USC: Counterforce

WIKI: CAMPAIGN

• Begin with the Tutorial
  
• Explore other game modes
  
• Adjusting difficulty
  
• Read the Encyclopedia and online Wiki
  

• Understanding the Converters
  

• Deothonit Mining and Looting
  

• Squad Assembly
  
• Skills
  
• Weapons and Equipment
  
• Avoid Large Hordes/Nests Early On
  
• Use Nukes in Desperate Situations
  
• Maximize Loot
  
• Loot Databanks for Prototypes
  
• Favor a Faction
  
• Know when to Extract
  
• Assess Mission strength
  
• Study Tactics
  

WIKI: WEAPONS & AMMUNITION

WIKI: XENOLOGY

• Wurm
  
• Alpha Wurm
  
• Crawler
  
• Alpha Crawler
  
• Skitter
  
• Swarmer
  
• Scorpion
  
• Alpha Scorpion
  
• Wormpig
  
• Alpha Wormpig
  
• Organ Shepherd
  
• Reaper
  
• Alpha Reaper
  
• Reaper Mother
  
• Shadow Envoys
  
• Wunderwurm
  
• Nest gland, eggs
  
• Environmental Hazards + The Service tunnel hatch
  

• The game will now also auto-save every Turn during missions when playing with the "Drill" session type
  

• Campaign: fixed a critical bug where you couldn't reload base defense missions in a very particular case (dead marine in sector from a previous defense session)
  
• Fixed a critical bug where you couldn't start a Reach extraction point or Acquire data Single Mission with Fog of War turned OFF
  
• Fixed a rare critical bug where the game would become stuck on the "Saving..." screen in some cases when a dialog was also being displayed
  

• Multiple changes to general Campaign difficulty/progression:
  
  
  • Alien aggression (resulting in more Envoys and Greater Envoys) will now taper off more rapidly, especially in the first half of the Campaign
    
  • Alien aggression will no longer gain an *extreme* spike after nuking a big horde
    
  • The overall grand total number of active aliens in hordes is now "capped" at a lower limit than before, especially on harder difficulties
    
  • Scorpions, Skitters, and Acidyas are now introduced more gradually during the first 15-25 Mission Phases (retroactive if you're still relatively early in your playthrough)
    
  • Organ Shepherds, Envoys, and Greater Envoys are now introduced a bit later and more gradually (in their numbers) than before
    
  • The outdoors insertion phase of derelict sites and surface faction operations will now feature about 30% less aliens, and more cover (bigger buildings if there are less rocks)
  
  
• Campaign: a unit of collected Asura-49 item (dropped by dead Wunderwurms) will now yield 25 Asura-49 crafting material (up from 15)
  
• Campaign: a unit of collected Deothonit item (from destroyed crystals in mines & caves) will now yield 10 Deothonit crafting material (up from 5)
  

• Campaign: fixed a bug where some missions could be very similar in map structure due to a small error in RMG configuration
  
• Campaign: fixed a minor UI bug where the Requisitions Credit income display was not immediately updated when your renown with USC changed during a transaction on the Comms screen
  
• Campaign: fixed a minor bug where you could receive multiple (false) notifications about a mission being completed when you extracted a unit without the datadisk in the 3rd phase of particular operations
  
• Fixed a bug where some melee weapon upgrades (base and roll damage bonus) were giving flat additive bonuses instead of percentages
  
• Additional minor UI fixes
  

WIKI: SQUAD ROLES

• Bastion
  
• Sniper
  
• Medic
  
• Technician
  
• Heavy arm specialist
  
• CQW
  
• General role
  

• Fixed a rare critical bug related to nests/eggs in mines/caves maps that could cause the game to become stuck on "Alien nest activity"
  
  
  • The fix is retroactive (i.e. if you have a save where ending the turn caused the issue, it should now work properly)
    
  • Thanks to all players who helped to resolve the issue by reporting it and providing additional data!
  
  

• Campaign: when ending a base defense, any turrets that are auto shut down and can't fit into unit inventory will now be added to the stock instead
  

• Campaign: further adjustments to alien reinforcements spawn rate in horde eradication missions
  
• Campaign: the "middle phase" of the Campaign will now trigger sooner on "Story" and "Normal" complexity settings
  
  
  • Note: depending on the complexity setting, story progression to Dream #5 should now trigger after MP 13/23/33 at the latest (pass the MP a couple of times if you're already there and suspected a bug [not corfimed] before this update)
  
  
• Adjustments to alien reinforcements spawn rate in planet surface missions (Operations, Single Mission)
  
  
  • Victory still requires that you kill (almost) everything, so if there are reinforcements spawning, you'll need to deal with them as well, even if there were 0 aliens left when ending the turn -- this is not a bug!
    
  • Alien reinforcements were never and are NOT infinite, though--the rate of the remaining aliens spawning has been now increased significantly to speed up (and give more excitement at) the end of these missions (turn 11+)
  
  

• Campaign: fixed a critical bug where nests could "grow infinitely" and cause issues on starting a mission
  
  
  • The fix is retroactive; if you have encountered this bug, but have a save where you can select the sector to go on a nest mission, it will now behave properly!
    
  • Note: use a save where you haven't yet tried to actually start the mission (not an ExitSave, etc. that were made after the game locked up partially)
  
  
• Campaign: fixed a potential ammo exploit where you could stock already used turrets and then get a brand new one with refilled ammo just by taking it from stock. You can no longer stock turrets that have been ever deployed.
  
