News

Public Test Client: Patch 1.3.20.0 

Hey there Sleepers,

This update comes with an exciting introduction that you may have seen in our latest developer blog: PvE and PvP Deep Desert instances! We also have changes to Testing Station bosses and loot, performance improvements, various fixes, and more. Take a look, try it out, and let us know what you think! Self-hosted servers will be enabled at a later date.

To assist you with testing, don’t forget to take advantage of the Progression Unlock Panel (only available in the PTC) where aside from getting resources and gear, XP and unlocking Journey chapters, you can unlock faction ranks and crafting materials.

Please note this is still a Work in Progress build and as a result you may found placeholder text and assets in it. This will be polished during the PTC period.

Learn more about our Public Test Clients and how they work here. The best place to discuss the PTC is the relevant Steam Discussion Board and our PTC Discussion channel on Discord.

Highlights

Introduced PvE and PvP Deep Desert instances! All official Worlds will now have at least one PvE and PvP instance of the Deep Desert.
Made multiple changes to streaming distances to improve performance and memory usage.
Altered drop rate of gear in Testing Stations to not heavily favor specific weapons such as «The Ancient Way» and «Pyrockets», to make the loot drops more fair.
The amount of HP bosses have when fought by groups has been lowered in the Overland Imperial Testing Stations.
Reduced the drop rate of less desirable items in Overland Imperial Testing Stations such as Stillsuit pieces to prioritize combat related items.

Features and Changes

Technical and Stability:

Made multiple changes to streaming distances to improve performance and memory usage.
Improved client performance when characters fire ranged weapons.
Reduced frame drop when large vehicles are surrounded by many other objects such as vehicles or placeables.
Improved rendering performance of base’s shield VFX.
Improved vehicle collision detection performance near bases and other vehicles.
Improved performance on player journey updates.
Various optimizations made to animation and UI.

Vehicles:

Updated the rules on using the Vehicle Backup Tool’s modes, preventing restoring, recovering and relocating vehicles inside landclaims without permission.

Worldbuilding and Exploration:

Overland Imperial Testing Stations
- Feedback regarding the difficulty in Testing Stations is something we’ve been observing closely, and gathered that it can be much harder when playing as a group. We want to make the group boss fights more appealing and rewarding to play together, therefore we are lowering the amount of HP bosses have when fought by groups of different size. We will continue to monitor feedback and participation, and make adjustments when necessary.
  - Reduced 2-player boss health by: 3%
  - Reduced 3-player boss health by: 5%
  - Reduced 4-player boss health by: 10%
- Made tweaks to the first electrical puzzle in Imperial Testing Station #152, with the goal of it being less punishing (and less repetitive) if players play through it multiple times.
- Altered drop rate of gear in Testing Stations to not heavily favor specific weapons such as «The Ancient Way» and «Pyrockets», to make the loot drops more fair.
- Reduced the drop rate of less desirable items such as Stillsuit pieces to prioritize combat related items.
- Increased the chance to get additional schematic drops in Testing Station loot.

Store, Journey, and New Player Experience:

Reduced the waiting times for the Arena in the Art of Kanly by increasing the number of available instances.

Deep Desert and Landsraad:

Introduced PvE and PvP Deep Desert instances!
- All official Worlds will now have at least one PvE and PvP instance of the Deep Desert.
- The PvE instance is fully PvE, and the PvP version of the Deep Desert has the PvP area reverted to how it was at launch, starting at the B-row outside of the Shieldwall area.
- When you enter the Deep Desert from the Overland, the instance selector now clearly indicates if the instance is PvE or PvP.
- The PvP version has increased mining yield and spice harvesting by 2.5 in PvP areas.
Hagga Basin is now fully PvE across the entire map, including the Shipwrecks.
Increased the drop rate for non-combat Uniques in the Deep Desert so that there is a higher chance to get the schematics not available in the Overland Map dungeons.
Updated all Landsraad Mission recipes to only appear in the Crafting Menu when charges are available.
Reduced the amount of fiber resources around the Wreck of Tyche.

User Interface:

Names of the blocked players involved in events are now replaced by their default names (vehicles or placeables)
- Updating players’ permissions in the sub-fief’s and vehicle’s management menu.
The ability to toggle UI is now available inside dialogue sequences.
Players can now paste (ctrl+v) into the placeable/vehicle rename text field. Confirm button will be active after a couple of seconds.
Adjusted column names in the Server browser to Standard and Custom, and added a column for server Provider.
Updated red warning UI in the server transfer window to allow for 3 lines of text as to avoid scrolling.
Added new Custom Server warnings in the Server Browser when creating or transferring characters.
Refresh server browser is now on Right Trigger to prevent overlap of controls.
Correct controller text layout is now displayed alongside the PS5 controller image in the controls Setting menu tab.
Control image is now shown in the settings menu when playing on steam deck.
Text labels are now visible in steam deck controller pages.
Voice chat toggle/hold works with auto fly/drive functionality now.
Updated the text of the «Fragment Upgrading» trait to correctly refer to Schematic Patterns, as these are what the trait works on.
Updated the icons for Plastanium tier Blood Sacks and Literjons to be distinct from other tiers. This also applies to the unique versions in Plastanium tier.
Tutorial button in escape menu is now available in Arrakeen and Harko Village.
Added label for auto fly and auto drive to vehicle control images.
Added additional warning messages in the Construction tool to give more feedback about failed actions.
Added Agave Seeds and electricity hazard to the map legend, and removed unused thumper icon from it.

