Sector's Edge
Launch Week Recap
We've had a great launch week! 87,000 people have downloaded Sector's Edge and hundreds have supported us through the in-game store, which means we can continue working on the game for the next few months.
A massive thank you from Rocket and I to all the people who have recommended the game, supported the game and have provided reviews and feedback. This game is our dream project and to have your support means the world.
We know it hasn't all been smooth sailing and we've acknowledged that the main hurdles people have with the game are:
- harsh recoil and steep learning curve
- spawn camping issues
- replayability (only a few game modes and maps)
- startup and connection issues
If you're having any issues with the game (startup issues, server issues, bugs, crashes, etc) please reach out to us on the Forums, Discord server or here in the Steam discussions.
We've made changes to the recoil system and will continue to improve it further, and have made changes to the maps to help combat spawn camping. We have a patch lined up for after the EPL tournament tomorrow, which will be on the beta branch and contains:
- hit-scan weapon balancing
- new recoil system
- new bindings and settings screen
Our plans for this week are:
- new gamemode(s) and map (5CP/Rush/CTF/VIP style gamemodes)
- new Agaman Renegade character
- new animated weapon skin
- Midi customisation (build tool)
- better server list and party system
- fix Windows 7 connection and startup issues
- server-side position smoothing
- option to 'reset statistics' (not Protons or XP, just kills, deaths, accuracy, etc)
We're happy that people are enjoying the game, but we know it still has a long way to go and we're not sitting back and relaxing any time soon.
Thanks for reading!
- Verc and Rocket
Recoil changes, increased spawn protection, bug fixes - Build v178.5.2.3
As mentioned in other notes, we realised on launch that the level of recoil the game had was just a bit too punishing for the new player, so we've been on the look out for ways to change the system up. This patch gives slight recoil decrease when standing still (15%), partial resets to aim after firing (returns between 50-80% of the way back to where you were originally aiming), and while the recoil value itself has increased, the hitscan automatics now build up to max recoil over 10 shots rather than the previous 4. We hope this strikes the right balance, but will be monitoring your feedback on this.
e.g. Assault Rifle recoil curve (old and new)
As always, any issues please report to the official Sector's Edge forum or Steam discussions with uploaded log files, as they help Vercidium to diagnose issues. Feedback in general can be given in the general Steam discussion board or on our Discord.
Let us know your thoughts!
Fixes:
- Fixed loadout tutorial onboarding not appearing
- Friendly/enemy colour sliders now affect the canister capture icon and the team score at the top of the screen
- Fixed external holstering animation not overriding reload animation
- Fixed teammate triangles not rendering in the correct position
- Potential fix for Windows 7 TLS/SSL connection issues
- Scrolling the server list no longer changes the galaxy size
- Fixed player outlines appearing for too long intervals in the last minute of Arena matches
- Fixed delay when clicking 'Join the Battle' when in a party
- Fixed flickering lights on Soltrium Temple
- Fixed votes for Static not showing correctly
- Other player's explosions will no longer launch you when you have the Kinetic mod equipped
- Fixed particle raymarching causing crashes when changing between maps
- Fixed wrong textures on falling structures in Soltrium Temple
Changes:
- New players are now given a random primary/secondary in their initial loadout, rather than the classic Assault Rifle + Double Barrel
- Wider Soltrium Temple spawn region
- Players now spawn in landing pods on Soltrium Temple
- Ice Station spawn region now covers the full map width
- Music is now slightly quieter
- Salvage pre-match time increased from 20s to 30s
- First canister spawn time reduced from 60s to 30s
- More accurate position selection when clicking to respawn
Additions:
- Landing pods now kill enemy players when landing on them
Balancing:
- Increased the out-of-bounds region for all maps to 70 blocks, i.e. if you are within 70 blocks of the enemy spawn, it will display the 'Return to Battle' message and kill you if you are there for too long
- Light Plasma, SMG and Assault Rifle bursts now start with slightly less recoil and build up to max recoil over 10 shots (previously this was 4 shots)
- All guns have -15% recoil when standing still
- Full-burst recoil now resets quicker when tap firing
- Assault Rifle and SMG recoil have been increased by 15%
- Crosshair resetting after single-shots now happens twice as fast
- For Light Plasma, SMG, Assault Rifle and LMG your crosshair will be reset back down to where it was when single-shot-firing
- For the Plasma Rifle, your crosshair will be reset 80% of the way back down after firing
- For all other weapons your crosshair will be reset 50% of the way back down after firing
Connectivity, shutdown, map changes and more - Build 178.5.2.2
Contains a few sought after changes, such as colour customising crosshairs and friendly/enemy outline colours, altering maps to protect the spawns more and improving parts of the tutorial that players found confusing.
Also hopefully addresses connection issues for Win7 users, the 'low gravity/slow' feeling on some machines and some party joining issues.
