We will close down our servers on September 27, 2023 at 9 AM CEST / 3 AM EDT. After that, the game won’t be accessible anymore.

While the game garnered a lot of attention during the beta phases and had a very successful launch, interest dwindled over the months, and despite our best efforts and humongous improvements brought to the game for Season 3, it is now clear to us the game is unfortunately not financially viable.

Our decision is fully explained in the following announcement: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3685681434321802502

We will be applying a few changes to the game for the last weeks until final shutdown. Here are some examples of what you can expect:

• You will not be able to spend money on The Cycle: Frontier before the servers close. We are also removing our bundles and Aurum packs from Steam and the Epic Games Store.
  
• On Steam, players who don't yet have the game in their libraries will still be able to install it, and everyone is able to play the game until the end of service on September 27, 2023.
  
• The Special Offers in the in-game shop will still rotate daily and weekly but every item will receive a 95% discount or more.
  
• The Premium version of Season 3's Fortuna Pass will be granted to everyone for free upon login. Levels can still be skipped but at a discounted price.
  
• We are making our progression faster than ever.
  
• https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3685682069187446227

All forms of real money purchases have been deactivated as of June 28, 2023. You will be able to keep any Aurum currently in your possession to spend as you wish until the game’s closure.

Refunds will be offered to any player who made a purchase in the last 14 days preceding the shutdown announcement (from June 14, 2023 at 3am EDT / 9am CEST). Please, take note of the following process: 

Refunds will be automatically processed by Steam services without requiring a request. Please make sure to contact their customer support services in case you’re encountering any issue: https://help.steampowered.com/ 

We won’t take down our pages but will stop sharing new content on our different social media channels. The Discord server will stay up and running, but at a reduced capacity and with limited support.

Yes, our customer support services will be running until the official shutdown on September 27. 

We explored the option to let the dedicated fans of TC:F continue to play the game, however due to the way the backend works it is simply not possible to handover a peer to peer version to you. 

While this announcement is heartbreaking, we are taking all the valuable experience, learnings, and feedback we’ve gathered and shifting our focus to new projects.

We will make sure to keep our whole community up to date as soon as we have something to share. You can stay informed on any news from YAGER by subscribing to our newsletter, following YAGER on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/developer/YAGER, and through the company’s Twitter account https://twitter.com/yagerdev. 

Hey there, Prospectors.

Community Team here, under some circumstances that are a bit different from our usual patch notes, since we have some news that isn't particularly grand: The Cycle: Frontier will sunset on September 27th, 2023. We do have an additional blog post that discusses this in much greater detail and also includes a handy FAQ, but for this post, we will dive into the details of Patch 3.5.0, as it will be our final patch for The Cycle: Frontier. With this patch, we will disable all forms of microtransactions, adjust a handful of systems, balance some weapons, and we've also added some final changes that we hope players will enjoy. While we know that this Patch will be bitter sweet, we here on the Community Team want to extend a heartfelt thank you for all of the support and feedback you have given to us during the development of TC:F.

We hope that you will join us one last time for some prospecting adventures, onto the notes.

There's a handful of changes here worth mentioning, so we'll take a moment to highlight them! Starting with weapons, after looking into feedback from our players, particularly also taking into account the feedback from 3.4's patch, we know that there are some higher level weapons that people would like to either use more or have seen too much of. We'd like to shake up the meta one last time for Patch 3.5. While these changes may seem minor as we did not do a major balance pass, we do hope that they will impact your choice of weapons that you bring into engagements.

• ASP Flechette Prototype
  
  • Damage increased from 9 to 10
• Voltaic Brute
  
  • Penetration increased from 30 to 33
• Hammer Prototype
  
  • Damage increased from 24 to 25
• Shattergun
  
  • Movement speed multiplier increased from 0.9 to 1.0
• Gorgon
  
  • Damage falloff multiplier decreased from 0.75 to 0.70
• KOR-47
  
  • Magazine size decreased from 26 to 24
• Scrapper
  
  • Damage falloff multiplier decreased from 0.7 to 0.6

Next on the list of balancing updates is armor. We know that a massive balance pass on armor has been a big request from our players, but we unfortunately lack the means to be able to flesh the system out as much as we would have loved to. With Patch 3.5, we have made some minor changes to armor value in order to make the higher tiered gear feel a little more "worth it" in comparison to it's lower tiers. Those changes are as follows:

• Armor Durability
  
  • Common, Uncommon, Rare
    
    • +100 Durability
  • Epic, Altered Epic
    
    • +150 Durability
  • Exotic, Altered Exotic
    
    • +200 Durability
  • Altered Legendary
    
    • +250 Durability
• Helmet Durability
  
  • Common, Uncommon, Rare
    
    • +50 Durability
  • Epic, Altered Epic
    
    • +100 Durability
  • Exotic, Altered Exotic
    
    • +150 Durability
  • Legendary, Altered Legendary
    
    • +200 Durability
• Epic Armor
  
  • Armor values increased from 25 to 26
• Exotic Armor
  
  • Armor values increased from 30 to 33
• Legendary Armor
  
  • Armor values increased from 33 to 35

Lastly on our list for this section is Inertia, which has been a hot topic with our players for a while now. During the PTS leading up to Season 3, we had made some very minor changes to the acceleration of strafe movements. This change was intended to be a small part of more substantial changes to bring grounded movement more in line with the direction of the game. However, with the game sunsetting and us being unable to expand on that further, we decided after some discussion that the best option was to revert those changes to allow for players to have fun with the Season 2 movement between now and sunset.

• The acceleration values for walking, sprinting, and braking deceleration have been increased back to Season 2's values in order to remove the inertia of movement.

To make sure players can have fun in the final patch and are not hindered by Aurum, we wanted to increase the Aurum generator's values in order to have it output much more Aurum than previously. At level 1, before the patch, players could earn about 6-7 Aurum over a 24 hour period. Players can now expect to earn around 200 Aurum over a 24 hour period. If your Aurum generator is maxed out, you can expect to generate a little more than 2,500 Aurum per week. We hope that with this increase to Aurum, you will be able to skip Crafting Timers with ease among other things. Additionally, and because we will no longer offer in-game purchases from this point forward, both the Bundles tab and Aurum Offer tabs have been removed from the game. You can of course spend your Aurum that you earn in the game on insurances and skins that are in the rotations. When it comes to progression and rewards, we've made a few changes worth noting:

• All IMA Recipes have been made roughly three times easier to craft by costs, time, and materials.
  
