September 6, 2018 Update (PS4 EU&US)

All PS4 servers will be taken offline for an update at 6 AM PT on Thursday, September 6, 2018 (1300 UTC) Downtime is expected to last up to 3 hours.

Unstable Warpgates
Unstable Warpgates will remain unstable for 3 hours at most before stabilizing. This will help servers like Briggs move through the continent rotations more quickly, as well as participate in continent events outside of peak hours.

Charging Warpgates
Warpgates now take less time to charge overall, bringing it closer to the three hour mark before you can start triggering a continent-wide alert.

Aerial Anomalies

 * Anomalies now spawn closer to the center of the map.
 * Anomalies will now never spawn in the same location more than once, and will respawn at every available spawn location before beginning another "loop."
 * Anomalies have also received a new look that appears from further away, lines up with the range at which you can receive points, and encourages players to leave the anomaly to do battle with incoming hostiles.
 * ASP air vehicle discounts should no longer break when an anomaly event ends.

Meltdown
Meltdown Alerts now increase experience gain by 25% for the duration of the alert.

Gaining Ground (New Event)

 * A new continent event has been added to the lineup.
 * The "Gaining Ground" event, similar to Biolab, Tech Plant, and Amp Station Facility Capture events, will ask each faction to control the most Large Outposts on the continent in order to win the event.
 * We've greatly reduced the frequency of the old facility capture alerts at the same time, as the intent has always been to phase them out when enough new event types made their way into the game.

Join Combat (Instant Action)

 * We've reduced the distance the center of a combat area will search for a valid spawn location nearby.
 * This change will reduce the amount of available instant action locations, but it will also be less likely to drop you into spawn locations that aren't very close to fights.
 * In short, better quality by sacrificing quantity. We'll be able to adjust this setting (or revert these changes) on Live without downtime, if need be.

Squad Improvements

 * Platoon leaders now control the waypoints of each Squad Leader, and no longer has "Platoon Waypoints" connected to each squad separately.
 * All squad members are now capable of placing spawn beacons, though only one beacon can be active at a time.
 * Waypoints have received new visuals for clarity, this is still a work in progress.
 * Squad map indicators now show the player's facing direction.
 * Orders chat has been removed and refunded.

Implant System
The pol of implants has been doubled. These implants have been added to the normal implant crates, alongside the ability to craft non-exceptional implants with ISO-4.

New Implants

 * Jockey: Increases shield health when in a vehicle rumble seat.
 * Survivalist: Increases shield recharge rate and grants a sprint speed boost when at low health.
 * Athlete: Increases sprint acceleration, deceleration, and how quickly you get your hold-breath back.
 * Gunslinger: Kills with sidearms increase your reload speed for a short time.
 * Heavyweight: Grants a major reduction to flinch received from being struck by a projectile, but passively reduces your movement speed.
 * Response Jacket: Grants a resistance to successive explosive damage hits for a short time after you take explosive damage.
 * Ransack: Killing enemy vehicles at close range will restore a tick of ammunition for you and the vehicle you are in.
 * Critical Chain: Headshot kills grant increased rechamber speed for a short time.
 * Sidewinder: Increases strafing speed at the cost of lower strafing acceleration and deceleration.
 * Fortify: Interact with capture points to bolster your shield health for a short time.
 * Symbiote: You receive a passive small arms resistance so long as you've taken small arms damage recently.
 * Covert Drop: Taking damage from a fall will cloak you on landing.
 * Failsafe: When your shield breaks, it restores ability energy.
 * Salvage - MAX only: Killing other MAXes will instantly restore a chunk of health.
 * Paratrooper - Light Assault only: Taking damage restores jump jet fuel.
 * Electrotech - Engineer only: When your shield breaks, you send out a pulse that repairs nearby equipment.
 * Mobility Mesh - Heavy Assault only: Reduces the mobility penalty while your overshield is active.
 * Mending Field- Medic only: Nearby allies who are critically wounded heal passively up to a certain amount of health.
 * Firewall - Exceptional - Infiltrator only: You can now "hack" allied turrets to embed them with a firewall which *increases their health pool.
 * Disengage - Exceptional - MAX only: When Emergency Repair is activated, you will knock back nearby enemy infantry and increase your sprint acceleration speed slightly for a time.
 * Avoidance - Exceptional: You no longer trip proximity mines, and spitfires require you to be 50% closer to acquire you.
 * Bionics - Exceptional: Reduces health pool by 400 while increasing personal shields by 400.
 * Cold Heart - Exceptional: Increases heat cooloff for a short period after a headshot kill.
 * Experimental Stims - Exceptional: Gives a random movement speed, reload speed, or small arms resistance buff when consuming a Medical or Restoration Kit.

Minor Cloak

 * Uncloak delay for firing your weapon from 1.25sec. to 1sec.
 * Moving within Minor Cloak will no longer immediately reset your cloak countdown (but will immediately uncloak you per usual.) Now, short bouts of movement after being cloaked will allow you to re-enter cloak more quickly.
 * Firing your weapon now resets the Minor Cloak countdown, ensuring that players no longer accidentally fall into minor cloak while engaged in combat.

