Secrets of the Machine God - OUT NOW! - Pt. 1

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

Devoted Rejects,  

Here are the patch notes for our latest update, Secrets of the Machine God, which just went live on Steam and it will shortly be available on our other platforms.

NOTE: Because the patch notes are so long, we are posting in two parts.
New Mission: Clandestium Gloriana
The new mission, Clandestium Gloriana (previously mentioned as Atelium Foundryplex Omega V), sees our brave strike teams venture deep into the forgotten heart of Tertium for a rendezvous with a mysterious new character. The players are tasked with reawakening a long-dormant Adeptus Mechanicus Foundryplex, one of the fabled, lost Machinaria Gloriana. This level presents a new, frozen environment, sees a mission-giver accompany the strike team within the gameplay space and supports greater replayability with a new, variable end event. We're delighted with how it's turned out and we hope you'll enjoy playing it as much as we did making it!



New In-Game Event: Test Your Metal
Clandestium Gloriana’s awakening brings greater resources to the war effort. New weapons have been added to the armoury. Take up these arms and smite the enemies of the Imperium.

Use the Bolt Pistol, Double-Barrelled Shotgun, Shock Maul or Pickaxe to kill Elite and Specialist enemies. Qualifying kills from all party members count.

This event will start on Thursday, 27 June and go on until Thursday, 11 July. The rewards will be Ordo Dockets, Plasteel and Diamantine. 



New Weapons Message from Hadron:
Listen up, Varlets. The awakening of the Clandestium Gloriana has opened new supply lines, increasing the arsenal available to the Rejects. All praise the Omnissiah. With these sacred tools, available to requisition from Brunt’s Armoury, the Heretics will find no respite from our blessed fury. Take up these arms and deliver unto our foe a fate deserving of such base treachery.

Availability
The Pickaxes will be available for Ogryns, while the Shock Mauls, the Double Barreled Shotgun and the Bolt Pistol will be available for the Veteran, Zealot and Psyker classes.

Pickaxes
Ogryns’ first two-handed weapon! Taking brutality and force to a new level.

• Branx Pickaxe - Heavy
• Borovian Pickaxe - Medium
• Karsolas Pickaxe - Light

For these weapons, we really wanted to lean into the differences in the Heavy, Medium and Light between marks in terms of speed, handling and purpose.

• Heavy is Strikedown focus, using the pickaxe as it was meant to be used on heretics skulls and with a powerful bash attack as weapon special.
• Medium is somewhere in between both in terms of handling and damage, with a mix of Strikedown and vanguard attacks and a hook pull as a weapon special that sets up enemies for big damage. 
• Light is horde control focus with wide sweeps and more cleave, and a pull weapon special like the medium pickaxe. 

These weapons have big damage and impact.

Shock Mauls
The perfect Warhammer 40,000 riot gear, an electric weapon that stuns and adds a shocked status to enemies.

• Agni Mk Ia Shock Maul
• Indignatus Mk III Shock Maul

Two words: stun and impact. They are versatile weapons with rich movesets; the mark difference relates to the moveset variance, with the Agni MK la having more immediate access to Strikedown attacks and the Indignatus Mk III having delayed access to a looping heavy Strikedown chain.

The weapon special is a “cattle prod poke” that adds damage over time and keeps enemies stunned.

Double Barreled Shotgun
A very close range and nervous shotgun that inflicts brutal damage and impact.

• Ironhelm "Hacker" Mk IV Assault Shotgun

With fast handling and movement speed, this shotgun supports Assault-style game play.
Access the bracing stance with the secondary action to shoot both barrels at the same time (for maximum carnage). The weapon special is a weapon bash combo. 

Bolt Pistol
An iconic Warhammer 40,000 weapon, mobile and perfect to lead an assault.

• Godwyn-Branx Pattern Bolt Pistol

Better handling and faster reload, but more difficult to control than the Boltgun version. The weapon special is a bash, which can be combo’ed into a hipfire shot. 

Features and QoL Mission Updates from Community Feedback We’ve made a number of changes to existing missions in this update based on player feedback. The detailed changes are listed further down.

Updated Crosshairs Crosshairs have had a two-fold issue:

• They were in general larger than what the spread system (which handles how much a shot will deviate from where the barrel is pointing) was using.
• They were affected by the Field of View and HUD Scale user settings.

The combined effect of this was that at default settings shots would hit approximately within the centre 50-75% areas of the extents of any given crosshair, meaning that the crosshair itself was not a reliable way to gauge the extent of the weapon spread.

Additionally, increasing the Field of View would make the crosshair appear larger, while decreasing the FoV, especially when combined with lowering the HUD Scale, would make the crosshair appear smaller.

Fixing the first issue meant that several crosshairs now started to overlap with hit markers, which led to redesigning most of the crosshairs, as well as the hit markers themselves.

