September 29, 2021 Update

All PC servers will come down for the following update on Wednesday, September 29, at 6:00am PT (3:00pm CEST). Downtime for this update is expected to last up to 3 hours.



Nanite of the Living Dead (Oct. 01 - Oct. 31)
This year's Nanite of the Living Dead event runs through all of October! Spooky sights, sounds, and SpacePumpkins will make their way to Auraxis. Much of this update will land on Sept. 29, with the directive and select Halloween items beginning on Oct. 01.


 * Shadowy Sanctuary  - The Sanctuary social hub has received a seasonal makeover. Sights, sounds, and mask-wearing denizens abound.
 * Trick or Treat!  - A holiday mission unlocks free Halloween masks that provide bonus experience when worn during the event!
 * Halloween Directive  - Conquer the new event challenges to earn a Terrifying new title, and a deadly new camouflage pattern.
 * Squash the SpacePumpkins!  - Throughout the battlefields, seek and destroy these gigantic SpacePumpkins for bonus experience and directive progress!
 * Seasonal Cosmetics  - Check the Depot for seasonal cosmetics, like vehicle horns, camouflage, weaponry, and more!

Seeker HLX - Heavy Crossbow
The Seeker HLX Heavy Crossbow is now available as a primary weapon to the Light Assault and Infiltrator classes. It fires hardlight bolts with power and precision, and comes with a variety of ammunition and attachment options to customize its role on the battlefield.

Demon Seeker HLX
For a limited time, the Demon Seeker variant will also be available, complete with unique sounds and FX. The Demon Seeker HLX grants progress toward the Exceptional IV and Halloween directives!

Halloween Melee Weapons
Unlock grim new holiday pickaxes for each empire. Pictured from left to right, Guillotine (NSO), Bonecleaver (NC), Eviscerator (TR), Doomsayer (VS).

New to the Depot
Inferno Tire Trails, for the Flash, Harasser, ANT, and Sunderer.

Spectral Contrails and Engine FX for the Dervish, Mosquito, Reaver, and Scythe.

Trick or Treat! - Timed Event

 * Upon entering Sanctuary, unlock treats from various vendors, and learn more about the Nanite of the Living Dead event!

Gun Game - Uncommon Daily, Black Market

 * This mission asks players to earn kills with increasingly more challenging weapons.

New Implants
The following implants are now available in ISO-4 Recyclers and Basic/Deluxe Implant Packs.

Berserker - Exceptional Implant (MAX only)

 * You now take 20% increased damage at all times, and your health constantly regenerates at a rate of 50 per second.

Scavenger - Uncommon Implant

 * Wielded melee or sidearm kills will immediately restock 12/15/20/30/30% of your primary or secondary weapon magazines for free.
 * Rank 5: Dying will fully reload your primary and secondary weapons from reserves.

Springstep - Rare Implant

 * After reloading your weapon, you are able to jump higher and sprint 10/12/15/20/20% faster for the next 1.5 seconds. Additionally, you enter sprint almost instantly from this state. Shooting will end this effect early.
 * Rank 5: Receiving fall damage will instantly trigger Springstep.

Infantry
The delay between firing and being able to sprint again has been reduced for the following weapons:
 * HSG-400 (NSO only Shotgun)
 * NSX Daimyo (Common Pool Sniper Rifle)
 * SR-150 (NSO only Sniper Rifle)
 * SG-ARX Rutherford (NSO only Shotgun)
 * Additionally: While aiming down sights, pellet count increased from 6 to 7.

UI/QoL

 * When you have DBC waiting to be claimed in the Depot, you'll now receive a notification to go claim it.
 * The Death Screen has received a cleanup pass that makes it more readable, and removes the teal shading over the profile banner.
 * Campaigns in the Mission Overview screen now only appear while they're active.
 * The Drop Pod has been added to the vehicle loadout screen vehicle list.
 * Waypoint HUD indicators now flash to draw attention after exiting a menu screen.
 * Receiving omni-directional damage now uses a new visual on the HUD. This includes fall damage and damage over time effects.
 * Attacking or Defending a capture point now uses more compact visuals at the top center of the HUD.
 * When a base is uncapturable, it now always relays that information on the HUD while in proximity of the facility, and not in a vehicle.

Misc. Changes, Fixes, and Additions

 * Fixed an issue with the Character Select Screen breaking button hitboxes on the edges of the screen on some resolutions.
 * Conquest alerts are no longer missing rewards for runner-up/losing factions.
 * Revamped the visuals on most small arms projectile tracers in the game.
 * Most NS weapons now tint projectile FX based on faction assignment.
 * You can now deploy the Dervish from Koltyr.
 * Redeploying for the first time now correctly shows the death screen indicator on the map screen.
 * Loadout and character select screen lighting no longer makes emissives white.
 * Continent rotations no longer break the new player mission.
 * Reliquary walls in the Containment Site once again have collision.
 * Entering VR Training instead of a normal continent no longer breaks the new player mission.
 * You are now much less likely to fall through the floor of Sanctuary when teleporting to the Embassy rooms.
 * Logging out during the tutorial no longer sticks helpful popups to your screen for longer than it should.
 * Fixed an issue with the Join Combat prompt being very insistent.
 * Infravision no longer can see through plants and other props.
 * Liberator Racer Airframe's description no longer mentions an "optional" afterburner.
 * Construction placement nodes no longer lose their visibility under certain conditions.
 * Fixed an issue with the Archer Anti-Materiel Rifle reload animations in first person.
 * Switching weapons after firing from a scoped weapon no longer breaks certain animations.
 * Various polish on mock battles in the tutorial zone.
 * Automatic zone shutdowns due to low population now show an NSO victory with updated visuals.

Looking Forward
While bigger features tend to be easier to talk about, I wanted to call out our heavy emphasis on quality of life, bug fixing, and general improvements, particularly in the last few updates. Over the years a lot of the improvements you're seeing now have been on our to-do list in some form or another, and it's traditionally been a bit difficult to justify the resource spend required to work on items like these. What's changed is two-fold. One, our team continues to grow, and has been acquiring some great talent lately. And two, is that it's just been more of a goal for us this year.

This year has been committed to, in a lot of ways, shoring up what I feel has been a cracked foundation so that building atop it can be done with confidence. Ages-old bugs are getting resolved (speculative fix in for the ghost-shell reload is being reviewed right now!,) graphics are being consistently improved upon (thanks to new tech and art techniques,) and performance seems to be going the right direction as well (though this one is a constant balancing act.) With a little luck and a lot of effort, the rest of this year will be amazeballs. As something fun for the folks reading here toward the end, Test Server will be updated with a new Light Assault tool experiment once the update goes out. May never see the light of day, but it's been pretty fun to toy around with.

Thanks everyone, happy almost -almost -Halloween. -Wrel, Lead Designer