[2019] October 25, 2019 - Nanite of the Living Dead - Revenge of the Unsown (PS4 Update)

PS4 servers will be taken offline on Friday, October 25, 2019 at 10:00am PT for maintenance. Downtime is expected to last up to 3 hours. Halloween Event - Oct. 25 through Nov. 8 A cool night sky falls upon Auraxis, dark and heavy. The ground beneath you begins to till and toil, as if shivering with anticipation. Is it a sign? Has the ancient Vanu technology beneath the planet sprung to life once again? Or is it something more sinister... This year's Halloween event will start Oct. 25 (when servers come back online), and end Nov. 8 (11:59pm PT). New Seasonal Directive We've got a new Directive lineup with new rewards, a revision to pumpkin hunting, and new seasonal items. Pumpkins Everywhere!

• During this event, SpacePumpkins (and the larger, more elusive Galact-O-Lantern) will appear on all continents.
• These pumpkins will reward players experience, items, and in some cases, event Directive progress.
• In addition, Drop Pods have all been converted to unreasonably large and spacious pumpkins for you to hot drop onto Auraxis with.

Space Pumpkin Seeds

• Seeds as a currency have been removed, and pumpkins will now give players rewards directly when they're destroyed.
• Players will always receive a reward from a pumpkin kill, either in the form of a Halloween themed cosmetic, or a bundle of certification points, and you will never receive the same cosmetic more than once.
• New characters no longer have the Ichabod Crown unlocked by default, and will instead find it the first time they kill a pumpkin.

Seasonal Items In addition to pumpkins yielding rewards, we've also opened up many of the old Halloween cosmetics to be purchased via Daybreak Cash in the Depot. Players will find the following items available there.

• NS Candy Cannon sidearm
• The Slasher melee weapon
• Flaming Skull Helmets
• Facemasks
• Facepaints
• Tire Trails

New Weapons We've released new assault rifles for VS/NC/TR! Each of these weapons will be available in the Depot with accompanying Fully Loaded bundles. VE-A1 Lacerta (Vanu Sovereignty - Assault Rifle) The Lacerta assault rifle syncs an accurate, three round burst to a moderate refire rate, and creates a melodic barrage of plasma, perfect for mid-range engagements. MG-A1 Arbalest (Terran Republic - Assault Rifle) Designed as an alternative to the popular SABR-13 assault rifle, the Arbalest fires concentrated, 6-round bursts with low recoil and high takedown potential at mid-range. MGR-A1 Vanquisher (New Conglomerate - Assault Rifle) The Vanquisher's performance is defined by its excellent stopping power over distance, delivered through a low recoil, three-round burst. Bounties

• Fixed an issue where your true killstreak wasn't taken into account, causing bounties to trigger seemingly randomly.
• Redeploys and deaths will end a killstreak.
• Killstreak requirement reduced from 10 kills to 7 kills.
• Bounty duration reduced from 5 lives to 3 lives.

Infantry Frag Grenade (All factions)

• VS/NC/TR grenades now have unique explosion effects.
• VS Frag Grenade renamed "Plasma Grenade"
• Minimum blast damage from 10 to 50

Dev Note: Frag Grenades often sting, but rarely kill. These damage changes increase the consistency of the explosive a bit more. The new explosion visuals are intended to add a bit more faction identity to each grenade. Sticky Grenade (All factions)

• VS/NC/TR grenades now have unique explosion effects.
• Minimum blast damage from 10 to 50
• Blast outer area from 6.5m to 5m

Dev Note: Sticky Grenades already do 800 damage to stuck targets, in addition to the normal 1275 blast damage. We want to create more of a tradeoff with the standard Frag, and reducing the outer explosion area will require players to be a bit more accurate. NS-03 Thumper (Common Pool Heavy Weapon)

• Reload time from 4.25 sec. to 3.5 sec.
• Baseline refire rate from 700ms to 600ms.
• Incendiary ammunition now ticks for 25 damage every half second, instead of 50 damage every second.
• Incendiary stacking issue is still not fully resolved.