• Campaign: fixed faction-exclusive items in the "shop" staying available/not becoming available when you didn't have actual access to the item, but removed/added one from/to stock
  
• Campaign: fixed faction-exclusive items that were only available in the "shop" due to being already in stock having their req./craft buttons & info misleadingly displayed (did not affect gameplay)
  
• Campaign: fixed the crafting material display on the Communications screen sometimes not being refreshed correctly after leaving Squad Assembly
  
• Campaign: fixed sector info panel displaying only half the actual Deothonit yield for mining sites since the last update (did not affect gameplay)
  
• Campaign: fixed a bug where you couldn't save the game on the Squad Assembly or Communications screens (in non-Hardcore)
  
• Campaign: map screen music will now properly stop before playing the dropship cutscene
  
• Fixed an extremely rare critical bug where the game would lock up on "Alien nest activity" [speculative/preventive fix while we're waiting for report details/repro]
  

• Added tactical map legend feature
  
  
  • Toggleable with a new information "(i)" button next to the minimap
  
  
• Added a special shortcut to the Campaign map (F7+F) that toggles the recently added free aim mode ON
  
  
  • Players who have already started a Campaign prior to the last update can use this to play with free aim mode on
    
  • Once you press F7+F, free aim mode is permanent in that playthrough from that point forward. It can't be switched back and forth.
    
  • Note: if you (re)load a save that still doesn't have free aim mode enabled, you need to activate it again!
    
  • The shortcut only works on the Campaign map, not during a mission.
  
  

• Campaign: alien reinforcements in Horde eradication missions will arrive more consistently and in greater numbers, especially if the Horde is really large (150+)
  
  
  • Additional aliens will now start to arrive when 50% of the alien already in combat have been killed
    
  • Reinforcements per wave: (remaining reinforcements / 3) + small default value (1-6, difficulty dependent); min. 11, max. 36
  
  
• Campaign: the number of alien reinforcements still incoming in Horde eradication missions is now displayed in the objective info
  
• Changed the icon for Armored Beta aliens to a different looking shield icon
  

• "Seek & Destroy" missions (in Campaign: Horde eradication and some sub-missions in sites or spec. ops) no longer require that you kill ALL enemies:
  
  
  • The last alien, or the last few aliens if they are below "Reaper threat" overall, combined, won't count as mandatory targets
    
  • The "Targets remaining" display will still reflect their total number, but you can expect the mission to end when it's 1, or just about 2-4 with confirmed smaller targets
    
  • Nests won't count as mandatory targets at all
    
  • Their number will still be shown in the objective info ("Nests: #") so you know, but this won't affect mission completion
  
  
• Campaign: aliens in Horde eradication will start to flee towards the map edges and leave the area (leading to a quickened victory) once their total number is greatly culled:
  
  
  • This works in tandem with the general update to S&D objective changes
    
  • You can expect the aliens to withdraw once their sum total starting Action Points are less than 500 (about 10 larger units), so this depends on situation and difficulty level
    
  • Aliens that were able to flee are considered defeated in global Campaign mechanics, so they won't linger around or return in some way in the sector
  
  
• Campaign: rate of amortization of structures & objects built in bases has been reduced to 15% per MP (down from 20%), and will stop at 40% of nominal value (was 5%)
  
  
  • Note: the same values for non-Campaign "Defend the Base!" games remain unchanged
  
  
• Campaign: mined raw Deothonit to crafting material conversion rate increased to 50:1 (from 100:1)
  
• Campaign: Asura-49 are now only worth 15 materials per piece (was 25)
  
• Deothonit fragments (loot from crystals in nests & mines) are now only worth 5 materials per piece (was 25)
  

• Improved the way the game detects screen resolution:
  
  
  • If there are any issues during auto-detection and the display supports it, initial resolution will default to 1920x1080
    
  • Resolutions with a "portrait" alignment (greater height than width) will not be falsely auto-detected, and will also not be an option in Settings
    
  • Note: please check your screen resolution settings after the update!
  
  
• Added a way to manually force a particular screen resolution:
  
  
  • 0. Please start the game once just briefly after the update so it can create the new "display.ini" file
    
  • 1. Open the "display.ini" file in any text editor from "c:\Users\[your OS username]\AppData\LocalLow\Angry Cat Studios\USC Counterforce\"
    
  • 2. Change "forceResolution=0" under "[Resolution]" to "forceResolution=1"
    
  • 3. Change "width=1920", "height=1080", and "refresh=60" to the values you want
    
  • 4. Restart the game client
    
  • If you experience any issues, you can just delete the file (it will be auto-created with default settings) or set forceResolution to 0, and start the game with auto-detect as before
    
  • Note: when forcing a resolution, in-game resolution settings will still remain usable, but will revert to the forced resolution on every game client start
  
  
• Added a way to manually force a particular UI scaling (independent from resolution):
  
  
  • 1. Open the "display.ini" file (see above)
    
  • 2. Change "forceCustomScaling=0" under "[UI]" to "forceCustomScaling=1"
    
  • 3. Change the value of "scalingFactor" to a value between 0.7 and 1.
    
  • Note: setting "scalingFactor" to 1 will FORCE DISABLE UI scaling.
  
  

• Fixed a bug where the 15 extra bleeding from the Heavy arms primary specialization was sometimes applied to attacks with other weapons
  
• Campaign: fixed Resource Points to Deothonit conversion ratio inflation, preventing some exploits. Now there is a hard cap of max. 200 on selling and a min. 250 on buying.
  
• Campaign: fixed a regression introduced in the last hotfix that prevented managing a sector before you visited the Squad Assembly screen at least once (sorry!)
  
• Various minor UI/localization fixes
  

• Fixed a regression that prevented the Tutorial mission from starting (sorry!)
  
• Campaign: fixed the second phase of spaceship missions not having an insertion/extraction zone (retroactive)
  
• Campaign: fixed the third phase of spaceship missions where you could extract at insertion (not retroactive)
  
• Campaign: fixed "weapon properties preview" being stuck when starting a mission if a weapon from the "shop" remained selected