End of November Progress Report

We've posted the end of November progress report. You can find the official link here: https://therepopulation.com/index.php/news/123-end-of-november-2013-update or a mirror of it's information below.

November is in the books, and our focus remains polishing the game and getting it ready for beta testing. Similar to last month, this resulted in a large number of bug fixes and minor tweaks. But as is generally the case, we squeezed in some new features along with them. Let’s take a look at the most important additions this month.

Structure placement in the housing and nation systems received a significant upgrade with a new Structure Placement UI allowing objects to be scaled and rotated. Along with full control over the objects, you can also copy/paste/reset the object’s rotation and scale values making it easier to quickly place a bunch of objects at the exact scale and rotation needed. We should have a feature video out very soon featuring the new updates in the system so stay tuned for that.

A new calendar system was introduced. You can mouse over a new icon on your minimap to see the time and date, in both local time and in game time. The calendar system is tied in to many of the games systems, allowing us to have special events which are fixed during certain seasons, or date ranges. You can expect to hear more about these events and features in future updates.

We expanded the inquiry system so that with some Diplomacy skill you can now obtain information on an NPC’s current dilemmas or the cause of those dilemmas. This allows you to inquire with NPCs and find out who caused their current predicament if it was another player or NPC and the name of the cause. This can be used for hidden inquiry or mission opportunities.

Combat balance was under the microscope this month, with most of the weapon types in the game receiving significant balance related tweaks. We also implemented a new optional recoil system for players who enjoy their screen shakes.

We also pushed a bit further into world development. Many new contested (PvP enabled) areas were introduced, along with quite a few new locations which allow cities to be constructed. The FPR faction also received a large tutorial revamp to bring them in line with recent changes that OWON has undergone.

In other news we introduced a new Backer's Portal on the web site. This allows our Early Adopters to be able to monitor pledges and the perks they have qualified for.

Calendar

• Added a persistent calendar system to Rhyldan. The calendar varies slightly from Earth and it changes years every three weeks. The date and season will help determine weather effects, in-game holiday events, and seasonal resources or spawns.
• Mousing over the time button will also display the current Day, Month, and Year in Game Time.

Combat

• Implemented an optional recoil system for players. If you wish to display recoil effects you can enable this from the options. Recoil effects will make your screen shake when firing weapons.
• Camera Jolting can now be isolated to a single target.
• Damage Flashes will now display a camera shake on the target if you have camera shakes and damage flashes both enabled.
• When you attempt to PvP with a player that you cannot engage in PvP, it will now explain why in a text banner.
• You can now use the Middle Mouse Button (rebindable) to switch in and out of Action Mode. Q and CTRL-A bindings also work.
• Unarmed combat now has client side FX for when they swing at nothing in action mode, to bring them in line with weapon abilities.
• Adjusted visual attack distance between players and certain mobs.
• Placed a short delay on weapon firing FX so that the player has a chance to raise their arms to aim, if they were not already aiming.

Graphics and Animations

• Impact animations properly play based on the type of weapon/stance you are in now.
• Introduced numerous new melee weapon models.
• Added new snow-themed models for Kaavo.
• Adjusted the placement of the fully automatic rifle as it wasn't quite oriented properly.
• Improved damage FX for Rifles, Handguns, and Automatic Weapons.
• Setlangs have all new models.
• Created several new variations of Particle Lights. These are not true lights but work in a similar way to a lightmap for efficient rendering of lighting that works well for certain situations.
• Added new cave environment models.
• Crawler bots received a completely new model and animations.
• Added background mountains and a skydome to the housing areas.
• Tactical Vest 2 set for the male are now Tint-able.
• Tactical Vest and Composite Pants 2 for the male are now Tint-able.
• Added collision mesh to energy wall/force field models.
• Composite Set 3 Armor for male is now tint-able, both shirt and pants.
• The Merc Outfit for the male is now tint-able, both shirt and pants.
• Added numerous new female NPC Outfits.
• Decorated more shops in Plymouth City.

