This update brings some new features, some returning content, and fixes. The Annual XMayhem mode has returned once again with the special achievements unlockable only during the event. We also have a brand new map created by Auxsiren that’s a complete overhaul of Evacuation (Evac 1 will still be playable in the map pool). There are also now special camos for CTRs that you can see specifically per map, this is a big step to add in player skins. Included as well is a new party system included to help you team up with your friends, chat with them, and more. Finally there are fixes for bugs as well as the crashes from last update.

From all of us here at Zero Point Software, we’d like to thank you for supporting the game and we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME,
Your Team at Zero Point Software


ADDED: Winter XMayhem Game Mode on Mainline Winter
ADDED: New Evacuation 2 map to multiplayer
ADDED: Ability to add variable skins to CTRs. This is a major step to in-game player skins
ADDED: Nine CTR skins. CTRs now have map-specific skins, with many of them camouflaged
ADDED: Party system to team up with friends, audio/visual invite notifications, chat room + additional features
ADDED: Inviting friends into a Hell Week game will spawn them close to you in the same zone, and in your team
ADDED: Chat system to menu view when in-game (press ESC to access)
ADDED: Kill confirmed and Zone captured messages are stacked on top of each other
ADDED: Mission successful +XP message when completing a single player/coop/multiplayer mission/match
ADDED: Revive successful message when player is revived
ADDED: Warning messages for low health, team kill warning and revive needed
ADDED: Variable delay to TP popup messages


UPDATED: The NeuroGen Incident with new spawn points for players joining mid-game. Joining during end game will place joining player as a spectator
UPDATED: Nucleus with additional check point spawns for players joining mid-game
UPDATED: Chat system with Spearhead, Best Clan, Dev icons, UI improvements, message notification improvements, button to open/close etc
UPDATED: Clicking a player name in chat will bring up the Steam overlay with their profile (need Steam overlay enabled to work)
UPDATED: In Hell Week, when players up for elimination have the same score, decision of who to eliminate is random rather than player-name based
UPDATED: XMayhem game mode to be compatible with the new additions from 2015
UPDATED: T-IM101 has 8 x health, and does 4 x damage, compared to regular Marine
UPDATED: Xmayhem gift announcer loop
UPDATED: If a revive is halted, player's bleedout timer is set to percentage of revive completed, if higher than bleedout timer
UPDATED: In Hell Week, if a player is eliminated by any means other than the elimination timer, bleedout timer is reset
UPDATED: Nucleus elevator with all onboard elevator trigger to prevent players being stuck, and grid to stop players falling off
UPDATED: Nucleus with cull groups, rather than disabling the sub level, when player reaches top level
UPDATED: Hit markers are accurate to the hit location
UPDATED: UI icons scale according to resolution instead of being a fixed size
UPDATED: UI icons counter-scale when zooming in
UPDATED: Changed neutral zone colour to be more visible, and best team colour to be light purple
UPDATED: Match Completed +XP shown at the end of a match, Match Won +XP shown for the winners
UPDATED: End of game horn + win/lose music play at end of Team Domination and Team Deathmatch games
UPDATED: Hell Week shows Survived Hell Week +XP message for surviving players at game end
UPDATED: Revive TP score is 25XP
UPDATED: Size of Team Domination corners increased for greater visibility
UPDATED: Deadlock capture zones have different capture/finishing beeps for clarity
UPDATED: Resort map with cull groups and new nav mesh
UPDATED: Multiplayer thumbnail in main menu for some Christmas cheer!
UPDATED: Browser ping and quick join systems temporarily removed
UPDATED: Supply crate icons updated and improved


FIXED: "Crashing to desktop with no error log"
FIXED: "Negative HW score when collecting CPs just as the game ends"
FIXED: "Resetting of items in a Hell Week server now occurs correctly"
FIXED: "Map settings for correct ahievement progress on Colony, Nucleus and Operations"
FIXED: "Treasure Hunter and Fort Knox achievements"
FIXED: "Late-joining players seeing already-used waypoints"
FIXED: "Team scores in TDOM/TDM showing in wrong colour/wrong position"
FIXED: "Disconnected players no longer shown as connected in Mission Overview when moving to another zone"
FIXED: "Player icons randomly flashing on screen when player is joining"
FIXED: "Kill confirmed icons show when enemies kill each other"
FIXED: "Screen flashing white when entering a match"
FIXED: "Press space to spawn is no longer displayed when a player has been eliminated in Hell Week"
FIXED: "Reviving a player pauses the bleed out time"
FIXED: "Spectator mode correctly shows players, kill markers and zones"
FIXED: "Removed HUD instantiation from dedicated servers"
FIXED: "Two Deathmatch spawns in Mainline Winter"
FIXED: "Chat correctly scrolls to bottom when Player Joined Server, and You Have An Invitation messages are added"
FIXED: "Light handler issue, which caused the light handler intensity contribution to be overridden"
FIXED: "Nav mesh in Operations - Survival A"


