effects to players with a duration (syntax: tpfx (list of IDs) [effect name]=[effect duration in seconds]. for example, "tpfx 1 poisoned=10" will assign player number 1 the Poisoned effect for 10 seconds.)
LocalAdmin now uses a cleaner console display and should perform faster
Removed unused script assets in order to improve file sizes and loading times
As a consequence of improvements to door code, the "ACCESS DENIED" animation now lasts about half as long
Fully rewrote some backend systems for stability, expansion, and performance
Greatly optimized tesla gate performance
Blood no longer appears on doors due to consistent rendering issues
Ragdolls now disappear after two minutes to conserve long-term performance; this can be configured per-server using the new config key "ragdoll_cleanup_time". If set to 0, ragdolls will remain forever, identical to the old system
Added additional colliders throughout the level to prevent nonsensical deaths as well as out-of-bounds glitching
Implemented the ability for servers or plugins to change a player's display name
Added the ability for servers to change the intercom's displayed text through RA
Added a server config for a multiplier applied to damage dealt by friendly fire
Bypass mode now works to open the panel in the Alpha Warhead control panel in the Surface Zone
Blocked @here and @everyone mentions in cheater reports. (You jerks.)
Fixes towards players appearing twice on the same server
Fixed several broken achievements
Fixed The Bloodening(tm) by preventing blood decals occasionally having their scale set extremely high
Fixed SCP-207's third-person model having collision
Fixed the Tutorial class model being locked into the pose of holding a keycard
Fixed a malformed collider in LCZ straightaways that allowed players to scale the wall
Fixed a collider in SCP-106's chamber that allowed players to slide down the side of the floating cube to avoid fall damage
Fixed the elevators at Gate A and Gate B teleporting items into the void
Fixed elevators also moving items and grenades that were sitting just outside of their doors
Fixed sinkholes being able to spawn if their spawn chance was set to 0
Fixed a long-standing culling issue when standing inside the Class-D cells
Fixed frag grenade chain explosions not working on dedicated servers
Fixed the squad size limit config being ignored
Fixed some missing materials in room prefabs
Fixed an issue where SCP-939 couldn't see thrown grenades
Fixed SCP-939 being unable to see SCP-173's model through walls
Gate B's elevator interactable on the Surface Zone no longer leads to Gate A in the facility
Huge improvements to our backend systems and performance stability
A lot of other things we probably forgot to list!
Conclusion
Originally, we wanted to release this update in March of this year, in a much different world. In May, we released a public beta so that you could experience the update and have a say in its development. Now, four months past our initial release time, we're releasing it at the end of July. Suffice it to say, a release this late in the year isn't what we had planned. We lost a lot of goodwill when Megapatch 2 took so long, and we wanted to make up for it with this update, and move back towards a regular release schedule.
From all of us: we're sorry it took so long. Though an apology doesn't make up for the delay, we still mean it, and we hope that Scopophobia can be fun enough that it was worth the wait. We appreciate the continued support very much. The amount of changes in this patch is even greater than those of Megapatch 2, and we hope you're as happy with the update as we are.
Expect a patch coming soon within the next few months with refinements that we couldn't squeeze into Scopophobia, as well as changes and tweaks depending on how things go from here. After that, we'll certainly be trying to have some fun with the holidays later this year, and beyond that... well, we have ideas.
In the meantime, enjoy what we've made together... and don't look behind you.
Scopophobia's public beta is now open for testing
Introduction
Originally, we intended to release Scopophobia - which is Secret Laboratory's next major update - in late March. As is now obvious, however, we've missed this release timeframe by a very wide margin, and we feel it's unacceptable to withhold the update any longer after Megapatch 2's delays and missing our own promise to deliver the patch in the first quarter of the year.
As such, we're releasing 10.0 as a public beta, available now for you to play! Although this is a public beta and many things are subject to change, we've decided that, rather than delaying further, it is both fairer to our community and more helpful for ourselves to release a beta for wide-scale testing, and to address issues as they come up.
Obviously, of course, we haven't simply dumped the game onto you for you to QA test for us. We've pressed hard to make the game as stable as we can manage with our limited resources - owing to finals season and the current pandemic of COVID-19 - and we hope that although incomplete, Scopophobia's beta will be fun for everyone who plays it.
