Build Update #069: Version 1.1.0 Now Available

We've just released GROUND BRANCH V1.1.0 !

This update's main highlight is Chapter 1 of Operations mode, which brings you the new Persian Gulf hotspot with 3 new campaign missions playable in offline/solo mode and online co-op.

Version 1.1.0 also includes new gameplay abilities, animations, VFX, customization, inventory additions and more. Keep reading for the full scoop.

Save 20% on GROUND BRANCH until November 26!

To celebrate this release, we've set up a 20% discount on Steam. It will be live for 2 weeks (until November 26) so make sure you spread the word and don't miss out!

V1.1.0 release notes

General

• A Ready Room button is now displayed in the top menu during games — click it to abort the current engagement and return to the Ready Room. (You can still use as a shortcut!)

Operations — Chapter 1

• A new hotspot is available in Operations mode: the Persian Gulf. It features 3 new missions set in maps Docks, Rig and Tanker.

The Persian Gulf hotspot becomes available upon completing Northwest Pakistan . You may need to watch out for security cameras in some of these new missions (more on those in the "Enemy AI" section).

• Both the Prologue's Northwest Pakistan and the new Persian Gulf hotspots now have unique Ready Rooms. The former is a hideout in a local house, while the latter is set aboard an aircraft carrier.
• Unavailable hotspots and missions are now displayed as "Classified" on the Operations Map and mission list respectively.

Intelligence Archive

A new menu is now available in Operations mode: the Intelligence Archive . To open it, simply click the INTELLIGENCE button in the bottom-right of the Operations Map.

As you complete missions, intel dossiers and images for factions, individuals and locations will be added to the archive.

Operations — new AI character archetypes

Two new AI character archetypes are present in the Persian Gulf missions:

• Civilian — Civilians will wander the level until they notice a threat, at which point they attempt to trigger the nearest alarm panel and then run for cover.

Alarm panels are a new actor that both AI and players can interact with. Raising the alarm fires a gameplay event, allowing missions and game modes to react to it.

• HVT (High Value Target) — The HVT is a mission target who must be captured alive and extracted. They're guarded by their own security detail. While guarded, the HVT hides like a civilian when they spot a threat. Once every guard is neutralized, the HVT will surrender and kneel. Players can then walk up and take them into custody, at which point they join that player’s team and will take squad orders (default ) — much like a rescued hostage.

Escorted characters — hostages and HVTs — now mirror the stance and gait of the player escorting them. This fixes them mirroring every player's stance and failing to close the gap to their escort.

Gameplay

• Alertness levels, alarm panels and security cameras are now a thing in the campaign's Persian Gulf hotspot. This might be expanded to other game modes and campaign missions in the future.
• Shoulder-tapping is now possible. To shoulder-tap a buddy, simply approach their back while you're standing up and press Interact (default ) when the prompt appears. The other player will be notified of the tap via UI.
• Camera shake was added to enhance the feel of weapon recoil. The shake is caliber-specific.
• Enemies no longer use grenades in Rig and Tanker. (This is part of a new internal system that allows per-map grenade settings; see "Enemy AI" section below.)
• The chance of muzzle flash being produced by enemy weapons is now tied to AI difficulty level: Untrained has the most muzzle flash, while Veteran has the least. This follows the same logic as bullet traces in aiding players to identify the source of incoming fire.

Enemy AI

Combat and aim

• Fixed enemy AI shooting before they'd actually aimed (e.g. while turning). Every burst now waits until they're on target
• Enemies now take their reaction time every time they reacquire you, not just on first contact.
• How well AI lead moving targets now depends on difficulty level (it was previously perfect at every level).
• Trained/Experienced/Veteran enemies now have a little aim spread (they previously had none).

