August 28, 2019 - Dead or Alive (PC Update)

PC servers will be taken offline on Wednesday, August 28, 2019 at 6:30am PT for maintenance. Downtime is expected to last up to 3 hours.


Connery and Soltech
Server transfers are now available both to and from Connery <-> Soltech for a limited time. This window of availability ends September 30, 2019, at 11:59pm Pacific.


Continent Events
Aerial Anomalies
This event has been restructured to encourage more active participation and offer more tactical depth.
In this new version of Aerial Anomalies, Data Buoys will appear in the center of the map, and Anomalies themselves will coat vehicles in a mysterious residue called Tempest.

Players must deliver Tempest to the nearby Data Buoys located into the center of the map.

• Galaxies can carry up to 500 Tempest.
• Liberator can carry up to 400 Tempest.
• Valkyrie can carry up to 250 Tempest.
• Empire Specific Fighters can carry up to 100 Tempest.

Spotted vehicles carrying Tempest display a special icon that changes based on how much Tempest has been gathered.
If you kill a target carrying Tempest, all of the resources are lost.
Deposited Tempest is converted into score in this alert, and the first team to 25,000 score wins.


Automated Bounties
We've reinstated the bounty system in an automated form that will flag players who are getting strings of kills. We hope this encourages some new cat and mouse style dynamics mid-battle, and allows for more organic completion of the Bounty directive.

• Bounties will now be automatically placed on characters who have an active 10 killstreak (kills without deaths) or greater. There is a long cooldown between how often this can occur.
• Players will receive a 5-stack of bounties upon activation.
• Stacked Bounties are now stripped one at a time when killed, instead of removing the entire stack when a player receives three deaths.
• Kills on bountied targets now award a flat rate of experience, instead of basing it on the stack count.

Death Camera
In this update, players will notice a slightly different behavior from the death camera. Instead of a top-down view of your body, the camera will first track and highlight your killer for a few seconds before refocusing on your corpse. We believe this new camera will help players achieve a better understanding of where attacks are coming from, and ease frustration caused by deaths that feel abrupt or unfair. We've heard your concerns regarding the impact this change will have on stealth oriented gameplay, and will keep those concerns in mind as we evaluate the feature in Live play.


Infantry
Cosmos VM3 (VS MAX)
Maximum damage from 167 to 143
Minimum damage from 143 to 125
Dev Note: The bigger bullets of the Cosmos, despite the headshot damage reduction, has made this weapon overperform when attached to such a high health pool target. We're going to keep the unique aspect of the weapon while trying to reel in that performance a bit.

NSX-A Kappa (NSO SMG)
NSX-A Kappa minimum damage from 50 to 42
Dev Note: We've corrected an oversight with the minimum damage range of this weapon where it was equivalent to the maximum damage. This is a slight nerf, and stays in line as a Tengu variant while giving Soft Point Ammunition a reason to exist on the weapon.




Vehicles
Magrider
Magburner (Utility Slot)

• Rank 1 Magburner has been integrated by default, and Magburner's skill line has become a passive part of the vehicle instead of living in the utility slot.
• Added an additional rank to the Magburner skill line.
• Moved the cost of each tier up a rank, as the first tier is now free. Costs remain the same overall.
• Adjusted the regeneration rates of Magburner for better scaling at lower cost ranges.
• Fuel tank recharge to full from 35/30/25/20 to 35(default)/28/25/22/20
• Fixed an issue where framerates would drop drastically while trying to activate Magburner without an appropriate amount of energy.

Recharge (Utility Slot)
Added new "Recharge" Magrider utility that instantly restores Magburner fuel capacity, and momentarily disrupts lockon attempts.

• Rank 1: 40 second cooldown.
• Rank 2: 32 second cooldown.
• Rank 3: 28 second cooldown.
• Rank 4: 25 second cooldown.

Multi-directional Exhaust (Defensive Slot)
Added new "Multi-directional Exhaust" defensive slot item that further reduces the time to recharge Magburner, and allows for limited horizontal strafe capabilities while Magburner is active.

• Rank 1: Increases Magburner regeneration rate by 15%.
• Rank 2: Increases Magburner regeneration rate by 23%.
• Rank 3: Increases Magburner regeneration rate by 27%.
• Rank 4: Increases Magburner regeneration rate by 30%.

Prowler
Rampart Projector (Defensive Slot)
While deployed, the Prowler receives increased front armor and projects a hardlight barrier forward to shield allied infantry. This barrier is tied directly to the Prowler's health pool, and damage to the barrier will also damage the Prowler.

• Rank 1: 10% additional front armor.
• Rank 2: 15% additional front armor.
• Rank 3: 17.5% additional front armor.
• Rank 4: 20% additional front armor.

Vanguard
Nimitz Reactor (Defensive Slot)
Replaces 1000 Vanguard health in exchange for a quick-recharging shield layer of the same value.
Recharges 100 shield health per second at all ranks.

• Rank 1: Recharge delay of 6 seconds when damage is received, and 15 seconds when shield is broken.
• Rank 2: Recharge delay of 6 seconds when damage is received, and 12 seconds when shield is broken.
• Rank 3: Recharge delay of 6 seconds when damage is received, and 11 seconds when shield is broken.
• Rank 4: Recharge delay of 6 seconds when damage is received, and 10 seconds when shield is broken.

Flash/Harasser
Changed the model for the Stealth attachment visuals on these vehicles.

Lightning
Lightning's Engagement Radar attachment now uses the correct UI camera.


Misc. Changes, Fixes, and Additions
New Player Experience
Players now receive 100 certs at each new Battle Rank through BR100, instead of the first 15.

Continents and Alerts

• Continent rotation has been randomized on server startup.
• Warpgate rotation has been randomized on server startup.
• Alerts and continent events will now end prior to a server restart.
• Speculative fix for the 0:00:00 alert timer bug.
• Esamir's continent lock benefit no longer stacks particle effects, and the performance impact of this benefit has been greatly reduced.

Infantry

• Extended the range at which Hardlight Barriers will appear for distant players.
• Hardlight Barriers now have a slightly larger exclusion radius to prevent barrier stacking.
• NSO characters can no longer lock onto allied vehicles.
• NSO characters now receive grief for damaging unmanned allied vehicles.
• NSO characters should now be able to access faction specific jump pads.
• Fixed various IFF crosshair issues for NSO characters.

Implants
The Critical Chain implant buff no longer lasts indefinitely.

Construction

• Structure Shields should now despawn properly.
• Orbital Strike generator's shield should now despawn properly when destroyed.

Visuals

• Personal Shields have been given new visual FX.
• Fixed issues related to the impact effects when shooting targets with a shield layer.