Dev Note: We've pulled back some of the downsides of the weapon to make it more worthy of use in more situations. VE-S Canis (VS SMG)

• Hipfire maximum cone of fire from 7 to 2 in most movement states.
• ADS maximum cone of fire from 3 to 1.5 in most movement states.
• Changed the model visuals on the VE-S Canis Emission Condenser Attachment.

Dev Note: Holding down the trigger will cap out the cone of fire bloom at around half way through the magazine when used with an advanced laser sight, and earlier without, leaning a bit harder into the weapon's spinup characteristics. NS-61 Emissary (Common Pool Sidearm)

• Headshot damage multiplier from 1.8x to 2x

Dev Note: Small increase in damage here for skillful shots to give it more desirability among alternatives. Vehicles Reload Certifications We're doing a wide sweep on reload speed certifications, and are converting them to percentage-based buffs. The weapons listed below will be capped at 10% reload speed at max rank, which for some weapons is a power reduction. The scaling for these cert lines is now heavily weighted toward the first levels so that new players have less required investment to compete with other maxed out vehicles. We will continue rolling out percentage-based refactors to all weapons as we iterate through them, but for the time being, the weapons impacted are listed below.

• Bulldog (Harasser/ANT/Sunderer/Liberator/Galaxy)
• Dalton (Liberator Bellygun)
• Zephyr (Liberator Bellygun)
• Duster (Liberator Bellygun)
• Shredder (Liberator Bellygun)
• VLG (Valkyrie)

MBT, Lightning, Sunderer, ANT (All factions)

• Light Anti-Vehicle resist (type 5) from 0 to -20

Dev Note: This shifts up all of the light anti-armor based weaponry's power level against heavily armored vehicles a bit, which currently tend to be some of the less popular weapons in the game. This change also gives Harassers more of an edge against the targets listed. ESF

• Armor Piercing Chaingun resistance (type 28) from 65 to 50
• A2G Warhead resistance from -125 to -100

Dev Note: With the introduction of the Wyrm, and the efficacy of A2A missile setups, ESF now have more powerful counters to solo Liberators, and have re-enabled one-shot kills with the Dalton against non-composite ESF, and made the vehicles slightly more vulnerable to gatling gun style weaponry. The increase in A2G warhead resistance gives ESF doesn't impact most A2G warhead weapons in a meaningful way, but sets Dalton up for changes we're making further down. Liberator

• A2G resistance (type 23) from 25 to 0
• The Liberator's 20% Bottom Armor has been removed.

Dev Note: With the Liberator's integrated afterburner, added bottom armor, and now "free" fire suppression, players felt the Liberator was too tanky, and became less interesting to fight both with ESF and other Liberators. So for the time being, we've reverted the bottom armor change, and can consider bringing it back as a Defensive slot option if the demand is high enough. The air to ground resistance reduction will help, alongside changes below, with Liberator versus Liberator fights, and add a bit more power to Hornet Missiles, for ESF who want to risk getting closer to the vehicle. Dalton (Liberator Bellygun)

• Direct damage from 1200 to 1500
• Reload from 2.5sec. to 3.25sec.
• Changed the first person trail particle effects to better represent projectile distance from the player.
• Changed the explosion particle effect to better reflect the blast radius of the weapon.

Dev Note: Due to extensive community feedback regarding this weapon, we've made some significant changes to the Dalton. In 1v1 Liberator versus Liberator confrontations, shots to kill will be brought from a 5/6 shot burning/kill (or 6/7 shot burning/kill with all bottom armor shots) to a 3/4 shot burning/kill from all angles. Non-composite armor ESF will once again be one-shotted when struck. We've also lengthened the reload time of this weapon and increased the damage to emphasize its power, and reward skillful aim over spam. Dual-75 Duster (Liberator Bellygun)

• Direct damage resist type from light anti-armor (type 5) to A2G warhead (type 23).
• Direct damage from 175 to 225.
• Changed first and third person particle effects so that they're more visible.
• Changed projectile arc style to be more influenced by "true" gravity direction.