Housing

• Housing now has rotational options along all 3 axis along with proper grounding checks to allow for them to be placed flush along the ground of the target object.
• Added an icon size option to the Housing Window. It now defaults to medium which is about half of the previous size. The original size is now listed as X-Large and there are 2 other options making it easier to stack a lot of icons or get a better idea of what it looks like.
• Updated the Owon Housing Area with more trees and foliage.
• Increased the awareness distance for housing units fixing an issue with some housing units not being marked in the back of the housing instance area.
• Added a housing minimap marker making it easier to find your housing plot.
• Added new placement/scaling/rotating options to nation structures so they work just like housing structures. This includes the copy/paste commands, reset, and all of the mode adjustments.
• Placing/moving/manipulating housing structures now has 6 modes that make it easier to accomplish certain tasks such as fine detail movement, rotation, and scaling of objections.
• Shift+C and Shift+V when actively using a structure will now copy their scale and rotation settings.
• CTRL+R added to reset the scale and rotation back to the defaults. The object needs to be actively selected and the current mode (scale or rotation) has to be active to reset it.
• Nudging a housing structure in a direction moves it less than before making it easier to do fine adjustments on position.

Inquiries

• Inquiring to tell you about an NPC can now also result in information on their current Dilemma and the cause of that Dilemma, which can be either a player or an NPC. It will require some skill in Diplomacy before you obtain this information commonly.
• Characters are now given a message to let them know when they have gained a new piece of Knowledge, though it doesn't specify what that knowledge was.
• If you are aggro to an NPC they will no longer offer you inquiries. This was occurring on missions or engagements when friendly NPCs would turn hostile.
• Increased your chance of having successful inquiries.

Items and Fittings

• Created new regional treasure specs to allow certain items to be isolated to certain areas.
• Sweeping adjustments to weapons reducing the energy costs of ranged weapons, automatics retuned to be a bit more useful against medium and heavy armor, as well as firing rate changes.
• Most melee weapons have had their models replaced with completely new models.
• Added a new item reward category for use in missions and engagements. This category will reward the player with random books of knowledge. Along with this, many new readable items were added in-game.
• Added a new readable book: Southeast of Freedomtown. This is a guide book of the area. This book grants a new mission when read which rewards you for visiting important places in this area.
• Added a new readable book: Letter From Command. This book will grant a small but permanent boost to the Leadership skill of the first player who reads it.
• Added a new readable book: Letters to a Soldier, and populated it into various loot tables. The first person to read each copy of this book will grant a small but permanent boost to your Entertainment skill.
• Introduced a new readable book: Encounter with a Setlang. This book will grant a small but permanent boost to your Unarmed Tactics when read.
• Added a new readable section from the Journal of Henry Hudson. Reading it for the first time will give a small but permanent boost to your Trap Knowledge skill, and it is also a part of a separate mission series.
• Added two new readable books, each of them being a piece of Galvart's Journal. Each piece gives two pieces of Knowledge when read. Reading both books will result in some hidden achievements and a couple of abilities if you did not already have them.
• Activatable items can now each have their own custom script, if necessary. This can be used to give them complex functionality that may not otherwise be available through normal means due to being a rare and special case.
• You can now gain Knowledge from reading in-game books. This knowledge allows you to then inquire with NPCs about new topics.
• Added a new readable book: Cold Silver, which is a philosphical look at the notion of clones. This book will grant the first person who reads it a small boost to their Entertainment skill. It is a random rare drop on human NPCs.
• Introduced a new readable book: Freefall. It covers the landing of the Northern Star. The first person who reads any instance of this book will receive a small but permanent Diplomacy bonus.
• Added additional items to various loot tables.
• Optimized the loot/personal generation code significantly in some cases where there were not many items in the loot tables but a minimum loot limit was set.
• New characters now begin with Tactical Armor equipped by default.
• Added a new type of Composite Armor Sleeves to the possible starting gear choices.
• Removed the Citizen's Hoodie and Citizen's Pants from the starting gear choices to avoid players choosing them without realizing they offer no protection. They are still available elsewhere.
• Heated weapons have new and improved particle effects.
• Fixed some issues with banks eating items.

Missions

• Generated kill missions that have optional bonus goals will now display (Bonus) next to those goals when they become available. Bonus goals can be skipped if desired, but you will gain additional rewards if you complete them.
• Generated Missions will now generate more frequently.
• If a mission has many marker locations, such as you would have on a patrol or escort mission, it will now only display mission arrows to the first and last point.
• Added new OWON oriented missions to Plymouth City. These are derivative missions that require you to have completed previous missions in a series to reach. They have increased rewards to compensate for this.
• Added seven new generated mission templates centering around OWON's watchful eye.
• Many mission opportunities have been added to the Fal Sept regions.
• The Covert Operations tutorial series no longer requires you to have completed Unarmed Combat training first.
• Sprinkled One Time Mission opportunities throughout Fal Sept.
• Improved the locations of hostile generated mission markers in the Plymouth area.
• Streamlined the Keeping Busy tutorial that you receive upon entering your starting city. It no longer sends you to the north gate at the start, and the tips are now easier to follow.
• Privatized more parts of the special FX and communication in The Awakening tutorials.
• Added a short radio transmission at the end of the Dissecting Corpses tutorial to make it easier to know that the mission is over