How to Access the Beta
We're releasing both the client and the server for Scopophobia's beta. As such, server owners will be able to host their own servers on the new version, while players will likely be able to access the same communities they're familiar with. Here are some instructions on how to access the beta client:
Players
Right click on SCP: Secret Laboratory in your Steam library and select Properties.
Navigate to the Betas tab in the Properties menu
From the drop-down menu, select the branch named "scopophobia". Close the window. IMPORTANT: If you can't see "scopophobia" in the dropdown menu, you may need to restart your Steam client for the update to appear.
Steam should start downloading the beta. Once it's done - as usual, press "play" to start the game.
We've released the server files early for this update to server owners, so if they've opted in and set up a server, you'll hopefully be able to access servers as soon as your update is downloaded.
Server Owners
Repeat the same steps as above. However, instead of SCP: Secret Laboratory, you'll be changing the branch of the SCP: Secret Laboratory Dedicated Server tool on Steam. The overall hosting process hasn't changed significantly since 9.1.3, but you may want to review your configuration files in light of the new changes.
There's a potential risk of memory leaks, which can cause servers to start lagging. We're working on fixing that, but you can temporarily prevent it by restarting the servers regularly (time intervals depend on your hardware, but performance usually stays good for at least 5 rounds).
You may also expect Northwood Staff Members and the Global Moderation to use the Remote Admin for debugging or bugfixing purposes (such us requesting server/round restarts once it gets laggy).
Beta Information
As this is a public beta, you'll be able to participate in the creation and testing of SL's next major update. However, of course, bugs are to be expected, and issues may happen. We'll be monitoring the stability of the game and trying to fix these issues as they appear. Updates to the beta branch may happen with little or no warning. Many features you find may receive significant tuning, tweaking, or even removal between now and the update's public release.
During this time, we greatly appreciate your patience, and especially your feedback. While we've already collected extensive feedback reports from our Patreon betas, this is also a sensitive time, and we'd like to perform as well as we possibly can. This is our first large-scale public beta, and although we expect to make some mistakes, we also want to learn from the experience.
As such, if you have any feedback, input, bug reports, or anything you have to say about the beta, the best place to do so is either our Steam community forums or our official Discord server, which you can find at https://discord.com/invite/scpsl. Sometime in the coming weeks, our feedback team will be releasing a community form, and this survey will be very helpful for letting us know what to prioritize. Keep us in the loop, and help us make this the best update it can be.
We don't know how long the public beta for the update will last. Chances are, we'll close the beta shortly before public release so that we can wrap up our final polish and balance passes. Or, it'll go until the public release, or it may not last long in general. We don't know! We'll be making changes as we go along, and generally doing what we can to stabilize the update and make it more fun to play.
Mini Changelog
Our complete patch notes for Scopophobia are still a work-in-progress, and we don't have time to fully translate them with our limited resources. So, as such, we've prepared a tidy list of the most significant features in the patch, which you can find below:
Completely reworked SCP-096's mechanics, appearance, and audio
Implemented new status effects throughout the game
Added a stamina meter to add a more thoughtful element to movement
Re-added red lights for the Alpha Warhead
Added a "spawning ticket" system to prevent rounds from stalling for a very long time from continuous respawn waves
Implemented countdown timers for Light Containment Zone decontamination in various places throughout the map
Ran a comprehensive rebalancing pass over many aspects of the game in light of the new changes
Fixed a plethora of bugs, exploits, and cheat vulnerabilities
Conclusion
This is a unique time for all of us, not originally what we wanted to do. There are many reasons that Scopophobia has taken as long as it has, but we sincerely hope that this beta release can, in some form, make up for how long the update has taken. We're working as hard as we can to get the update into a state where we can confidently release it to the public without substantial issues we've encountered - including memory leaks, server desync, and especially networking troubles - and we want to thank you for bearing with us in a difficult time and promise to you that we'll do what we can to get the update into your hands as fast as possible.
In the meantime, enjoy the beta, let us know your thoughts, and let's make a spooky game together.
~ Northwood Studios
Scopophobia public beta announcement!
Hello, everyone!
We are aware that you all have been patiently waiting for the Scopophobia update, and that we have missed our original estimate for its release by quite a long shot.