• The quest prerequisites for those items have been removed.
  
  • In addition, Laser Drills have been brought back to Bright Sands by popular demand.
• The Season 3 Premium Fortuna Pass has been awarded for free to all players who did not purchase it before.
  
• Fortuna Pass Level skip cost has been decreased from 150 to 10.
  
• The daily actions cap for the Fortuna Pass has been greatly increased so that players can fully experience the final Fortuna Pass.
  
  • Increased acceleration of Fortuna Pass XP for every action (player kills, creature kills, Faction leveling, Quarter Upgrades, etc.)
• Increased rewards for all Job completions.
  
• Faction reputation gains from selling Materials to factions have been quintupled (x5)
  
• K-Marks gains from selling Materials to factions have been quintupled (x5)
  
• Daily Gear Crate has been significantly upgraded so that players can reliably get high quality gear/weapons (up to legendary at maxed out status) every day. Note that the quantity of distributed gear/weapons is also increased.

• Developer Credits have been added to the game
  
• In-game newsletter has been disabled

• Fixed a stuck spot with a rock formation near East Caverns on Bright Sands
  
• Addressed an exploit at Pinnacle Labs on Crescent Falls
  
• Raised collision mesh present between Rock Pools and South West Collection Point
  
• Fixed an issue with faulty reverb being present at a specific location within Nutrion Farms Processing on Crescent Falls
  
• Fixed an issue with the "Veltecite Poker" melee weapon being misaligned at the weapon preview menu
  
• Fixed an issue with Noise Trap Birds and their audio not properly being synced up when being triggered
  
• Fixed an issue with the "Your Civic Duty" campaign mission's UI
  
• Fixed an issue with the "Dangerous Science" campaign mission's UI
  
• Fixed an issue with the "Time to Punch In" campaign mission's UI
  
• Fixed an issue where the "Not Enough Space" message was displayed when stacking certain items with enough backpack space available

Don't forget: Fortuna Favors the bold!

Hello Prospectors!

Patch 3.4.0 has been cooking behind the scenes for a little while now, and it's finally ready to be served. Complete with seasonings, a tall drink, and a few changes that might catch your interest, we're following up on some changes from 3.2 and 3.3 while also addressing some issues that have been highlighted by our community. On the menu today will be additional AI changes, a balance pass on some of our early game weapons, the usual stomping of a few pesky bugs and exploits, an adjustment to Tharis storm cycles, and yes, an adjustment to Progenitor Slags. We recently discussed in our Discord Server that we're taking some time to focus on repaying technical debts and relooking into systems to have more flexibility with our code in order to make things more smooth, however a lot of these things are not necessarily "player-facing" so we will use these notes to focus on changes that you will see and experience directly within the game. As always, be sure to let us know what you think of the new changes after you've downloaded the new update, and we will continue to monitor and address them as soon as we can. Onto the notes!

Weapon Balance, my old friend, it's nice to see you again! As a fun fact from our data, the three weapons that are the most requested to receive a balance pass are the Manticore, AR-55, and C-32 Bolt Action. This is something that we are always investigating and keeping tabs on behind the scenes, but after our feedback from the 3.2 patch, it seemed there were a few weapons that needed a bit more than just a damage value changed, so we've made a few more changes to lightly poke the meta to encourage a nice mix of weapons and keep things feeling fresh with your encounters. The vision that is planted in our brains here is to make sure our early game weapons feel like early game weapons without nerfing them into the ground or making them unusable in engagements with higher-geared players. However, with a TTK this short, sometimes that perfect balance can be hard to find. Having said that, minor changes are the plan for this one, let us know what you think!

Manticore (MK1 & MK2):

• Magazine size: 24 -> 22
  
• Headshot multiplier: 1.5 -> 1.4

AR-55(Rusty, MK1 & MK2):

• Projectile speed: 36400 -> 34200

PDW (Rusty, MK1 & MK2):

• Increased hip shot spread by 15%
  
• Damage falloff multiplier: 0.7 -> 0.6

C32(MK1 & MK2):

• Damage falloff multiplier: 1.0 -> 0.7

We've heard your feedback that something just doesn't feel quite right, and we've noticed it in our matches as well. In order to address it, we've done some deep dive investigating to answer a few questions: Is matchmaking working as intended? Is "beginner matchmaking" working properly? Now this covers a really wide range of variables and not every player's reported issue can lead to the same outlier in the way our game matchmakes, but we've made some major changes to the way our matchmaking registers and removes players on a server, to prevent server over population, which we believe should fix squad separation issues as well. We intend to continue keeping a close eye on this topic, so please don't hesitate to reach out and let us know if you experience or notice any differences!

Fighting cheating is our number one priority, and we are aware that for some of our players the current state of the game is not ideal. As with every patch, 3.4.0 will contain various backend improvements and tweaks to our anti-cheat formula. In addition, we have added new systems to the game to help detect and prevent the kinds of cheats we have found to be the most common. While we would love to go into detail about exactly what is being changed, any info we give on our methods is unfortunately information that can be used to circumvent those methods. Regardless, we do expect that these changes should have a noticeable effect on the state of the game, and we will be monitoring them closely after they go live and adjusting them as necessary.

If you would like to contribute to the games anti-cheat efforts, reports are always one of the most useful resources at our teams disposal. Simply sending a report in-game can go a long way, and you can also make use of our #reports-and-appeals channel in our official Discord server if you would like to give some more detailed information to our anti-cheat team or would like to include a video clip with your report.

We hope these changes go a long way towards improving your experience on Fortuna, until next time Prospectors!

• Insurance payout timer has been increased from 45 minutes to 6 hours in order to combat a known item duplication exploit
  
  • This one is a significant change for us, and we discussed methods to address item duplication in a way that was quick and impactful. This change will ensure the game instance has shut down and all players have left the instance before dishing out insurance reimbursements.
    