NPCs

• Introduced a new tameable insect species: Barca. This species features a wide variety of color variations.
• Introduced an FPR specific version of Guide Bots.
• NPCs in the Dead City are a bit livelier than was previously the case.
• Updated the background information for numerous NPCs in the Plymouth area. This allows for more detailed information in inquiries.
• Altered a number of NPC personality traits in the Plymouth area to make them able to qualify for more generated missions.
• Factional Bounty Collectors will no longer aggressively pursue enemy players.
• Slightly reduced default NPC sight detection distance.
• Setlang will now aggro players from a shorter distance than most other mobs.
• Found an issue that was causing only ranged NPCs to be able to sprint to close the distance to their target. This has been corrected and melee NPCs will now close the distance a little faster.
• Mobs spawned through non-standard means now support custom NPC scripts.
• Created a new Metallurgist vendor type, and spread them throughout the world.
• Jason Jackson now sells machine parts in Plymouth City.
• Blad Dwyd has moved inside of the Plymouth Towers, seeking shelter from the rain.
• The basic attack of Vulture Queens will now do Biochemical damage.
• The Guide Bot near the engagement in the OWON Training Facility has been moved slightly. He is now standing just outside of the Cloning Facility. This makes him easier to spot after completing the Awakening series. Some players were missing him since he was up against the wall just outside of the bunker.
• Created a new Peacekeeper Patrolman NPC type. These will spawn to enforce the law if someone sets off a security alarm through Thievery or trying to hack into a security system. These can be found in Plymouth City.
• Some of the NPCs in the Clone Cafe's feet have grown tired, so they have taken a seat.
• Adjustments were made to NPCs in the Clone Cafe in the OWON Training Facilities.
• Created a new non-tamable variation of T'Seef for placement in shops in town as a moving decoration.

Pets

• Tweaked the group formation used for pets, to allow them to follow in better formation.
• Added new pet summoning effects.
• Crawler bots have all new models.

Player vs. Player

• We have introduced shuttles that will take you between Sept Falls and Freedomtown or Plymouth City. These allow players to jump into the action more quickly. This is for testing purposes and not indicative to how it will be at release.
• A lot of work was done in the contested region of Fal Sept. This includes many locations set aside for player created cities, and new PvP opportunities.
• Added new PvP loot items. These are rare random treasures that you can receive by killing your enemies.

Skills and Abilities

• Introduced a new hidden skill. While all characters can unlock this skill you will need to find the NPC required to teach it to you. He spawns randomly throughout the world using the world spawn system. He can only be up in one place at a time, however. He spawns in hard to find locations which will require some exploration. Upon learning this skill you are also trained to use it's first ability.
• Effect and Fitting Mods now add together instead of multiply. This is to help in processing speed and to prevent stacking abuse.
• Dodge chance has been modified to be impacted by armor type for both players and NPCs along with the NPC's difficulty.
• Getting caught stealing in Plymouth City will no longer result in instant death. Instead a very tough Peacekeeper will attack you, along with the usual loss of reputation.
• Aim High (Automatic Weapons) had it's AoE Radius increased and now utilizes your weapon's range rather than a preset range.
• Panicked Spray (Automatic Weapons) had it's PBAoE radius doubled.
• Spraying Assault (Automatic Weapons) had it's AoE radius increased.
• Covering Fire (Automatic Weapons) had it's radius increased and now utilizes your weapons effective range, instead of a hard coded value. It also now features a more appropriate description of it's capabilities.
• Frenzied Fire (Automatic Weapons) had it's AoE radius increased.
• Stopping Power (Automatic Weapons) had it's AoE radius increased.
• Twirling Trip (Axes) is now a PBAoE ability, rather than single target. It still has a chance to knock your opponents down or off-balance.
• Make it Rain (Aerosol) had it's AoE Radius increased significantly.
• Heavy Gust (Aerosol) is now a Spread AoE ability.
• Increased the damage on the Maximum Release ability (Aerosol).
• Made significant adjustments to the fitting code to speed up processing of fittings.
• Ability Training Cards have a new icon.
• Player created camps now include a camp fire with heat wave effects.