This is ultimately our fault, and we want to open by apologizing for the situation. We majorly underestimated both the problems that would occur as a result of the update and how long they would take to fix. What's important to know, however, the beta is playable, but very unstable if the servers are running for a couple rounds without a restart.
Going forward, we will be working to regularly update as development progresses and problems are solved. We are doing our best to get the Scopophobia update out to you as soon as possible, and are prioritizing it over all other projects.
We thank you all for hanging in there with us despite the delays — we couldn't do this without your support.
On May 29th, if we are not ready for public release, we will be releasing Scopophobia (Version 10.0) as a public beta on a separate branch. This allows you to play the content promised, while we iron out the problems. We thank you for your patience and hope to see you all in the public beta.
Thanks, Northwood Studios
Stream Reminder!
Hello again! We'd like to remind you about our Twitch stream that starts in less than an hour. We'll present and answer your questions regarding version 10.0.0 "Scopophobia"!
https://twitch.tv/scpsl_official
- Northwood Studios
Scopophobia Presentation and Q&A Stream
Hello everyone!
We are going to have a presentation and Q&A about Scopophobia on our official twitch account. Feel free to join us this Saturday at 4 PM GMT (in 24 hours) and get all of your questions answered!
Because Megapatch 2 was so well-received, and because being able to wait more months before release lets us feed our enslaved monkeys more bananas from our funding, we’ve decided to cancel Scopophobia. Instead, we’re going to release a new update, and long-awaited sequel: Megapatch 2 (Two)! We plan to release this sometime in 2030, so make sure to keep an eye out! We see no way that this can backfire.
Of course, like the other megapatch, Megapatch 2 Dos will change nearly every aspect of the game. Hold onto your hats, because we’ve got a lot to get through! Unfortunately, there won’t be any screenshots; Unity now crashes every time we attempt to load into the game, so we were unable to get anything for you to look at.
New Surface Zone
Because the old surface zone is clunky and taken from Containment Breach, we remade it from the ground up in Megapatch 2 两. It has been fully revamped, and includes nothing from the original surface zone in it. In fact, it doesn’t include anything at all. Once you exit the facility, you’ll emerge into a giant, empty field with just the elevators in it and the warhead console standing in the middle. CI and NTF will spawn at ends of the field respectively. Because making maps is hard, we used a stock Unity texture for the grass so we could focus on more important things like arguing about which sounds to use for doors.
We think that this new surface zone will promote skill-based gameplay by opening up sightlines and allowing good players (or people with aimbots) to shine, while mercilessly crushing anyone who would dare to not be an expert shooter player who can hit a flea across the map. We hope you like it! If you don’t, sucks for you!
MicroHID Rework
The new MicroHID was great, but you know what’s even more great? Spending development time to change features that don’t need to be changed! For that reason, we decided to rework the HID again by turning it into a sidearm. The new and improved Very MicroHID is now a pistol-sized object that can be wielded like a normal weapon, with iron sights functionality. By firing, you instantly shoot off a high-energy laser, which melts through any doors it strikes, instantly kills humans, and deals severe damage to SCPs.
The Very MicroHID must be reloaded after every shot, because otherwise it would be unbalanced. Not enough guns use 9mm ammo, and so we felt like it was a good idea to make the Very MicroHID use it. That way, it fits within the existing gun dichotomy, despite not even remotely resembling a conventional firearm in functionality.
You can now also get a new Very MicroHID by putting a COM-15 or USP into SCP-914 on Very Fine. To make it fit better with existing weapons, you can now also put plenty of fun and balanced attachments on it, such as the Gyroscopic Stabilizer, Heavy Barrel, Drum Magazine, Release Delayer, Shotgun Lens, Confetti Gun Adapter, and more!
You’ll have to wait until the patch releases to see any of this in-game, obviously, so settle in for the long haul, bucko. If you thought you were going to see an update any time soon, you haven’t been paying attention!
SCP-682
Another big star player of Megapatch 2 Dos is our brand new playable SCP, SCP-682! This has been one of our most widely-requested, despite it not even remotely having any semblance of being workable for SCPSL’s gameplay formula, but we put it in anyway like dumping a rotten apple into a perfectly fine pot of stew.