  • Additionally and for clarity, players participating in this exploit will receive a ban if they are found to be duplicating items. Don't give into the temptation!
• We've adjusted tuning of creature proximity senses as a follow up from patch 3.3.0
  
• We've adjusted Crusher and Marauder aggro so that disengaging with the fiercest of terrestrial creatures isn't as difficult. No more Jeffs launching interplanetary acid bombs across the map as you run away clutching your last stim
  
• Storm cycles on Tharis Island have been shortened by lowering the time between storms from 25 minutes to 21 minutes to make forging feel less tedious. Duration of the storm remains unaffected
  
• Slightly increased the probability of receiving Progenitor Slag as a byproduct of forging from 10% to 13%
  
• Decreased the required amount of slags for final safe pocket upgrade from 3 to 2
  
• Windfall's Shop received some swanky new images to showcase item bundles

Bugfixes

• Weapon, melee, and consumable textures should no longer disappear after using a throwable consumable. For real though this time
  
• Fixed an out of bounds exploit above Green's Prospect Garage
  
• Fixed an out of bounds exploit near Osiris Research Center
  
• Fixed an out of bounds exploit near the lab at Rock Pools
  
• Fixed an out of bounds exploit at Pinnacle Labs
  
• Fixed an out of bounds exploit near Favela
  
• Fixed an out of bounds exploit near Skeleton Observation Site
  
• Fixed an unintended area near Waterfall Labs
  
• Fixed an unintended area near Korolev HQ
  
• Fixed an unintended area near Rock Pools
  
• Fixed a "stuck spot" at Root Rock Tunnel
  
• Fixed a "stuck spot" at Fallen Tree
  
• Fixed a "stuck spot" at a specific building near Hay Fields
  
• The Howler took a few more aviation lessons and should no longer get stuck on environmental objects
  
• Fixed several hiding spots that could be abused by using certain emotes in bodies of water.
  
• Fixed an area where players could clip through and hide on the Laser Drill
  
• Fixed an exploit that allowed players to climb to the top of the dungeon on Crescent Falls
  
• Adjusted a spawn point on Tharis Island that was a bit too close to AI creatures
  
• Fixed a damage mitigation bug that could occur with the Jungle Bandit archetype
  
• Fixed a rendering/collision issue with a vehicle in Pumpkin Fields
  
• Fixed an issue that allowed players to move while emoting
  
• Fixed an issue with some keybinds not being present when using an AZERTY keyboard. Don't get caught inspecting your weapons too often now though
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause the game to crash in the event a Player Report came back with an error
  
• Fixed a exploit regarding Free Loadout Runs and claimed insurances
  
• Fixed a collision issue with a tree root near Pumpkin Fields and Starport Landing Pad. We're prospectors, not termites
  
• Fixed an issue with a weapon's weight being affected by the ammo weight reduction perk.
  
• Fixed an issue with the explosive damage perk reducing damage from storm strikes and fauna damage
  
• Fixed a visual issue with the "Top Tiktok Howler Creators" decal on the station
  
• Fixed an issue where a player would be redeployed to the same map if foamed while disconnected instead of being sent back to the station
  
• Addressed missing localization for the "Email" textbox in the Newsletter (DE, ES, FR, IT, JP, KR. PL. PT, RU, CN)
  
• Fixed an issue with faulty SFX when attacking Blast Ticks with a melee weapon
  
• Fixed an issue with the Fortuna Pass displaying incorrect rewards when skipping levels using Aurum
  
• Relocated a mysterious floating rail at Favela to its proper location
  
• Fixed an issue with broken armor UI still showing the broken icon after being repaired
  
• Fixed an issue causing Error Code ## with some players when dropping
  
• Fixed an issue with squad separation not functioning as intended. You should only see parties of the same size deploying to the planet in Trusted Matchmaking

• Known Issues & Things We Are Working On™

While some of these issues might take a bit longer, we are still investigating and aim to find fixes and address these as soon as we can.

• We are aware of your feedback that you want to see a default weapon skin setting.
  
• We are investigating changes to the process of selling items smoother.
  
• Deysnc Issues - we are cautiously keeping an eye on this topic and working with players where possible to investigate these instances.
  
• Getting kicked back to the lobby is currently under investigation.
  
• We received a bunch of reports that performance has taken a hit in Season 3 and are investigating.
  
• Our Welcome Packs descriptions need to be reworded to reflect the disappearance of mandatory wipes.
  
• Streaming tools can lead to crashes for some players.
  
• Additionally for those of you who read our little messages at the bottom, Patch 3.5.0 is scheduled for June 28th, so no need to wonder which Wednesday it'll be! Also, you're wonderful and don't ever forget that.

As usual, don't forget to join us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/thecycle) and our Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCycleFrontier/) and make sure to follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheCycleGame)

Don't forget: Fortuna Favors the bold!

Hey there Prospectors!

If you've been wondering if today is a patch day or if this week is patch week, the answer is yes! Patch 3.3.0 is coming in hot and in typical fashion, we're going to dive into the details of what awaits us in this new patch as well as tackle a few Known Issues that we're still currently working on. Did I mention the word patch yet?

Let's talk about a big topic - AI Creatures. You've sent us videos, screenshots, we've talked about it directly with players, we've collected feedback on it, it looks like a lot of our Fortuna fauna have been fighting back and in a lot of strange ways. While we may poke fun about a potential Strider uprising happening, they're not working as intended and we would like to start by apologizing for any situations with this topic that have caused you trouble. We've been working quite a bit on peeling back the internal workings of them so that we can figure out what happened and make a sizeable dent in what has become a fairly complex bug. Additionally, you'll find our usual list of bugfixes that we've scooped up along the way, some impactful, some minor, all bugs that need squashed! With that out of the way, let's settle down the surface so that if I want to crawl on all fours like a new creature roaming the surface, I can do so with the confidence that the Striders will think I'm one of them. Onto the notes!