Detection and night visibility

• Reworked AI light levels, or how easily AI can spot you: ensured it respects time of day and moon phases, counts nearby lights by real brightness, and updates 10 times per second (was previously updated every 0.4–1.3 second).
• AI investigating a noise will walk to a random spot near the source instead of the exact position.
• Campaign missions can set their own AI hearing/sight levels (e.g. Tanker hearing = 0.7 due to noisy environment).

Grenades

• Added a system to allow AI grenades to be switched on/off per map, plus a map volume that can block the ability for AI to throw grenades. AI grenades are currently disabled for the entirety of Tanker and Rig.

Security (Chapter 1)

For now, these changes apply to the Persian Gulf hotspot mission(s):

• A guard opening fire raises the security level to "Heightened".
• A camera that spots you sends the nearest guard to check. Shot-out cameras get checked too.

Doors and movement

• AI no longer stay stuck at doors (the door frees itself, and they give up after 30 seconds and find another way).
• Fixed AI with a target waiting at a door forever.
• Fixed AI walking through each other.
• Fixed various navmesh issues on Tanker, Docks and Rig.

Miscellaneous

• Added various other checks and restrictions to AI reactions to make combat feel more more realistic and fair.
• Fixed an AI server crash and the stutter after killing an enemy.
• One broken AI loadout no longer stops the rest from spawning.

Character animation and rigging

• The character rig was updated with more bones, and various animations were cleaned up to reduce "snapping" and overall jankiness. This is an ongoing effort.
• We've cleaned up instances where your point of aim (or the camera, more broadly) would "snap" to a different height when starting to move. Such transitions between stationary and moving animations are now smoothly interpolated.
• Your weapon will no longer bounce right into the center of your view when walking while leaning.
• Characters have received dedicated animations (and audio) for strafing left/right, with different animations for walking vs. running. This replaces the old logic that essentially rotated the lower body and played the same animations as forwards/backwards.
• Guards and patrolling AI will now idle in place with various animations in between patrol routes.

Vaulting and mantling animations had to be rolled back at the last moment due to technical issues. Those will be patched in as soon as possible.

Audio

• Added audio portals to breakable windows in all mission maps. This ensures sound will travel through them once destroyed as if they were open.
• The varying music tracks' volumes were adjusted to a more uniform level in the mix: Ready Room music is timid and quiet, while main menu music stays louder than the rest.
• Complete reconstruction of the soundscapes, as well as spatial volumes (for better diffraction and optimization), for maps Rig and Tanker.
• Reduced the volume of first-person player movement SFX (i.e. players should hear their own movement a little quieter).
• Under the hood: created dynamic music system for missions, Ready Rooms and cutscenes.
• Fixed Galil rifles using incorrect reload audio.

VFX

• Blood pools will now form underneath dead characters.
• Prolonged fire will now create a lingering vapor/heat effect that emerges from the weapon's barrel.
• Created new water splash VFX (currently used in Persian Gulf hotspot).

Gamepad support

• Gamepad support is now a lot more robust — it includes acceleration (response curve) settings for movement and aiming, axis-specific (X and Y) aim sensitivity, and other gamepad-specific settings that are now independent from their keyboard and mouse counterparts. You can find these in Settings › Controls › Input Options (under the GAMEPAD section).
• Running no longer requires a separate controller button — when pushing the left analog stick beyond a certain threshold, your character will transition from walking to running. (Sprinting is still a separate button.)
• You should now be able to fully browse the UI menus with just your gamepad. Use the ☰ button to pause/unpause the game (or open the menu during online play), the left analog stick to control the cursor, the right analog stick to scroll boxes, the bottom face button (🅐/⮾/etc. depending on your gamepad) to confirm selections, and so on.

Customization and inventory

New character customization

• Face Paint — You can now apply various styles of face paint camouflage to your character. To select a face paint, click the new skin selection triangle in the right-hand corner of the Appearance menu (where you select your character's head).