Trade Skills

• Added the following harvestable resources to the Southern Pass: Fish, Iron, Mika Berry and Saverous Tree. In addition to this random harvester extracted mineral ore is also available in the area.
• Added the following harvestable resources to Eastfal: Lilac, Chromite, and harvester extracted Mineral Ore.
• Added harvestable Geflech Tree, Albus, harvester-extracted Mineral Ores, and Melanko resources to Eastfal Valley.
• Added Calibrite, Lilac, Fish, and Abandoned Bundle resources to the Northern Trails. Harvester extracted mineral ore nodes were also added.
• Added new resource spawners for Geel Flowers to Sept Falls.
• Added the following harvestable resources to Eastern Fork: Copper, Hok Weed, and Rue
• Placebo Plant can now be found in a wider area and greater numbers in around the Pond in Plymouth.
• Adjusted the rate at which you gain SI from harvesting.
• Crafting Training Manuals have a new icon. Converted all existing manuals to use it.
• Added many new crafting material icons. This includes a variety of new food related icons, as well as chemical icons, and weapon components.

User Interface

• Created a new movement GUI for the nation/house building.
• You can now enable optional recoil animations from the Combat Options menu. They are disabled by default.
• Improved the visuals of the health bars that float above an NPCs head. These have new graphics, and the difficulty indicators have also been tweaked. You can now disable the Show All option in Nameplate Options to only display nameplate for your currently selected target.
• The City Control Panel GUI has received a number of upgrades. It was upgraded to a new appearance, and is now fully tintable. The text alignment was altered to make it more attractive, and now drops a shadow. It is also now opaque, and can be closed.
• Large radius mission markers now appear as a target on your map or minimap, rather than as a red circle. This primarily affects combat missions within a large radius. They also now adjust their size based on the map's zoom factor.
• Added a new option to the pop up menu for Ability Bars which allows you to open a new ability bar without using the interface options.
• Introduced a new option to the pop up menu for Ability Bars which allows you to close/hide this bar automatically. This option is available on all bars except for bar one.
• The Group Window is can now be tinted, similar to other GUIs
• The Group Window saw various minor visual improvements. Those include a new backdrop, transparency and rearranging the bars and control icons.
• Re-organized the Video Options window. Anti-Aliasing is now referred to as such, rather than MSAA. There are now tooltips for more features. And some options have been moved close to similar options to make them easier to locate. A Light Quality option has also been added.
• Added a new check button to the mission tracker window which can be pressed to quickly toggle off tracking for that mission. This will disable markers on the minimap and any arrows to that mission. You can re-enable tracking for that mission later from the mission window, if desired.
• Added a new Light Quality flag to the Video Options. This flag will allow you to select from three different options. These options will determine the amount of lighting in a scene.
• Mission names longer than 20 characters will no longer have part of their text overlapping past the corner of the tracker window.
• The Mission Details Window will no longer display very long mission names on two lines. It instead cuts off at a certain point, with an appending ...
• Book items will no longer display the book's text in tooltips. Instead they ask you to right click the item to open the book.
• Right clicking on readable items will now open up a GUI where you can read the the entire book. This GUI supports a scroll bar rather than the traditional page based view in most MMORPGs.
• The event panel which displays things like the flashing mail event has had it's size doubled to make it more noticeable.
• Flying Text for damage numbers or other combat messages saw a number of visual improvements. The background has been removed, and the text is instead colorized based on the type of message. Rather than scrolling upwards smoothly it now arcs upwards and then back downwards, exploding from the center into a random direction on the sides.
• The Outfit Panel when you select your starting armor now includes a brief description of the differences between the different armor types armors.
• The Minimap Options menu now supports filtering of the following additional types: Collection Missions, Tutorial Missions, Harvestable Resources, and Harvestable Clusters. These are in addition to the previous filter options. You can access this menu by right clicking on your Minimap.
• Added tooltips to many window buttons which did not previously have them such as the Options Windows.
• Added a new Time of Day button to the Minimap. This button will display a sun if it is day time and a moon if it is night time. Hovering over this button with your mouse will display both the current game time and the local real world time. It should be noted that Rhyldan has a 20 hour day. So 10:00 would the equivalent of Noon.
• The minimap filters now pluralize the Show Quest NPCs and Show NPCs options to make them uniform with other filters. In addition to this, Show Quest NPCs has been renamed as Show Mission NPCs.
• Mousing over a housing structure now displays a normal cursor instead of the Attack cursor.
• Mail event warning icons are now larger and flash to make it easier to spot them.
• Made some adjustments so the crafting icons don't cause a FPS hit when highlighting
• Improved the layout and spacing of NPC Tooltips.
• Re-skinned and rearranged the Delete Character confirmation dialog.
• Readjusted the difficulty indicators on health bars to reduce the appearance of scaling.

