Sector's Edge
v1.0.3 - Mod Synergies and Balancing
Fixes
- Fixed issues with changing from 1x1x1 to 3x3x3 digging quickly
- Fixed issues with reloading guns when changing to the same weapon
- Fixed issues with loadouts after playing Static
Changes
- The loadout stat summary now only shows non-default values
Additions
- Setting to make single-block digging the default
- Two new mod synergies
Balancing
- Single-block digging is 20% faster and destroys reinforced blocks in 1 hit
- Stealth footstep volume modifiers changed from -10, -20 and -30% to -15, -30 and -45%
v1.0.7 - New Networking System, Steam Workshop, Twitch Drops and More!
This post is a bit late but we are back from our Christmas break! We hope you all enjoyed your time off.
Let's get straight into the new features that we've added to Sector's Edge this January.
New Networking Library
After a lot of digging we found that the old networking library that we used was terrible at handling packet loss and large amounts of data, so we have switched to an entirely new one! This will fix issues related to hit registration, weapon swap glitches, structure placement and player position jitters.
Many players have stated that weapon swaps and reloads feel much smoother and projectile weapons in high ping feel more responsive.
Steam Workshop Integration
The game now has a dedicated mapping tab that lists all your custom maps and allows you to upload them to the Steam Workshop for other players to view. Servers can also download and run matches on these maps!
Full Workshop instructions and map specifications are on our website here.
Twitch Drops
Yesterday we released Twitch Drops, which you can earn by watching partnered creators on Twitch! Currently we have Proton and XP boost Drops, and have plans for in-game titles, difficulty modifiers, kill cam designs, weapon and character skins. Lots to come, we'll be adding more to the Drops campaign over the next few days!
Once you have started watching a partnered creator, go to your Drops Page, click "Sector's Edge Boosts" and click the "Connect" button. Now you can start receiving drops!
Instructions for redeeming drops in-game are on our website here.
Kill Cam Redesign
Kill cams now show the full loadout of the player that killed you, and are styled+coloured based on the titles and tags that the player has equipped.
Legend and Paragon tags for weapons will replace the character bust with a 3D model of the weapon they achieved the tag with:
Next Steps
Rocket is finalising the Skyscraper skybox, which is BEAUTIFUL, he's really out done himself with it.
We've also had a lot of test matches on this map so he's adjusting and detailing it. It will be an official BRK/CTF map soon!
Next on my list is Ranked Matchmaking for Arena and Search and Destroy. These game modes will be 3v3 and 5v5 respectively, which are much easier to create teams for than 12v12 BRK/CTF.
There will be rewards exclusive to Ranked Matchmaking to incentivise players to climb the ranked leaderboard. This may come hand-in-hand with Clans ;)
We have just hit 4000 players logging in to the game each week which absolutely blows us away. A massive thank you from the both of us to everyone who has downloaded and played Sector's Edge.
Full Changelog
The old build numbers were confusing and hard to follow, so we started fresh at v1.0.0 earlier this week.
Fixes:
- Fixed CTF breaking when dropping the flag into the abyss
- Shooting an enemy Disruptor/C4 with a shotgun will no longer grant duplicate points
- An explosive that destroys multiple enemy Disruptors/C4s will grant points for each entity destroyed
- Fixed flag returning to the wrong position in CTF
- Fixed flag base platforms not moving up/down correctly
- Fixed scoreboard not unlocking properly
- Fixed phantom blocks
- Adjusting the Ambient Volume slider no longer makes ambient sounds too loud
- Fixed out-of-line weapons on the kill cam
- Fixed floating/invisible structures bug
- Fixed floating flag platforms
- Potential fix for shooting automatic weapons as soon as you spawn in
- Fixed game not closing down cleanly
- Structure block count + cooldown now shows when looking at a structure in your ship
- Structures in the structure radial now stop spinning when closing the radial
- Structures in the radial wheel can now be properly selected when there are some empty slots in the structure room
- Disruptors / C4 / Scanners that were placed prior to you joining the match will now render correctly
- Fixed Disruptors / C4 not placing properly when switching weapons right after throwing them
- Potential fix for incorrect map textures
- Glass in custom maps now takes 1 hit to destroy
- Fixed not being able to slide in the ship / custom maps
- Fixed normals on untextured blocks
- Fixed force-spectating when joining a match
- Fixed orientation after spawning on Breakthrough maps
- Fixed ambient light colour on Ice Station
- Fixed small networking errors
- Fixed full minimap orientation
- Fixed incorrect capture zone indicator positions on the full minimap on Breakthrough
- Fixed crashes caused by networking issues
- Fixed structures not placing when you have an empty structure slot between two structures in your ship
- Fixed some networking errors
- Fixed black map textures in the tutorial
- Fixed issues with map brightness when multisampling is enabled
- Fixed scope issues with shadows
- Fixed issues with two players connecting from the same IP
- Fixed other player's pistols appearing to fire too many shots
- Fixed being able to fire weapons mid-holster
- Fixed dynamic exposure causing the world to be too bright with multisampling
- Fixed issues with placing structures
- Fixed issues with joining a server with a party
- Fixed incorrect EAC violations
- Automatic guns will no longer shoot as soon as you spawn
- Fixed account dropdown cutting off when UI scale is < 100%
- Fixed killcam animated backgrounds
- Fixed UI issues with displaying the current boosts in the Account dropdown
- Fixed boosts activating when clicking the Account button
- Fixed not being able to shoot/change weapons while viewing the scoreboard
- Fixed Soltrium colours on plasma weapons while reloading
- Blocks on top of Railway are no longer invincible
Changes:
- Players can now ping through glass