We should start by saying that a lot of our changes have gone into the senses of our not-so-friendly friends. They react to a variety of actions, such as sight, proximity, and sound. Some creatures even have what we call "Shared Senses", which means if you alert one of them, they can attract other nearby enemies and point their attention towards whatever they may be alerted by. In this case that would be you, the player! One important change we've made is that creatures will no longer be triggered by sound created while crouching. While you can technically be crouching and be spotted or crouch walk into their proximity range, their ability to detect you won't be caused by sounds made from crouch walking, this should allow you folks that have tried sneaking past an enemy as carefully as possible only to be targeted anyway to feel a much greater reward in approaching these situations cautiously. We've also added more on our end internally so that we can tune the proximity ranges of every creature and their variants individually with ease. These proximity changes have been tuned for all creatures except for the Howler, as we would like to avoid the Howler triggering purely because it flew too close to you while you were safely hidden. On the topic of shared senses, we've made some adjustments here and there to prevent an unending chain of monster aggro. Here's the short version:

• If a creature is alerted by a player, its Shared Senses will trigger and alert another creature nearby.
  
• A creature activated by another creature's Shared Senses won't trigger its own Shared Senses and won't activate another nearby creature.
  
• A third creature can be alerted by the fighting caused by the player, which will in turn activate another creature through Shared Senses.
  
• As a note, Striders always have Shared Senses active. They work together in groups, through thick and thin! If you're trying to sneak past Striders, alerting one of them can still alert the rest of the group if within Shared Senses range.

The goal here is to improve your interactions with the creatures so that you feel less punishment for trying to get by through situations that on paper sound totally doable by improving a few areas and tackling situations where chain-sense-reactions occur. It is important to note that we are still very much invested in this topic and monitoring lots of encounters with the E in PvE. Will this change create more fairness around the topic of AI Creatures? Have you found that this change has made it easier to use stealth to get past enemies undetected, or have you noticed any other effects of this change on gameplay? Give it a try, continue to share with us any strange encounters that you see so that we can all stay synced on the state of AI Creatures, and we look forward to hearing your feedback.


You don't have room for your belongings, we don't have room for ours, we hear you loud and clear. Something that we've noticed is that players need more stash space during the early game and less stash space during the end game, this is due to the early game being very hoarder-heavy, collecting things that you know you will need for upgrades while also cramming anything into your backpack that you might need later down the line. While we know there is lots of room for improvement and features we'd love to add, something we wanted to do was adjust and revaluate how our Stash Space Upgrades are distributed within our Player Quarters. We've reshuffled these values and while the beginning and ending stash sizes remain unchanged, upgrades that will increase your stash size more significantly will now happen much earlier in Upgrade tree. Here's a detailed table with all of the values that have changed:



Oh, for the love of Drops! We've run a handful of Drops Campaigns from launch until now, and while they have for the most part gone smoothly, we do know that there are some edge cases with players out there who have Drops that were permanently unclaimable. While we will continue working with all parties involved to resolve these issues, we have additionally created what we're calling a Drops Compensation Crate. This is a crate that will be manually delivered by our Community and Player Support teams while we work to improve our campaigns so that these errors occur less. Here's what you can get if you're one of those impacted players:

• 20 ICA Scrips
  
• 20 Korolev Scrips
  
• 20 Osiris Scrips
  
• 10,000 K-Marks
  
• 1x Blue Shield
  
• 1x AR-55 MKII
  
• 1x Scarab MKII
  
• 10x Blue Stims

Our goal here is to cover a fair portion of the lost "randomized' drops, while also being mindful of our economy and the factor that not all players are missing the same drops. So, we carefully calculated the worth of what could be missing and what you can get for the trouble. To claim yours, please have all proof of Twitch/Game Account and Drop ownership ready and send it to our Community Team or our Player Support (https://thecycle.game/support-station) and we can compensate you once we have verified that you have unclaimed drops in your account. Additionally, we will be keeping a close eye out for false claims and taking action in that event, so no funny business! Please only reach out if you have unclaimed Drops in your Twitch Inventory. For any Drops that contained in-game cosmetic items, please reach out to either of the roles mentioned so that we can continue to address this topic and make sure that everyone who put time into earning those Drops does receive the item they were meant to have. Thanks and our apologies for the technical difficulties.

• Further adjustments and additions to our anti-cheat detections and preventions
  
• Added UI element to Jobs & Mission tab to indicate when rewards can be claimed
  
• Implemented reward animation for items claimed from Delivery Station
  
• Howlerbusters Top 10 leaderboard has been added to Prospect Station
  
• Revamped some tooltip descriptions for items to give better hints towards how to find certain items like Howler syrinxes, resin guns, shock absorbers, shard slicers, sample containers, etc.
  
• Added UI indicator in the inventory screen for armor that has passed a certain durability threshold to better remind players to repair shields and/or helmets before deploying
  
• Added popup indicator will display if setting changes require a game restart to take effect
  
• Added some missing localizations for a few of our UI elements

• Fixed an issue causing some players to receive Error Code ## when dropping to Fortuna
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some items from the "Fortuna Veteran" DLC pack to not properly appear
  
• Fixed a bug with the howler's animations when transitioning from it's sleeping state to its combat state
  
• Fixed some buggy map geometry near Osiris HQ on Prospect Station
  
• Fixed some heads from the Grim Hunter skinset having misaligned meshes
  
• Fixed an issue that caused a sound effect to be spammed too often when repeatedly inspecting the "Tempest's Blade" melee weapon
  
• Improved contrast on the description text for Spray cosmetics so that the names are easier to read
  
• Fixed some lighting issues in the Storm Pillar area on Tharis Island
  
• Fixed some faulty collisions on the stairs in Osiris Labs
  
• Fixed an exploit that allowed players to get into the Fortuna's Favored Bar without unlocking it first
  
• Fixed an issue causing items to occasionally be unstackable in the forge if all 5 slots were occupied
  
• Fixed a small bug that caused the lamp posts in Korolev Quarry that caused them to look too bright
  
• Fixed an issue with the safe pocket UI sometimes getting slightly cut off
  
• Fixed an issue where the localization would not properly update for one of our graphics settings
  
• Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause the head on the "Cave Explorer" Prospector to clip through their helmet
  
• Fixed a spot in Jungle where players could sometimes fall through the map
  
• Improved some visual issues with the fences on Prospect Station
  
• Item meshes will no longer disappear when switching between consumables and weapons. Finger guns are fun but not practical for prospecting
  
• Fixed issue with missing gun and melee weapon meshes.
  