The Welcome Tutorial achievement is not working (due to an incorrect setting in the map)
The gamepad implementation is early and experimental, so may cause issues
When viewed up-close, some CTR heads may increase in size
Some vegetation appears to have black edges
The number of players in the Friends Lobby may not update until the lobby tab is clicked on
Players may sometimes fall through the floor of a map
Standing in a doorway when the door closes may result in the player being pushed vertically
The HUD names and kill messages will be clipped on aspect ratios that are less wide than 16:10
The game will stop updating when switching out of fullscreen in Windows. If you are on a moving elevator or platform, this will cause you to fall through it. If you are in a Party, this will disconnect you from the Party
View jittering may occur when jumping on lossy networks
Other players will seem to float above or interpenetrate while standing on a moving dynamic platforms (network smoothing will exaggerate this effect)
Player may sometimes spawn with no ammo in one or both weapons. Reloading fixes this

We now have a big hotfix ready for you guys. We heard all your feedback, bug reports, and are tackling the biggest issues of this update. Below is the changelog and we’ll be monitoring how the update is faring. There are still some issues we’re working hard on fixing like the random crashes and the occasionally clipping through the world. Those two issues are top priority for us and we’ll be trying to crack down on these specifically.

Thank you all for patiently waiting and we hope you enjoy it!

FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME,
Your team at Zero Point Software

Version: 0.5.23
Released: 11th November, 2015

ADDED: Last 20 messages and message of the day to global chat
ADDED: Join button to global chat. When a player joins a server, a blue join button appears in the chat. Client-side only, and limited to max 3 at a time
ADDED: On/off button for XBOX controller added to menu settings
ADDED: Run/walk when strafing with an XBOX controller
ADDED: Chat log to global chat

UPDATED: Industrial Hell Week map with restrictions to roof access
UPDATED: Weapons handling updated and tweaked
UPDATED: Removed CTR killed messages from Hell Week
UPDATED: Player colour in global chat to match in-game chat colour

FIXED: "Steam leaderboards not updating"
FIXED: "Steam achievements not working"
FIXED: "New steam achievements"
FIXED: "Back packs not being correctly removed in Hell Week"
FIXED: "All aboard trigger not working in several coop missions when a player leaves the server when dead but not bled out"
FIXED: "Framerate drops caused by CTRs going into a loop which caused them to attempt to rotate at an infinite speed"
FIXED: "Assault on Starcrown Aerospace"
FIXED: "Excessively large servers logs which could cause server crashes"
FIXED: "Negative player scores in Hell Week"
FIXED: "Several HUD elements not visible in different resolutions"
FIXED: "Capturing a zone audio notification only audible when looking at the centre of the zone"
FIXED: "Max chat server clients set too low"
FIXED: "Chat server requesting unavailable RPC from client"
FIXED: "Audio notifications when firing at a friendly or enemy"
FIXED: "Number keys not switching weapons when XBOX controller plugged in"
FIXED: "Zoom not working correctly when XBOX controller plugged in"
FIXED: "Stuck in bleed out"
FIXED: "Randomly moving between players when spectating when dead in multiplayer. NOTE: this is untested"

Update 23 marks the 3rd update in our new monthly update cycle! Technically U23 should be released the first week of November for monthly updates, but you’re ok if we get an update out early right? Now we have a bit more time to work on U24 before the (fingers crossed) first week of December.

We’ve added more useful information to your hud and made it all around cooler with hit markers, teammate status symbols, and keep the information on-screen even when you ADS. It's now fully converted to Unity 5 which means we can add effects like blurry vision from exhaustion or suppressed fire, emp grenade scattering in the visor etc. Lots of cool things we can do in the future.