- When crouching mid-air your feet will now lift rather than your head moving down
- +10 SPOT ASSIST increased to +20 SPOT ASSIST for enemy/caution pings
- +2000 FLAG CAPTURE reduced to +1000 FLAG CAPTURE
- Players face the horizon and the center of the map now when spawning, except when in a landing pod
- New networking library that may solve the packet loss problems
- Point messages and hit indication sounds will now show/play when you are dead
- Icons for buttons on the Mapping screen
- Slightly increased the distance that the red outline appears when looking at enemies
- Players are invisible when spawning until their camera finishes transitioning to their player view
- Career tab progressions are now sorted descending by level
- Only the first explosion caused by an Orb will have explosive knockback
- Orbs have 2.0x explosive knockback
- C4 has 1.5x explosive knockback
- Grenades have 1.25x explosive knockback
- Spawn overlay changes from white to blue to visually show when you can spawn
Additions:
- New killcam design
- Killcam weapon feature and animated background for Mastery/Legend/Paragon tags
- Animated background for tier 3 tags
- Streamer Mode and Randomise Player Names settings for personal anonymity while streaming
- Tips on the server loading screen
- +4 FLAG CARRY points per block travelled when carrying the enemy flag closer to your flag base
- Bindings for navigating between tabs
- Binding for Reset UI Scale
- New map JSON format that encompasses all current map variables (will post full JSON file on release)
- Steam Workshop support for maps
- Upload summary shows before uploading a map to the workshop
- 'Client -> Server' and 'Server -> Client' packet loss percentages are now shown in the FPS overlay
- Twitch Drops integration
- In-game inventory that holds Proton and XP boosts
- Boost status and inventory now show in-game on the respawn screen
- Feedback section in the Account button dropdown
Optimisations:
- Faster game startup time
- Faster match join time
- Network message queue optimisations
v178.6.2.2 - 3D Ping System
We're back from our Christmas break and are eager to get back into the swing of things.
The major feature in this update is the 3D Ping System, which you can use for the following purposes:
Enemy Spotting
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Caution
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Reinforcement
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Destruction
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Requesting Backup
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New Bindings
Tapping the 'Ping' keybind will create a quick 'Enemy Spotted' ping, and holding it for 150ms will bring up the Ping radial. Direct actions for each ping type can also be bound.
You can now also create bindings with Control / Alt / Shift combinations, and the default Toggle UI / Chat / Fullscreen bindings can now be removed.
New Point Types
With the pings comes five new point types:
- +10 Spot Assist if a teammate kills an enemy within 15 blocks of your 'Enemy Spotted' ping
- +50 Saviour if you kill an enemy within 2 seconds of them damaging a friendly, and that friendly survives
- +50 Avenger if you kill an enemy within 4 seconds of them killing a friendly
- +30 Disruptor Destroyed if you kill an enemy disruptor
- +30 C4 Destroyed if you kill an enemy C4
New Map
We began testing the next map in the Linear map series (Breakthrough/CTF) today, which was a stack of fun. It's not on the public map rotation yet but you can ask a moderator kindly to enable it!
Here's some clips from today's matches:
[previewyoutube="g_Hm9a7cbZ4;full"]
Here's a sneak peek at the next in the Linear map series!
Next Steps
Verc is working on Twitch Drops at the moment, which will be enabled for verified Sector's Edge content creators. The rewards for this are undecided but will likely consist of Proton and XP boosts, kill cam designs, helmets and death explosions.
Rocket is working on the Laboratory and Canyon maps pictured above, and then some maps for the upcoming game mode Search and Destroy, which we are both keen for.
We are also planning to have ranked Arena and Search and Destroy gamemodes implemented this January, as well as clans, the two new maps and two new weapons.
There's lots to do and we hope you're as excited for it as we are!
Full Changelog
Build v178.6.2.1 - Released 2:11pm 29/12/2020 AEST
Fixes:
- Fixed getting points for destroying a friendly C4/Disruptor
- Pings now render correctly when scoping with a 2X or 4X weapon
- Fixed default tilde ping binding not working
Changes:
- Saviour points are now awarded for up to 2 seconds after they damage a friendly
- Avenger points are now awarded for up to 4 seconds after the friendly dies
- Pings are more opaque when not looking at them (whether ADS or not)
- Pings are more opaque for the first second after they are created
- Toggle UI / Toggle Chat / etc are now unbound by default
Additions:
- Added a 'Cancel' option on the ping radial to close it without making a ping
- Bindings such as CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + V are now possible. Default Toggle UI/Fullscreen/etc bindings can now be removed
- Error sound plays if attempting to create too many pings
Build v178.6.2.2 - Released 12:24pm 30/12/2020 AEST
Fixes:
- Fixed progressions/levels/protons not updating
- Fixed some keybinds not working when combined with Control / Alt / Shift
- Fixed Saviour and Avenger points
Additions:
- 'Report Player' option on the escape menu
- 'Unlock Scoreboard' keybind is now customisable
v178.6.1.9 - Capture the Flag Update
Capture The Flag
We have spent the past week testing and working on the Capture the Flag game mode and we're excited to be releasing it as an official game mode today! It is currently available on the Railway map.
Each team has a flag to defend (a vial of condensed, valuable Soltrium) and the objective is to infiltrate the enemy's base, steal their flag and run it back to your flag base.
After stealing the enemy flag, you will be outlined to the enemies (similar to the Scanner) and leave a trail of enemy-coloured Soltrium. Make sure you plan a sneaky escape route or bring an escort!
Your flag can be moved up/down by building and digging, so you can position it in a pit of disruptors, or on top of a massive tower.