Dev Note: This change buffs the direct-hit damage on the Duster against armored ground targets, increasing the versatility of the weapon. VLG (Valkyrie Nosegun)

• Reload speed from 2sec. to 2.2sec.
• Reload speed certification line from 0.75sec. reduction at max rank to a 10% reduction at max rank.

Dev Note: The reload speed certification was overlooked when the VLG was buffed some updates ago, we're reeling that in to be in line with other weapons, and slightly reducing the base reload speed of the weapon. Bulldog and Fury (Sunderer/ANT)

• Made camera changes to let these weapons aim down further.

M60-A Bulldog (Galaxy)

• Direct damage from 250 to 400
• Blast max damage from 400 to 500
• Magazine size from 6 to 4

M60-G Bulldog (Harasser)

• Direct damage from 300 to 400
• Magazine size from 6 to 5

M60-G Bulldog (ANT)

• Direct damage from 250 to 400
• Magazine size from 6 to 5

M60-G Bulldog (Sunderer)

• Direct damage from 250 to 400
• Magazine size from 6 to 4

Dev Note: The Bulldog changes listed above are meant to provide some more stopping power on direct hits, especially more against lightly armored vehicles. Magazine sizes have been decreased to counterbalance the overall damage output. M4-F Pillager (TR Flash Weapon)

• No longer deals damage over time to non-infantry, but will still deal direct damage to vehicles.
• Burn over time effect now deals 50 damage every 0.5 seconds, instead of 100 damage every 1 second.
• Changed visuals for burning players.
• Ammunition capacity from 180 to 300.

Dev Note: This weapon gets a bit stronger with the Light Anti-Armor resistance changes to heavily armored vehicles, but the main issue we're addressing for the time being is the limited ammunition capacity. We've noted the performance hit caused by firing the weapon, and are looking to address that as soon as we can. Misc. Changes, Fixes, Additions

• Optics missing from the 4th Anniversary weapons have been added.
• Rocklet Rifle's Typhoon Ammunition no longer lowers your maximum ammunition pool.
• Reduced MG-AR1 Kindred's first person audio.
• Minor Cloak implant no longer cloaks corpses, and dying resets your cloak charge.
• Nightmare implant now decloaks the player immediately upon firing their weapon.
• Digital Snowflake Hood Ornament no longer breaks the vehicle it's equipped on.
• Raijin throwing stars can now earn weapon medals.
• Players are no longer spammed with horn item unlocks upon creating a new character. Honk honk.
• Fixed inoperable faction-specific jump pads.
• Slight update to the visuals on the Ichabod helmet, and fixed an issue where the mouth and eyesockets could receive camouflage.

Player Studio

• Fuzzbuket's Security Force armor set for Nanite Systems Operatives infantry classes is now available as a bundle in the Depot.
• Fuzzbuket's Traveler helmet for Nanite Systems Operatives infantry classes is now available in the Depot.
• Binarycoder's Sentinel helmet for Nanite Systems Operatives infantry classes is now available in the Depot.
• Binarycoder's E.P. helmet for Nanite Systems Operatives infantry classes is now available in the Depot.
• Binarycoder's B.O.B. helmet for Nanite Systems Operatives infantry classes is now available in the Depot.
• NS6's Afterfire helmet set for Terran Republic infantry classes is now available as a bundle in the Depot.

Known Issues

• Pumpkin Grenades are currently purchasable, but unable to be equipped. These will be properly disabled in an incoming client-only update.
• NS-61 Emissary aim down sights is still broken.
• MAX unit leg animations are broken upon revive. Consider it a feature befitting the spooky season.
• Revenant implant does not function correctly.
• Generators at Tech Plants no longer bring down the vehicle gates.
• Decals stopped working on some vehicles and infantry equipment.