A dev stream focused on two big near-term upgrades: an early save/load system (currently via console commands) and a major vehicle pathfinding overhaul aimed at getting trucks and armor to drive like humans instead of bulldozing entire city blocks. The host demonstrates saving in-game (including screenshot-based save thumbnails), explains multiplayer limitations (host-only saving, loading from the hub, clients/operators being recycled, money/control returning to host), and calls out what’s not serialized yet (things like grenades/projectiles).On the AI side, they walk through the new navigation “cost” tuning: vehicles now strongly prefer roads and dirt paths, only smashing through fences/walls when a short move makes it genuinely cheaper. They show the debug nav visualization, highlight remaining oddities (end-move quirks, objects not waking from physics sleep, streetlights behaving wrong, loss of vehicle momentum), and flag more polish coming next week based on community poll priorities (vehicle pathfinding #1, infantry pathfinding #2, performance and formations next).The stream also touches several other updates: a recently fixed crash tied to a specific vehicle move order, desync-related guard tower placement bugs, camera feel improvements, cinematic mode toggles for clean screenshots, and a balance pass that buffs infantry resilience and improves vehicle survivability while reducing population costs for many vehicles.Finally, there’s a look ahead: UI-based save/load arriving around Monday/Tuesday, more custom game options (infinite ammo / no reload / toggles for supply and gas), ongoing optimization for lower-spec GPUs and Steam Deck/controller support, a near-term roadmap toward civilian evacuation presentations and implementation later in February, and weapon pipeline updates for customizable operators (including an LMG drop and a P90 in progress).

Episode summary:

After a short hiatus, the dev team returns with a rapid-fire status update on what’s shipped, what’s broken, and what’s coming next. They recap the January build flip and the launch of a deeper doctrine tree (including airstrike support like A-10/AC-130 and gas canisters), then address the biggest immediate gap: the in-progress save system, currently being tested to ensure all new systems serialize and load correctly.A big chunk of the episode focuses on stability and moment-to-moment frustration fixes—especially “pathfinding” complaints that often trace back to bad collision and navigation mismatches. The team explains how they’re hunting down stuck units across older maps, and why Calypso was pulled for a major rework: mountains were too tall for helicopter behavior and engine limits, so the landscape was cut down, routes were widened for vehicles and juggernauts, and buildable plateaus and beachhead access were expanded. Calypso is expected back in rotation soon once terrain smoothing and grid fill are finished.On balance, infected melee damage has been refactored to feel less cheesy (with special attention to juggernaut attacks), and the next balance pass targets CIRC weapon damage tables. Operator content continues to grow with themed skins (including new onslaught variants), XP grind reductions, and upcoming operator improvements like zoom behavior when aiming with optics and a laser designator to call in support options.The final segment lays out an early plan for a revamped civilian evacuation system: civilians funnel into a central intake, get screened, and are routed into holding, research, or euthanization based on player-defined rules—supported by a separate staffing system so your RTS population isn’t permanently tied up guarding tents. The team also teases longer-term ambitions—more maps, larger mainland scenarios, optional destruction experiments, and campaign inspiration—before closing with Q&A and an invite to public playtests immediately after the stream.

Summary:

This episode dives deep into the massive rebuild and overhaul of vehicle systems, from fixing longstanding physics bugs—like tanks endlessly reversing—to laying the groundwork for more realistic formations and interactions. The devs share how new logistics systems are reshaping supply chains with fuel, ammo, and repair variants, and walk through the first iteration of the targeting computer that will power automated mortar systems. There's a focus on meaningful playtesting feedback, AI pathfinding fixes, and real-time tweaks as new vehicles roll into private testing. You’ll also hear about the push to streamline unit modularity for faster development, the addition of medical variants, and early work on improving map design for heavy vehicle navigation. Plus, progress updates on airstrikes, doctrines, unit interaction polish, and upcoming seasonal cosmetic features.A few times each week, our developers host public multiplayer sessions where we jump into the chaos ourselves—testing, refining, and showcasing the true state of the game. These sessions are open for everyone to join, chat, and experience the evolving sandbox that Cepheus Protocol Multiplayer and Singleplayer has become.