New weapons

• SV-98 — The SV-98 is a Russian bolt-action, magazine-fed sniper rifle chambered in 7.62×54 mm. It is fitted with a top accessory rail for optics, plus a rail on the right side of the forearm for lasers and lights. The SV-98 has an optional suppressor and is fitted with the 1P69 3–10x scope (more on it below) by default.
• U100 MK3 — The U100 MK3 is a Singapore-made automatic rifle chambered in 5.56 NATO and firing in full-auto only. It uses a 100-round drum magazine, making it suitable for the squad automatic weapon (SAW) role. The U100 MK3 features a long top rail that can fit optics and LAMs, plus a bottom rail for grips and other attachments. Though it has built-in iron sights, they are nearly entirely obstructed by the top rail modification, so optics are strongly recommended.

SV-98 sniper rifle, seen here with 1P69 3–10x scope and suppressor.

U100 MK3 equipped with G33 Magnifier, HWS 551, AN/PEQ-15 and Bipod Grip.

New attachments

• [Sights/Accessory] AN/PVS-14 — The PVS-14 is a simple night vision tube meant to be mounted at the rear of non-magnified optics such as red dot and holo sights, in the same fashion as the G33 Magnifier — except it makes your sight picture night vision-capable instead of zoomed in.

The AN/PVS-14 works very well in tandem with the HWS 551, but it won't align perfectly with all sights and might completely obscure the reticle of a few.

Unlike the AN/PVS-17C MNS night vision scope, the AN/PVS-14 does not feature an aiming point/reticle, and thus is not recommended as a standalone sight. Be sure to always mount it at the rear of a red dot-style sight and check the alignment before deploying!

• Perst-3 — This Russian LAM (Laser Aiming Module) emits a green visible laser instead of red, but is otherwise functionally identical to the AN/PEQ-15 with an infrared laser and illuminator (both visible only through NVG).
• [Sights/Scopes] 1P69 3–10x — The 1P69 is one of the standard-issue optics for the SV-98 rifle (which has it equipped by default). This scope has progressive magnification (from 3x to 10x) and an illuminated reticle that shows which magnification step you're currently in. Armorers have not yet figured out what all the different markings represent.
• [Sights/Red Dot] 1P87 — A Russian red dot sight with a similar form factor as the HWS holo sights, the 1P87 has a small reticle with an approximate -:- shape, calibrated for 7.62×39 mm weapons with a 16" barrel (e.g. AKM or AK-103 Alpha). When used with such rifles, the top dot in the reticle is zeroed for 100 meters, and should be fairly accurate at smaller distances as well; the bottom dot will be accurate for targets around 300 meters.

1P87 red dot sight and Perst-3 LAM mounted on the AK-103 Alpha.

If you're using the 1P87 with different weapons, the top dot on the reticle should still be fairly accurate up to 100 meters for most rifle calibers, but you will have to figure out your own holdovers for 300 meters.

• [Sights/Scopes] 1PN93-2 4x and 1PN93-2 4x (Rail) — The 1PN93-2 is a night vision scope with 4x magnification. It comes in 2 versions: one for side-mounting on AK platforms, and one for accessory rails. The reticle is calibrated for 5.45×39 mm (used in most AKs in the armory) and is a bit of an oddball: the top chevron (˄) is zeroed at 400 meters, which you'll be hard-pressed to find useful in most engagements. The next 3 chevrons from top to bottom are for 600, 800 and 1,000 meters, which are even less useful. Luckily, the reticle on these specimens appears to have been updated with a dot zeroed at 100 meters, which we think you'll be using in the vast majority of scenarios.

The vertical strokes (stadia) are intended to help estimate the range of targets. The height of each stroke should match a 1.5 meter-tall object (meant to represent the average height of a running man) at 400, 600, 800 and 1,000 meters — respectively, from left to right, or from right to left. We're not sure about the very short stadia.

This has been Build Update #069!

Thank you for keeping up with GROUND BRANCH! As usual, we'll be on stand-by to start putting together a hotfix patch if enough issues have slipped past testing.

We hope you enjoy this update. Have a great weekend, everyone!