Voice and Audio

• Improved music mixing and fading support.
• Adjusted the sound levels of various sounds to balance out audio volume.
• Imported 10 new audio tracks and plugged them into the music system.
• Removed the sound effect that was played when you select your character.
• Performed a fresh pass on area specific music. Areas should be receiving appropriate music in most cases.
• Audio should now properly adjust for intensity.
• Theme music is now played at character selection and creation, assuming you have it turns in through Audio Settings.
• The pubs in Plymouth City have livelier new music.

World

• The FPR Training Facilities have received a significant number of upgrades. You may now seamlessly walk between the Cloning Facility and the Training Facilities. There is now a short "waking up" sequence, and the tutorials have been updated to the modern standards, as well. The layout of the area has been significantly altered. New buildings have been added, and the area has been condensed to be easier to navigate.
• Sept Falls is now a neutral safe haven in contested territory. This will be the Rogue Nation's city, but it also allows OWON and FPR characters to visit it without fear of being persecuted. As part of the transition there are now now separate shuttles between Sept Falls, Plymouth City and Freedomtown. It also features new crafting stations and banking terminals. A reasonable number of new NPCs have also moved into Sept Falls. The city is becoming a hub of activity and numerous missions are now available from inside its wall. There is also a Lost and Found, and Bounty Collectors for each faction.
• Added some sporadic mobs to the Lower Basin. This is primarily a city area and has a relatively small space for mobs. They are however used to provide hunting and mission opportunities for those in the city.
• Introduced a new contested area just north of Sept Falls: The Northern Trails. This area takes its name from the many forking trails in the area. It features one of the pools that drains into Sept Falls.
• A large new city plot can be found in the recently opened Ravine Fal. This is a contested area.
• Introduced a new contested area: West Bend. This area includes a large space for a player created city, and is west of Sept Falls.
• A new contested area has opened it's doors in the Fal Midlands. This area features a medium sized space for a player created city.
• Introduced Eastfal Valley in the middle-eastern portion of Fal Sept. This area has room for a medium sized player created city, and a well traveled road.
• Introduced a new contested area by the name of Eastfal. This area is on the borders of Fal Sept and the Doma Highlands, and features a medium sized player city space.
• Introduced a new contested area: Vista Doma. This area borders with Doma Highlands and has a medium sized space for a player city.
• Introduced a new contested area: The Southern Lowlands, which features a huge city plot.
• Fal Canyon, a new contested area just south of Tralus Plains is now available. It features a huge city plot.
• Aemar Mine received a complete visual overhaul.
• Added an exploration point for the Lonely Lagoon in the Northern Trails. The first time you visit this location you will receive a small but permanent boost to your Fishing skill.
• The area to the east of Sept Falls has been named the Eastern Fork by the locals. This is a contested area and PvP is enabled.
• Introduced a new contested area: Lower Basin. This area is in the southeastern portion of Fal Sept and features a large player created city plot.
• Populated the Northern Trails with mobs. These are controlled by multiple dens and tier 3-5 content and includes Brachura and Okolat primarily.
• Populated the Eastern Fork using several dens. This includes a mixture of tier 1-6 content ranging from solo to group content, and is controlled from multiple dens.
• Populated Southern Pass with mobs. This area is a mixture of tier 1-4 content ranging from solo to group content. It is controlled by multiple dens in the area.
• Populated Eastfal with missions and mobs. Most of this are is taken up by city space, but the areas surrounding it also have content. The content here ranges from tier 3-4.
• Populated Eastfal Valley with mobs. The bulk of this area is relatively safe, but it becomes more dangerous at night time.
• A Housing Travel Agent has been added to the Landing Pads section of Plymouth City to make it a bit easier to figure out how to get to the housing area. A similar NPC added in the housing area as well.
• Added a new exploration point/point of interest Southeast of Freedomtown: Lurker Lake. You will receive a small but permanent boost to your Fishing skill the first time you visit this lake. This is the first of a series of exploration books that will reward players for visiting points of interest in the local area.
• The Southern Pass is a new contested area, which lies to the south of Sept Falls.
• The areas south and southeast of Freedomtown have been opened up to allow for more inhabitable space.
• There are now many more locations where you can access Wailing Chasm from the Freedomtown area.
• Added God Rays back into the world lighting.
• There is now a path from Fal Sept's Nation Area "Vista Doma" to the Doma Highlands "Dead City".
• There is now a path from Doma Highland's "Doma Hills" to Timbertol's "Pontoc".
• Adjusted the old PvP Teleporter to be a Sept Falls Ticketing Agent. Placed Sept Falls Ticketing Agents in Freedomtown and Plymouth City. Sept Falls is a neutral city where all nations are protected from PvP. Once you leave it's vicinity though the neighboring areas are all contested and PvP is enabled.
• Added new points of interest to Sept Falls. These will indicate important locations on your map.
• The roads around Plymouth City are now a little safer than they were previously.
• The Sept Falls region now has it's own weather rules and conditions.
• Lighting tweaks were made to the OWON Cloning Facility.
• Altered the cloning locations in Plymouth Pond so they are in safer locations. Rogue Nation and FPR forces now have their own unique spawn locations, as well.
• Added many new lights to Plymouth City. Most of these are only visible in High or Maximum Lighting Quality.
• Redecorated Anna Kelly's shop in Plymouth City so that it looks more like a bakery.
• Camp Taak can now see rain in heavy weather conditions, though it is rare.
• Added new light sources and light models to Camp Taak. These will switch on at night, and turn off automatically at night.
• Upper Oasis Valley has been renamed to the Arches of Oasis.
• Night time has been shortened for NPC spawning purposes, and day time oriented shops will now stay operating for a little bit longer.
• Redecorated the Clone Cafe and Crafter's workshop in the OWON Training facility.
• Added new bank terminals to various locations throughout the world.
• Added new lootable corpses to Eastern Fork and Eastfal Valley.