Sensor Shield

 * Detection range reduction has been buffed for all ranks, and the rank 5 benefit has been modified.
 * Rank 1: From within 45m to within 30m
 * Rank 2: From within 42m to within 26m
 * Rank 3: From within 35m to within 20m
 * Rank 4: From within 15m to within 10m
 * Rank 5: While walking, you are not detectable by recon devices at all.

Aerial Combatant

 * Fuel restorations are now the same percentage of maximum fuel, regardless of jump jet type.
 * Vehicle kills at rank 5 now restore 30% jump jet fuel.
 * Deployables no longer trigger Aerial Combatant.

Assimilate

 * Tier 5 benefit from 30% of current energy restore to 10% of maximum energy restore.
 * Dev Note: Restructuring this benefit reduces the overwhelming synergy with Adrenaline Shield, while resulting in higher energy returns in situations where you’d normally deplete or get close to depleting your energy, since it no longer bases the regeneration on your current energy supply.

Nanomesh Specialist - Heavy Assault
Dev Note: The rank 5 bonus and progression from ranks 1-4 have been swapped, and increased to be more useful in more situations.
 * Your overshield abilities now decay 50/55/65/80/80% slower while stationary, and 25/28/33/40/40% slower while moving.
 * Rank 5: Your depleted overshield no longer has a delay before it begins recharging.

Misc. Implant Fixes and Changes

 * The ISO Recycler found in the Depot no longer gives players common implants, and will now only yield implants that are of uncommon or higher rarity.
 * The "Breakdown Duplicates" button now shows the proper breakdown value if you happen to own an exceptional duplicate implant.
 * The currency cap on ISO-4 has now been set to 100,000.
 * The breakdown value of Exceptional implants has been reduced from 1500 to 500.
 * Overdrive Implant works once again.

LA7 Buzzard (New Conglomerate)

 * Camera pitch up angle from 18 to 30
 * Camera pitch down angle from 11 to 15
 * Camera yaw limit from 25 to 30
 * Projectile velocity from 60 to 120
 * Dev Note: This weapon had some major usability issues in terms of tracking targets and estimating drop distance. The changes above should make this weapon much easier to use.

Galaxy

 * HMG resistance from 67% to 75
 * Chaingun resistance from 67% to 75%
 * Dev Note: These changes reduce how quickly a Galaxy can be destroyed by weapons like the Liberator's Vektor and Valkyrie's Wyvern.

Valkyrie

 * M20 Wyvern minimum damage from 200 to 143
 * Resistance to small arms (type 2) from 96 to 75.
 * Dev Note: The resistance change puts damage from small arms in line with that of Empire Specific Fighters, noting that they still retain their 50% belly armor and the capacity to repair from the rumble seat. The Wyvern's minimum damage reduction helps shorten the range at which a Valkyrie can harass larger targets.

Lightning and Main Battle Tank main cannons
We've moved away from HESH allowing for one-shot kills indirectly, and instead have increased the consistency of its blast damage in an area. At the same time we've rebalanced the direct damage output and reloads of certain weapons to bring their damage output to a level where they’ll feel like more viable options.

L100 Python HEAT

 * Outer blast radius from 5m to 4m

L100 Python AP

 * Direct damage from 650 to 700

L100 Python HESH

 * Direct damage from 575 to 600
 * Indirect damage from 1050 to 800
 * Reload speed from 3sec. to 3.25sec.
 * Inner blast radius from 1m to 2m

Titan-150 HEAT

 * Reload speed from 3sec. to 2.5sec.
 * Outer blast radius from 5m to 4m

Titan-150 AP

 * Reload speed from 4sec. to 3.75sec.

Titan-150 HESH

 * Indirect damage from 1050 to 850
 * Inner blast radius from 1m to 2m

Supernova PC

 * Reload speed from 2.75sec. to 2.25sec.
 * Outer blast radius from 5m to 4m

Supernova VPC

 * Inner blast radius from 1m to 2m

P2-120 HEAT

 * Outer blast radius from 5m to 4m

Misc. Vehicle Changes and Fixes

 * IR Smoke should no longer blind like the sun during certain times of day.
 * Sunderer should now be able to undeploy while under fire and being repaired.
 * Updated Sunderer Blockade Armor’s description to be accurate with its benefits.
 * Updated Sunderer Deploy Shield particle effects.

Repair Tool

 * The Engineer's Repair Tool will now repair with fire and deconstruct with alt-fire.

Flak Armor

 * Removed the Tank Shell resistance given at rank 3 and above.
 * Removed description’s mention of C4 and Tank Mine resistance prior to rank 5, as these resistances were never actually given at earlier ranks.
 * Dev Note: In conjunction with the tank cannon changes mentioned earlier, this means that Lightning, Magrider, and Vanguard HESH, as well as Magrider and Vanguard AP can now one-shot Flak Armor infantry on a direct hit.

1x IRNV optics

 * Sway removed from all 1x IRNV optics.