• Landscapers have made a round with grass glue to fix floating plant textures and filled a few holes in maps
  
• Kawaii weapon vanity will now display properly in match on Mk II and Prototype weapons
  
• Fixed an issue with unpurchaseable attachments disappearing when purchasing and equipping a Loadout Preset
  
• Fixed an issue that caused Scrips to disappear from Stash when equipping a Loadout Presets that contains a higher amount than available
  
• Monarch player archetype will now be equip able from the player customization menu
  
• Fixed issues with the Monarch player archetype and Cave Explorer basesuit items
  
• Stuck spot behind the drop pod near deploy terminal on the station has been removed
  
• Fixed several stuck spots, out of bounds areas, and spots not intended to be accessible
  
• Lightning will only strike the surface of Tharis Island and will no longer strike inside of caves
  
• Vadim Tanayev visited an oral surgeon to have his tongue properly relocated inside his mouth
  
• In the unlikely event that a player falls down through the map, they will be teleported back to the surface thanks to the power of science, magic, friendship, or whatever deus ex machina device of your choice.
  
• Players will no longer spawn within aggro range of creature pathing.
  
• Fixed shader glitch when using epic settings with DirectX12 enabled
  
• Fixed VFX on Gorgon holographic if player is idle during a match
  
• Fixed issue with Howler loot disappearing before its intended timer ends
  
• Howler will now drop items when killed as intended
  
• Free Loadout gear can now be equipped when un-equipping "Your Loadout" reaches exact item capacity in the stash
  
• Red kill markers will only display when Elite Strider's health is fully depleted
  
• A tailor visited Badum to help his clothes fit a little better
  
• Added missing timer bar for Player Quarter upgrades
  
• HexCage vanity skin will display properly when dropping the C-32 Bolt Action from loadout
  
• Fixed an issue causing failure to load player into station and be stuck in loading screen when launching the game on Steam
  
• Updated animation when unequipping scanner to better match correct unequip speed
  
• Fixed faulty textures when viewing trees near Jungle Thermal Ponds when observing from a distance
  
• Prospector model will now hold the Party Blade melee properly when viewing in the character preview screen

While some of these issues might take a bit longer, we are still investigating and aim to find fixes and address these as soon as we can.

• We are aware of your feedback that you want to see a default weapon skin setting.
  
• We are investigating changes to the process of selling items smoother.
  
• We hear your feedback about matchmaking and your experience with other players that you're encountering and are investigating all instances surrounding the topic.
  
• Deysnc Issues - we are cautiously keeping an eye on this topic and working with players where possible to investigate these instances.
  
• Getting kicked back to the lobby is currently under investigation.
  
• We received a bunch of reports that performance has taken a hit in Season 3 and are investigating.
  
• Our Welcome Packs descriptions need to be reworded to reflect the disappearance of mandatory wipes.
  
• Streaming tools can lead to crashes for some players.
  
• CPU usage spikes seem to be back for some players.
  
• Some keybinds can be unbindable on AZERTY keyboards

As usual, don't forget to join us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/thecycle) and our Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCycleFrontier/) and make sure to follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheCycleGame)



Don't forget: Fortuna Favors the Bold!

Hey Prospectors!

When there’s something strange, in the neighb- yeah okay, I’m not doing that again.

You get it anyway, we’re gonna talk about our Howlerbusters event. After all, our challenge ended over the weekend, which means you could stop shooting those big nasties, but also probably shouldn’t, especially if they’ve caught your scent.

More importantly, that means we have our final list of winners, our big pantheon of who will be crowned the best Howlerbusters on Prospect Station. Wanna know if you made the cut? Sure, I guess we can share that with you.

And the winners aaaaaaaaaare

Congratulations to all of you! Your names shall be etched forever on the timeless bastion that is Prospect Station - more news about where specifically in a future update.


If you didn’t make it to the hall of fame, then despair not, for we have an additional surprise for the remaining hunters out there. Prospectors who have killed at least 10 Howlers during the challenge will each receive a special cosmetic reward as a participation prize. Expect to receive that in our next update!

If you're unsure of your personal tally, you can still check out our full leaderboard on our official website.

Full leaderboard: https://thecycle.game/howlerbuster


Hope you enjoyed this little competition, Prospectors. Keep an eye out for what we have in stores for you!

Until then, take care of yourselves, enjoy the surface, and...

… oh why do I have this random tune stuck in my head right now? Na na na na na~

Hey Prospectors!

We've had a quick hotfix today to take care of a few issues that arose with last week's update. Here's a short log of what we've looked into!

• Increased the drop rate of Howler Syrinxes, after realizing even the most dedicated Howlerbusters were having trouble getting their hands on some.
  • Drop rate during normal weather increased from 1% to 3%.
    
  • Drop rate during storms increased from 5% to 10%.
• Toned down the loot table for Military Boxes found in the Osiris Research Center. They should now contain more balanced stuff overall.

• Fixed part 18 for "Race to the Bottom". It can now be completed properly.
  
• Fixed Orbital Cannon Beacons, they can be crafted at crafting stations again.
  
• Changed how some data is recorded on our ends, to try and get a better look at our current performance and spawning issues.

Thanks for your time and patience, as usual. Have a great day and enjoy the surface.

Fortuna Favors the Bold!

Hello Prospectors!

Community Team here once again to drop a virtual pile of papers on that corner of the internet to make up a little something we call Patch Notes. Yes, this first sentence was unnecessarily complicated and we won't even apologize for it.

This time, we'll be talking about Tharis Island, your feedback on MK II weapons, as well as some other changes that should push us in the right direction as we continue to navigate throughout Season 3. We've also got a hefty list of bug fixes for visual issues, localization issues, and a whole lot more. Come check out all we have in store for this patch!

Grab your favorite space hammer and get ready for some space forging, 'cause the gates of Tharis Island are now open again! Notice how every word can sound more sci-fi when you just put "space" before them?

This map can be accessed after progressing through faction quests, and contains a very powerful tool known as the Alien Forge, which allows players to apply perks to their gear to make them stronger. Think of it as a crafting station within the map, so make sure to keep a fresh pair of eyes on the back of your head, as you never know who or what may be lurking around the corner.

