Greetings, denizens of the Firmament!

We’ve been talking about CGLR (Core Game Loop Rewrite) for well over a year at this point and we couldn’t be more pleased to announce that it’s finally here. But what does it mean?

Benefits of CGLR (1.9.5)

Now that we’ve rewritten a large portion of our code base, we get to reap the benefits.

First (and most important for what it enables down the line) is the dramatic performance improvements - hardware that used to be able to run a single match can now run 20+ matches. This has also allowed us to get set up with our infrastructure partner, which positions us very nicely to be very confident in our ability to handle the larger demand for servers from the playtest.

Bringing the frontend and backend into closer communication has also allowed us to fix a few longstanding issues that members of the community will be familiar with - the Barney bug and several other related bugs (0-HP Agents not properly being perceived as KO’d) should be a thing of the past at this point.

You’ll also notice substantially improved deploy performance - things should feel significantly snappier and smoother during the prep phase.

There are also a large number of quality of life improvements on the development side which should speed up future feature development - you may not see them immediately, but we’re all very happy with the changes.

Shields

One of the other things that CGLR has enabled is the release of Shields. All Agents have been changed from 250 Health to 200 Health + 50 Shield. Shields rapidly regenerate (10/s) out of combat (after 5 seconds of not receiving damage).

XN Agent with Shield

This has changed how the survival slider works - you are now able to set your slider to a specific value in either Health or Shield. If you set it in Health, your Agent will pursue its objective as long as your Health is higher than the slider. If you set it in Shield, your Agent will pursue its objective as long as your Shield is higher than the slider.

Rebalanced Health Skills

As part of the Shield change, we’ve rebalanced (and dramatically reduced) most sources of Health regeneration. The full changes can be found listed below, but the bonus for switching to Survive mode has changed from +2 Armor, +1.5 Health/second to +5 Armor, +0.25 Health/second. Most other sources of Health have been reduced by ~50% or converted into single-use boosts instead of permanent trickle regeneration.

The overall goal of this switch to Shield + reduced Health regeneration is to make chip damage that makes it past the shield feel more permanent.

We’ve also added scaling visual indicators to health bars - each 50 Health now has its own section. This should make visually determining enemy health much simpler.

Battle Phase Pathing / AI Updates

We’ve also undertaken a fairly comprehensive end-to-end rehaul of the AI pathing, movement, and decisions within the battle phase. As part of CGLR, we’re moving out of the ‘tickbatch’ system many of you are familiar with (Agents queue up 1s of actions, play that out, then plan their next second) and into a ‘tick’ system (Agents are capable of making decisions every 100ms).

Agents on Survive should feel significantly smarter in the flee choices they make, not getting stuck in corners or pingponging between two nearby threats. Agents on Collect will now prioritize arriving at Shards the instant their cooldowns are up and will only attack interlopers if doing so won’t jeopardize their next collect. Agents on Attack will now properly resume pursuit as soon as their attack is completed instead of waiting for the next tickbatch to begin. They’ll also be less likely to divert from their pursuit to collect Shards.

Agent Loan Slots

We’ve also heard a large amount of chatter in the community about the desire for more flexible options when it comes to trying out new Agents. Well, fear not - everyone’s now been granted an Agent Loan slot. This is a specialized Agent slot that can only hold loaned Agents - if you’d like to convert an Agent in this slot to a Permanent Contract, you’ll need to free up a slot.

As always, we’d love your feedback as you jump in. Please let us know what you think on our Discord.

Detailed Balance Changes

With the advent of Shields, we’re taking a closer look at the meta. You can expect a followup balance pass with our next release once the effects of Shields have had a chance to settle a bit.

Core Changes:

  • Shield Element renamed to Stone to remove potential confusion around Shields
  • All Agents changed from 250 Health to 200 Health + 50 Shield
  • Life Deploy reduced from +12 Health to +6 Health
  • Survive Strategy Bonus modified from [+2 Armor, +1.5 Health/Second] to [+5 Armor, +0.25 Health/Second]

Skill Adjustments:

  • Leg Day (Sniper, Assassin) - Reduced from [On Round Start: Gain 1 Speed] to [On Round Start: 50% Chance To Gain 1 Speed]
  • Picomedics (Biosculptor, Paladin) - Modified from [Boost LIFE: Regenerate 0.5 Health per Second (Temporary)] to [Boost LIFE: Regenerate 5 Health over 10 Seconds]
  • Nanomedics (Biosculptor, Paladin) - Modified from [Boost LIFE: Regenerate 1 Health per Second (Temporary)] to [Boost LIFE: Regenerate 10 Health over 10 Seconds]
  • Gift of the Shards (Paladin) - Reduced from [On Shard Collect: +15 Health] to [On Shard Collect: +8 Health]
  • Breath I (Biosculptor, Paladin) - Modified from [Regenerate 0.5 Health per Second] to [Regenerate 30 Health over 20 Seconds]
  • Breath II (Paladin) - Modified from [Regenerate 0.5 Health per Second and +15 Health] to [Over 30 Seconds, Gain 30 Max Health and Regenerate 30 Health]
  • Breath III (Biosculptor) - Reduced from [Regenerate 0.5 Health per Second and +30 Health] to [Regenerate 0.5 Health per Second]

Renames:

Skills that do the same thing should have the same name, regardless of class.

  • Reactive Healing (Biosculptor) renamed to Second Wind to match Paladin‘s Second Wind
  • Indomitable (Paladin) renamed to Rapid Regeneration to match Biosculptor‘s Rapid Regeneration