Full changelog:
Fixes:
- Potential fix for connection issues for Windows 7 users
- Fixed spectator UI issues
- Fixed autoclickers causing guns to appear to fire really fast
- Fixed incorrect player damage stat on the Loadouts tab for Rocket Rifle / Orberator / Grenade Launcher
- Fixed slow movement in the ship with super high FPS
- Game now shuts down properly after closing
- Fixed crosshairs not being perfect circles
- Hipfire Combat Shotgun crosshairs now animate correctly to show advanced choke
- Fixed Player Name Scale settings not saving/loading correctly
- Assault and Canister models in the tutorial now rendering correctly
- Potential fix for party members not being placed in the same team when joining a match at the same time
- Players in a party will no longer be autobalanced
Changes:
- Magma Chamber map changes: extra tunnels and a wider right-side MC tunnel on the Aegis side
- Crashed Freighter, Ice Station, Magma Chamber and Soltrium Temple map changes to help combat spawncamping
- More linear tutorial map structure
- Tutorial building is more lenient
Additions:
- ADS crosshair colour customisation
- Hipfire crosshair colour customisation
- Friendly, party and enemy colour customisation - this affects the colour of players, player outlines, grenades, disruptors, scanners, C4, canister outlines, player particles, player names and scoreboard titles
Optimisations:
- Player rendering optimisations
As always, let us know what you think, either in the Steam discussion forums or the #feedback channel on Discord, and report your bugs on our official forum.
Cheers!
Removed FPS Bottleneck - Update v178.5.2.1
v178.5.2.1
Fixes:
- Removed bottleneck that's causing most of the FPS issues
- Smoother framerate and raw mouse input handling
- Fixed 'Override Screen Resolution' being always enabled on startup
Changes:
- Smaller and less intrusive player names
Optimisations:
- Faster player visibility and sound raymarching
- Game logic CPU and memory optimisations
- Bitmap rendering optimisations
Next priorities (beyond ensuring the above issue doesn't resurface) are to look at the join/connection and serverlist bugs, continue to work with EAC to smooth out some of the errors, fix FFA spawns so the mode can be re-enabled, and tweak the tutorial's pathing a little.
Post-release updates 178.5.1.9 & 178.5.2.0
Vercidium is working flat out to fix up as many issues as possible that have arisen post early access release, putting in 14hr work days. So far, he's put out two patches, yesterday and today, that should hopefully address many of these issues, though there is still plenty more work to be done. Sector's Edge is a two man team - one programmer, one artist - so we really appreciate the patience and willingness to help that so many of you have brought our way. With your help, we hope to get these things behind us and get back to progressing the core content of the game!
As of yesterday, 6:11pm 31/10/2020 AEST, we released the following:
v178.5.1.9
Fixes:
- Removed floating blocks from Soltrium Temple trees
- Fixed quick play joining gamemodes that you haven't selected
- 'Your party has joined match X' messages now show correctly in the top of the social bar
- Quick play will only join servers that can accommodate your full party
- Fixed server list showing overpopulated servers
- Fixed music volume resetting when leaving the Settings tab
Changes:
- Quick play now refreshes the server list, pings servers and then selects a server. If multiple people all join the same server at the same time through quickplay there is still a chance you may join a full server
- Brighter path in the tutorial (temporary fix until we rearrange the map a bit so its more linear when you pick up the Assault Rifle)
Balancing:
- Assault Rifle recoil lowered by 25%
- Slightly less horizontal recoil on the Assault Rifle
- LMG recoil lowered by 20%
- Hipfire recoil multiplier reduced from 2.0x to 1.5x (hipfire is too punishing, needs to be at least a bit usable)
- Orberator extra orbs reduced from 5 to 4 (way too much block damage atm in a full lobby)
- Rail Gun body damage increased from 40 to 55 (sniper too weak atm, outplayed quite often since people are getting good at building and blocking off vantage points. Upping it to 60 body damage allows another semi-auto sniper to be added in the future. 55 damage gives shielding people a slightly higher chance of surviving 2 body shots if they can start regenerating their health)
- Plasma Rifle projectile speed increased by 10% (too similar to Light Plasma projectile speed, needs to be more effective at range)
...followed by another patch today, 12:56AM 2/11/2020 AEST.
v178.5.2.0
Fixes:
- Weapon skins can now be unlocked correctly
- Fixed a variety of backend problems causing players to not be able to join matches
- Potential fix for Windows 7 connection errors
- Fixed 2X/4X scopes rendering incorrectly with a different screen resolution selected
- Fixed Agaman LMG reload animation not playing with < 7 bullets left
- Fixed visual glitches with the Veteran melee and Sticky Grenade throw FPS animations
- Fixed the 5 second spawn protection not activating. Shooting a player that's under spawn protection will also instantly teleport you 18,249,623 blocks into the sky and you will have 20 max HP for the next 18 games you play. It will also donate all your protons to charity, and your KDR will be divided by 8. Then deWolf will always know where you are. And I'm not talking about in-game
- Fixed game resolution not changing sometimes
Changes:
- Reduced the default last-minute music volume
Additions:
- 1280x800 and 3440x1440 resolution options
- Empty/full server list filters
If you have an issue, while we do look through the Steam discussions page, the best place to report bugs is with logfiles and on our forums, which you will find here.