As far as changes goes, we did some minor tuning to the creature spawning on Tharis - do take the time to share your thoughts with us after roaming the area to tell us how it feels now. Overall though, the bulk of the changes applied to Tharis are about the Alien Forge. We spent a lot of time reading our player feedback on this topic, and we do think we're ready to turn the forge back on and see what happens!

With that in mind, let's dive into the highlights of our Forge changes.

Alien Forge:

• The Forge will no longer upgrade the rarity of gear when forging, because of this:
  • The outcome of forging will always give you the same quality gear that was used as a base for forging.
    
  • The forge will only accept Epic, Exotic, and Legendary gear; Rare gear will no longer be accepted.
    
  • Base ingots are used with Epic gear and give Epic results. Charged ingots are used for Exotic gear. Supercharged ingots are used with Legendary gear.
    
  • You cannot turn Exotic gear into Legendary in the forge anymore, but using Abyss Alloy makes it possible to get Legendary gear with perks on it. This gear can then be used as a base with Supercharged ingots to roll a new set of perks.
    
  • It is no longer possible to craft gear without perks on it. Therefore, when crafting gear, you will need to throw in at least one valid perk-bearing material in the required quantity.
• In situations where more than one of the same ingredients has been put into the forge (in required quantity), only the first material will be used to reroll perks. Other identical materials will be ignored.
  
• Faster Healing perk can now only appear on helmets, which means it is no longer stackable. The range of possible values for the perk have returned to its original state: Minimum +10% healing speed, Maximum +30% healing speed.

Our favorite (and only) bartender has been keeping busy since the start of the season and is now ready to offer some juicy opportunities to the more hardened of his protégés. In other words, Badum now offers a new questline specially tailored for end-game players!

These quests will require a good amount of grinding, but lemme tell you, the rewards will be worth it! By completing Badum's final quest, you will gain access to the Fortuna's Favored area, the most exclusive part of Prospect Station. Additionally, you'll be rewarded with a nice Karambit skin and the Tempest Prospector archetype, some of our favorite skins in the game if we're completely honest!

Enjoy the grind, Prospectors. We're interested to see who completes Badum's quest first. Sure, it's not a race, but it can be one if you want it to.

We've heard your thoughts on Crescent Falls feeling a liiiiiittle too crowded and have applied some changes as a response. Feel free to drop on that second and check how it feels, we're very interested in hearing your new thoughts!

For the future we would like to tune the different values of the map separately for solo, duo and trio squads. For instance, we're aware 21 solo players behave differently on a map than 7 teams of 3. This however was not possible for the moment, but this doesn't mean further changes won't happen in the future. We will check our data to keep adjusting our numbers if we see a need for that.

• Crescent Falls player count has been decreased from 21 to 18, so you all have a bit more breathing space.
  
• Increased the number of EVAC points on Crescent Falls from 2 to 3. That's only one more but also a 50% increase. Perspective is important!
  • Dropping with a group of 3 means you're looking at 6-7 spawn points for players who will likely stick together. However, when playing alone, you're looking at a much larger amount of spawn points and player engagements. A slight reduction could help alleviate this while we continue to investigate more permanent solutions.

We are currently exploring a new solution to combat trading by marking items as "No Drop" items. We will be testing this out on Scrips for the moment, meaning those can no longer be dropped on the ground and given to another player.

• Players trying to bring Scrips to the surface will be notified that, should they choose to drop with some, they won't be able to drop them on the surface from their inventory.
  
• Dropping a No Drop item will result in it being permanently deleted.
  
• Dropping your backpack will cause any No Drop items within it to be permanently deleted.
  
• No Drop items can still be found in on the surface and can still be picked up, as long as they are generated by the game.
  
• After being looted on the surface, No Drop items will never be droppable again.

Because we are still early in the season and the meta is still solidifying, we've gone through several smaller adjustments to weapons that have been deemed a bit problematic by the community. We will of course continue monitoring weapon balance after these changes, and you can expect more adjustments to pop up in upcoming patches. These changes are quite conservative for now, as we want to take a closer look at each weapon and see how they perform in their intended role, based on our usual feedback and data.

Those balancing passes will also include armor, as we're getting ready to tweak their stats and durability. After all, we're still looking at implementing armor degradation as a new game mechanics in the near future.

Damage Changes:

• PDW damage reduced from 10 to 9.
  
• PDW Mk2 damage reduced from 11 to 10.
  
• C-32 damage reduced from 50 to 48.
  
• C-32 Mk2 damage reduced from 55 to 50.
  
• Rusty AR-55 damage reduced from 12 to 11.
  
• AR-55 damage reduced from 12 to 11.
  
• AR-55 Mk2 damage reduced from 13 to 12.
  
• Flechette Prototype damage increased from 8 to 9.

Headshot Multiplier Changes:

• Manticore headshot multiplier reduced from x1.7 to x1.5.
  
• Manticore Mk2 headshot multiplier reduced from x1.7 to x1.5.

Looting Experience Changes:

• Slightly reduced the chance of finding a PDW Mk2.
  
• Slightly reduced the chance of finding a Manticore Mk2.

Our Prospector roster is expanding a bit as two newcomers are making their appearance for Season 3, ready to jump straight into the heart of the action. Everyone, please give a warm welcome to Artillery and to the Jungle Bandit!

These are some of the nicest folks you will encounter in your adventures. Just... don't ever turn your back on them if you can help it. For, uh, y'know, reasons.

Before diving in the meat of the matter, we'd like to start with a quick clarification that left several of our players confused in a previous notice. To keep things simple, please note that matchmaking algorithms based on gear score values are only used for Bright Sands. In other words, gear score is irrelevant for both Crescent Falls and Tharis Island.

While drops in TC:F are meant to be somewhat uncertain, we definitely understand how frustrating it can be to constantly die due to an total imbalance in weaponry before you have a chance to react. To combat this, but still maintain some sense of tension and uncertainty about what you might encounter during any given drop, we will be implementing a form of gear score in combination with a Kills/Deaths ratio when determining a player's Matchmaking Rating calculations. This doesn't mean that you will only see players wearing the same gear as yours in a match, that would limit the nice feeling of overcoming unlikely odds, but it will help keep players more fairly matched and make it less likely that new players will be constantly overpowered while they are learning the ropes.