To start off with, SCP-682 has no health bar and can’t take damage. What did you expect? It can also destroy doors it sees by interacting with them, including heavy gates. In order to make use of our new status effect framework, it also applies the Dead status effect to any player it comes in contact with, creating a formidable, perfectly-balanced basic attack.
In addition to this, SCP-682 can survive the alpha warhead! Even if caught in the facility when it goes off, SCP-682 will simply be teleported to the new surface zone to wreak havoc on survivors who had the audacity to hope for a fun and interesting enemy to go against.
For SCP-682’s audio, we sat our lead game designer down and recorded his reaction to when we told him we were going to be adding SCP-682. Then we fired him.
We’re still working out the kinks for SCP-682, so expect more updates as time goes on, but we think it’ll be an addition that will NOT kill the game. Stay tuned for Megapatch 2: Epsiode 2, and Megapatch: Scientist, where we'll bring in even more commonly-requested SCPs!
Serpent’s Hand
Finally, after so many requests, we’ve added a new human faction: the Serpent’s Hand! Occasionally, they’ll spawn in instead of NTF or CI. They don’t have any inventory slots, and just have magic spells they cast at things, like throwing fireballs at people to kill them or teleporting through doors. SCPs also just like them for some reason and can’t kill them. Honestly, we didn’t really read the lore on Serpent’s Hand, so this is probably fine. You're welcome
Realism
This is a small one, but because having a realistic game is always more important than having a fun one, we’ve changed a bit of how human characters react to various events. For instance, if you get shot in a vital area as a human class, you have a 90% chance to die instantly. The other 10% of the time, you will collapse and writhe in utter agony on the ground for 30 minutes, unable to move or act as you slowly bleed out until you get medical attention from a trained professional and spend weeks in recovery. If you get hit by the new Very MicroHID, your head explodes like a baked potato wrapped in tin foil in a microwave.
This also extends to the SCPs too! If you get captured by SCP-106, you get moved to a separate game instance, where you spend two real-life days attempting to escape the Pocket Dimension and failing until you’re finally granted the sweet, merciful release of death. If you see SCP-096’s face in SL, you also die instantly in real life, to simulate what would happen if you had actually seen SCP-096’s face. We hope these changes are enjoyable!
Balance Changes
For Megapatch 2 2 2 2 2 2 2, we changed many aspects of the game’s balance. God help you.
SCP Changes:
SCP-106 • Targets now cannot escape the Pocket Dimension, as stated in the realism section • Now only takes damage from the Very MicroHID • Can now activate noclip at will
SCP-049 • Can now speak over the intercom • Is now instantly recontained when a player holds a sprig of lavender out; lavender spawns randomly in the new surface zone and must be picked by hand • Can now combine SCP-049-2 instances into one giant SCP-049-2 instance that moves faster and hits harder • Can now penetrate through the protection of SCP-714
SCP-096 • Jaw now extends much farther, and is visible across facility levels due to its length • Can now run at 500 m/s for lore accuracy reasons • Greatly increased trigger range; you can now trigger SCP-096 by seeing only as little as four pixels of its face on your screen! • Remains triggered indefinitely until the person who saw its face is dead
SCP-939 • Now wears crocs that make floppy sounds
SCP-079 • Now runs the latest version of Windows • Edit: No longer runs the latest version of Windows
Human Class Changes:
Nine-Tailed Fox • Now tire after three seconds of running and must wheeze heavily to catch their breath because of all their tactical gear. • Squad hierarchy is now enforced, and disobeying orders from a commander can result in a game ban. • Removed disarmers from the game. Who used those things anyway, am I right? • Can now time their blinks manually against SCP-173, which is perfectly fair for SCP-173 and allows Realism™ to thrive! • Now possess SCRAMBLE gear for use against SCP-096, which doesn’t prevent triggering 096 because it was canonically designed to fail
Chaos Insurgency • Logicers now have infinite ammo, getting rid of pesky things like “ammo economy” • Screeching “CHAOS” over voice chat now heals you for a small amount, with the heal becoming stronger depending on spoken volume • Addendum: Saying “CHAOS” over the intercom instantly converts all Class-D to Chaos Insurgency • Now have smoke grenades back
Class-D • Now have a chance to spawn with a janitor keycard and a mop they can beat people with • Are now immune to headshots, owing to the power of their beanie
Scientist • Can now be beaten up by D-Class who press E on them; after falling below 50% health, they will collapse on the ground and drop their keycard and lunch money
Facility Guard • Unchanged. Facility guards are fine as-is.