World Events

• Added World Event support to the Fal Sept region.
• Created a new world spawn event which will move randomly from one spot of the world to the next. It will stay in each area for fifteen minutes before choosing a new location. This event results in a new hidden skill.

Miscellaneous Minor Changes

• Banking terminals are once again functional (OK this one isn’t exactly minor).
• Reworded a number of tips to make them more concise and to the point.
• Removed the warning when starting as an FPR character, and re-enabled the randomized starting faction.
• Smoothed some of the paths in Plymouth City.
• Moved the Vulture Infestation engagement locations and FX around a bit to better suit recent world changes.
• Cleaned up the melee animations so the damage pops up sooner and there is only 1 impact animation.
• Removed the Training Chit rewards from the FPR Training Grounds, to bring it in line with the OWON Training Ground changes.
• Upgraded the weapon container models in the Training Facilities.
• Added location information for the second generated NPC in the Contacting a Friend generated mission template.
• The mouse Y axis is no longer inverted by default.
• Marked the furniture in the indoor portions of the OWON Training Facility to render on the world only and not on the map, resulting in a minor optimization.
• The Lost and Found Manager should no longer be attackable by anything.
• Altered the Department of Community Support generated missions so that the ordering of the optional goals is a little easier to understand.
• Updated the Action Mode tip to better word some parts, and to indicate that you can now use the Middle Mouse Button to toggle between Action and RPG modes.
• Added new achievements which are obtained by reading books.
• Updated the description of the Just Give Up! ability (Intimidation) to better describe the ability.
• Altered the descriptions for the following Automatic Weapon abilities: Spraying Fire, and Panicked Attack.
• Minor optimizations were made to the NextTarget command, which defaults to the tab key.
• The Nearest Target command (defaults to Y) will no longer target corpses.
• Various minor NPC Menu related optimizations.
• Material optimizations.
• Updated the goal text in one of the steps of the Awakening tutorial to better describe where you need to walk.
• The lockboxes in the OWON Training Facilities will now fade in their LOD a little later.
• Reduced falling damage.
• Reworded the description for the Dirty Fighting ability: Low Blow.
• Fixed an issue with housing placement/rotation of existing structures when having the housing window open.