We are keeping a close eye on the matter and might adjust the systems as we see fit going forward.

• Project Fireball Part 7 - Heavy Strider kills needed during the storm on Bright Sands has been reduced from 12 to 6.
  
• The UI for certain shop images have been spruced up.
  
• Fixed terrain near Geothermal Plant area to prevent gear from disappearing in the mud, which was frankly revolting.
  
• Evac ship pilots have received some additional training on bringing Prospectors back to the station safely. Players should no longer clip through the floor when moving instead of evacing.
  
• Fixed a typo in the description for the "In A Deep Dark Hole" mission.
  
• Re-centered the area to call evac around the evac pad between Sparking Pools and Korolev Island HQ on Tharis Island.
  
• Fixed a launch error for some users on the Epic Games launcher.
  
• A disclaimer has been added to the Loadout Preset description that altered gear perks are not taken into account.
  
• Adjusted item mesh for Letium Bio Samples needed for Research Costs Part 5. These should now look different than Sample Containers to prevent any confusion.
  
• The Elite Crusher has visited a laryngologist and its mighty roar can be heard Crusher Caverns agan.
  
• Crusher de-aggro time has been readjusted to be more in line with its intended behavior.
  
• Adjusted rewards from daily Supply Crate packages so there is less overlap with items obtainable through Free Loadout Runs.
  
• Increased the max stack size of Letium from 10 to 20.
  
• Players will now hear an audible cue when armor reaches 0 durability. The shield should play a "shield breaking sound" for both players. Information is power.
  
• Improved the Howler's ability to fight Prospectors who are standing on higher locations. Insert reference about having the high ground.
  
• Added some missing localizations.
  
• Keycards will now be obtainable through Free Loadout Runs, as intended.

• Fixed an issue where Prospectors would appear only as a backpack to other Prospectors. Not quite what we had in mind when we told you to go bag some enemy Prospectors.
  
• Fixed an issue where unknown errors would occur when trying to equip a loadout preset.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Howler staying stuck in investigation mode near buildings. The alternative was to give them a pipe, a magnifying glass and a deerstalker hat, but we went with an actual fix instead.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Howler pushing players out of the evac ship. In other words, we've applied a nerf to the power of Y E E T.
  
• Fixed an issue with Prospector heads disappearing when mixing archetype heads. There are, after all, better ways to stay ahead in the fashion game.
  
• Fixed an issue with Howler Grenades not affecting some creatures.
  
• Fixed an issue with players getting stuck during the Supply Crate step in the tutorial missions.
  
• Fixed a UI issue for the Blood Freak skin.
  
• Fixed an out-of-bounds exploit on Tharis Island. We're bound to find them all, eventually.
  
• Fixed an issue with some SMGs being audible far beyond their intended range. Imagine how loud those shots must have been for the ones doing the shooting.
  
• Fixed an issue where the flying droids in the Prospect Station would sometimes, uh, randomly explode. Yeah let's not talk about that.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the "Osiris Research Center" and "Korolev Quarry Building" locked rooms to not properly reset.
  
• Fixed an issue with rendered shadow for a building on Crescent Falls between Nutrion Farms Processing and Favela.
  
• Fixed an invisible collision issue near a cave in the North Uplink area on Bright Sands.
  
• Fixed an issue with assets failing to render on potato setups lower spec machines.
  
• Fixed an issue with Howler Grenades not stacking properly.
  
• Replaced missing tooltip for currency items when redeeming a code in game.
  
• Backpacks will now properly have their weights reduced when placed in a backpack with the weight reduction perk applied. Please keep an eye out for "Backpack Clicker", our next idle incremental backpack-stacking game. (Just kidding. Unless?)
  
• Fixed a visual issue with the Kawaii Scarab skin. Try saying that 10 times very fast.
  
• Fixed a visual issue with the Rebel Reporter Chest piece.
  
• Fixed an area where players could get stuck between Windfall's shop and the launch terminal on Prospect Station.
  
• Adjusted captions to match spoken words from voice lines.
  
• Adjusted collision boxes for the "Tech Ball" on the station between ICA and Osiris.
  
• Fixed and issue with the Golden Key melee weapon where it was not making noise in 3rd person. Random musing, but silent keys would be so very useful when coming home late.
  
• Fixed some icons in the Fortuna Pass being misaligned.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused kills with Howler grenades to not count towards kill quest objectives.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused suppressed Manticores and Scarabs to sound extremely similar to an Asp Flechette. We know Osiris likes cutting costs, but reusing weapon sound assets was a bit ridiculous.
  
• Fixed a wall decal in Prospect Station that would sometimes display on Prospectors that stood right next to it. We have no further explanation to provide.
  
• Adjusted some misplaced assets in the Korolev Faction Building.
  
• Fixed multiple collision issues between ICA and Osiris faction HQs.
  
• Finally called an exorcist and fixed an NPC that would sometimes clip through walls near the Korolev Faction Headquarters.
  
• Fixed an issue where the takeoff alarm for the Laser Drill would sometimes be too quiet, making the whole alarm idea rather moot.
  
• Fixed some visual glitches that would appear near the entrance to the Player Quarters.
  
• For the sake of privacy, fixed players sometimes being able to see through the walls on Prospect Station.
  
• Fixed some rocks on Tharis Island that would sometimes having no textures on low graphics settings.
  
• Fixed issues with asset loading distance on Crescent Falls.
  
• Adjusted audio effects applied to certain voice lines for consistency.
  
• Fixed a localization issue in RU with distinction for words "outfit", "costume", "suit", and "chest".
  
• Fixed a localization issue where Polish strings of text could be seen in Russian localization.
  
• Fixed an issue with the C-32 Bolt Action not properly showing the Hive weapon skin in the weapon preview list when selected using the MK II weapon type.
  
• Fixed a few weapon previews not being properly aligned for prototype weapons.
  
• Fixed an issue where some quests would not properly showcase progress while on Fortuna.
  
• Fixed a clipping issue with Vadim on the station. The man has finally learnt how to sit.
  
• Fixed the Blood Freak prospector skin, so it can be equipped.

While some of these issues might take a bit longer, we are still investigating and aim to find fixes for our next planned patch.