Hit markers are now slightly smaller and have an outline to be easier to see against light backgrounds. The major changes are that we now use a different hit marker for weakspot hits, to differentiate them from critical strike hits. 

Weakspot hit markers are now doubled up, and like non-weakspot hits colour coded according to the type of hit (white = standard, blue = no or reduced damage, orange = critical strike, red = kill). 
Dev Note: Previously both weakspot hits and critical strike hits were coloured orange.


Standard Kill

Weakspot Kill 


Standard No Damage 

Weakspot No Damage 
The major reason for this change is primarily due to several Blessings and Talents being triggered by either weakspot hits or critical strikes, and this change should hopefully make it easier to understand which hits should (or shouldn't) trigger a specific bonus. Plus it's satisfying knowing that the heretic killed died from a masterful blow to the head.

Crosshairs have been categorised in several categories, each with their own style of crosshair that always leaves an empty space for hit markers no matter how high or low the weapon’s spread is.

All weapons have been categorised into one of these categories and by extension hit markers:

• "Rapid Fire" for accurate single-shot or burst weapons, such as Infantry Lasguns or Headhunter Autoguns.
• "Assault" for mid-range high rate of fire weapons, such as Infantry Autoguns or Shredder Autopistols.

• "Heavy" for slow-firing high-damage weapons, such as Quickdraw Stubrevolvers or Plasma Guns.
• "Spreadshot" for pellet weapons, such as Combat Shotguns or Ripper Guns.
• "Torrent" for inaccurate high-volume fire weapons, such as Twin-Linked Heavy Stubbers or alternate fire for Braced Autoguns.
• "Flamer" for, well, Flamers.
• "Dot" for melee weapons and Force Staves.

Old Assault CrosshairNew Assault Crosshair 

Old Heavy Crosshair

New Heavy Crosshair 

In addition, there are a few new user settings to tweak and change the look and behaviour of crosshairs and hit markers:

• Turn on/off crosshairs, aim trajectories, and/or hit markers.
• Increase the time for which hit markers are shown.
• Override all crosshairs with a specific style.
• The “Flamer” type is not available for the override. 

Known Issues for Crosshairs 

• "Crosshair Type" user settings don't revert when using the "Reset to default settings" button.
• Force Staves incorrectly have their crosshairs overridden when using anything but the "Weapon Specific" option of "Crosshair Type".

Cosmetic Headgear Voice Preview Option Players can now preview the voice of any headgear which their operative can equip, including ones that modulate their voice. This preview is currently available by going into the Inspect to Show on Operative menu.


Sound Changes to Footsteps for Prosthetic Leg Cosmetics The footsteps of your character while wearing a lower body cosmetic item that has a prosthetic will now sound different, to better match the visual and be closer paired with your actual gait. These items have a small icon on the item preview tiles, as well as a clarifying text in the item details.

Dev note: This is more noticeable in active gameplay/first person view, while footsteps in general are more subdued in the Mourningstar/third person view. 

Bug Fixes and Changes Weapon Changes Recon Lasguns

The Recon Lasguns, while having a really iconic and fun playstyle, failed to perform adequately due to a mix of low punching power and struggling ammo economy, especially when rising up in difficulties.

We performed a balance pass on every mark, strengthening their identity as assault, almost recoilless full-auto rifles while also inserting some peculiarities on each mark, while keeping some of their weaknesses (such as difficulty to pierce Carapace armoured enemies).

The MkII version received a significant base power bump, remaining a good all-rounder for the category.

The MkVId mostly maintained its previous base power profile, but received hefty buffs in fire speed and magazine size to lay down suppressing fire and reward keeping the aim on the targets.

Finally, the MkVIIa place as the heavy variant was confirmed by a further increase in its base attack and impact power values. To help with its increased ammo consumption per shot compared to the other two marks, we significantly increased the total ammo in reserve.

We will monitor the performance of the weapons and your feedback after the changes to evaluate possible additional adjustments!

Detailed changes:

• All Marks
• Slightly increased the hipfire spread.
• Upgraded the Dodge, Sprint and Aimed Movement templates to the Assault and bespoke Recon Lasgun profiles.

Dev Note: This will make the weapons more suited for agile engagements compared to other rifles like the Infantry Lasguns.