Miscellaneous
Added 10 new keycard varieties, because we hate people who make flowcharts
Replaced all the existing rooms with Containment Breach rooms, because we don’t want to make replacements
SCP-096’s screams now play at 300 decibels
Added workshop support*
for SCP-018 texture replacement only
Added VR support
Removed VR support
You can now find the room where we keep our enslaved monkeys, and you can feed them bananas you pick from the surface zone to make the next update come out faster
SCP-914 recipes are now randomized each round
Gave lockers glowy particles and a whoosh sound when they open to adhere to AAA standards of getting randomized loot from crates and other containers
Added a findable wave pool that you can swim in; talking about SCP-999 in this room will cause you to die
Fired all the staff who didn’t play the game enough
Rehired all the staff after we had no more developers left
Killing yourself as SCP-049-2 now uninstalls the game
Prepared a full rework of SCP-173’s kit, making it a lot more consistent and fun to play as and against!
Removed SCP-173 due to legal issues
Removed SCP-055
Conclusion
We’ve worked very hard on making Megapatch 2 Two the best update it can be. We hope that these patch notes can give you an idea of what you can expect in the coming times. Megapatch 2 II will be releasing very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very soon.
And remember… Happy April Fools!
~ Westwood
Important update regarding Scopophobia!
Hello, everyone
With the global pandemic continuing, we have an important announcement: Version 10.0.0, "Scopopobia", our newest update, will be getting delayed until April 2020.
For context, we're an international studio, and we work all around the world. With COVID-19 being a worldwide issue, some of our staff are now in quarantine or self-isolation, with a few of them living in Italy. Because we work remotely, this hasn't affected us too much, but a lot of our developers have shifted their focus towards keeping themselves healthy and safe.
Because of the slowdown in development, coupled with 096's rework not being as polished as we'd like it to be, we've made the very difficult decision to delay Scopophobia's release to early April. After how long the wait was for Megapatch 2, we wanted to push hard to release more consistent content updates so as to not repeat the situation, and our March has been very productive, but COVID-19 interrupted our workflow and slowed things down. We're sorry about having to delay this update, especially when it comes with such a big rework, and we hope that we can get it out as fast as we can. It also means that we won't be able to release a special version for this year's April Fools Day.
Thankfully, however, further delays are unlikely. All features except for 096 have been finalized and tested thoroughly. Patrons have had access to a beta version featuring everything except 096's rework for about a week or two now, and we've been further refining the update based on feedback from those tests. Although SCP-096 abilities are subject to change based on playtesting and feedback, we've released an early showcase for Patron supporters a week ago and we decided to share it with you now: [previewyoutube="cPF-FlEE_uo;full"]
Stay healthy, remember to wash your hands often, stay at home, and if you think you have been exposed - get tested if your locale has testing readily available. We're all in this together.
~ Northwood Studios
Coming this March - Scopophobia
If you haven't watched the teaser yet, go ahead and give it a look! This was an experimental teaser, and the general public response is that it was hyped up too much - we'll be keeping this fact closely in mind for future reveals.
Since Megapatch 2, we've been working hard on the next content update to SCP:SL. Now, we're finally ready to tell you about what we've been working on.
Scopophobia is Secret Laboratory's next major update. Assuming no delays, it'll be releasing this March as soon as it's ready. Featuring the return of old faces as well as a huge overhaul to one of our existing SCPs, it's one of our largest updates yet, and one we hope will improve the game in every aspect.
Without further ado, let's move onto what can be expected later this month.
Feature List
SCP-096 Rework
Scopophobia is packed with features, but the largest one is the namesake of the update: SCP-096's rework. Developed from the ground up for a completely new gameplay experience, SCP-096 has been given a full facelift, including a new model, new animations, new audio, and new gameplay.
096 isn't ready to see the public light yet and is still in testing, but is very nearly at a phase when patrons can expect to get their hands on it to see 096 in its terrifying glory firsthand. You can expect updates to come in the next few weeks as we iron out any final flaws and get it ready to be presented.
Because it would be rude to leave it off with no information about 096, here’s a small list of the new features:
A full revamp of the rage system.
