Letter from the Producer #7 (Update on our Roadmap) [From April 7, 2023] news - Cepheus Protocol

Kept you waiting huh?
So its been a while huh? Im sure a lot of our eager fans are curious on what we've been doing over the last few months so I'll run you through some new details now...

Last 2 Development Videos

What we are doing right now to wrap up 1.2!
At the moment we are working to complete 1.2 in its entirety over the next few weeks.

• Better Camp assets/designs in general
• Implement Ambient Civilians that you can assume ownership over to fix the drought of units you can shelter in civilian holds. Our goal is to get to the level of PROTOTYPE 2/PROTOTYPE 1 level of immersion in the city.
• Introduce Dynamic Civilian camps that can multiply and increase the amount that can generate per zone . We are going to limit this on a per zone basis.
• Introduce Civilian Strongholds where if a Civilian group gets to a certain level of expansion they will erect larger prebuilt bases. There can only be 1 stronghold per zone. We expect 40% of Civilian groups to reach this point of technology and expect the other 60% to die before they get to this point.
• Introduce simulated trading/diplomacy between civilian groups.
• We will be adding a currency for civilian groups called "Supply" Which they will use as a currency for you to convert CERC cash to "buy" goodwill with a civilian group
• This supply will determine how quickly they build more camps and strongholds only at the moment. It could also lead into how well armed/armored they are. But we are still on the fence about this.
• Cleanup/Bug fix any remaining issues with civilian evacuations
• Introduce Boat Evacuations in preparation for San Fran North's eventual addition. Basically you can build a boat house that will ferry units to your carrier. Only will be placeable where prebuilt docks in the level already exists.
• You will be able to trade "Supply" to attempt to bring factions back to good faith like the Civilian groups. Likely we will add a cap that if you keep betraying them they will accept your supply but refuse to ally with you regardless.
• Introduce Waystations for evacuations zones where civilians that are waiting for a helicopter can "wait" to reduce the clutter that can occur with them overlapping sometimes these will be entirely optional but allow you to setup "waiting zones" for security reasons.
• Implement Green, Yellow and Red zone logic where infected and civilians can battle and "simulate" daily life. Kinda like this video linked below
• Modernize the Top left UI elements so they are more appealing to look at like ROE

Green, Yellow, Red zone reference video

Factions and what's coming in 1.3Our goal is to have started 1.3 by the beginning of May and disable and work on 1 faction at a time till they are all functional. I.E The Police Faction (Pierce) & and Anarchist(Natalie)

Changes to The Police Faction in 1.3

1. Pierce will start with Officers and Swat across the map and Operate from a few central Police Stations.
2. As they fail to contain the infection he will eventually lose a huge portion of his officers and fall back to 1 central Police station to run his operations from.
3. They will have 4 Unit types (Patrol Officer, Swat, Swat Sniper and Firemen/Medic.
4. Firemen/Medics will operate ambulances early game to help heal help/everyone in the field
5. Firemen/Medics will eventually transition around the mid game mark to discontinue usage of their ambulances and be militarized to work directly with the police faction in their attack units/defense teams. They will essentially become their combat medic.
6. At mid game Pierce will start to vassalize civilian groups and start forming alliances with everyone but Raiders. His attitude towards you will mirror how your treating civilians and his men in the field.
7. You will be able to trade "Supply" to attempt to bring factions back to good faith like the Civilian groups. Likely we will add a cap that if you keep betraying them they will accept your supply but refuse to ally with you regardless.
8. They will ambush your vehicles kill your drivers and turn them into supply at their bases if your an enemy of them
9. They will have 4 vehicle types. (Police Copter, Patrol Vehicle, APC and JLTV police variant)

Changes to The Anarchist Faction in 1.3

1. Anarchist will have a staggered start and only form sometime after day 2-3 of the virus.
2. Anarchist will be "undercover" and you will not be able to easily determine who is a member of this faction unless you track back ambushes/catch them in the act attacking another party or you.
3. They will ambush your vehicles kill your drivers and turn them into supply at their bases if your an enemy of them
4. Anarchist will be the lowest population group and show their strength through ambushes and stealth
5. They will have 3 vehicle types. (Hijacked News Chopper, Technical and Battle bus)

General Changes in 1.3

1. Winters will gain the ability to buff units around her in terms of increasing the amount of XP they recieve from actions
2. Pierce will get a defensive boast to units around him
3. Natalie will get a stealth boast to units around her

QOL General Changes in 1.4

• Our Water Shader will be reworked entirely see video at bottom
• Vehicles and their AI will be rewritten completely (We are waiting for this feature to leave beta)
• Buoyancy will be introduced for objects on water
• Aircraft carrier will be turned into a mobile unit you can produce units from, repair and refuel
• Aircraft carrier will turn into a unit you can move and can be attacked/docked at various locations to help stage larger attacks
• Bounty System will be redone entirely to make it mirror closer to Red Dead 2's approach. They will be a system where special infected with abilities are hidden across the map dynamically being selected that you can send in elite teams to kill them to gain money to recover from a huge lost recently.
• World Events will be introduced like mini missions CERC or other people can give you so you can gain money/supply or favor. More details will be revealed in the future for this.
• Chaos Destruction will be implemented to a reasonable amount to bring the game at least to the level of Company of Heroes.
• Improvements to Night/Day system to make it use the newer Night Day system built into Unreal Engine now.
• Infection System revamp. Gas towers will become deadly again and Gas masks will be a thing.
• DNA research tree will be added

Updated Water engine shaders

Updating Vehicle physics & AI

Chaos Destruction

1.5

• Infected AI will be revamped to make them more intelligent and better at planning and flanking maneuvers .
• Last minute QOL changes...
• Modding
• Coop

The Campaign will be tackled in 2024 for the entire year.