Commanders, it's time for a new battle plan to fight M.E.G.A. Corp!
Conduit strategized a new attack vector to increase the effectiveness of strikes against the evil conglomerate. You're no longer attacking M.E.G.A. Corp.'s facilities in one location while Conduit is on standby for extraction. Instead, you're striking multiple targets on each operation, retreating to the choppa for tactical re-grouping and planning your next move.
This new strategy has shown to improve the loot yield from each operation at simultaneously increased safety for you and your squad.
Your technicians revamped the clone-control battle stations, testing a novel heads-up display technology to grant you more overview of the frantic action. The choppa was upgraded with a new tactical map module to present potential target locations, and an improved radar array to scan for threats.
M.E.G.A. Corp. started to pivot their defense strategies, too. They installed a new aerial defense system and artillery fortifications. Conduit has already figured out how to circumnavigate the anti-air weapons for safe drop-offs and extractions. You just have to get the job done and meet her at the extraction point before the artillery acquires your position and lays a deadly barrage upon you.
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Good luck out there, Commander!
⚠ SAVEGAME NOTICE ⚠
Savegame Reset: RECOMMENDED - NOT REQUIRED
This update adjusts the structure for maps and operations, changing a few unlock requirements and dialogues. If you continue playing with your existing savegame, you are potentially not experiencing all of the new content.
We offer you to reset your savegame in the Settings menu.
By doing so, you will start fresh and a backup of your last savegame is created in your local game folder.
You can find a guide on how to restore savegames from older game versions here:
How to access & restore savegame backups (Steam Forums)
Now, here's a detailed breakdown of Update 0.9.13 "Pathfinder":
New Map & Ops Structure
Up until now, your operations took you on 20-minute continuous runs, fighting, looting, upgrading, scouting, and managing your extraction.
The "Pathfinder" (0.9.13) update changes this drastically!
First, you regularly pick your "map", i.e. the M.E.G.A. Corp. subsidiary, that you want to attack.
Then, Conduit takes you straight into the battle where you capture your first Beacon to call in your first Merc. From this point on, your operations go very different than before:
A Countdown is indicating how much time you have left in the area before a deadly artillery barrage is striking your position. Your primary goal is to extract before that timer runs out - while capturing any objectives along the way!
Depending on the type of challenge in the current area, you are met with different conditions to reveal the extraction point:
- Time Attack - just survive long enough until Conduit transmits the extraction point's coordinates
- Onslaught - clear the area by defeating a certain number of enemies before Conduit can get you out
- Elite Encounter - defeat a miniboss before Conduit can pick you up
These challenges are just the initial set of map areas you will see in this update. We are already working on additional ones, namely "Hunt", "Heist", and "Sabotage" operations.
After you have cleared enough areas in the operation, you will face the final boss - a life and death encounter.
To prepare for each new challenge, you are now spending your "skill points" from your level-ups immediately after extracting from the last area. You can no longer choose upgrades in the middle of the action! So make sure you prepare yourself for the next challenge.
If you aren't confident in your combat capacity, you can always choose a "tactical retreat" in between challenges. You only need to survive the first few encounters until you're out of reach of M.E.G.A. Corp.'s anti-air defenses.
With each challenge, the Danger Level in the operation increases. The DL determines the strength of enemies and impacts the quality and amount of loot you can grab from Loot Crate objectives. The Danger Level Indicator in the map overview also shows you when the "tactical retreat" becomes available - and when you may encounter "Complications" on your operation.
Complications persist for your whole operation and may have a big impact on your squad-building strategy.
The initial set of Complications includes mostly stat modifications. We are working on more intricate mods that are tying more into the synergies of your squad. With a smart squad-build you may turn these Complications into an advantage. Since we are working on an improved weapon system to take the synergies and build-depth to the next level, expect these new Complications to come with that system upgrade in one of the next two major updates.
The last notable change with the new Maps & Ops structure is how loot is being secured:
Your Carry Capacity is only limiting the amount of loot you can grab during the fight in an area. If you manage to extract successfully, all your loot is safely stowed in the choppa.
If you are K.I.A., only the loot you are currently carrying on you is lost. With a tactical retreat, you can save all your loot you captured so far. But if you choose to leave too early, i.e. abort the operation, you will lose everything as you abandon your squad.
We will further refine this system by changing Carry Capacity and the systems around loot & inventory management. For the moment, you will have certain traits and stats that affect your Carry Cap without having a relevant impact on your runs. We chose to keep these in place in order to prevent you from resetting your savegames since removing them may have an impact on progression or existing Commander clones. This is not the ideal solution, but we stick with our update philosophy and improve these systems with your feedback as we continue developing and evolving the game.
UI Overhaul Pt.1
For the longest time, we kept the ingame HUD and UI in a mostly functional state to iterate and develop rather quickly. Update "Pathfinder" now lays the groundwork for the UI we envision for the final game.
The biggest change is currently happening underneath the hood and visually in the HUD during and in between the battles.
The HUD is not only providing more overview of the action. It is also playing a role in the narrative design and storytelling. Since this is only the first step in this direction, you may still encounter various inconsistencies and rough edges. But we're eager to hear your feedback and first impressions to continue improving the UI and prepare for additional accessibility settings to adjust it to your individual liking.
Tutorial Improvements
With the novelties in update "Pathfinder", the tutorial and onboarding have also changed and improved. Conduit is providing more contextual help at various stages and will react to more events during the action with hints and radio messages to help you become the best Commander.
Community Translations
When we introduced the new languages in update 0.9.11 "Arsenal", we considered them a work-in-progess without final proof-reading. The translations in "Pathfinder" are better but still far from perfect.
You, Commanders, know the game better than any translator. So, we want to invite you to support us by directly improving the translations as part of our Community Translations Project.
You will gain exclusive access to that project via our Discord server to adjust translations or even add completely new languages to the game. In turn you will receive exclusive benefits, e.g. access to playtest versions and a direct channel to our dev team.
We're going to share more details on Discord very soon - let us know if you would be interested in participating!
More Regular Playtests
Update "Pathfinder" was the first update that had a Community Playtest prior to its release.
We received lots of great input and insights from you, so we want to continue running these playtests in the future.
To participate in these playtests, please join our Discord server and follow the information there (when it becomes available) to get the Playtester role and access to the exclusive playtester channels.
You need to own the game to participate and the playtests will be time-limited.
More Additions, Fixes, Adjustments, Improvements & Details
- Commander Weapons in the Armory now show their stats similarly to the popups in the Clone Bay.
- Adjusted the rate of fire on the SMG Commander Weapon.
- Added stun to the Quaker Hammer Commander Weapon.
- Commander Weapons have 5 level-ups instead of 3.
- Changed Ops descriptions to align with new structure.
- Adjusted random distribution for level-up choices to allow for more controlled squad-builds.
- Chemtrail starts a bit stronger with 3 instead of 1 poison puddles.
- Fixed an instance where the Duplicator trait was breaking Merc behavior.
- Objectives spawn a bit more randomly and less predictable.
- Fixed Mercs & Bosses attacking during intro timelines or dialogue skits.
- Reduced Ops modifiers in favor of new Complication modifiers.
- Improved the VFX for slow, stun, and various damage types.
- Improved main menu layout to make all buttons directly reachable and reduce complexity.
- Reduced the end-of-run screen complexity to condense the information to only show relevant data.
- Renamed the maps to reflect the game lore more accurately.
- Added animations to objective indicators to highlight when they spawn.
- Conduit will radio you when the Extraction Point appears.
- Replaced various pixel icons with higher-res icons for improved readability.
- Improved color palette for damage numbers.
- Adjusted Dogtag Galore unlock conditions to work with the new map & ops structure: collect 750 -> 420 dogtags with one magnet
- Fixed various Commander Weapons not receiving all upgrade mods correctly.
- Loot Goblins have a new VFX when dropping their loot to make it more obvious.
- Fixed the mouse cursor interfering with gamepad input. It should now disable correctly when you're using a controller.
- Added sound effects to highlight various ingame events, e.g. warnings during the run and choppa intro & extro animations.
- Fixed various instances of SFX playing simultaneously and creating unpleasant volume spikes.
- Fixed some instances of colors in the UI not being displayed correctly on HDR displays.
- Improved UI markers for selected, hovered, and highlighted items.
- Scrolling in Genome Lab and other submenus feels a bit snappier.
- Fixed various typos and misleading texts.
Known Issues
- You cannot quit the current operation and resume from your last stage. Instead your operation will be aborted. We are working on a fix for this with high priority.
- The game's performance can potentially degrade heavily when playing at very high screen resolutions (UHD+), please lower the resolution to a maximum of 1440p if you encounter this. We are still trying to find the root cause of this problem.
- Menus may sometimes scroll erratically when the game falsely selects a UI element at the top or bottom, e.g. in the Bunker menu or the Awards room (anywhere you have scrolling lists). We already identified the root cause within the automatic input device detection and fixed some cases of that, but few occasions remain erratic.
What's Next?
"Pathfinder " marks our 7th major Early Access update for Survivor Mercs.
We are already working on the next smaller-but-major update just in time for the holiday season. It is meant to bring more variety and further improvements to everything we introduced in "Pathfinder", primarily:
- additional challenge types for the ops
- further refinements for the UI & HUD
- a mini-boss overhaul to make the fights more interesting and impressive
Furthermore, we are looking at finishing the work on the refined weapons & damage system to enable more emergent synergies and squad-build options between Commander, Weapons, Mercs, and Gear, specifically:
- additional proc effects, e.g. things that happen when combining different status effects
- adjustments to dashes, projectiles, or attacks to behave differently based on chosen modifiers
We also do consider offering a demo for the game again, hopefully convincing more Commanders to join the fight against M.E.G.A. Corp.
There is much more to come in early 2025, so "Follow" the game to be notified when the next Early Access Roadmap Update drops Soon™.
Our plans for these upcoming updates include:
⏩ doubling-down on the new Map & Operations structure to provide even more varied runs, new Objectives, and less random tactical squad-building
⏩ further refinements for UI & HUD to improve readability of the action and immersion in the game, including high-fidelity illustrations for more characters and more nicely animated screens
⏩ more Story Missions framing your battle against M.E.G.A. Corp. goons and highlight the Mercs' personalities
⏩ deeper gameplay and improved replayability by refining squad-builds & synergies and expanding the number of challenges and procedural generators for the maps & operations
⏩ better performance while improving enemy & Merc AI behavior
⏩ settings for input mapping and other accessibility options.
And, of course, we're starting to add new maps & bosses, enemies, Mercs, and other content along with these features.
Commanders, we are truly grateful for every one of you who supports us with feedback and input during Early Access.
Please don't forget that the game is still under development. All your feedback helps us make a better game and iron out some of the remaining rough edges, imbalance, and bugs!
We hope this update gets you as excited as we are for the future. We are dedicated to listening to you and building Survivor Mercs into an outstanding game. Please, help us grow the community with a positive review and get involved in the development by participating in our community projects, and sharing your feedback, insights, and ideas on our Discord server (or the game's Steam forums).
Let's continue making a great game, together ❤
Lock, load, and loot, Commanders!