Bug Fixes

• Stitched together some terrain seams South and Southeast of Freedomtown.
• Fixed an issue in the Covert Operations tutorial. This was causing one of the branches to complete early, when it should have been opening a new goal.
• Fixed a bug which was preventing a number of inquiries from returning information.
• Fixed a typo in the entertainment branch of the OWON Training Facilities Guide Bot objectives.
• Fixed a bug that could occur when aborting missions with multiple watched abilities.
• The Purifying Water tutorial no longer refers the Workshop Supervisor by their old name.
• The Taming tutorial no longer refers to the old method of obtaining Training Chits as a possibility.
• The Taming tutorial is now working properly if you choose to use a credits charge, rather than using a chit.
• Shortened the length of the Taming Success radio broadcast so that it fits the GUI properly.
• Fixed some scaling issues with some of the older FPR Training Facility NPCs.
• Corrected an issue that was causing the panicked recruits to not play their animations if you were the first player to enter the area.
• Fixed an issue where deleting an item may not have deleted all of the fittings it contained from the database.
• Fixed a server side memory leak related to pathing.
• Server side optimizations related to a bug in the NPC item visualization code.
• Fixed an issue that could occur in the Training Facilities if your character loaded in before the NPCs, and caused some missing chatter.
• Corrected a typo in the Contacting a Friend generated mission template.
• Double clicking while in placement mode would result it in selecting or exiting out of placement mode. This commonly happens with right clicking as you use it to rotate the object.
• Fixed an issue that was closing the Character Sheet after swapping equipment.
• Vulture pets are now using the latest model upgrades.
• Fixed a bug that was preventing Learning Stimulators from functioning correctly.
• Fixed an issue with nation structures not setting their y position (height) properly when being moved.
• Nation structures lost their physics if you moved them via mouse placement due to a physics bug. This was fixed.
• Fixed a target issue with nation structures causing in some cases the wrong object to be adjusted.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes clicking on a structure in housing or nations the structure would now should up and you had to exit out and then place it again.
• Fixed a bug that was preventing Hokfig to be used for hostile generated missions in some areas.
• Corrected a bug in the shadow update code which was causing time to get slightly out of synch.
• Fixed a bug in the NPC menu system.
• Fixed a player city structure placement bug related to scaling.
• Muzzle flashes for players were not being aligned properly for other players viewing the flash and causing other cascading issues as the flash is used as a starting point for other parts of the FX.
• Fixed a typo in the description for the Disrupt and Counter-Move abilities (Counter-Attack).
• Players now properly show up and disappear from the minimap if they are visible to other players.
• Fixed a typo in the Den of the Dragon achievement.
• Repaired an issue that was causing your action mode firing FX to not be firing at where you were aiming when moving your firing location around quickly. This was caused by a mistimed position tracker in some recent changes, and not updating the FX to compensate.
• Fixed an issue with jumping not being displayed properly over the network.
• Fixed an issue when in combat the turning animation would be played and there is none for combat. It now will just rotate the player or human npc instead.
• Corrected an issue with the music mixing system. It was fading in old sounds when it should have been fading them out in some cases, allowing them to play forever.
• Fixed a bug that was preventing Vultures from playing sound effects.
• The Setlang Attacks mission will now correctly hide the kill steps after they have been completed.
• Fixed a bug that caused your action bar's next and previous page menu to have a 1 pixel break at a certain scale.
• Fixed an issue where ability bar 1 had a slightly different size than ability bars 2-8.
• The Travelers in the Ambushed by Bandits engagement should no longer be damageable by players.
• You should now see chat bubbles during the intro sequence.
• Reduced the amount of health that the Sim Assault Mech in the Training Grounds has.
• The Sim Master Sergeant has a new look to make him easier to identify in the Training Grounds engagements. He also has had his health increased to make him a bit more difficult.
• Fixed a bug that was sometimes allowing you to miss the trigger when exiting the cloning facility and not advancing your Awakening mission as a result.
• Corrected an issue that was sometimes causing the Sim Master Sergeant in the Training Grounds to ping pong and be difficult to hit.
• Beefed up the turrets in the Training Grounds as they needed slightly more range and firepower to keep the engagements from getting overrun.
• Repaired a babble related error that could occur if the babbling NPC died while speaking.
• Fixed a bug that was preventing the concrete footstep sounds from playing when in the cloning facility.
• Fixed an issue that was causing the Inventory tip to not word wrap properly. This was making it impossible to read some of its text.
• Fixed a performance issue with certain sounds not being destroyed causing memory and fps issues.
• Numerous weapons had their hand placement adjusted to better fit to various models.
• Action mode was sending mouse and target events to the server when there was no need creating extra server traffic when it was't needed.