The point system for CTF is as follows:
+2000 FLAG CAPTURE
+250 FLAG CARRIER KILL for killing an enemy that's holding your flag
+200 FLAG RETURN for returning your flag to your base
+50 FLAG ESCORT every 10 seconds while within 35 blocks of your friendly flag carrier
+50 FLAG DEFEND for killing an enemy that's within 35 blocks of your flag/flag carrier, or for killing an enemy while you are within 35 blocks of your friendly flag carrier
+50 FLAG ATTACK for killing an enemy that's within 35 blocks of the enemy flag/flag carrier, or for killing an enemy while you are within 35 blocks of the enemy flag carrier
+20 FORTIFYING for every 50 blocks placed near your flag
+20 FLAG DEFEND every 10 seconds while within 35 blocks of your flag
Time spent defending/attacking the flag contributes to your Defence and Offence progressions and there is also a new progression for Flag Captures.
We have had a lot of fun testing this game mode and we hope you do too! As always please let us know your feedback in Steam Discussion, Discord or the Forums.
Structure Radial Changes
The structure radial is now a full circle, which has been a long-requested change. It's now much easier to select structures quickly in the midst of battle.
Indie Game of the Year Finals
We made it into the top 100 in the IndieDB competition! A massive thanks to everyone who voted for us and we ask that you please also vote for Sector's Edge in the finals here:
https://www.indiedb.com/groups/2020-indie-of-the-year-awards/top100#vote73186
New Website and Twitch Drops
We have redesigned our website landing page to better showcase what the game is about. Check it out here!
We have also been working on integrating the game with Twitch Drops, so that you can earn protons, XP boosts, skins, etc. while watching streamers play Twitch! This will be live in the new year.
Next Steps
This is the last major update to the game this year as we'll both be taking a couple weeks off for Christmas. We love working on the game but need a break from it sometimes!
A lot of people have been asking about ranked matchmaking, and this will be the next big feature update that we'll be releasing in the new year. Since organising teams for 12v12 Breakthrough/CTF would be a nightmare we'll be starting with ranked 3v3 Spire and Static, which are our favourite game modes and the most balanced game modes. There will be separate rewards and leaderboards for this and we are excited to see more people play these Arena game modes.
Once Ranked Arena is up and running we'll be moving on to a ranked 5v5 attack/defence or search/destroy mode. We're pretty excited to start working on the maps/gamemodes for this and see the strategies that develop in these modes.
For now, enjoy Capture The Flag! We'll still be around here and there to talk and jump in a match or two. We're grateful to have such a great community and appreciate all the support, feedback and ideas that you have all given us.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Verc and Rocket!
Full Changelog
Fixes:
- Fixed UI flickering and breaking when viewing the Podium
- Fixed tags not showing on kill cams
- Fixed 'Returning Flag' text rendering while dead
- Fixed being able to return the flag while it's still in your base
- Fixed spawning on the top of Railway in CTF
- Fixed out-of-bounds region on Breakthrough preventing the last point from being capped
- Synced flag returning UI with the server
- Fixed announcements overlapping with 'You are carrying the flag' UI
- Fixed 3D flag indicator getting stuck when picked the flag is up by an enemy player
- Fixed flag bases not rendering in bare minimum
- Potential fix for strange textures bug
- Players no longer get Fortifying points when building near the enemy flag
- Flag Capture progression tags now have the correct colour in the killcam
- Fixed 'Tag unlocked!' not showing if you unlocked a title at level 1 (e.g. Captor)
- Defending/attacking time is now tracked for CTF
- Potential fix for incorrect map textures
- Flag base outlines now render when multisampling is enabled
- Potential fix and logging for the map textures bug
- Potential fix for the weapon desync bug
- Fixed lights not showing in some Arena maps
- Fixed initial connection errors between the client and server
- Fixed Orberator reload timing
- Single-shot weapons no longer fire again when clicking during their reload
- Fixed Pistol weapon description
- Fixed flag not returning when standing near the enemy flag carrier when they die/drop the flag
- Flag Returning UI now shows if you are returning a flag while holding the enemy flag
- Fixed custom map crashes on startup
Changes:
- Moved the Revolver 2X a bit closer to the camera so it's bigger
- Moved flag bases and team spawns closer to the center of the Railway map
- Reduced flag update SFX sound volume by half
- CTF servers will stay on CTF
- The out-of-bounds region in CTF is pyramid shaped around the flag, meaning you can now build up higher around the flag but not near the walls around the map
- The flag can no longer be built up past the upper out-of-bounds region
- Flag return radius increased from 1 to 2.5 blocks
- X-Ray player outline now appears more frequently on the enemy flag carrier (1s on, 2s off)
- Flag UI symbol renders above the enemy flag carrier when they are revealed via X-Ray
- Enemy flag UI symbol renders above the enemy flag if it is dropped and outside the enemy flag base
- CTF callouts now include the player name, e.g. Lord Orberator has stolen your flag!
- Flags will automatically be dropped if you run back into your spawn area
- Structure radial now goes full circle
Additions:
- Flag icon above the friendly that is carrying the enemy flag
- Flag dropped announcements
- SFX when flags are taken/dropped/returned
- +20 Flag Defend every 10 seconds while within 35 blocks of the friendly flag
- +20 Fortifying every 50 blocks you build within 35 blocks of the friendly flag
- Match medal and progression for flag captures
- Changelog tab in the News screen
- Extra logging when connecting to servers
- Particle trail behind the flag carrier
- Flag base model and flag backpack model
- Flag platform that controls where the flag appears when it is captured/returned
- Capture the Flag is an official gamemode
Balancing:
- -20% movement speed when holding the flag
- Kinetic knockback is disabled when holding the flag
v178.6.1.3 - Progressions Update
This update is an exciting one for us since we've added something we've been wanting to do for a while: Progressions.
Progressions
First up, the end-match screens have received an overhaul with more detailed stats and info about your performance during the match. When you finish a match, you will be presented with this screen:
At the top you can see who won the match, your personal stats and some overall stats for the match.