Fixes

Technical and Stability

Fixed an issue where the game can hang infinitely upon startup before entering the main menu.
Fixed the infinite “Connecting to [server name]” issue when players try to connect to a server that is still starting up.
Players muted by our automatic moderation system will now receive a whisper, notifying them why and when their mute will end.
Fixed edge case where unstuck would fail to find a spot.
Fixed a bug causing players that had received a returning player award to receive a new reward 28 days after receiving the first even if they had been active in the time between.
Fixed issue where some frames were hitching during the Teahouse cinematic with Ariste.

Resources, Building, and Crafting:

Fixed an issue where weapons augmented to increase their Rate Of Fire would result in an exaggerated increase. The amounts stated on the augmentation items themselves are correct and unchanged. This fix ensures that the stated values are actually the applied values, especially when multiple Rate of Fire augmentations are applied.
Festive Tree Hologram Decoration is no longer climbable.
Smugglers Couches now have proper seating positions and exit seating positions.
Fixed a bug where the «Observer Round Roof Corner» and the «Observer Inverted Roof Corner» could only be placed on the ground.
Fixed a bug where some pentashield doors in the Art of Kanly would have different sized solido lines based on your games rendered resolution.
Fixed an ammo container in Smuggler’s Run which did not give ammo.

Combat:

Targeting abilities that would sometimes fail to target NPCs should now always work.
Fixed a bug causing the effect of certain skills to not apply after logging out and back in again.
Fixed an issue where upgrading an activatable ability that is currently slotted would not initialize the new cooldown or cost properties before re-slotting the ability.
Taller NPCs can now reliably aim downward when attacking with melee.
Fixed an issue that caused camera rotation to get stuck after swapping weapon at the same moment as getting staggered.
Fixed an issue that allowed high-grade Drillshots and their unique variations to deal significant shield damage. As noted on their infocards, the burrow darts do not damage shields, but rather strive to bypass them.
Fixed an issue where Health kits were sometimes not consumed after triggering healing.
Fixed issue where Spice Prescience can be used infinitely by exiting and re-entering an Overland Map Testing Station.

Vehicles:

Some previously “lost» vehicles will be sent to recovery. Mainly vehicles that have been lost due to server crash right after restoring the vehicle (from backup or recovery).
Fixed the vehicle relocation wrongly repairing vehicle durability.
Fixed several issues with vehicle abilities triggering unintentionally, or stop working when spamming exit vehicle.
Fixed an issue with vehicle abilities that sometimes caused them to work erratically when exiting or landing vehicles.
Fixed an edge case that could lead to vehicles becoming not interactable.
Ornithopters now automatically leave vulture mode when a travel request UI pop-up window appears, prevents them from crashing into the map edge.
Fixed ornithopter vulture mode not losing speed when going upwards.
Fixed an issue where the vehicle limit check sometimes did not work correctly after travel.
Prevented vehicle modules from getting duplicated when disassembling a vehicle while it is on quicksand.
Fixed customization swatch application when using unique armor pieces.
Fixed customization appearing on the main menu and server browser.

Worldbuilding and Exploration:

Fixed a bug that prevented the «Tactical Radiation Suit» from dropping in Testing Stations of a higher difficulty.
Fixed an issue where Small Shipwrecks had some occurrences of them crashing on rock islands.
Fixed an issue that could leave players stuck in the room after completing the dungeon in Testing Station 136.
Fixed player stuck location inside the Forgotten Lab.
Fixed a ceiling gap in Testing Station 10 that allowed the player to go out of bounds.
Fixed an issue where the Advanced Trainer NPC was not spawning after unlocking the Planetologist trainer.

Store, Journey, and New Player Experience:

Fixed PTC faction unlock options that could downgrade faction rank.
Fixed a bug where rank 20 players who betrayed their faction would be set to rank 5 for their new faction. Note, for players ranked 6-19 they will still be set back to rank 5 if they betray.
Andre Ganan’s contract chain should show as completed no matter what choice was made during the War Profiteer mission.
Adjusted visuals and cues to make the exit in A Deadly Poison Journey more clear.
Fixed an issue during Extinguish The Flames Journey where a suboids helmet could become detached.
Fixed an issue with the journey after The Next Target not getting autotracked.
Fixed an issue preventing the boss in «Making A Martyr» contract wouldn’t spawn.
Improved collisions around the environment in the new player experience tutorial.
Addressed collision issues in Old Carthag, and Fallen Light.
Addressed story inconsistency with Sinnu referring to the player as ‘Degenerate killer’ prior to them speaking to Maksim Dubrov for the first time.
Addressed an issue where melee NPCs in the Breaking the Chains arena fight could get into a state where they wouldn’t attack their target after attempting to use a sprint attack.
Address issue where some models appeared broken in the second Spice Dream.
Addressed issue in which the screen would be partially faded to black in the bridge section of the Wreck of Hephaestus.