• Action mode would target the heightmap causing issues with close range combat and changing targets. This was resolved.
• Target Nameplate now shows up in action mode like it does in RPG mode so you can see their stats in the upper left hand corner along with any effects.
• Fixed one of the Fisherman spawn points in Plymouth Pond which was underwater with recent pond changes.
• NPCs should no longer try to walk across pillars above ground or on top of tents in Plymouth City.
• Guards now have their level set properly if they were spawned as a result of picking another NPCs pocket.
• Guards spawned as the result of picking the pocket of an NPC will now properly attack the player.
• Fixed a bug that was causing NPCs spawned from certain missions to not have their combat rating set properly.
• Fixed a bug that could occur after a long-range teleport, where you would still have waypoint arrows from your last location.
• Ability and Combat Effect icons will no longer have a ghost on their time remaining shadowing effects. This was caused by an improper alpha channel.
• Corrected an issue with the Patrol to the Pond generated mission template. It had an incorrect check point flagged so could only be completed if you crossed through the wrong gate.
• When crossing a seamless border it will now properly clear out mission, destination and radius markers from the previous area.
• Fixed a bug when loading into a new area, it still had old mission waypoints cached and pointing to an unreachable area.
• Fixed multiple bugs in the Rotten Meat generated mission template.
• The Refund for Maggoty Meat in Plymouth City (mission related) is no longer referred to as 's Refund.
• Repaired some Z-Fighting issues on some of the neon signs inside of the Plymouth City pubs.
• Fixed a bug that was causing some of the player to NPC specific mission interactions to be said in the Say channel instead of in the Mission channel, which prevented them from being filtered with the Mission chat filter.
• There should no longer be two Jason Jacksons up at a time.
• The Engagement and Mission Tracker windows are now the same width.
• Adjusted some furniture that wasn't properly aligned in Plymouth.
• The tree climbing Peacekeeper near the East Gate in Plymouth City has been grounded.
• Fixed an issue where very long mission descriptions on the mission detail window were cutting off the bottom of the text. A scrollable panel will now appear for long mission descriptions.
• Fixed a bug that was not always clearing the overhead Mission Icon from NPCs after you advanced a goal from them.
• Fixed a bug in some of the code that turned friendly NPCs hostile for a mission or engagement. It was setting the character as the target in some cases, but not adding them onto the NPCs aggro list.
• Pulled the Peacekeeper Headquarters sign a little further from the wall to avoid Z-Fighting graphical glitches at long range.
• Fixed a bug that could cause your generated mission timer to stop ticking in some cases.
• The Stop the Shakedowns mission will now hide it's Defeat the Lowlives goal once it has been completed.
• There should no longer be any cases where there are two Carlo Amante's in Plymouth City.
• There is now a text banner at the end of the Amante's Collection timed mission, to make it easier for character's to know that the mission is over.
• Fixed a bug that was preventing Stealth from activating.
• Corrected some Z-Fighting issues at long range for the Mayflower Pub's main entrance sign.
• Fixed a bug that was causing you to keep waypoint markers to certain types of mission goals after the goal had completed.
• The Contacting a Friend generated mission template now provides directions to the location of the first generated NPC to contact, if available.
• Fixed a generated mission bug that was causing you to have some mission details stuck to your screen due to an error during the translation process.
• Shortened the email subject in the Unpopped Setlang Eye and Encrypted Delivery missions so that they are properly aligned in the mail window.
• Made adjustments to the spawn locations of some of the wall-leaning NPCs in Plymouth City so they were not leaning on thin air.
• Fixed a bug with the /reply command where it was indexing some system message text as being a reply target.
• Unarmed human NPCs now will play an attack animation.
• Fixed a bug that was being caused when missions were trying to check a Done icon which didn't exist in some cases and causing an artifact on your user interface.
• Removed the "A Nice Opportunity" mission from the generated mission tables in Torn Mist Valley as it was bugged and not working correctly. A correctly working version of the template entitled "Drake Hunt" is in it's place.
• Fixed some stretching issues on one of the Heavy Armor sets.
• Smoothed a jagged spot of terrain behind the Crafting Center in the OWON Training Facilities.
• Fixed an issue that was preventing the Gust ability (Aerosol) from knocking down opponents.
• Latest astronomy and time changes are sent to the client whenever they first enter the world. Previously it was waiting until the first tick to send them and resulting in a delaying period where they would be set incorrectly.
• Fixed a client/server movement sync issue with NPCs that were moving and then went into combat.
• Fixed an issue with derived stats on the Character Sheet not updating when you equipped or unequipped gear.
• Reversed the Invert Mouse option to match the settings of most other recent game titles.
• Fixed a minor precision issue with the Astronomy system which was causing a slight synchronization issue between the server and client in the day/night transitions.