At the bottom of this screen you can see 3 Progressions for Building, Light Plasma and Assists, which are the three that I made the most progress towards during this match. All Progressions that I made progress in during this match are shown in the Career tab:
As you reach certain milestones you will receive rewards such as kill cam titles and free weapon skins, as well as soon-to-come:
- Block skins
- Kill cam designs, such as backgrounds, borders and styles
- Exclusive weapon skins (e.g. lvl 50 with the SMG)
- Proton/XP bonuses (e.g. 2x Protons for the next hour of gameplay)
Match Statistics
On the Stats tab you can now see a breakdown of where all your points and Protons came from, as well as damage / kill / accuracy stats for each weapon that you used during the round:
Match Medals and Podiums
On the Podium tab you can now see which medals each of the top five players received. We have also added the Impacter and Assistance match medals for most explosive direct kills and most assists.
Rocket has also been working on some end-match poses and animations for each character, here's a couple of them!
Screenshot Competition
We need some new screenshot + tips to display when the game is starting up and have decided to start a competition!
If we decide to use your submission you'll get 25000 Protons or 1 Character Token (your choice), as well as your name on the loading screen next to the tip.
Full competition details here.
Here's an example:
IndieDB - Indie of the Year
The IndieDB competition ends in 36 hours! If you've been enjoying the game please leave a vote, we'd love for the playerbase to grow and this is a great opportunity for it.
Vote for us here
Next Steps
From here we will be adding more rewards like kill cam designs, block skins, etc to each Progression:
We also have two new Breakthrough maps in the works, one of which is ready for testing and we'll release it soon on the beta branch.
Rocket's working on another new weapon, here's a sneak peek of the Rocket Pistol:
The next gamemode we'll be focusing on is Capture the Flag, which we're super excited for and will take place on the same maps as Breakthrough.
As always a huge thanks from us for reading and playing the game, we'll see you in game soon!
Full Changelog
Fixes:
- Fixed exploits with the reload system
- Fixed Combat Shotgun reload timing
- Fixed slow animations when running into walls with high FPS
- Fixed particle system crashes
- Fixed issues with unlocking the Pearl skin after buying the Supporter pack
- Fixed Renegade camos appearing to require a character token to unlock
- Fixed crash when loading a custom map
- Fixed incorrect up-close shadows at certain angles
- Fixed single-shot weapons not firing sometimes in-game
- Fixed getting assists for your own deaths
- Fixed weapon skins rendering incorrectly when changing between Sights and Skins in the Weapons tab
- Fixed rendering problems with 2X scopes in the Arena
- Fixed cut-off weapon pickup text in Spire
- Fixed overlapping stats on the character page
- Fixed some settings not saving when closing the settings menu in-game by pressing escape
- Fixed the Scanner Assist career causing the UI to flicker
Changes:
- Synced the mag in, mag out and reload times with all reload animations
- Re-implemented multi stage reload animations. If you switch weapons after the magazine leaves the gun and then switch back, the animation will resume at the stage it was up to
Additions:
- Ability for moderators to revert votekick timeouts
- HUD/UI toggling settings (Shift+F1, etc) are now in Settings > UI
- Lots of logging to help fix the weapon desync bug
- Entirely new post-match screen (see #dev-content) for pictures:
- - Point Breakdown: see where all your in-game points came from
- - Weapon Summary: see how much damage you dealt with each weapon as well as your accuracy, times fired, etc.
- - Progressions: gain experience for weapons, building, headshots, directs, offence, defence, assists, etc. with skin and tag rewards for each category
- - Podium: see which medals the top five players earned
- Match Medals for Most Assists and Most Explosive Direct Kills
- Tags - similar to titles, they're unlocked from progressions and shown below your title in the killcam
- Career tab on the home page
Balancing:
- Pistol changed from burst to automatic
- Pistol damage reduced from 12 to 11
- Pistol full damage distance reduced from 21 to 20
- Pistol 30% damage distance reduced from 75 to 50
v178.6.1.1 - Fixes, Balancing and Optimisations
Verc has spent the past week fixing issues that have plagued the game for a while, as well as implementing some long-requested features such as damage numbers in the ship, headshot/direct/splash damage on the loadout screen and scrimmage functionality for all game modes.
Rocket has finished modelling and texturing the new sniper rifle, next step is animating it.
He has also spent the past few days on a new Breakthrough map, here's a sneak preview! We started testing it today, we're pretty excited for you all to be able to play on it in an upcoming patch.
Balancing Changes
We have spent a lot of time discussing the current balancing issues with the game, and while making decisions isn't easy we always come back to the following principles:
Riskier weapons must be more rewarding
Harder weapons must have faster TTK (time to kill)
Maps must provide cover but leave room for players to build
Game mechanics must discourage objectionable tactics
One of the main discussion points lately is the Assault Rifle, which is the most commonly used weapon. This gun is meant to be the first weapon you use, it's feasible at any range but shouldn't be the best at any range. Prior to this patch, this wasn't the case and we've now had to reduce it's damage and distance range. We want to avoid situations where you feel you have to take a certain weapon to perform well. We want to balance the game so that all weapons are viable.
To be clear, we don't want to nerf every gun into the ground, but the average TTK for all weapons can't be so fast that the building elements of the game can be utilised. We both love games like Battlefield that have fast TTK, however we believe that the guns that kill the fastest must be unforgiving and hard to use. We have stronger, harsher weapons in the works!
The second balancing issue players are facing is getting shot in the back when spawning on Breakthrough. To prevent this, enemies can no longer advance more than two zones past their captured zones, i.e. they can't enter your spawn zone. While this won't prevent spawn camping completely, it prevents objectionable tactics like getting shot in the back when spawning.
IndieDB - Indie of the Year
IndieDB is currently hosting their Indie of the Year competition! If you have been enjoying playing Sector's Edge please leave us a vote, we'd love for the playbase to grow and this is a great opportunity to do so.