Deep Desert and Landsraad:

Fixed an issue were unrelated rewards would briefly be shown when viewing rewards at a Landsraad house representative.
Fixed a case where the same Landsraad missions was offered repeatedly.
Fixed an issue where a Landsraad mission could be shared repeatedly with another player.

User Interface:

Added “backpack is full” warning on claim menu when the user is unable to claim due to lack of space.
Fixed an issue that caused the Burning Blades schematic to not show up in the Short Blades category in the Exchange.
Fixed an issue where items in the recycler which give a non fixed amount of resources (e.g. augment schematics which give a random amount of schematic patterns) now show the minimum to maximum range, instead of just the minimum.
Fixed Bundle Preview display after searching in the Research Menu.
Fixed animation values for panel size in the fabricator menu to prevent queue being overlapped by the scroll bar.
“NOT READY” should now say “LOADING” when traveling to an Overland Map point of interest.
Increased the area the camera can see when zoomed out to be able to see the text of the Overland location Wreck of Hephaestus.
Fixed several issues with the customization not showing the correct visuals and color swatches.
Fixed an issue with the character customization options not defaulting to the player’s current selections.
Fixed Explorer Helmet to receive dyepack customization.
Fixed a bug where the Construction Tool selected the incorrect House Swatch applied to a placeable.
Clarified the description for the Stop ability so that it is clear that this ability affects enemies in a cone.
Added missing short description text to the Observer Building Set.
Fixed text issue with Deep Desert tutorial regarding PvP zones.
Fixed a text issue where the Prescience tutorial mentioned immunity to poison when Prescience grants increased tolerance to poison.
Corrected the description for Weirding step from «force a single enemy to ignore you to «stun a single enemy» to better clarify what the ability does.
Corrected phrasing on Night Rider Boost module descriptions, so that players are not led to believe this module increases in efficiency during the night.
Corrected the description for the Exploit Weakness ability so that it is clear that a weak point is revealed rather than created at the point where the attack hits.
Added the missing buy limit of 20 to Armor Plating bought from weapons vendors in Arrakeen and Harko Village.
Fixed an issue where a vendor was mistakenly selling the Smuggler swatch.
Crosshair is now hidden when opening vehicle radial wheel.
Removed duplicate Reload UI from Scoped rifle crosshair.
Fixed a layout bug for PS5 controls images to now show the correct game inputs.
Fixed an overlap issue on the ability HUD UI on steam deck.
Fixed an issue where the View Map button in the Journey menu details panel would not open correctly when using the keyboard shortcut.
Fixed controller scrolling not working within the Landsraad Missions menu.
Fixed an issue where private chat messages would not show after opening the chat window directly into the private tab.
Improved text on banned screen to reduce confusion regarding ban length.
Fixed various typos.

Graphics, Animation, and VFX:

Player and Ariste hand animations adjusted during certain cinematics.
Fixed an unholstering glitch that caused issues with the Scattergun.
Fix for no animation playing when stunned while holding a rapier.
Fixed an issue causing players to respawn appearing injured if they died in the starting experience after first talking to Zantara.
Fixed an animation issue where certain walls would cause players to look as if they were floating while climbing.
Fixed movement issues when climbing walls that have pentashields on top of them which the player has access to.
Fixed issue where characters would sometimes be facing the wrong way after going through room transitions.
Characters are now correctly oriented when entering vehicles on slopes.
Fixed rotation desyncs in NPCs after using suspensor traversal.
Fixed NPCs spinning erratically when diving away from a grenade.
Fixed NPC hands cliping into the ground when diving from a grenade.
The mining laser should no longer be offset from the turret when mining with the Kirab or Contraband buggies.
Fixed misalignment in player hands when using the handheld scanner.
Harness cables should be visible on the Kirab and Contraband buggies now.
Fixed cloth on Slaver Scout Mask clipping through character’s neck.
Fixed some clipping issues on the waist of the Smuggler Caparison coat.
Fixed the Slaver Light armor having a large gap in the waist on female characters.
Silly Salute emote is now used in place of the deprecated BetaReward emote.
Fix for some dialogue lines Elara says that were missing lip sync animation.
Fixed Roella Ramsby’s model missing the wrong finger in the Janusian Faithful questline.
Atreides Officer Idle animation is now looping properly.
Thufir no longer A-Poses during Mnemonic Flutter cinematic.