Today's update was planned for yesterday — Valentine's Day — but ended up being delayed by a few nasty bugs. We're mentioning that because we had a nice themed intro for it and don't wanna let it go to waste. So instead of coming up with a new intro, we're simply all going to pretend it did come out yesterday. Alternatively, you may pretend today is still Valentine's Day:
Surprise that special someone with this hand-picked special changelist of features making up a beautiful, romantic GROUND BRANCH Valentine’s Day update for the Community Test beta branch! No refunds after two hours! ????
Thank you for indulging us.
New to Community Test? Here's how it works:
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❓ How to join the Community Test beta branch
- Right-click GROUND BRANCH in your Steam Library and select Properties…
- Click 'BETAS' on the left-hand list menu
- Select 'communitytest - Community testing branch' from the drop-down menu (no password required)
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???? Where to report bugs
You can report bugs and issues using any of these methods:
- The in-game Bugs & Issues screen (press Esc once in-game and look along the top menu)
- The Steam forums: steamcommunity.com/app/16900/discussions/
- The #bug-reports channel on the official GROUND BRANCH™ Discord
Known issues
???? These issues are known to still be present:
- The Breaching Charge is currently deployed at a 90-degree angle
- Bullets may be being blocked in odd places by a certain type of volume — please report in with the map and location if you come across it!
- When connecting to servers, the loading screen displays the "Returning to Main Menu" text
- Enemy AI may be unresponsive/idle/stuck in various contexts — if you see it, please make note of whether it was online (dedicated server? Listen server?) or offline, which game mode was being played, as well as map and location etc.Zitat:⚠️ Bots are particularly prone to getting stuck in doorways; we're actively working on fixing/improving this issue.
- Weapon movement, poses and animations in general are still being put back together after the prone overhaul — please bear with us
- Walking or running with a primary weapon equipped causes the character's right foot to "hover" before it actually touches the ground
- The prone stance does not conform to terrain angle
- Character and weapon collision while prone is pretty finicky! Let us know how it all feels to you
- Various combinations of hairstyles and headgear items have visible clipping or overall jankiness
- AI bots are not functional in Deathmatch
Patch notes
Maps and missions
- Various culling, collision, navmesh and navlink fixes for Depot, Tanker, City, Creek, Storage Facility, Rundown, Rig and Power Station
- Made the roof windows in Depot enterable again
- Added a few navmesh blockers to Depot to stop AI from getting stuck
- Fixed bank stairwell door in City not closing properly
- Added window frames to open window holes in Creek buildings to stop people getting stuck when trying to mantle through them
- Fixed bug where players were getting stuck on containers in Storage Facility lower area after vaulting over railing
- Added small step to side areas of Storage Facility tunnel entrance (helps AI navigate space better and cleaner movement for player)
- Fix for one of the Compound outside doors hitting a mesh and not fully opening
- Fixed up some bugs in DTAS game mode script
- Fixed bug in Defuse where bomb stopped going off
- Amended error text in Lua guard macros, to cover the extra possibility that a UObject became invalid and turned into a nil reference
Animation
- Fixed leaning with handgun and move forward and left or right causing hands to go all odd
- Fixed crouched handgun ADS being offset in certain situations (e.g. leaning)
- First pass hooking up prone poses for Binoculars, Breaching Charge (and detonator), grenades and Tablet
- Fixed and updated hand pose for holding grenades
- Hooked up Breaching Charge and detonator use animationsZitat:⚠️ Known issue: the charge model is currently deployed at a 90-degree angle.
Inventory and customization
- Fixed incorrect female belt variations being used with Tactical Shirt items
- Fixed Helmet (MICH) chin strap not working correctly for Male 06
- Fixed up issues with Headset asset
- Created a version of the Headset mesh for use with Fleece Beanie
- Adjusted Fleece Beanie to fit better with Balaclava
- Fixed mesh splitting on female Jeans
- Added female untucked short versions of belts
- Cleaned up various clipping issues with female clothing
- Fixed Male 03 helmet chin straps not set properly
- Fixed issue with rounds not showing in Galil ARM magazines when mag-checking
UI
- Updated splash screen (Default Controls) with newer version of the controls scheme graphic
- Updated some dialog boxes with an optional "Dot not show again" checkbox
- Added option to reset opted-out dialogs in Settings › HUD
- Small visual update to After Action Review (AAR) screen
- Swapped order of Combat Stats and Mission Summary tabs in AAR
- Visual pass on Server Browser: mod column (column icon and [MOD] tag) and expanded server info tab
- Server Browser now carried out mandatory mod sync when joining dedicated server
- Visual pass on bind overlays
- Cleaned up dialog box widget
- NoTimer round stage (Training modes) no longer displays time text at top of screen (also does not show time remaining on Tablet)
- Updated Invite Friends menu (is now styled similar to a dialog box)
- Fixed mission list duplicating when revisiting mission selection screen
- Added new icon (wrench) for Modding button in Admin Panel menu
- Updated Credits screen
Customize Operator screen
- Added "loading" message before the character and assets are all loaded
- Fixed padding and did a small visual pass on skin icon selection
- Related work to reduce hitching and improve handling of default item builds
- Added yellow custom build display for item slots in overall screen (was previously limited to inside menus)
- Added [MOD] tag to item slots/selections
- Updated MK25 pistol icon to make grip panel area less dark
- Fixed hidden hair casting shadow on UI character view
Mission Editor
- Added Time of Day (TOD) widget
- Made double-click outline window use the standard focus (F) routine rather than a second custom bit of code
- Reworking to change pawn type and fix right-drag related error
- Made a few dialogs hidable (e.g. select script, load mission file, save mission file)
VFX
- Optimization pass on VFX for the bullet impacts
- Fixed the respawning particle issue
- Continuing pass over the bullet impact scalability settings and culling settings
- Fix for the smoke flickering when viewed through PIP scopes
- Making a pass on scalability settings for bullet impacts (lots to improve)
- Reparented emitters with missing parents to sync culling settings
AI
- Upgraded Kythera AI middleware to new version (1.3.3) (may fix some bugs, but WIP)
- Fixed the AI aim bug, where enemy bots could not see the head of player characters — this caused situations such as leaning out of cover and not being spotted
Bug fixes and miscellaneous
- Added tentative fix for IsValidLowLevel crash on game exit
- Lots of work on mods under the hood (especially with regard to dedicated servers)
- Reduction in log spam overall (and added some more for good luck)
- Reworked a lot of under-the-hood stuff, including inventory and asset handling, validators, overlays and more
- Tentative fix for stuttering and "Maximum number of UObjects exceeded" crash on dedicated servers ????
- Rejigged base character class and item class in terms of how they handle inventory (in particular removed some limitations on skin inheritance, and streamlined asset loading)
- Fixed up occasional disconnects between TOD set in mission launch screens and TOD set in the Ready Room
- Updated Debug menu to add new commands
- Opting out with F4 now increases Deaths stat
- Updated HUD to support adding non-chat messages to center, upper and lower message managers (allowed changing Ready Room and Spectator messages from engine messages to far more visible center-screen, preventing the mistake of trying to hit F4 or F6 again)
As always, thank you for testing and providing feedback!
See you next time!