Vote for us here
Next Steps
This patch contains optimisations for the startup process and connecting to servers and Verc has plans to make this even faster and smoother, but that's been put on the backburner for a while as we focus on a Capture the Flag gamemode, which will take place on the same maps as Breakthrough.
We will also be revamping the post-match screen to have a better breakdown of your stats and performance during the match, as well as adding more medals and rewards as you level up, use certain guns and reach certain milestones.
A huge thanks to everyone who is playing the game, providing feedback and recommending Sector's Edge to your friends.
See you in game soon!
Full Changelog
Fixes:
- Fixed overlapping loadout+killcam UI
- Fixed issues with player public rank calculation
- Fixed reload animation incorrectly playing after changing weapons
- Fixed selected weapon desync between client and server
- Fixed players sometimes not rendering in the blurred region around the scope
- Fixed shadows when multisampling is enabled
- Fixed stretched textures on falling structures
- Fixed strange bugs with joining Arena matches
- Fixed players not being placed on the same team as their party members
- Fixed lights flickering in on Breakthrough
- Fixed only one player at a time getting Contesting points in Breakthrough
- Fixed scoreboard getting stuck activated when clicking 'Balance the Teams' or 'Spectate'
- Fixed cut-off admin chat messages
- Fixed crash/freezes/low FPS caused by particle errors
- Knifing the targets in the shooting range now correctly says 65 damage
- Combat Shotgun choke is now per-weapon, rather than shared
- Fixed instant reload in the ship when changing weapons during the reload
- Fixed fast Combat Shotgun firing when out of ammo
- Potential fix for ghost structure placement
- Removed extra time after the Rocket Rifle reload finishes
- Fixed jittering player leg rotation
- Fixed game failing to start up for the first time
- Fixed connecting to servers that have players in them
- Fixed issues with swapping weapons while reloading
- Fixed issues with the SMG and Assault bolt reload stage
- Fixed Midi screen rendering when shadows are disabled
Changes:
- Can now modify loadouts and weapons during the 30s pre-match time
- Server will send a message at the end of the round if it is restarting
- 2X and 4X scoped FOV is now independent of the Field of View setting
- Getting votekicked will now temp ban you from that server for 1 hour
- In Breakthrough, you can no longer run more than two points ahead of the last point you control, i.e. the enemy's spawn area
- Autobalancing changes:
- - - 30 second timer before autobalancing to give players warning and to allow players to join
- - - Players can only be autobalanced once
- - - +100 Protons if you manually change teams when the teams are unbalanced
- Cleaned up the old underlying weapon swap system, should fix some of the weird swap/reload problems
- Autobalance timer reduced from 1 minute to 30 seconds
- New Rocket Rifle reload animation
- Autobalance heuristic tweaks to further prevent situations like 3v8s
Additions:
- Headshot damage shows on the loadout screen
- Direct/splash damage shows on the loadout screen for explosive weapons
- Scrimmage functionality for Breakthrough, Spire and Static game modes
- Fortifying points in Salvage + Breakthrough per 50 blocks placed:
- - - In Breakthrough it's +20 points if you are on the furthest zone that you own the majority of, +10 on the next zone back then +5 on the next zone(s) back
- - - In Salvage it's +20 points if you are on the canister
- Lots of team creation and autobalance logging
Balancing:
- Combat Shotgun choke now reduces 50% faster when sprinting
- Assault Rifle damage reduced from 13.5 to 12
- Assault Rifle full damage distance reduced from 40 to 35 blocks
- Assault Rifle 30% damage distance reduced from 120 to 100 blocks
- Reasoning: the Assault Rifle is meant to be the noob weapon, okay at any range, but not the best at any range. We've got better, harder-to-use guns coming to fill the space where the AR was
- LMG full damage distance reduced from 35 to 32 blocks
- SMG full damage distance reduced from 25 to 21 blocks
- SMG 30% damage distance reduced from 60 to 55 blocks
- Plasma Pistol headshot damage increased from 44 to 45
- Light Plasma body damage reduced from 20 to 19. Headshot damage is still at 40 damage, but for a 3-shot-kill you should have to land 3 headshots, not head-body-head
Optimisations:
- Faster shadow rendering
- Less shadow flickering on large maps like Breakthrough
- Less shadow flickering when ADS with 2X and 4X weapon scopes
- Faster match joining times
- Faster client startup time
v178.6.0.8 - Railway Polishing, Assists, Revamped Respawn UI and Optimisations
Railway Map
Rocket has been hard at work finishing the Railway map this week. It has a brand new skybox, lots of new textures and a few balancing changes to make it easier to push back from your team spawn.
Revamped Respawn UI
We noticed a lot of players leaving and joining the same match and asking how to modify their weapons and loadouts. To help these new players we have revamped the respawn UI so that you can view your current loadout and quickly change between loadouts with the left/right arrow buttons.
Clicking on the 'Customise' buttons in the bottom left will open the sight/skin customisation for that weapon, and clicking on any of the other elements will open the main loadout UI.
Optimisations
The particles system has received some optimisations as some users have noticed stutters when players were being hit, or when large amounts of particles were spawned at the same time.
We believe this was also related to input lag stutters, please let us know if the game is running smoother now. If not, please follow the instructions at https://sectorsedge.com/support to generate an in-game profile and send it to Verc, which will help him optimise the game further.
Assists
Assists are now in! This has been a requested feature for a long time.
You will now get +10 Assist if you damage an enemy and they die before regenerating to full HP, as well as a +20 Assist Counts as Kill if you deal 80 or more damage to a player and they die before regenerating that damage back.
For example, if you deal 80 damage to a player and they regenerate 50 HP back before a friendly finishes them off, you've only dealt 30 damage in total and you will only get an Assist.
