[PTS] Jan. 13, 2022 - PTS Update - Oshur Build 01

[PSNews]

The following PTS build unlocks on Jan. 13, 2022 at 2pm PT (11pm CET).

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Introducing, Oshur

Hey everyone, we're going to handle these patch notes a bit differently than usual. The island continent of Oshur is now available for public testing, and will be through launch. We're running a total of four "official" playtests, where we'll be looking to get massive battles going to more closely simulate live conditions, as well as record footage for use in the launch trailer and beyond. I want to stress that Oshur is still being developed, and there will be two separate Test Builds throughout this process. I'll outline the known issues for Test Build 01 below, to give you all an idea of what will change moving into Test Build 02 next week.

Playtest Times for Test Build 01

• Friday, Jan. 14 - 2pm PT (11pm CET)
• Saturday, Jan. 15 - 11am PT (8pm CET)

Players who log online during either of these test periods will receive the "Work in Progress I" profile banner attributed to their account after Oshur is released. In order to be eligible, you'll need to log onto PTS with the same account that you use on Live servers. There's no restriction to how long you need to stay, we just need to log that you got online during the test. The tests are expected to last roughly an hour and a half.

How to deliver Feedback

Once each playtest concludes, we'll be placing a Google Form below with focused questions about your experience. Additionally, we'll unlock this thread for comments after the first playtest begins, and it will remain open until the next PTS update. A Reddit thread will also be provided for folks who prefer to use that venue.

• Friday Feedback Form: Not Yet Available
• Saturday Feedback Form: Not Yet Available

Cool Stuff in Test Build 01

• Oshur is now accessible, and will auto-unlock itself 30 seconds after its Meltdown alert ends, to allow for testing.
• Players start their excursion on Exodus-class Fleet Carriers armed with automated particle cannons capable of destroying enemy vehicles within range.
• Vehicles, infantry, and projectiles now all interact with water in different ways.
  • Wheeled vehicles putter along the surface like boats.
  • Hover vehicles will hover above the water's surface.
  • Treaded vehicles will travel along the seabed.
  • Air vehicles are still a work in progress.
  • Infantry walk along the seabed, and entering the water from great heights will slow your descent.
  • Projectiles that enter the water receive heavy drag.
• Loads of new bases.
  • 6 new Facilities (with 3 more on the way.)
  • 6 Large Outposts (3-point captures)
  • 18 Small Outposts (1-point captures)
  • 16 Open Field (construction-capable bases.)
• Various balance and spawn system adjustments (detailed further down,) as well as bug fixes and QoL additions.

Known Issues for Test Build 01

• The unassigned exterior hexes are all currently considered out of bounds areas, but the vast majority of this space will be playable in the next build.
• The "Trident Relay" facility is still in greybox on this build, and the facility is non-operable.
• Air Vehicles have difficulty interacting with water at the moment.
• A final tuning pass still needs to be completed on wheeled water vehicles, but they're mostly complete.
• Various facilities are still in the process of cleanup, and have non-functional or incorrect assets (like gate shields.)
• Some of the jungle plants have collision you can run into, noticeable at the Pommel Gardens base.
• Sunderer Garage shields have yet to be implemented at any base.
• Sunderer/Construction no-deploy zones are not yet implemented, but you can expect them to be much smaller on this continent than others.
• The cloud bank surrounding Oshur overlays objects in the distance, instead of drawing behind them. This is similar to the issue where Suns/Moons/Planets do the same thing on other continents, and is especially prominent with lower render ranges. We're developing tech to address this.
• Bastion Fleet Carriers currently don't currently have navigation set up properly for this continent, so they're liable to clip into the ground and engage in other shenanigans.
• Dynamic NPCs (like grenades and ammo boxes) aren't currently affected by water drag, and are lacking underwater explosion FX where applicable.
• "Trail" particle FX currently overlay the water and can look blocky and opaque.
• You can currently build Construction underwater. This won't be the case in the future, however.
• The water's surface, as visible from beneath, is placeholder art that will be updated in next week's build.

Friendly Fire

• Friendly fire damage is now reduced by 50% at all times.
• Grief from friendly fire now decays 50% faster at all times.

Dev Note: We'd like to take steps to resolving the pain point of friendly fire, without detracting from the heart of the experience or inviting the new problems that totally disabling friendly fire would create. We'll give these new values a go (though the 50% damage reduction may be too high,) and tune based on results.

Spawn System

There have been some changes to the spawn system that brings it a little closer to where it was a few years ago, but loosened up a bit. This mostly steps away from the Spawn Priority system that was introduced in 2019, and ended up giving far too much freedom after the first few iterations. The goal behind these changes is to reduce the speed of the redeploy meta, and move back toward more prominent vehicle transport. There are compromises with the current tuning will still allow for easy spawning locally, and Join Combat/Reinforcements Needed will still be capable of delivering you across the map when it matters.

Construction Changes

There won't be much more than bug fixes in this test build, though you'll see some quality of life and balance adjustments to Construction before release. An example of some of the changes coming to Test Build 02 include increased to harvest and deposit speeds, as well and increased Cortium capacity on uncommon and common cortium veins, among others. Removal/Restrictions on Routers is something we've lined up, but haven't made a final decision on just yet.

Infantry/Vehicle Balance

Kobalt (Ant/Sunderer/Harasser/Flash/MBT)

• Max damage from 200 to 167
• Min damage from 154 to 143
• Magazine size from 100 to 60.
• MBT/Flash/Harasser ammo capacity from 500 to 600.
• Sunderer/ANT ammo capacity from 750 to 600.
• Ammo restock per tick standardized at 120, this is a buff for all platforms.
• Magazine size skill line now increases magazine by 5 per rank, instead of 13.
• Ammo capacity cert line now provides one magazine worth of ammo per rank, instead of the previous 150.

Dev Note: These changes reduce the damage output and overall uptime of the weapon across all platforms.

NSX Amaterasu

• Projectile now despawns after 15 meters.

Dev Note: This is an experimental change meant to make the tradeoffs between the standard knife and Amaterasu more even.

UI QoL

• A new HUD compass has been added to the top center of the screen. This compass relays cardinal directions as well as heading, and can be disabled in the Interface Settings menu.
• ISO-4 currency now shows in the Depot screen, alongside DBC and Certs.

Misc. Changes, Fixes, and Additions

• Spawn-capable vehicles deployed on an incline will no longer occasionally cause your character to spawn in at an angle.
• Prototype vehicles now count toward Heavy Assault's Air Deterrence Directive.
• "Treasured" MSW-R now has charge handle on the correct side of the weapon.
• Fixed an issue with Sunderer Ambulance cosmetics showing low LoD models at short distance.
• Fixed an issue where 1-person squads weren't filtered correctly from the squad finder.
• Fixed an issue where having the Glaive IPC's targeting device in-hand when interacting with NPCs would prevent you from switching weapons.
• Ammo Siphon ability for TR MAX now works with the M3 Pounder HEG.
• You can no longer earn Mining Drill mission credit from enemies or while dead.
• Scrolling in the marketplace with no category selected will no longer create a null error.
• Fixed various NSO-related construction system issues that impacted highlighting of base assets.
• Fixed an issue where Construction Outpost bases on all continents would use larger-than-intended map indicators and text.
• Hacked vehicle terminals no longer prevent remote vehicle spawning. This is a temporary fix for friendly vehicle terminals sometimes incorrectly reporting as hacked.

Source: Test Server: Announcements