• Accatran Mk II Recon Lasgun
• Attack power distribution {40,70} to {78,108}
• Armor Damage Modifier against Maniac 0.75 to 0.8 (near), 0.65 to 0.7 (far)
• Armor Damage Modifier against Infested and Unarmoured 1.25 to 1.0 (near)
• Armor Damage Modifier against Flak down to 0.75 (near), 0.5 (far)
• Armor Damage Modifier against Unyielding down to 0.75 (near)
• Impact modifier against Unyielding upped to 1.0 (near), down to 0.5 (far).
• Accatran Mk VId Recon Lasgun
• Set bespoke power distribution values:
• Attack = {40,70} (unchanged)
• Impact = {1.0,2.0} (unchanged).
• Armor Damage Modifier against Unarmoured 0.9 to 1.0 (near).
• Armor Damage Modifier against Maniac 0.6 to 0.8 (near).
• Fire rate from 16.77 to 20.00.
• Magazine size from 60-120 to 100-200.
• Removed one magazine in reserve (60x5-120x6 to 100x4-200x5).
• Reload and Wield speed time slowed by 20%.
• Accatran Mk VIIa Recon Lasgun
• Set bespoke power distribution values:
• Attack = {95,165} (around 33% buff)
• Impact = {1.5,3.0} (around 10% buff).
• Armor Damage Modifier against Flak 1 to 0.75 (near).
• Armor Damage Modifier against Unyielding from 1 to 0.75 (near).
• Added two magazines in reserve (60x5-120x6 to 60x7-120x8).

Achlys Mk I Power Maul
The power budget of the Ogryn Power Maul (aka “Paul”) was very unbalanced towards its Special activated attacks, while the rest of the moveset remained anaemic. This made spamming Light activated attacks often the optimal attack rotation for the weapon, leading to a very monotonous (and still underwhelming) experience.

We rebalanced the whole moveset, significantly increasing the usability of both standard Light and Heavy attacks while leaving the stagger and power of activated attacks mostly unchanged.

We also added a new Vanguard Light attack performed during a Slide, and new attack chains which will reward mastering the weapon by performing the correct attack strings in different situations.

For example, players could lead with an activated Heavy 1 into a flurry of Light Strikedowns (Special activate > H1 > LFollow-up > L1 > L2 > repeat) to quickly pile on damage on priority targets while keeping players safe due to the initial staggering explosion; or clear crowds by reaching the Light 3 > Light 4 attack loop through Heavy attacks or the brand new Light slide attack (H1 > H2 > L3 > L4 > L3 > L4 > ... / LSlide > L4 > L3 > L4 > ...).

We will monitor the performance of the weapon and player feedback after the changes to evaluate possible additional adjustments!

Detailed changes:

• Light follow-up attack from Heavy 1 changed from Vanguard to Strikedown damage profile
• Heavy 2 now chains into Light 3 / Heavy 1 (instead of Light 1 / Heavy 1)
• Added an attack start from Slide, chaining into Heavy 1 and a new Light slide attack with Vanguard profile (same as Light 3 / Light 4):
• The new Light slide attack chains into Light 4 / Heavy 2.
• Lowered the total action time of the Special activate action from 2.6 to 1.2 seconds.

Dev Note: Activation time will remain unaffected at 0.8 seconds, but it will be easier to chain into the new Light slide attack.

• Aligned windup time for all Heavy attacks to 0.6 seconds

Dev note: "Windup time" is the minimum amount of time an Heavy attack needs to be charged before being released

• Light 1 / Light 2 Strikedown profile:
• Changed stagger duration from {0.1, 0.5} to {0.1, 2.5}
• Changed inherent finesse boost multiplier from 0.25 to 1
• Armor Damage Modifier against Maniac from 0.5 to 0.75
• Armor Damage Modifier against Carapace armour from 0.25 to 0.5
• Armor Damage Modifier against Flak armour from 1 to 0.9
• Equalised finesse boost to 0.5 against all armour types.
• Light 3 / Light 4 Vanguard profile:
• Armor Damage Modifier against Flak from 0.75 to 0.9
• Armor Damage Modifier against Unyielding from 0.75 to 0.8
• Armor Damage Modifier against Maniac from 0.5 to 0.7
• Armor Damage Modifier against Carapace from 0.25 to 0.65
• Cleave from medium to big
• Added a 4th target damage profile
• Power distribution from 1st (target) {60,120} / 2nd {35,70} / 3rd {25,50} / 4th n/a / Default {10,20} to 1st {80,150} / 2nd {60,110} / 3rd {40,80} / 4th {25,60} / Default {10,30}.

Dev Note: These changes will be also applied to the Ogryn Slab Shield L3 and L4 attacks.

• Light 3 / Light 4 Vanguard Special activated profile:
• Power distribution override from {90,165} to {120,200}.
• Heavy 1 / Heavy 2 Relentless profile:
• Armor Damage Modifier against Flak from 0.75 to 0.9
• Armor Damage Modifier against Unyielding from 1 to 0.8
• Armor Damage Modifier against Maniac from 0.5 to 0.8
• Armor Damage Modifier against Carapace from 0.25 to 0.75
• Power distribution from 1st (target) {120,220} / 2nd {80,110} / 3rd {20,30} / 4th {10,25} / Default {5,10} to 1st {175,350} / 2nd {80,160} / 3rd {60,120} / 4th {50,100} / Default {40,80}.
• Heavy 1 / Heavy 2 Relentless Special activated profile:
• Power distribution override from {220,440} to {250,475}.

Please continue reading via pt. 2.