Episode summary

This episode is an unfiltered deep dive into the hardest remaining system in the rebuild: vehicle pathfinding and convoy behavior. Robert walks through days of live playtesting, debugging, and iteration on the Ajax, Striker, and Mule, showing exactly where vehicles succeed, where they fail, and why that last 10–20% of polish is the most time-consuming part of development.The team breaks down how vehicle AI now evaluates road preference, turn-in-place recovery, reverse maneuvers, obstacle avoidance, and navigation cost layers—and why dense urban environments expose edge cases that simpler RTS maps never face. Convoy movement introduces an entirely new layer of complexity, with formation logic, dynamic spacing, gas usage, and mixed infantry/vehicle groups all fighting each other when systems don’t perfectly agree. Robert openly demonstrates failures: clipping, overcorrection, bad formation anchors, vehicles recoiling off small objects, and rare cases where collision or navigation data breaks down entirely.Alongside vehicles, Michael details ongoing infected model optimization, including atlas-based materials to massively reduce draw calls, enabling far larger battles without CPU bottlenecks. Future polish includes restoring dismemberment chunks, refining VFX, and upgrading animation pipelines to improve fluidity across both operators and RTS units.The episode also previews upcoming combat balance changes—new operator weapons to counter juggernauts, sniper buffs against builders, and experimental heavy canister weapons—while clarifying why cosmetics, infantry skins, and non-critical features are intentionally deprioritized until core systems are rock solid.On the roadmap side, Robert lays out a clear December plan: finish vehicle pathfinding, add remaining vehicle variants, roll in logistics systems like finite resupply, then move into doctrines, airstrikes, and super-heavy units. San Francisco North remains the long-term centerpiece, with island hopping and civilian systems planned once vehicle AI can reliably handle the terrain.The key message is blunt and consistent: vehicles will not ship half-broken. The team is committed to crushing edge cases through aggressive playtesting—even if it takes longer—so convoys work under pressure, not just in ideal conditions.

Episode summary

This episode is a deep dive into one of the rebuild’s hardest problems: making vehicles work reliably in dense, living cities. Robert and Derek walk through the current state of the Ajax, breaking down why vehicle AI is so difficult at scale and what’s actively being done to fix it. From higher-speed handling and smarter braking to predictive turn logic, obstacle detection “antennas,” and road-preferred navigation, the team shows exactly how vehicles decide where to go—and where that logic still breaks down.They demonstrate new physics interactions like snapping streetlights, destructible roadside objects, and weight-based ramming that lets vehicles plow through infected while gradually losing momentum. At the same time, they’re wrestling with edge cases: lamp posts that attract collisions, formations that force vehicles into bad decisions, early turns that cause crashes, and tight navmesh margins that leave no room for error. A major takeaway is that rotation-in-place and smarter recovery behaviors—common RTS cheats—are likely necessary to make vehicles feel dependable rather than babysat.Beyond vehicles, the episode covers parallel AI work. Infected now use squad-based logic to reduce conga lines, spread attacks, and lower CPU cost, though target fixation and corner clustering still need refinement. Building-avoidance nav layers are being added to stop hordes from hugging walls, while performance hitches tied to nav rebuilds and async checks are under investigation.The team also previews upcoming systems: weight-class destruction (fences, walls, street furniture), juggernaut interactions, convoy formations with infantry, and how all of this groundwork feeds future features like civilian evacuation buses. On the content side, Robert shows progress on new infected meshes, plans for expanded civilian/infected variants (police, firefighters, National Guard), and explains why fully modular clothing systems aren’t feasible at the game’s scale.The episode closes with roadmap clarity: vehicles won’t ship until they’re reliable, even if it takes another week; playtests will run daily to hunt failure cases; and December is shaping up to be a heavy month with vehicles, doctrines, operator polish, and major systemic fixes landing as the rebuild pushes toward its one-year milestone.