Active abilities both in and out of rage.
Original model, audio, and voice acting. No more old assets!
Features fully-rigged first person animations.
Is now the tallest SCP in the game.
The Triple S - Status, Stamina, and Spawning
As part of smoothing out the core loop of rounds in SL and polishing the game in areas that it's lacking, we're introducinga few new features into the game. The first of these is status effects. We've mentioned these a few times in the past - most notably in our second devlog - but we can give a more detailed rundown here.
If you've played RPGs, you'll be familiar with the concept of status effects. It defines any condition, permanent or temporary, that affects the player in some way. Some of these already exist in SL - SCP-207, for instance, applies an effect that increases your speed but drains your health. Scopophobia will include over a dozen new status effects, ranging from blindness and deafness to bleeding out as you sprint.
Different aspects of the game have been modified to include these new status effects in different ways, so keep an eye out for visual and audio cues to tell how you're affected! Admins and plugin developers will also be able to manipulate all of these new effects, so expect to see them in the unlikeliest of places.
In an effort to make movement more interesting, and to shake up the metagame regarding chases, we've decided to implement the stamina system, which grants a limited amount of sprint time before you have to slow down and catch your breath by moving at a normal pace. With default settings, one can expect to run for about 25 seconds before tiring out and having to wait for stamina to regenerate.
We've balanced the game in different ways around this to make sure it doesn't slow down the pace - humans sprint at a faster speed, and different items, such as adrenaline, modify stamina for a short period. Let us know how stamina plays in-game - we want to make sure it's the best feature it can be, and hearing your feedback is absolutely vital in making sure it's not an unfun mechanic.
Finally, we've introduced spawning tickets, a way to prevent stalemates that lock the round into place. Instead of having unlimited respawns, the NTF and Chaos Insurgency now draw from a team-wide pool of tickets in order to supply new squads. By default, the NTF starts with 24 tickets, with the CI receiving 14; each respawned player consumes one ticket from this pool.
Tickets can be earned in different ways; NTF might get tickets by terminating SCPs, for instance, while the CI can help D-Class escape. When a team runs out of tickets, it's disabled for the rest of the match! With luck, this system will force teams to at least play the game, instead of idling in a zone and waiting for a respawn wave so that they can get reinforcements.
Each of these systems is a big deal, and we think that they'll go a long way towards improving the game as a whole. They might not be perfect on the first go, so expect adjustments and tweaks to them as time goes on.
Facility Updates
For Scopophobia, we've also tried to make the facility a little more consistent. This is done in several parts: we've added different aspects throughout the map, while also adjusting old elements up to par. In no particular order, these include changes such as:
The return of Alpha Warhead lights, which now exist in all rooms, including the surface zone;
The addition of LCD screens in Light Containment Zone checkpoints that count down to decontamination;
Allowing SCP-079 to lock down rooms in Entrance Zone;
Allowing SCP-049-2 and SCP-106 to interact with windows.
This list is by no means exhaustive, but it should give you an idea of what to expect in Scopophobia. Expect the facility to feel more immersive and consistent throughout.
UI Overhaul
Last, but by no means least, Scopophobia will feature a completely redesigned UI in many aspects. The most notable of this is the revamped main menu, which implements a redesigned server browser that features a favoriting system as well as a revamped settings menu to allow for easier changing of your options on the fly. (You can still use the old menu if you want, too!)
We've also adjusted the in-game HUD, which features a new system for showing and hiding display bars as needed. This lets the stamina bar stay invisible when stamina is full, but become visible once you start using it, to ensure that your screen isn't covered with redundant visual clutter. Nearly every status effect also has visual feedback, covering your screen with a vignette or other visual effect to show you're affected by it, much like SCP-268 does.
Conclusion
This update is certainly going to be a large one, and this list doesn't include the full list of changes. Once it releases later this month, you'll be able to read the detailed patch notes, featuring every change we've made to the game. If you're a patron, we're aiming to have it in your hands in as little as a week, if everything goes well.
We hope that this update will show that we're dedicated to doing consistent updates now, instead of the slow update schedule we used to follow.
In the meantime, have fun with the game... and keep an ear out for crying.
Thank you for supporting SCP: Secret Laboratory! ~ Northwood Studios