For quick questions, you can use the #support channel on our Discord.
Thanks again for your patience and happy fragging!
Sector's Edge Release Celebration
Over the last few months we've been running Community Nights, Mercenaries (PUGs) and Developer Time streams multiple times a week; so in the hours leading up to the release we will be hosting one of each!
7pm GMT - Community Play
8pm GMT - Mercenaries (PUGs)
10pm GMT - Developer Time (Q&A)
11pm GMT - Community Play
MIDNIGHT GMT - GAME RELEASES
(...and more beyond!)
Watch the stream here on Steam, as well as on Twitch and Twitter.
Leading up to the above events we'll be live with a countdown to let you know when the game will be available! We will be around in the chat to answer any questions you may have.
We cannot thank the community enough for following and supporting the game all these years. The game would not be what it is today without your support and feedback. It's been a long road and we hope you are all as hyped as we are to finally release!
We hope to see you all tonight and in the coming days, weeks, months and years to come! This is only our Alpha 1.0 build, there is so much more to come.
- Vercidium & Rocket Skeleton
March Update 2020
Highlight Videos
For a quick overview of the current state of the game, here is our latest video:
[previewyoutube="VTHkYjZur74;full"]
Audio
The most substantial change has been moving our audio system over to OpenAL, which provides accurate 3D sound positioning and utilises ray-tracing to simulate the echo of sounds around corners and muffling sounds through walls. It is now much easier to pinpoint where sounds are coming from and how far away they are. This also means the game is one step closer to cross platform support with Linux and MacOS.
Ice Station
The newest map takes place in a Helix communication center, which has been established at the edge of the Soltrium galaxy. It currently supports the Salvage and Team Deathmatch game modes.
Map Balancing
Both Aegis Desert and Crashed Freighter maps have been refreshed to encourage fair play for both teams and better compatibility with the Salvage game mode.
The Arena
The Arena is a new map which is designed for 3v3 battles in two new gamemodes: Static and Spire. There are no respawns and the objective is to win 5 rounds.
At the start of each Static round, all players are given the same randomised loadout, providing an even playing field.
At the start of each Spire round, 15 weapons spawn in increasingly higher tiers towards the center of the map, with the most powerful weapons at the top. Players must build structures to reach these weapons and eliminate the enemy players, whilst ensuring their structures are strong enough to withstand enemy attacks.
New game modes come with many hours of testing! Here are the highlights from our developer test matches:
[previewyoutube="Dklpzrg1Zko;full"]
Player Customisation
The gold / silver team colours have been removed as the player models were too easily identifiable in any environment, which reduced the viability of stealthy strategies. This has opened an opportunity for players to customise the colour and pattern of the camouflage equipped to their character.
Enemies are identified by ared visor colour and outline whilst aiming at them, and friendlies are identified by a blue visor colour and outline.
Weather Systems
The Soltrium Temple map now experiences periodic rain and thunder for increased immersion. A short preview is available here: https://twitter.com/Vercidium/status/1225432251300642816
Crepuscular Rays, Ambient Lighting and Soft Shadows
A few months ago the game received a graphical overhaul, which improved the ambient lighting system and allows players to modify the quality of shadows for better performance. Crepuscular rays (god rays) were also added and the low-quality jagged shadow edges have been improved with a new soft shadow system.
What's Next
In the coming weeks we will be reaching out to streamers, YouTubers and reviewers in an attempt to spread the word of the game. If you have any recommendations for people that will play the game, or would like to lend a helping hand, please let us know on our Discord Server.
We also share news and highlight videos from the game on our Twitter and Instagram accounts.
Behind the Scenes
If you would like to see what goes on behind the scenes as we are developing Sector's Edge, check out our blog here.
Thank you for reading, we are eager to get you all in game soon!
Early Access - September Update
Hi everyone,
We have set back the early access release date again as unfortunately Sector's Edge is not quite ready. We have made a lot of progress in the past few weeks but noticed our player base was not large enough to sustain a successful launch and there are still aspects of the game that we wish to improve.
We have given the Steam page a refresh and uploaded a new trailer, check it out here. We will be posting news here regularly to keep you in the loop and we are also starting to record DevLogs.
Sector's Edge integration with Steam is now up and running and we have a stack of Steam keys to hand out to those who wish to play the game now. Every few days we host test matches in the UK, USA and Oceanic regions. You can see snippets of them here.
If you'd like a key, add Vercidium on Steam or ask on our Discord server.
At the moment we are focusing on:
- Map balancing to ensure fair gameplay
- Sound design for greater immersion
- More character customisation options
As always, we post regular updates on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Discord Server. We are hard at work and can't wait for you to play Sector's Edge.
New Release Date
We have pushed back the early access release date for a few months.
The gameplay is changing heavily and there are many aspects of the game that we still want to polish before releasing to the public.
If you would like to help alpha test, you can download the game from our website.
You can follow development on our Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or Discord Server