Spitfire Auto-Turret (Engineer Ability)

 * No longer has limited usage, and instead is cooldown based.
 * Upgrading this turret now reduces its cooldown (from a base of 35) by 5/10/15 seconds.

Suppressors

 * Updated suppressor descriptions to have detailed information.
 * The suppressor attachment no longer reduces maximum damage range.
 * Velocity standardized to 15% for all weapons (previously, velocity penalties ranged anywhere from 20% to 50% based on the weapon.)
 * Dev Note: Suppressor penalties varied wildly from weapon to weapon, and in most cases remained one of the least desirable attachments to equip. We've streamlined the stat changes to make suppressors easier to understand and more worthwhile to use.

Hybrid Suppressors and Emission Condenser

 * Velocity penalty from 50% to 20%

High Velocity Ammo

 * Velocity increase from 5% to 10%

Soft Point Ammo

 * Velocity debuff from 5% to 10%

MKV Suppressed (Common Pool SMG)

 * Velocity from 330 to 360
 * Max damage range from 10m to 15m

Skorpios (VS Directive SMG)

 * Velocity from 378 to 396

Tempest (NC Directive SMG)

 * Velocity from 378 to 396

Shuriken (TR Directive SMG)

 * Velocity from 370 to 407

Gauss Prime (NC Directive Assault Rifle)

 * Velocity from 651 to 682

DMR-99 (TR Directive Battle Rifle)

 * Velocity from 650 to 660

MGR-S1 Gladius (NC SMG)

 * SPRW Ammunition velocity increase from 50% to 25%

T2 Striker (TR Rocket Launcher)

 * Projectile lifespan from 5 to 2
 * Dev Note: This brings the Striker's range to roughly 445 meters. Previously, the projectile would be able to reach well beyond the range vehicles would actually render.

NS-R3 Swarm (Common Pool Rocket Launcher)

 * Lockon Distance from 400 to 800.
 * Lockon Lifespan from 5 to 12.
 * Dev Note: This adjustment does not change the Swarm’s initial lockon distance, but only the distance (and duration) at which launched rockets will follow their target.

NSX Masamune (Common Pool Rocket Launcher)

 * Gravity from 2 to 1.5

NSX Fujin (Common Pool Grenade)

 * Default amount from 1 to 2
 * Grenade Bandolier increases amount equipped by 2 per rank
 * Projectile model updated

Misc. Infantry Changes and Fixes

 * Wielding knives and medical kits should no longer make you run silly.
 * MG-HBR1 Dragoon’s reload animation should now work correctly.
 * EMP Grenades once again cause an overheat on MANA Turrets.
 * Fixed an issue with VE-LR Obelisk's Manual Calibration attachment where the heat bleedoff rate was more severe than intended, and was giving 5 additional shots, instead of 4.

Player Studio
Steve0's Bastion Armor (Terran Republic Heavy Assault) has been released. Binarycoder's Dredge Helmet set (New Conglomerate) has been released. Reaperop117's Mantid Helmet (Vanu Sovereignty) has been released. NS6's Visage MAX and Infantry Helmets (Vanu Sovereignty) have been released. EbonNebula's Sub-Orbital Galaxy cockpit (Common Pool) has been released. Another round of Decals has been processed.
 * Spartan Aspis for VS and TR
 * HVAG outfit decal
 * TBAD outfit decal
 * Fury Squadron outfit decal
 * UED outfit decal
 * TATF outfit decal
 * Zeta Unit outfit decal
 * Phoenix Group outfit decal
 * New Model Army outfit decal
 * BTYR outfit decal
 * KAIN outfit decal
 * HAKA outfit decal
 * ELYX outfit decal
 * Duces Benevolens outfit decal

Misc. Fixes, Additions, and Improvements

 * Your first person arms should no longer fall off during death animations.
 * Toned down Esamir brightness for infrared optics at certain hours of the day.
 * Defense experience pulses should now be awarded the first time a base is being captured after a continent unlocks.
 * Fixed issues where modifications to maximum health and shield wouldn't show properly on the HUD.
 * Character feet should no longer sway back and forth along the ground during their idle animations.
 * Players can now set faction map territory colors independently from facility object colors in the Interface Settings.
 * Continent faction balance requirement from 6% to 10%.
 * Outfit Message of the Day character count has been doubled.
 * Various geometry exploit fixes and bugs across multiple continents.
 * The "shadow" from the My Character screen profile banner has been removed.
 * Fixed an issue where clients could crash during an Anomaly alert when spawning vehicles at the warp gate.
 * VE Hourglass (6x) optic now unlocks account wide when bought with Station Cash.
 * Azure Inferno Skull cosmetic's glowing eyes should no longer appear floating ominously in first person.
 * Shield shaders should no longer create a tearing reflection near the edges of the screen. This was most commonly seen while placing or viewing construction objects.
 * Fixed various MAX Ammunition Container bugs.
 * Facility alerts should now always provide some reward, even in the case of a draw.
 * EMP grenades should once again fry Anti-Infantry MANA Turrets, and AV MANA Turrets will now also be penalized.