Infection
The shockwave from Sigyn’s breath caused more damage than originally thought; word of the Eye’s awakening in Sudenica DA-9C reached across the galaxy, but this was just one of the many changes the great catalyst had caused.
In an isolated area of space lived a viscid, thick, gelatinous life-form known as “VX-616” or “Vorax”, atop a large asteroid that once stood its place of birth - as the shockwave collided with this rock, a new course had been set for the creature; directly towards the planet Tartarus.
It didn’t take long for the colony and it’s surrounding area to be consumed by the lifeform - a transmission from a local scientist named Ada Valentina communicated the following instructions:
“Thank goodness you heard our call, Captain - here’s the situation: an evacuation is currently underway on the planet Tartarus; we’re looking at mass extinction thanks to the life-form known as “Vorax”.”
“What we need from you is to… Well… to purposely let it grab onto your ship… Don’t worry, you’ll have some time before it destroys you and your crew...”
“Once it has, hurl this monstrosity into one of the planet’s stars - when you’re in close proximity, the heat alone should be enough to weaken it, and loosen its grip.”
“Untold lives are counting on you.”
Infection is a 5v5 PVP and PVE mode, which tasks players with protecting the planet Tartarus from a voracious, spacefaring lifeform known as VX-616, or more simply as Vorax.
Players must infect their ships with strains of the Vorax and carry them to the enemy sector to be destroyed in a star. Enemy ships that are controlled by Vorax are attempting to deliver strains to planet Tartarus, to consume all life found there.
Players can attempt to force their way through with their teammates, or to attempt more stealthy methods to bring strains to the delivery zone.
Beware of the Vorax strains however. Being a carrier for such a dangerous organism is a hazardous task. The longer a ship hosts Vorax, the greater the likelihood of unexpected effects on systems. Destruction is guaranteed unless you can deliver it quickly.
Move quickly, defend the planet Tartarus, and destroy the Vorax strains.
- Acquire a strain by flying directly into it.
- Deliver it to the zone at the far end of the enemy sector to destroy the strain.
- An infected ship receives more damage and reduced healing, but becomes more agile.
- Destroying a host leaves the Vorax strain dormant for a short time, but it can be acquired again soon after.
- Deliver 3 Vorax strains to end the match.
Infection Episode pack
The episode pack returns for Infection, this time the pack will only be sold for 1 Credit however – ensuring everyone can enjoy it at virtually no cost. That’s close to 9000 platinum’s worth of content for just 1 Credit.
The pack contains all of the following, instantly unlocked upon purchase:
- Two Hazmat Ship Skins (Ghost & Equalizer)
- Two Vorax Ship Skins (Gladiator & Disruptor)
- The Infection Hangar
- Limited edition Deal With It and Popcorn emotes
- A limited-edition Badge and Nameplate
- 3 x Dark Crew Pods
Platinum to credits conversion
As part of the sunsetting of Fractured Space, there are a number of changes to Platinum and Credit prices, mainly all Platinum being removed from the game.
- Any Platinum you currently have stored in your account will be converted into Credits at a rate of 550 Credits per 1 Platinum
- All items that were previously sold for Platinum will now be available for purchase with Credits (such as Ship Skins, Legacy Episode Packs, Skin Bundles, and more)
- The Infection Episode Pack will be available to purchase for just 1 Credit
- Steam DLC will no longer be purchasable from within the game, from the steam store, or from authorised third-party vendors.
- Existing Steam DLC keys will still be redeemable in Steam for the content advertised when the key was purchased.
- Any Platinum earned in-game post this update as part of legacy Drop Pods or DLC will be burned for Credits when re-logging into the game
As part of this update a number Ship Skins that were either limited edition or not previously available in the game will now be purchasable for Credits.
Coherent to UMG
Conversion of UI from Coherent to UMG, removal of Coherent from in game (Coherent is still used as our front end).
After investigation into performance improvements for the game, we found that Coherent was taking up a lot of rendering time, especially in large fights when a lot was happening on screen. We also found there were frequent minor lag spikes that we couldn’t pin down or remove.
So we made the decision to switch to UMG, which has involved an entire rewrite of the HUD. We have done our best to keep the HUD design unchanged.
A redesign was in the works, but phase 1 was to get the HUD working and looking as close to the Coherent version as possible, to reduce disruption to players.
Ultimately, we switched to UMG to make the HUD faster and gameplay smoother.
General Changes
Jump system re-work
The jump system has been reworked, replacing jump home with a 2-charge mag system instead. You'll still be able to use 6 to jump home, but you'll also be able to use normal jump to access these home points as well. In addition, you'll also be able to jump immediately after already using a normal jump.
Tooltip review
All loadout tooltips have been reviewed and updated to match the current values that exist in-game.
Added Legacy Episodes to drafting vote and custom games
We've added in the option to vote for any of the past 5 episodes (Plus default conquest) to the drafting Gamemode vote in PvP games. You can also select any of these for custom games too.
Ability Icons
Ability Icons will now display a warning when disabled by Ability Disable or Disarm.
Daily Rewards
Daily rewards have been removed entirely from the game.
Balance Changes
Centurion
Energy Drones
- Reduced Energy Drain from 180 to 50 per tick, increased leech fraction from 0.9 to 3.6.
Note: This will return the same amount of energy to the Centurion, however the target will have less energy drained.
Protector
Defensive Shield
- Reduced Energy cost per second from 160p/s to 100p/s.
Disruptor
BlinkToAlly
- Increased cooldown from 33s to 38s.
Known Issues
- Rarely at the end of a game the Options menu will be open behind the Results screen. This can be resolved by pressing Escape until the Options menu appears and closes.
- Sometimes the map will appear to display you or allied players as an enemy (red instead of yellow).
- Player pings on the map will not appear at the correct location in the sector.
- The "Ultimate Leaf on the Wind Ben Edition" logo doesn't exist in the Hangar or Drafting.
For the full announcement on the sun setting of Fractured Space, please see here:
