Status

v1.1 - Center of Mass

major update

Unfortunate Spacemen · published

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Wow, it's been TWO whole months since we launched and you're STILL alive? That's impressive.

Maybe it's time we gave YOU a promotion. Just kidding.

Unfortunate Spacemen v1.1 is here and it's The Company™'s BIGGEST yet.

Want to see what's new? OF COURSE YOU DO:

THE KARMA SYSTEM™


A major part of Unfortunate Spacemen is betrayal and distrust, but some players take this to the next level and simply hurl abuse at other players under the anonymity that the game offers due to... you know, that whole shapeshifting business.

This abuse is directly tied to in-game actions, in the form of what is commonly known as RDM (Random Deathmatch) a/k/a indiscriminate murder.

To prevent this, we have rolled out The Karma System™, an automated system that effectively penalizes players who kill multiple innocent players per round!

This value will carry over between rounds and is mainly designed to stop repeat offenders, not the occasional accidental kill (or kills) -- which are a critical part of the game's structure. If you aren't running around gunning everyone down, you should never (or rarely) be affected by this system.

DEDICATED SERVER IMPROVEMENTS


This update contains numerous improvements to dedicated servers.

  • Overhaul to performance on the Official New Blood dedicated servers. Rubberbanding GONE!
  • Fixed dozens of bugs and added dozens of options for tweaking dedicated servers to your liking.
  • Admin and Moderator roles for executing /commands while in-game!
  • A persistent Ban list to keep unwelcome players out of your server


Check out the brand new Dedicated Server Guide as well as the full patch notes for detailed information on running and setting up your own dedicated server.

NEW WEAPON: THE COMPANY MAGNUM™


Along with some other weapon changes (AR and LMG buff) we've added a BRAND NEW firearm to close the gap between regular weaponry and Power Weapons. Introducing The Company Magnum™. This item will spawn form one of the default (basic) item spawns in all game modes, and packs a real punch.

Here's a video of Zag playing around with a slightly older version of the Magnum during development.

MONSTER OPT-IN TWEAKS


We've heard you and we've made some changes to how the Monster is picked!

  • The Default Monster Opt-in system has changed to now include more of the opt-in pool, instead of always simply picking the least-recent player(s).
  • We've also added a Host Match Setting for TRUE RANDOM MONSTER if you don't want to have any fancy weighting at all when it comes to who gets to be the Monster each round.


MONSTER BURROW CHANGES


A lot of feedback we received has shown us that Burrow is considered a bit underpowered and not worth doing most of the time. To start bringing Burrow back into the meta, we've removed the burrow crack visual entirely. We will likely add additional behaviors to Burrow in the future. Happy hiding!

  • The Monster's Burrow crack no longer shows at all. (Spectators can still see it.)
  • Camera alarms will no longer trigger on a Burrowed Monster.
  • And of course, we fixed some bugs related to Burrow!


MONSTER MODIFICATIONS


The Monster has undergone various critical changes, a few tiny nerfs, and some larger buffs.

  • Ejection Camera: If the final Monster gets ejected from an Emergency Mass Ejector, everyone is now taken to her spectator camera to watch the spectacle. This was done primarily to add more context to the end of the round for Spacemen who weren't directly involved at the time.
  • Monsters can now take damage from explosives and flames, while in vents. This includes Suitcase Nukes.
  • Frag Grenades can now be wedged into vents as well! Ouch.

(REVERTED)

AIRLOCKS ARE FOR MONSTERS


Many new players were struggling to understand airlocks. Many long-term players were struggling to understand airlocks. We found a lot of people were getting killed by airlocks, and the majority of airlock deaths were NOT instigated by the Monster, nor caught the Monster in their trap. We have made a substantial change to airlocks and will paying close attention to the long-term effect it has. TL:DR

  • Airlocks can no longer be armed by Spacemen.
  • The Monster is now the only character who can arm airlocks.


All other airlock traits remain the same as before. Frag and Stun grenades can still force airlocks to open.

IMPROVED TOOLS FOR VOTE KICK, MUTING


As with much of this patch, we focused a lot of the community. We watched, we listened, and we put in solutions for taking the tools away from abusive players and putting them back in the hands of the majority. This includes reducing the ability to initiate "vote-kick wars" and de-incentivizing abusive vote-kicks, as well as changing vote-kick values.

  • Server admins have the ability to set Admins and Moderators on the server, and they can execute /commands (detailed in the patch notes)
  • We've also added a bunch of new ways to mute players through the F1 player list and have added more mute buttons to the end-round score screens.


NOTE: During gameplay, you'll still need to hold interact when looking at someone's character in order to mute them. We do this to avoid giving players a way to easily track players via muting and unmuting their proximity chat.

As with all of these changes, you can read more of the specific details in the full patch notes.

SO. MUCH. CUSTOMIZATION


We've added about a bajillion new cosmetics (don't try and count, you'll never make it) including...


Oh yeah, and you can finally rotate your character by clicking and dragging with the mouse.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE...

SPECTATOR IMPROVEMENTS


We've heard the request for a bunch of additional spectator tools. We've got more in the works in future updates, but we added a way to directly spectate players now, for those who don't want to chase the action manually. Spectators can now directly spectate players by pressing the 5 key!

IMPROVED CLIENT-SIDE MOVEMENT


Along with these many other changes, we've improved client-side movement in a few crucial ways.

  • Grav lifts, UFO beams, and H2O suck-up pipes no longer jitter for clients.
  • Dodging as Monster no longer causes large jittering as a client.
  • Sometimes jumping would fail right as the player leaves a ledge. Now, there is a small window of time to successfully execute a jump after leaving a ledge. This was particularly noticeable on maps like Duress, but should improve ledge-jumping altogether.


GENERATOR LOCKDOWN


We found a lot of Monsters were struggling to maintain a Power Outage for more than a few seconds, especially in large games, so we've changed how that works. Generators are now locked out for 45 seconds after the power is shut off. Generators can be reset after this 45 second lockout expires. If a Suitcase Nuke detonates during a Power Outage, this lockout will reset.

AUDIO OCCLUSION


Audio occlusion now exists on most types of sound. Some critical events and VOIP have been excluded from audio occlusion at this time. We anticipate that this will drastically change the soundscape of the game, and make many objects (and gunfire) feel far more three-dimensional. Fancy!

POWER WEAPON ORDER CHANGE


We heard a lot of feedback about the order of Power Weapons.

Power Weapons are intended to give an edge, but not be the end-all-be-all.

The Rocket Launcher tends to end the round when it comes into play, so we've made some changes to both Power Weapon spawn order and other weaponry in order to help level the playing field a bit against hoarders of Power Weaponry.

The Auto-Shotty now unlocks before the Rocket Launcher under default Power Weapons settings.

CO-OP CHANGES


Based on a lot of feedback, we've reduced friendly fire for Co-op modes across the board. You can still "accidentally" turn your fellow Spacemen into mashed potatoes with an errant rocket when playing on Veteran difficulty and above, but Recruit difficulty now has zero friendly fire damage. Good luck out there!

FINAL TIDBITS


As always, the full Patch Notes will contain every single minute detail for you to comb through, but we'll leave you with a final list of 1.1 highlights.

  • The Lobby has received numerous visual and layout improvements. This is considering "Lobby UI Update #1" which implies we do have more improvements planned in the future. Enjoy!
  • Player nameplates are now a thing, but you can't change them yet. That's coming next, in 1.2.
  • Map Rework: The Experiment has been overhauled a bit to create more claustrophobic corridors, block line of sight in a few places, and add a couple more exterior routes. Oh, and we removed some of those pesky drop bridges, which will hopefully bring some foot-traffic back to the center of the map.
  • Railings: Duress and Hypertrain have received quite a few more railings. Duress in particular has received some navigational changes, brighter and more obvious lighting in a few spots, and Trams now honk before they run you over.
  • Tidal Lock: We found that Tidal Lock has become Land of a Thousand Airlocks and is really unfriendly to Spacemen just trying to do their job. We've tightened up (and shrunk) the trigger volumes on most airlocks for that map in particular, making it a bit easier to avoid being catapulted into space -- in most cases.
  • Gardens: The river is now easier to get out of once you've fallen in. This was a big point of frustration for players just trying to go for a nice walk in the park.
  • Map Rework: Space Bar has received numerous line-of-sight blockers, and most importantly, we fixed up the collision on the Noodle kiosk.
  • About a bajillion bug fixes! (Again, don't bother counting, you'll never make it.)


And with that, we leave you to enjoy Update 1.1. As always, you can view the full patch notes for more detail, and our future plans for Unfortunate Spacemen on the Development Starmap.

1.2 is next, should be a tad smaller than 1.1, and will lay down some groundwork for our major upcoming perk overhaul (aka Perkageddon) planned for 1.3.

Did you get all that? Good.

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See you, Space Cowboys! (and Cowgirls) Cowpeople?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/408900/Unfortunate_Spacemen/

v1.1 - Center of Mass · Unfortunate Spacemen patch notes · SteamPeaks