The 0.07 major update for Operator is just around the corner! In fact the new update will be releasing in the first week of June! So Its time to showcase new features coming in this update. Including new AI, new Gore, new Gunplay and more!
Enemy AI
AI Behaviour
We have drastically improved the AI logic and difficulty, making them react quicker or slower depending on your distance and movement. You will no longer get spotted instantly if you are far away from the AI. Instead, the AI have to 'see' you for several seconds (scaled with distance, player speed, and stance) to fully spot you. If you hide and stay in the same location they will supress or keep aiming at the last place they saw you and will react quicker if they see you again. Additionally, they will alert each other about your presence backing each other up to get the numbers advantage.
If you get yourself into a gunfight you cannot run away from. Suppression is now a viable option, with the introduction of the MK46 Mod 2 (or any gun) you can lay down suppressive fire, which makes the Enemy AI less reactive and more inaccurate the more you suppress them! This is essential to making your fights easier and more dramatic.
AI Difficulty
There are 4 new AI difficulty modes: Easy, Trained, Realistic and Tier 1. The 'Realistic' setting is used for all active operations. You will only be able to change the difficulty once you have completed that operation and activate the Simulation mode.
We've designed the AI to be more challenging the less tactical you play. Sprinting in CQB, not clearing your corners, ineffective shot placement or just poor decision making will punish you. The AI reaction times have been tweaked to be the average humans reaction time at around 200ms (slightly randomised). This is different depending on your difficulty settings with the 'Tier 1' setting going as low as 140ms.
We have also added pre-placed 'Ambush' AI. These AI will be in places that the AI cannot normally be, like under tables, beds, cars and other low objects. For now they are static but they are still very deadly and will catch you off guard.
For the longest time an intentional feature was for the AI to not shoot through windows, we did this to make the game a bit easier but now they will shoot through every transparent object on every difficulty except for easy mode in case you don't like a challenge.
Another thing we have worked on is the AI clipping through walls and doors. Previously this was fairly common, while not elimated completely in the new update it now occurs a lot less as we have redesigned the AI collision and the interaction with doors (they dont hug the door anymore). The AI opening doors will come in a later update.
We added these new features to the AI with optimisation in mind, unfortunently we had to strip a main feature from the AI which will return in a later update. This feature being the cover system. It was super unoptimised which only scaled with the more AI there was in the environment. Without it, the AI still feel much better than the older systems and will serve a challenge to even the most veteran operator players.
AI Animations
AI animations in Operator have always been fairly basic. In this new update, we’ve completely overhauled them! Making movements smoother and introducing far more variety. No longer will the AI repeat the same single idle animation; instead, they’ll cycle through an assortment of idle animations, which helps them feel more human even when they’re literally doing nothing.
On top of this we have added new crouch and prone animations as well as multiple different poses for holding pistols or rifles. These range from a cowboy stance, a one handed "gangsta" stance and a traditional two handed stance.
We have also improved the new ragdolls since the last community testing branch update. They now feel more fluid, heavy, and more animated depending on how they died. You can now get "instant" kill shots on the enemies making the ragdoll flop lifelessly to the ground simulating a headshot or a spine shot, seizing control from the body. This also happens if you manage to mag dump several round into the ragdoll. Changing an animated death into a lifeless ragdoll.
Gore
With the addition of new AI character models we remade all the head gore. We had our 3d artist make extremely detailed and realistic head gore models, representing many different angles and caliber types. It also has the added benefit of being randomised with every shot! Which means you'll never have the same two 3d models rendered in the same way. With 18 different unique hand-crafted models for the head gore, the amount of variation is near limitless.
Warning! Graphic!
Weapons
Recoil and Stamina
Weapon recoil animations have been completely overhauled! Gone are the stiff, repetitive recoil animation your used to. Instead you’ll now see nuanced counter-recoil movements, revealing all the micro-adjustments and subtle shakes required to control each shot. Recoil is influenced by multiple factors. Arm stamina, movement speed, stance, injuries, and even whether you’re bracing your gun against a surface. Stacking together to deliver more cinematic, prolonged gunfights.
We’ve also extended the “hold breath” mechanic to provide longer stabilization and further reduce recoil. We now call this “Lock In”: regardless of fatigue, locking in steadies your aim and minimizes recoil when it counts. Arm stamina also effects other things like your sight picture and deadzone, making arm stamina more important than ever.
New Small Detail. While using bolt/pump action weapons, you can hold the chambering button to pause the action half way through.
ATAK
The ATAK is back! Now with new features to help identify hostiles and friendlies alike. You also have the ability to see your infils and exfils with realtime updates, the ATAK is an essential tool for any squad.
We also added tracer rounds for every caliber.
UI
Weapon Customisation
We have improved the Weapon Customisation UI to make it easier to read and navigate. You will now see a "Collapse" button which will hide all of the attachments under that attachment. Additionally, you will now see Icons for every weapon attachment. The icons details and appearence have also been updated to fill the image frame better. These two small QOL improvements make a big impact in everyday modding of your weapons and we know that it will make the overall experience much better.
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On Screen Elements
Another UI improvement is to the interaction UI, you will now see what you are interacting with and what interactions you can do. While basic for now, it will be expanded upon in the future to provide multiple options.
To symbolise when you are near an interactable object, the centre of the UI will fade in. Similar to other games the full UI will pop up when you are directly hovering over the object. This is far better than the old UI which simply was "F", which provided no context and can be easily missed.
Radio and Voip
In game VOIP has been expanded with proximity voip and radio voip. Holding your voip button activates proximity voip while double tapping and holding your voip button will activate the radio.
NVGs and ECOTI
NVG effects have been significantly improved as well with the introduction of ECOTI (Clip on Thermal). Autogating and Burn in has also been added, making dark areas brighter and making brighter areas less bright. Bright lights/objects will now have a trail behind it as apart of the Burn in feature as it does in real life. If you stare at a bright light it will burn in the nvgs temporarily before fading away.
We have also added a new setting specifically for NVGs. This setting being Screen Space Global Illumination, while expensive and providing minimal improvement in daytime, even the lowest setting has a massive impact at night. Which is why we have included it as an option.
That concludes most the new features coming in this update. We hope you are as excited for this update as we are and we're excited to post the full patch notes when the update launches next week! Other than the new content and features, there are many many bug fixes, QOL improvements and gameplay polishing.
Apologies for the small delay with the devlog. The engine editor unexpectedly bugged out on us forcing us to reimport and troubleshoot the issue which took us couple days to fix. This was the first time its ever happened in this way and we naturally prioritised this over the post.
We thank you for your support and patience and wish you a great rest of your day!
- Vector Interactive
In case you missed it! https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1913370/view/655947663575876688?l=english