Episode Summary:This episode is a massive dev drop packed with updates from the last two weeks. The team walks through the ongoing overhaul of vehicle systems, focusing on the Ajax transport. Derek covers the migration of vehicle AI from Blueprints to C++, including new pathfinding behaviors, formation syncing with infantry, braking logic, and adaptive driving based on terrain. Vehicles now stop sliding off buildings when they spawn, thanks to new handbrake logic. The discussion dives into formation integration, improved enemy targeting, garrison logic, seating logic, and plans to enable ramming, shooting from vehicles, and parachute drops.They also highlight upcoming work: destructible environment objects (fences, trees, mailboxes), ramming logic based on vehicle weight class, and how players can eventually use vehicles tactically to break through dense city layouts. A double-click “run mode” is proposed to let vehicles choose whether to obey roads or brute-force through structures, borrowing from classic RTS control schemes. There's also an exploration of vehicle handling, friction issues on hills, tight cornering, and real-world-style terrain collision debugging.Beyond vehicles, the episode covers improvements to the infected: new ambient sound behaviors for idle vs. alert states, refinements to their death and damage logic, and plans for special infected variants like SWAT, firefighters, and medics — all with different resistances and combat dynamics. Nighttime gameplay is also being rebalanced with “stalker” types that become more aggressive after dark, adding pressure and urgency to nighttime missions.The custom game options system is now fully live, letting players modify everything from day/night cycles to infected stats, gas tower range, and more. These settings are shareable via Steam Workshop using a streamlined mod tool that supports JSON-based presets. Players can upload and download challenge modes, tweak gameplay on the fly, and save/load preferred configurations. The system is future-proofed for doctrine integration, and plans are in motion to balance logistics around vehicle fuel and ammo costs through MRS (Mobile Resupply Systems).Other highlights include:Operator shooting range added to the main menu for weapon testing19+ weapons being reintroduced by end of yearNew infected visuals and shader work underwayPreparations for weather, moon cycles, and eventual upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.6 or 5.7Fixes for turret line-of-sight issues, dancing tree VFX bugs, and infected noise replicationPlanned rework of the save/load system targeted for mid-DecemberMap designer “Cre” returns with a new coastal town map and early landscapable price balancingCommunity Q&A covering FOB buildings, operator deconstruction tools, and netcode optimization for ambient soundsThe team reiterates their end-of-year goals: polish Ajax, finish ground vehicle features, implement doctrines, operator improvements, and get the game into a strong position for the holiday sale and the January rebuild anniversary. Players are encouraged to test aggressively, report issues, and experiment with the new tools.

Episode summary

This episode is a deep development check-in focused on restoring legacy maps while pushing core systems forward. The team details ongoing work on Treasure Island—collision fixes, navigation cleanup, removable objects, and visual polish—while setting expectations for Calypso’s return in the coming days. Calypso’s remaining work centers on zone borders, helicopter navigation, tree replacements, and asset cleanup, with all hands soon shifting toward unlocking the larger northern region once island-hopping AI is ready.

A major highlight is the first live version of custom game options, letting hosts directly tune infected behavior: health, damage, movement (walk vs. run), and special-unit toggles. The goal is full sandbox control, with plans to expand presets, workshop sharing, and deeper pandemic-mode configuration once the faction manager is fully integrated.

On the gameplay side, the episode showcases big AI and combat updates. Dismemberment has been reworked to allow dynamic limb loss without heavy performance costs. Boss AI receives substantial tuning: the juggernaut now properly targets helicopters, predicts movement more naturally, and behaves less erratically, while Chelsea’s AI is being overhauled to stop easy kiting, reduce excessive stun-locking, and better punish careless players.

System stability and quality-of-life improvements round out the update. Save/load functionality is progressing for structures and world state, co-op crash handling now redistributes resources fairly, operators properly relink after reconnects, and infected conversions behave correctly. Operator mode gets reduced visual clutter, engineers scale repair speed with level, road navigation is live for vehicles and infantry, and community mapping is being actively tested through a dense horde-style prototype built in the SDK.

The episode closes with a clear roadmap: finalize custom games, finish Calypso, begin vehicle implementation with the Ajax as the foundation, then move rapidly into broader vehicle support, doctrines, and eventually civilian systems—marking steady progress toward making the rebuild the default experience.

Robert delivers a dense, no-nonsense progress update covering two weeks of rapid development, bug triage, and content rollout. Treasure Island is now fully playable, serving as the foundation for the larger Bay Area world, while Alcatraz continues to receive structural and visual polish. Calypso—a fan-favorite legacy map—is being ported back in as a compact, corridor-driven scenario, giving players a third playable map in the near term and more variety while larger regions come online.A major focus of the episode is system stability. The fog-of-war and line-of-sight systems were partially rewritten to eliminate long-standing multiplayer crashes and desyncs, with scouting now required to reveal infection structures. AI navigation, builder pathing, and structure destruction were heavily tuned to reduce exploits, prevent network freezes, and improve overall RTS reliability. Visual clutter was cut back in operator mode, run mode returned, and clearer cooldown indicators were added across the UI.On the gameplay side, Robert previews ongoing work on save/load functionality, including world state, unit health, inventory, patrols, and shared economy rules for co-op sessions. Weapon balance continues to evolve with separate air and ground engagement ranges, bullet penetration returning for high-caliber weapons, and early prototypes of dismemberment and limb damage now live. New infected variants are in development, with nighttime “lurker” concepts aimed at making after-dark excursions far more dangerous.The episode closes with a roadmap update: short-term goals include finishing save/load, custom game options, and bringing ground vehicles back starting with the Ajax. Longer-term plans point toward doctrines, deeper operator polish, civilian evacuation, and eventually broader faction expansion once the rebuild fully replaces the legacy branch.