[img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//38973288/a29bf005f5db9e0d5de1f9416f2ebda20508886f.png[/img] Hi everyone, work is progressing nicely on Major Update 2 and all being well we’ll be having a public co-op test in September. As mentioned in the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1252680/view/4343243762387977372]previous Dev Transmission[/url], this first test will be focused on combat only, the campaign co-op test will follow on from that. Some of the co-op focused tasks we’ve done in August relate around people playing in edge-case but valid circumstances. For example, what happens when people playing together have differing Dispenser upgrade levels? How does the game treat pre-placed dispensers? We’ve solved this by differentiating player-placed and pre-placed dispensers, and these have differing models to reflect the changes: [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//38973288/6d73cd607fb37c0cd6d9546ecfe0d8bc3b0f427a.png[/img] As we were making changes in this area, we thought it’d also be nice to have model variants for Mastered versions of the dispensers too. Another edge-case we’ve tackled is how co-op handles lives – specifically what happens when there are no more crew for a respawn? When this happens the dead player will enter a spectator mode. We’re putting a bunch of security cameras around levels and players that cannot respawn will commandeer them. The image below shows the three states security cameras can be in; inactive, active and controlled by a player. The latter is useful so the person still in combat can see which camera is currently controlled by their ally: [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//38973288/08678f1200e6040b267b842c6d82cf6f5afd4e8a.png[/img] In order for players in this state to still contribute to the fight, we’re looking at giving certain abilities in this mode. Tagging enemies, remotely collecting scrap, some form of enemy stunning and more are all being considered for implementation. At some point it’ll be good to expand this functionality out to spectators controlling turrets, but that’s a future task as it’s a bit more involved. We’ve implemented the final set of third party animations so you can now see the other player perform all crouch-related actions and fixed a lot of sound effects that weren’t playing correctly in co-op. We’ll be putting the combat co-op test through its paces among our Discord community first, but as soon as the public branch is available we’ll create a Steam announcement so you can dive in and let us know your thoughts. [h3]New Music![/h3] Barry has been back on the project in August and has made a bunch of new tracks which we’re planning to include as part of Major Update 2. While the majority of these are new music for combat, there’s some new Navigator music too. As a sneak peek, here’s a snippet of one of the new combat tracks: [previewyoutube=Ae0elBOR_vQ;full][/previewyoutube] We get a lot of questions around when we’ll be releasing the soundtrack, this will be closer to full release. [h3]New Levels![/h3] Sean has created two new levels: Logistics and Chasm. Our Discord playtesters have provided feedback on the greybox versions which we’ll action before these get handed over to Alex to finish the art. Chasm has a lot of places where you can throw enemies into the abyss: [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//38973288/7f21f682b585742ab6d2d8d304926f849db1db76.png[/img] Logistics allows you to shoot overhead conveyors to drop explosive crates on enemies as they are on the final stretch to the exit: [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//38973288/2744ee025184795fb06c78dfb18a8520c8190c18.png[/img] We’re also planning on giving Central Processing a pass for Major Update 2, it’s our oldest level and it shows! [h3]Weapon Skins![/h3] When you master a weapon, you’ll now get a special weapon skin for it: [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//38973288/38ef00137059ebf2ae257e22c2cb18d764a70a43.png[/img] Weapon skins have been a popular request, so this is likely an area we’ll expand upon in future. [h3]Other Stuff![/h3] With one programmer, one artist and one designer Major Update 2 has thus far proven to be a dependency nightmare – Adam is almost exclusively working on co-op, which is a very technically intensive task – so Alex and Sean have had to work on areas that don’t require a lot of code support (like the levels mentioned above). It has however given us the opportunity to look further ahead at content that would be added beyond Major Update 2, so we have some early concepts of melee weapons, designs for adding vendors into the campaign, visualizing attacking enemies before entering levels and some other cool things that are part of the longer-term plans. [h3]From the Community![/h3] As is usual, we’ll finish off the Dev Transmission with some cool stuff from the community. This month, Discord user Jajomba has put together a mockup of a new enemy he’d like to see in the game: [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//38973288/dbc759bbb70d1b24e4e263d6976a3e3cc1306122.png[/img] He described this as a back-stabbing, vent-crawling, wall-climbing commando type enemy: [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//38973288/2dab45053875d8a4d413202ea39bec943d64d1e6.png[/img] We love seeing this sort of thing, whether it be fan art, impressive gameplay clips or whatever – send them our way on any of our socials or direct to me via our Discord and we’ll share with the community (with your permission of course). [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//38973288/3c5c57ef9b7808d5336d601fa75e9410d29fca25.png[/img] Keep giving us your feedback! We track it all in a big list and even if we don’t respond to every single post/review, be assured we read them all. You can reach us on all these places: [list] [*][url=https://steamcommunity.com/app/1252680/discussions/1/]Steam forums[/url] [*][url=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6FGX1jCxMUqdlB_d6KsztQ]YouTube[/url] [*][url=https://twitter.com/FirebladeSoft]Twitter[/url] [*][url=https://www.facebook.com/FirebladeSoftware]Facebook[/url] [*][url=https://www.tiktok.com/@firebladesoftware]TikTok[/url] [*][url=https://www.instagram.com/firebladesoftware/]Instagram[/url] [*][url=https://discord.com/invite/TsHGWHquEH]Discord[/url] [*][url=https://sentrygame.com/newsletter]Newsletter signup[/url] [/list] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//38973288/3c5c57ef9b7808d5336d601fa75e9410d29fca25.png[/img] Thanks for all the support and I’ll post up on Steam as soon as that public co-op test is live :) [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//38973288/d72b3dc65d188dfeb26c93a6e943e6e4a21274d0.png[/img]