If you deal 99 damage to a player and they regenerate 19 HP back before a friendly finishes them off, you will get an Assist Counts as Kill.
Team Balancing Progress
Up until now, player level was used to determine player skill. This was pretty flawed as there are plenty of new players that are cleaning up lobbies, so we've been working on a new system.
This new system uses Average Adjusted Scoreboard Ranking to determine a player's 'skill'.
Your ranking on the scoreboard is determined by your total points, which is a combination of playing the objective, total kills, headshots, assists, etc. Since better players will commonly be at the top of the scoreboard, we believe this is a good indication of player skill.
This new system is now live and full details + examples are shown in the screenshot below. In summary, your performance over your past 50 matches is used to determine how good you are.
Your ranks can be found on the player portal, and your ranks are separate across each game mode.
Full Changelog
Fixes:
- Fixed out-of-bounds not killing players sometimes
- Fixed radial structure menu getting stuck if bound to Mouse 3 / 4 / 5
- Can now scroll all the way down on the loadout screen on smaller screens
- Fixed stuck keys preventing you from changing weapons
- The Next / Previous Tool keybind will now cycle through weapons properly
- Fixed not being able to interact with the scoreboard while holding Tab
- Arrow keys now display properly on the bindings screen
- Fixed reload animation not cancelling when knifing and then changing weapons
- Pistol burst can no longer be interrupted by changing weapons
- Teammate names and killfeed now rendering when selecting a loadout when first joining a match
- Fixed UI scaling not applying to fonts correctly on startup
- Fixed physical, Soltrium and snow particles generating weirdly
- Fixed Alt + Enter not toggling fullscreen if something was bound to Enter
- Fixed snow particles all spawning in one corner of the map
- Fixed incorrect party colour in the killfeed
- Fixed not being able to click-drag build if shoot and scope are both bound to the same key
- Fixed some bindings not showing in the settings screen
- Fixed loadout name not updating while changing loadouts
- Fixed Railway/BRK map title and background image on the website
- Total Match Medals now show on the player page on the website
- Fixed snapping to the top of blocks when rocket jumping
- Fixed shadow map regions on Soltrium Temple
- Fixed Breakthrough servers not showing sometimes
- Fixed redeploying on Railway sometimes sending you into the sky
- Fixed scoreboard not correctly deactivating when clicking outside it
- Fixed not being able to shoot sometimes when using Toggle Sprint
- Fixed final headshots/blocks placed/blocks destroyed stats showing incorrectly at the end of the round
- Fixed particles not rendering sometimes (could be causing the frame drops)
- Fixed broken bindings when bindings multiple keys to the same action then reloading the game
- Redeploying now moves the camera up into the sky correctly
- Fixed scoreboard column alignment
- Fixed cut-off player point messages
- Potential fix for equipped weapon desync between client and server
- Fixed crashes when large amount of particles are created
- Stealth mod build/destroy volume modifier now works correctly
- Building/destroying sound volumes in the ship are now affected by the Stealth mod
- Pressing escape while viewing the scoreboard after the match has finished will now show the escape menu
- Fixed invisible player point messages
Changes:
- Using average scoreboard position over the past 50 matches to determine 'player skill' for team balancing, rather than player level
- Renamed Tool 1 / Tool 2 / Tool 3 in bindings to Primary / Secondary / Equipment
- Light/bloom blocks will now break into particles with bloom
Additions:
- New skybox, crepuscular lights and ambient lighting on the Railway map
- +10 Assist if you deal damage to an enemy and they are killed before regenning to max HP
- +20 Assist Counts as Kill if you deal 80 or more damage to an enemy and then someone else kills them
- You can now view your public ranks/scores on the player portal at https://sectorsedge.com/players
- New loadout UI while respawning
- Sticky Grenade icon in the loadout menu
Balancing:
- Reduced non-Kinetic explosion knockback strength by half
- Rocket Rifle starting reloads increased from 3 to 4
- Assault Rifle starting reloads reduced from 5 to 4
Optimisations:
- Slightly faster input handling
- Particle creation optimisations
Next Steps
We are preparing for an upcoming tournament, which will be scheduled around the first few weeks of December. Stay tuned for more info!
Rocket finished modelling and unwrapping the new sniper model today and will begin texturing+animating it soon.
Verc's next steps are revamping the post-match screen to show more detailed stats, better map voting and better navigation between the end-screen tabs.
Huge thanks to everyone for playing, supporting and spreading the word about Sector's Edge. See you in game!
v178.6.0.5 - Optimisations, Fixes for Parties and Autobalancing
The past few patches have focused on fixing autobalance and party systems to ensure you can play in balanced matches on the same team as your friends. Here's what's changed:
Support and Performance Improvements
I have received quite a few reports from people that are facing stuttering and input lag during firefights and large-scale matches on Breakthrough. Most of this was caused by excessive memory allocations and memory cleanup, so I've spent the past couple days profiling the game in 24-player Breakthrough matches and finding the hotspots.
If you are still having stuttering and FPS issues, I've improved the in-game profiler to get more detailed data about what's causing the problems. This can be enabled in Settings > General > Profiling, and will generate a txt file in the game's log folder. Full instructions are available here. Send that file to me on the Forums and it will help me solve these problems.
I have also created a support page on the website, which contains all the steps I go through when helping players who are having issues starting and running the game. Please follow the instructions here before creating a bug report on the Forums / Discord / Steam Discussions.
Party System Improvements
If you are the leader of the party and join a match, the rest of your party will now see a banner at the top of the screen like this:
Unless they close the banner, your party members will then auto-join the same match as you.
Please note the server cannot guarantee that you will be placed on the same team as your party when joining a match that's already in progress, since the teams have already been created. When the next round starts, the server will group your party together and place you all on the same team.