Improved Hell Week with teammate revive to reward teaming up even more, points are now shared among teammates requiring less thought about whose turn it is to get that gold box, and we’ve also got VOIP working again! Remember the real-time voice porting demo you saw from forever ago? Well we got that working so now you’ve got team voip and can also open your helmet and talk to any player in proximity to you.

Ever since upgrading the game to Unity 5 our current foliage and vegetation assets have not been fully supported. Therefore we have now started adding new assets called SpeedTrees! First map to get tested is Rupture and over time we'll add them on all maps.

We have added a few details to the CTRs; when it is dark they will now hunt and blind you with their tactical light and they also use a laser sight to assist with aiming. Speaking of lasers, remember how it used to switch off whenever you aimed your weapon? Even though it didn’t switch off to other players in 3rd person? Well now it stays on the whole time, making the transition from laser aiming from the hip to ADS a little smoother.

We’ve also got a lot of general improvements. Spawns are now protected by shields to help mitigate the problem with spawn camping until we are able to iterate on this further. We’ve fixed some sound issues, and your weapon configuration is now saved for when you’re revived or respawned!

We’re beginning to add more visibility to the progression elements in the game in preparation for item unlocks and RPG/skill elements. Detailed patch notes to follow.

As many of you know the part of the game we are currently working on is known as Prologue, and follows the player through training to be an Interstellar Marine before getting into the “real” story. Some are concerned we’ve shifted focus to pvp, and don’t understand why we’re creating coop using pvp instead of coop. Short version; spoilers. It’s a means to an end type situation.

That is where the crux of the problem is, we want you to have the best experience possible and not ruin the narrative of the game by revealing the story before the supporting elements are in place. But we still need to put in new tech that will be needed for the campaign while giving players something to do.

Here’s our strategy. First we create the tech foundation while funding development through Early Access sales. Once we have the immersion right, the progression and customization systems in place, more weapons, and the unlocks all planned out, then we start on the big campaign. We’ll keep expanding prologue in logical ways to keep people occupied while we develop the campaign, and will probably deliver it in chunks. Chapters if you will.

We don’t have a specific timetable for progress, time spent doing a thorough analysis to come up with a realistic and accurate estimate is time better spent actually working on the game. We know where we’re going, we know how to get there, and we’ll take it one update at a time.

Thank you for hanging in there and supporting us through development. We know it’s taking longer than some would like, but we’d rather get things right the first time to give you the best Interstellar Marines coop campaign experience right out of the gate.

Patch notes are available here in full: http://media.interstellarmarines.com/media/interstellarmarines_changelog.html

FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME
Your team at Zero Point Software

ADDED: Ability to revive players in Hell Week
ADDED: VOIP to Hell Week teams, when in same zone as other team members
ADDED: Hell Week ends when 3 teams are left. Note: a lone wolf player counts as a team
ADDED: Teams in Hell Week now share points between players
ADDED: Players respawn in new zone when killed during grace period in Hell Week
ADDED: Huge HUD update including a number of new icons, sprites and changes
ADDED: Three new Hell Week-related Steam Achievements
ADDED: Initial, very early, support for Xbox gamepad. This is experimental and likely contains issues/bugs
ADDED: TPs and TR info to right hand side of main menu (need to be over 1280 width resolution to see)
ADDED: Ability for coop servers to run the same game mode and game type on the same server
ADDED: Global chat in main menu. By default, press T to toggle
ADDED: Can no longer aim when crouched if blocked by an object
ADDED: Weapon settings are remembered after death, and on collected CTR weapons
ADDED: Speedtrees to Rupture
ADDED: AR CTRs use a laser when aiming, AR+SMG CTRs use laser when shooting
ADDED: List of team mates in the HUD when teamed up in Hell Week
ADDED: Numeric input for sensitivity sliders

UPDATED: Weapons' FOV, recoil, damage, handling, dropoff, magnification etc. have been tweaked
UPDATED: Hell Week teams to have a max of 4 members
UPDATED: Spawn protection to all multiplayer maps
UPDATED: Quick join to add confirmation pop up showing game mode, and high ping if it is enabled in the settings
UPDATED: Operations audio with reverb in spawn tunnels
UPDATED: On-death fade-to-black screen
UPDATED: Respawn time in Hell Week grace period is now 5 seconds
UPDATED: Nav mesh on all Challenge maps
UPDATED: Several server stability fixes, especially on Starcrown
UPDATED: Wetlands with new nav mesh and other tweaks
UPDATED: Starcrown with several fixes
UPDATED: Operations Survival and MP maps with new modules and various fixes
UPDATED: Hell Week server browser now shows 'Server starting...' instead of join button when there is a time desync between server and client
UPDATED: Resolution screenshot with different sizes, plus button to open screenshot folder
UPDATED: Removed completing The NeuroGen Incident Steam Achievements on easy, normal and hard difficulties

