Build Update #061: Patch V1035.2

After a major refactoring that required rebuilding a massive portion of GROUND BRANCH's systems and interfaces, patch V1035.2 is finally here!

The big refactoring

Though this update doesn't bring in a whole lot of shiny new features (the bulk of the work involved migrating existing features from Lua language to C++ and UE4 Blueprint) it gets us one step closer to our final goal on a more solid foundation.

💡 For a more in-depth look into the Lua refactoring, check out Intel Report #027.

Though the main advantage of the refactoring is future iteration, you might notice improved stability and performance here and there in this version.

We'll go over the main impacts, pros and cons in the following subsections.

What does this mean for modding?

• Non-Lua mods will not be affected Once updated to V1035.2, most mods (e.g. item mods) should continue to work as before.

• Lua-based game modes and missions will need to be converted to Blueprint-based ones With rounds, settings and other game mode-related classes being far more modular now, it'll be easier than how we had it setup. The Blueprint-based games modes we've included can be used as a base/example.

💡 What about custom maps?

While you can convert older custom maps using the mission actor conversion tool, we’re also developing a proper map editor for future content. For best results — and full compatibility going forward — we recommend building new maps with proper actors and assets once the new Map SDK is available.

Streamlining mods

Modding has been simplified in V1035.2.

Gone are the days of moving and dragging mods from your available list into your loaded server mods in order to make them appear. Now, if you have a mod, it will be hosted on your listen server and your players will be able to see it.

Dedicated servers have been simplified as well. For now, you will simply load the Mod IDs into the mods.txt file for the server.

💡 We are also working on a UI solution that will replace the old setup for admins who prefer to load them via the in-game menu.

Operations mode temporarily disabled

Though the "Silent Reach" campaign mission demo (accessible via the Operations menu) succeeded in giving players an idea of what a full-fledged GROUND BRANCH mission will look like, it was put together with considerable haste using a mix of Lua and hard-coding; this meant that the Lua logic would require migrating, while the hard-coded portion needed to be redone as part of a more expandable system.

In order to avoid delaying patch V1035.2 even further, we have made the difficult decision to temporarily disable the Operations mode while we create an expandable system for future campaign missions. Rest assured that the overall concept and much of the UI will be maintained — we hope to have an improved demo mission available again soon!

No more rubberbanding — online stability has been restored!

A massive achievement in this version has been online stability: the networking feels solid once again, with the widespread rubberbanding issue (that was present for the past few releases) having been fixed. Even with high pings (+300 ms), we've encountered no online issues after about 6 weeks of testing.

💡 Dedicated servers no longer need to be restarted after a few hours to recover online performance — huge relief!

We're hopeful this win will be getting online numbers back up a bit, since the rubberbanding was a massive