If your party leader joins a match that hasn't started yet, the server will now reserve slots for the amount of members that are in your party. These reserved slots will expire 1 minute after your party leader joins the match.
Full Changelog
Fixes:
- Fixed FPS reload animation getting stuck when reversing a weapon swap
- Scrimmage matches now auto-start when the required people are there
- Fixed laggy UI when joining a party that's playing on the Railway map
- Player icons on the minimap now match the chosen party/friendly/enemy colours
- Party/Enemy visor colours now match the chosen party/enemy colours
- Fixed the Weather Particle Amount setting not saving
- Fixed problems with directly shooting grenades/disruptors/C4/scanners
- Train blocks now make the correct footstep, destroy and bullet hit sounds
- Fixed Israel servers showing when selecting 'Other' rather than 'Israel'
- Quickplay will no longer join scrimmage/tournament servers
- Players that joined before you now appear in the bottom-right 'pending player' list
- Going out of bounds for 3 seconds will now kill you
- Fixed canister not spawning in Scrimmage matches
- Fixed spectated player name cut off the left side of the screen with UI scaling
- Cleaned up breakthrough match info UI at non-100% UI scaling
- Autobalance no longer changes your team each death when you're the only person in game
- Party members in the kill feed now have the correct colour
- Potential fix for stutters and input lag
- Fixed out-of-bounds not killing players sometimes
- Fixed radial structure menu getting stuck if bound to Mouse 3 / 4 / 5
Changes:
- Autobalance tweaks to avoid 5v10s, even if the team with 5 players is stacked
- Losing a capture zone and then instantly regaining it will no longer trigger the 20 second lockdown phase
- Arena autobalance now purely uses player count, so 1v3s will be turned into 2v2s
- Pending players are now shown at the bottom of the scoreboard
- New profiling system for more accurate results
Party Changes:
- Joining a server as a party owner will reserve slots for your party members. If your party has 4 members and there are only 2 slots available, only two slots will be reserved
- Party members will only be guaranteed a place on the same team as the party leader if they join during the 30 second team setup period, or 30 seconds after that
Balancing:
- Double Barrel damage reduced from 10 to 7 per pellet. Can still get a 1-hit kill if all pellets hit the head
- Double Barrel cooldown reduced from 350ms to 25ms
- Orberator starting reloads reduced from 4 to 3
- Breakthrough spawn protection time increased from 1.0s to 2.5s
Optimisations:
- Beta Rendering performance setting - I'm testing out a new faster rendering pipeline. Unless you run bare minimum, please enable this and let me know if the game runs slower/faster
- Faster raw mouse input handling
- Memory allocation optimisations for chunk initialisation and shadow rendering
- Memory allocation optimisations for UI, bitmap and font rendering
- Smarter memory allocation for UI rendering
- Faster UI rendering
Additions:
- Party banner at the top of the screen that shows when your Party Leader joins a match. It will auto-join you into the server unless you close it in the top-right
- Entity Shadows, Particle Shadows, Weather Particle Shadows and Structure Shadows performance settings
Extras
Over the past few days Rocket has been working on something to connect all the maps together and hint at the lore behind the game. Here's a sneak peek:
v178.6.0.2 Update - Patching Issues, Autobalancing and Breakthrough Tweaks
Edit: the game is updating properly and I have also done a quick patch to fix flickering UI and FPS drops
I've just released a patch, however it looks like Steam's backend content servers are having problems and players can't download the update.
Other game devs are having the same issue, hopefully we get a reply back from Steam soon about what's going on.
v178.6.0.2 Changelog
Here's the full changelog for v178.6.0.2, with the main changes being fixes for unfair autobalancing and tweaks to the Breakthrough gamemode.
Fixes:
- Fixed not being able to see/pick up weapons in Spire
- Fixed loadout not randomising each round in Static
- Potential fix for too many players joining an Arena match
- Autobalance no longer moves players into full teams
- Autobalance no longer stacks teams 6-1 against experienced players
- Teams are no longer auto-generated and auto-balanced during scrims/tournaments
- Fixed jump spam exploit
- Brazil servers now show when 'Brazil' is selected and Yekaterinburg servers now show when 'Russia' is selected in the server region preferences (rather than 'Other')
- Potential fix for not being able to join full servers
- Autobalancing tweaks
- Triangles above teammates now recolour to the selected friendly/party/enemy colours
Changes:
- Breakthrough servers can only vote for Breakthrough, so 8 players aren't lost switching from Breakthrough to Salvage
- Players can now shoot when out of bounds again
- When captured, zones in Breakthrough are 'locked' and can't be contested for 20 seconds
- Capture Zone letters show on the minimap next to the zone
- Removed the 'Back to Ship' button and you can now access the escape menu and settings during the post-match victory stage
Upcoming Weapons
New content is in the works! Rocket Skeleton is working on the Agaman Renegade character, a new sniper rifle, new single-shot long-range pistol, and a single-shot explosive pistol.
Here's a sneak peek:
v178.6.0.0 - Breakthrough Update
I've attached the full changelog for v178.5.6.0.0 down below but wanted to go into more detail in a few aspects of what we've changed.
Recoil System
The main hurdle new players have with the game is adapting to the recoil system. We've changed it so that the recoil ramps up over the first 10 shots (rather than 4) for the SMG and Assault Rifle and 30 shots for the LMG.
Any uncontrolled recoil is now reset when finishing the burst.
[previewyoutube="4x_KXvbajtc;full"]
The 2.0x hipfire recoil multiplier was reduced to 1.5x in the last patch, however we felt that it would be better to try a different system. We've removed the multiplier and changed the way that hipfire works; base hipfire bloom has been reduced by half and increases the longer your burst is. Moving, jumping and sprinting will also increase hipfire bloom and as always, there's no bloom when aiming down the sights.