FIXED: "VOIP in Coop"
FIXED: "Picking items up in Hell Week should work first time the majority of the time"
FIXED: "Changed max number of players coop quick join looks for to 2 from 1"
FIXED: "CTRs to minimise them being stuck on items or terrain"
FIXED: "Most instances of server browser returning to the wrong server browser page"
FIXED: "Footstep audio looping when stood still"
FIXED: "Nucleus so the escape door is not locked by default"
FIXED: "Light handler and light intensity issues which were causing performance losses"
FIXED: "Crates which were in, or on, water in Hell Week have been fixed"
FIXED: "Games no longer return to the incorrect server browser"
FIXED: "Spawn bug in Team Domination"
FIXED: "Flashing flashlights no longer flash improperly"

Good Morning/Afternoon Marines! Today we have a big update to share with you! An updated UI, as well as a Quick Join update for COOP or Multiplayer having you join servers instantly.


The biggest change in this update, it completely redefines combat in IM. The damage has been increased, making single and burst fire more of a viable option, but recoil has increased as well bringing player skill more into play when firing in automatic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItbTh6PaCH8

Here is a more detailed look at the weapons by community member and YouTube personality PepperBelly.

https://youtu.be/VBlJxMNW5rQ


Hell Week now enables you to team up with other players to create a more team-based experience. Here is the new Mission Overview used in Hell Week! You can not only see your location, but also track your teammates across different zones to meet up and dominate.


We’ve also added the deadly CTRs which greatly increases the number of threats on the map at any one time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRfha85mFGg


ITO AI SARA will now announce the new aerial supply drops incoming and creates natural points of friction and focal points of combat for players and teams in hell week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIMP2id-twM


These Hell Week changes with supply drops, CTRs, and teaming up imbue a coop feeling into Hell Week rather than just being the lone wolf free-for-all from previous versions. Come join us today on our TeamSpeak server ts3.speedgaming.pro:9987 @8PM CEST and @8PM EDT to chat with the developers and experience the awesomeness of U22 Hell Week for the first time! We’ve also got a lot of cool new features like CTR Corpse-stay, and CTR flashlight use so check out the change log below to see everything that’s new!


ADDED: Ability to team up with friends in Hell Week. Press M by default to access
ADDED: Ability to invite Steam friends into a Hell Week. Press F1 by default to access
ADDED: Combat Training Robots to Subarctic, Canyon, Industrial, Jungle, Mountain, Resort, Wetlands and Lunar Hell Week maps
ADDED: Supply drops to Hell Week, each drop contains 1,250 combat points and is visible across the map
ADDED: List of all players in the current Hell Week to mission overview
ADDED: Elimination warning message to HUD in Hell Week when you are the next player up for elimination
ADDED: Quick Join system for coop and multiplayer games to enable players to join a game faster
ADDED: Message on joining multiplayer and coop games, and button to quickly open friends tab (press F1 by default to open), to make it easier to invite a friend to join you on a server
ADDED: Compass to top of HUD
ADDED: Accurate pings to browser
ADDED: News pane to the left of the main menu, displays dynamic content and notifications of events and other info. Not visible for resolutions under 1024 wide
ADDED: Pane to the right side of the main menu, displays your next 4 Steam achievements. Not visible for resolutions under 1280 wide
ADDED: Quick tips and hints when Quick Joining a server
ADDED: CTRs now use flashlights in certain situations when hunting players
ADDED: CTRs now remain in their dead ragdoll position, minus physics effects, after death. Yes, you can build mountains of CTR corpses
ADDED: CTRs that are engaging, pursuing or repelling only reload if the magazine is empty
ADDED: Ability for CTRs to carry an inventory
ADDED: Performance tracker to manage the number of CTR corpses and flashlights left after CTR death
ADDED: In-game ping to debug menu for coop and multiplayer games. Press U by default to access
ADDED: Numeric representation on mouse sliders in main menu


UPDATED: Significantly re-worked weapons shooting, recoil, damage and aiming mechanics
UPDATED: Converted in-game HUD to Unity 5
UPDATED: Mission overview in Hell Week with many new features. Press M by default to access
UPDATED: Several prefabs with correct shadow and static settings
UPDATED: CTR soil footsteps
UPDATED: Steam friends now updates every 2 seconds
UPDATED: Spectating is disabled for Hell Week and Deathmatch game modes
UPDATED: Mission overview visible when HUD is down
UPDATED: Stronghold with new nav mesh and CTR patrol paths


FIXED: "Hell Week wins and CPs not recording in Leaderboards"
FIXED: "Cause of frequent crash when exiting the game"
FIXED: "NGI elevators killing players"
FIXED: "Parasol collision on Resort map"
FIXED: "Steam friends list not updating after client has been started"
FIXED: "Server sorting now works"
FIXED: "Server memory leak, may also increase performance and stability"

Good Morning/Afternoon Marines! Thanks to everyone who helped test the ITO/Spearhead pre-release builds, and we're happy to announce update 21 is now live! We’ve now added a grace period to Hell Week to make it a bit more forgiving for players and added pausing for Single Player. There is also falling damage now, so you can no longer exfiltrate Starcrown via roof ;) or jump off the 3rd deck in operations. We still need to tweak and balance it so please give us feedback on it. Below is the changelog with all new features, improvements, and fixes!

FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME
Your team at Zero Point Software


ADDED: Grace period to Hell Week. If you die within the grace period you will respawn with an empty backpack
ADDED: Game now pauses in Single player when in the main menu (thanks Keavon! :))
ADDED: First version of falling damage, we'll tweak this as we receive feedback from the community. Note, exhaustion level and impact angle affect amount of damage sustained
ADDED: Jump pads to several maps to ensure players dropping out of spawns do not take falling damage
ADDED: Initial functionality to Mission Overview in Hell Week (press M to access by default)
ADDED: Backpack is not dropped in Hell Week if the player has not collected anything
ADDED: Zone markers in Deadlock have been reset back to their original versions
ADDED: Button to reset keybinds to default in Settings menu
ADDED: Debug info to Help menu (press U to access by default)
ADDED: Screenshot button which takes hi-rez screenshots. Note, this will cause a pause in your gameplay (press numpad * by default)
ADDED: Randomised exit point to Starcrown
ADDED: Randomised entry spawn point to Starcrown
ADDED: Chat in Hell Week now appears across all servers
ADDED: Error message to the log if something goes wrong recording your TPs
ADDED: Tutorial map is now locked to Normal difficulty


UPDATED: To Unity version 5.1.3p1
UPDATED: Coop poster scene to include missing items
UPDATED: Water across all levels to work properly
UPDATED: CTR default names to CTR from Unnamed. Added 1 in 20 chance of the name being a dev, and 1 in 1000 chance of killing ZPS.Hicks
UPDATED: Slope height on stairs throughout most maps to ensure smooth movement
UPDATED: Mainline spawns raised to stop players from jumping into them
UPDATED: SMG, AR, Marine and other local sound reverb
UPDATED: Small amount of red in the red dot glass
UPDATED: Burst and Auto fire now use the single shot sound for the first sound
UPDATED: Arch to fix occlusion errors on railing cover plates
UPDATED: Assault Rifle mag to hold 21 rounds to accomdate burst fire


FIXED: "Stamina being affected by ping time"
FIXED: "Jump to help smooth-out jumping on dynamic platforms"
FIXED: "Combat Points not recording after Hell Week matches"
FIXED: "Hell Week wins not recording after Hell Week matches"
FIXED: "If a player has collected pistol ammo in Hell Week, the ammo will be included in his dropped backpack"
FIXED: "Vertical bouncing on moving elevators and platforms"
FIXED: "Exploding ragdoll on Marines and CTRs"
FIXED: "Rock shader"
FIXED: "Particles disappearing when looking towards the ground"
FIXED: "Certain stairs on Rupture not working"
FIXED: "Server browser not sorting Multiplayer servers correctly after viewing Hell Week servers"
FIXED: "Survival challenges not correctly recording data to Steam achievements"
FIXED: "Multiple fixes across Starcrown, including AI, navmesh, stairs etc."
FIXED: "Meshes missing colliders on Lunar"
FIXED: "Tree missing textures in Welcome to IM"