• Creature behavior might still have some issues that we are currently investigating.
  
• We are aware of your feedback that you want to see a default weapon skin setting.
  
• We are investigating changes to the stash & making the process of selling items smoother.
  
• Deysnc Issues - we are constantly having an eye on it.
  
• Getting kicked back to the lobby is currently under investigation.
  
• We received a bunch of reports that performance has taken a hit in Season 3 and are investigating.
  
• The Howler does not always drop loot, which is quite rude.
  
• Your weapon model can become invisible. While invisible guns are cool, this is on our to-do list to fix.
  
• Our Welcome Packs descriptions need to be reworded to reflect the disappearance of mandatory wipes.
  
• Streaming tools can lead to crashes for some players.
  
• CPU usage spikes seem to be back for some players.

As usual, don't forget to join us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/thecycle) and our Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCycleFrontier/) and make sure to follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheCycleGame)

Don't forget: Fortuna Favors the bold!

Hey Prospectors!

If there’s something strange on Fortuna III, if there’s something weird and it looks scary, who you gonna call?

Howlerbusters!

Wanna join the fight and be immortalized on Prospect Station as one of the best Howler hunters in the prospecting business? Then you’ll be happy to know we’ve brewed a special community challenge for the bravest trackers among you!

The authorities on the station are getting pretty wary of the new threat that’s known as the Howler. Too many reckless Prospectors have now fallen victim to their deadly antics, and they’ve called for a bit of population control as a response.

The incentive? A shot at eternal glory among your peers. In other words, the 10 Prospectors who will have killed the most Howlers during the challenge will have their name on a special leaderboard on the station. You know what to do if you want to grab that fame boost!

The challenge will be up from now on until Sunday, April 30 at 11:59 PM CEST / 5:59 PM EDT. The results will be shared on our channels in the week following the end of the event. We will also provide you with leaderboard updates every Monday & Friday!

Leaderboard can be found here: https://thecycle.game/howlerbuster


Hope you ain’t ‘fraid of no Howlers, ‘cause trust me, they won’t be afraid of you!

On top of our community challenge, we will also be holding a cool TikTok giveaway and competition. The rules are simple: record a cool and funny moment related to the Howler and publish it on your timeline, tagging our official TikTok account in the process.

Official TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@thecycle_frontier

Our teams will then look at the different videos and decide on their 2 favorites. Those winners will be announced in a special stream on our official Twitch channel and will be added to the special Howlerbusters leaderboard on Prospect Station.

Renown’s not good enough for you and you’d rather have a more substantial reward? We hear you. That’s why every participant will be sent a surprise code as well, keep an eye on your TikTok DMs once the event is over!

Entries to our TikTok giveaway will be accepted until Sunday, April 30 at 11:59 PM CEST / 5:59 PM EDT.

You now know what to do. Time to bust some Howlers everyone!

Until then, take good care of yourselves, don’t cross the stream, and see you on Fortuna III.



Fortuna Favors the Busters!

Hey Prospectors and welcome to yet another one of our articles!

So you really know the drill by now: it’s Thursday, which means it’s time to talk about Season 3. Now I can already tell what you’re thinking right now. Season 3 is already out, for a full week even, and I’m sure you’ve already become full-fledged experts on the new season. And you know what? Fair enough.

But we’re not done juuuuust yet. There’s still some stuff we haven’t talked about in our previous articles, plus it’s not like you’ve been everywhere so far, I’m sure there’s some places you’d be in-Tharis-ted in visiting, eh?

Terrible puns aside (I regret nothing), let’s tackle the last few things related to Season 3.

First things first, a few words about this first week of Season 3. The launch of our new season was pretty smooth and, if what we’ve been hearing is to be believed, you’ve all been enjoying it a great deal. We’re so very glad to hear that and hope you will continue enjoying our game for a good while!

Of course, no road is complete without a few bumps, and we did run into our own array of issues along the way. Fortunately, we were able to fix most of these problems rather quickly. Apologies for the inconvenience!

We started with a quick hotfix soon after launch: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/6195304802943151049

And already had our first patch yesterday: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/868270/view/3727332756615993089

There’s more where that came from of course, so don’t worry and keep those reports coming!


One thing we hadn’t mentioned before launch was our own version of the classic battle pass formula, what you all know by now as the Fortuna Pass. With Season 3 live and kicking, its full contents can be explored freely by our players, but let’s take a quick moment to check what it does contain!

As usual, the Fortuna Pass boasts 100 levels of progression chock-full of prizes and goodies. The first path, completely free, is already pretty tasty. But the other path is even juicier, so make sure to check it out!

Both paths can be completed at the same time and, together, allow you to get your hands on:

• 14 weapon skins
  
• 2 new Prospector archetypes
  
• 3 melee weapons
  
• 4 weapon charms
  
• 4 sprays
  
• 3 banners
  
• 2 emotes
  
• 1 drop pod skin
  
• And a grand total of 975 Aurum

You know what to do. Go and complete that Pass!

In case you’re hungry for even more goodies – and honestly, I can’t blame you there – we have some more stuff available for you.

We have a sale going on to celebrate the launch of Season 3. It will last for one more week, during which our Welcome Packs are all 25% off. Quite the opportunity!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1947000/The_Cycle_Frontier__Initiate_Pack/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1947010/The_Cycle_Frontier__Professional_Pack/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1947011/The_Cycle_Frontier__Specialist_Pack/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1947012/The_Cycle_Frontier__Elite_Pack/

Additionally, you can still get your hands on the Fresh Fortunes pack entirely for free. Go grab it now if you haven’t already!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2313620/The_Cycle_Frontier__Fresh_Fortunes_Pack/

Last thing, you must have noticed Tharis Island, our third map, is not open for prospection just yet. We’ve made it unavailable for now, to make sure everyone can have a proper fresh start in Bright Sands and Crescent Falls first.

However, time is ticking, and the Forge slowly rouses from its slumber. As such, Tharis Island will open its doors on Wednesday, April 19th, allowing the bravest Prospectors to add special perks to their gear.

And that’s all for today! We’ll be talking more soon, you can be sure of that. In the meantime, take care of yourselves, have a great day and enjoy Season 3.

Fortuna Favors the Bold!