The hipfire bloom is shown through the crosshairs. If you prefer a static crosshair, this can be enabled in Settings > UI.
[previewyoutube="wIaZx0Prwps;full"]
Bindings System
The bindings system has been replaced with a conventional list view, which also allows multiple keys to be bound to the same action, and multiple actions to be bound to the same key.
Team Balancing
Last patch we made changes to the maps to help combat spawn-camping, however we noticed that stacked teams are also a large part of the problem.
Currently, teams are created as players join one-by-one, meaning there's a chance that all the best players could be placed on one team. We've changed it so that the 30 second waiting period at the start of each match is now a 'deployment period', where players are queued up and shown in the bottom-right of the screen.
When this deployment period finishes, teams are created and balanced based on each player's 'power'. The power metric is currently determined by player level, but in an upcoming patch it will be a combination of KDR, scoreboard position and other stats.
Players are selected to ensure there's roughly equal power between the two teams. This is being monitored in our Discord server to make sure it's working correctly. In the screenshots below, the left-most number is the total team power, and [10 6] refers to two players that are in a party:
Breakthrough Gamemode
We're very excited to announce the new Breakthrough gamemode, where two teams of 12 fight over 5 capture zones in a larger, longer map called Railway.
The gamemode and map are WIP but we've still had a lot of fun playing on it in the beta branch.
Breakthrough rounds last 30 minutes, or until all 5 zones have been captured by one team. Zones are 34 blocks tall, meaning massive structures and defences can be created. We feel this utilises the game's destruction and building mechanics in ways the Salvage gamemode can't.
The Railway map can also be utilised for gamemodes like Rush, CTF and VIP, which we will be exploring next!
Final Words
We've received a massive amount of feedback over the past week and we're trying out best to collate it all and find solutions to the problems our players are facing. Rocket and I go through the Steam Discussions, Sector's Edge Forums and Sector's Edge Discord #feedback channel every night and discuss the ideas that you're coming up with. There's a lot of ideas we like but being a two man team we've putting all our time into quality-of-life updates, customisation options, gameplay balancing and replayability to ensure people are having fun.
Hope to see you all in-game soon!
Full Changelog
Fixes:
- Fixed incorrect hipfire crosshair colours on startup
- Fixed Proton prompt appearing when attempting to equip the Pearl skin
- Fixed yellow hit indicators not showing
- Team names are no longer around the wrong way on the scoreboard when spectating
- When scrolling down in the server list, sorting a column will no longer join a server
- Fixed server list ping colours
- Fixed screen blur when editing weapons/loadouts in-game with override screen resolution
- Fixed team names around the wrong way on the scoreboard
- Fixed some servers not showing in the server list
Changes:
- New Settings screen design and layout
- Can now click on the loading screen when it says 'press any key to continue'
- Reduced death sound volume by 50%
- Reduced various map ambient sound volume by 20-50%
- Shooting will now remove your spawn protection
- Hipfire recoil modifier reduced from 1.5x to 1.0x
- Hipfire bloom changes - more bloom when moving, sprinting and jumping
- Hipfire bloom is shown via the crosshairs
- Assault, LMG, SMG, Revolver, Pistol hipfire bloom reduced by 50%
- Players can no longer shoot weapons while out of bounds
- Removed high pitch parts from the contesting 'tick' SFX
- Railway map changes - extra train, more cover to block sightlines
- Only beta servers show on the beta branch
- Better team balancing - the server waits for players to join and balances the teams after 30 seconds
- Can now change teams if there's a 1 player difference
Additions:
- New 12v12 Gamemode Breakthrough
- New map Railway
- Ability to bind multiple keys to one action, and multiple actions to the same key
- Dedicated key binds for sliding and structures 4-9
- Weather Particle Setting for rain and snow particles. Can be adjusted from 0% to 100%
- Contesting 'tick' noise when inside a canister/zone
Balancing [Blocks]:
- Base block health increased from 10 to 15
- Reinforced block health increased from 24 to 26
- Starting blocks reduced from 200 to 150
- Starting blocks with Building mod reduced from 300 to 200
- Max blocks reduced from 400 to 300
- Max blocks with Building mod reduced from 600 to 400
- Extra blocks/max-blocks per unspent loadout point increased from 50 to 100
Balancing [Weapons]:
- SMG damage reduced from 12.5 to 12
- LMG damage increased from 11 to 11.5
- SMG reduced from 950 to 895 RPM
- LMG reduced from 900 to 850 RPM
- Assault Rifle Rifle reduced from 750 to 705 RPM
- Light Plasma reduced from 451 to 420 RPM
- LMG full damage distance increased from 30 to 35 blocks
- LMG 30% damage distance increased from 80 to 140 blocks
- SMG TTK changed from 441ms to 536ms
- Assault Rifle TTK changed from 560ms to 595ms
- LMG TTK changed from 594ms to 600ms
- Light Plasma TTK changed from 532ms to 572ms
- Assault Rifle recoil reduced by 3%
- SMG recoil increased by 18.5%
- LMG recoil increased by 227% (seems like a lot, but it's changed from decreasing-over-time to increasing-over-time, and it shoots slower)
- LMG hipfire bloom increased by 20%
- LMG recoil now has a 30 shot ramp up, rather than lowering over time
- Light Plasma ramp up reduced from 10 shots to 4 shots
- Recoil now resets based on the duration between bursts, rather than resetting back to 0 when tap firing
- Player pitch now recenters when finishing a burst based on how much recoil was added and not controlled
- Random horizontal recoil has been replaced with directional recoil based on the way the guns work:
- - SMG bullet casings eject out of the left side of the gun, meaning there's recoil to the right
- - Assault/LMG bullet casings eject out of the right side of the gun, meaning there's slight recoil to the left
- LMG recoil increased by 20%
- C4 damage lowered from 250 to 140