Update 1.5 - The Traitor!

Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2024

Genre: Action, Free to Play, Indie, Strategy
Developer: Geoff 'Zag' Keene
Release Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2020

It's happening.

At long last, the Traitor has arrived! This dastardly agent of BRIGADE is here to help bring down The Company. This update also brings in the Monster Evolution track, dozens of improvements to animations and quality of life, deep space lore, and more. Time to activate.

New Antagonist: The Traitor

The Traitor is now a role you can opt-in to at the start of a round, just like opting in as the Monster. The Traitor has one goal; help the Monster win. The They come complete with their own set of rules, and are largely identical to a Spaceman. Here's a few rules to get you started!

There can be 1 Traitor in a round (but unlike the Monster, is not required.)
The Traitor can die and still win, as long as the Monster survives.
The Traitor can hack tons of objects (default keybinding "N") from long-distance with their B.R.I.C.K device. Don't let anyone see you do this! This can be as simple as remote-locking a door to sabotaging a vending machine so that Spacemen who use it get their arm stuck inside.
The Traitor (using Spacemen loadouts) has a new Perk slot with several new abilities, such as (but not limited to) Spacemen-snaring Man Traps, a return-teleport via a Translocator, or setting off the alarms on all the cameras in the facility.
Traitors start a bit weaker, at 90 Health (100 with Recruit perk.)
Traitors have not been infused with Company DNA and therefore can not pick up weapons provided by The Company via Vending Machines or Weapon Canisters. They can still pick up the Grenades, Suitcase Nukes, LMG, SMGs, and things of that nature. Things they can't pick up will pulse red, instead of the typical green.
The Traitor and the Shapeshifter can see one another when they look at each other.

For the rest of the Traitor's nitty-gritty details, check out the full patch notes, or explore and experiment in-game!

A New Pair of Gumshoes

The Investigator Profession has received a substantial buff. Along with some functional changes to the way the Pocket Detective works (you'll see when you use it!) the Traitor's ship can now be scanned to rank up to Investigator Level 2. Once Investigator Level 2, the Investigator can see and track breadcrumbs left behind by the Traitor when they use their B.R.I.C.K. device.

You'll be hot on the trail in no time!

There's also a few more scannable objects in the environment, but all we'll say is; lore-hunters will want to equip a Pocket Detective. Trust us on that one.

... Oh, and Investigators start with Magnums, like any good P.I. should.

Evolution Complete

In order to reduce the frequency of early-game aggression, the Monster is now locked out from certain perks and abilities until they evolve 3 times through the course of the beginning of the round. This means the Monster can not transform (without a syringe) until reaching the first evolution stage.

A couple important rules:

If the Monster evolves whenever possible, they should be fully evolved by the First Tribunal. (Not long!)
Evolution is noisey and takes about 5 seconds, therefore it should generally be done in a safe, hidden location whenever possible.

All of this may sound somewhat complicated, but in practice, it is fairly straightforward and the Evolution Track on the HUD should make it fairly clear what is initially locked. The end result should simply be that Monster can no longer eliminate half the lobby in the first 2 or 3 minutes of the round. Along with the Traitor and other balance tweaks, we feel that everyone will live longer on average, therefore spending less time sad and dead. This is something we're continuing to focus on going forward.

As the Spokesman would say, go get 'em, Tiger.

Time To Perk Up

We've gotten feedback that it's a bit difficult to rank up in order to experience the full range of Perk gameplay Spacemen has to offer, so we've moved all Perk unlocks into sequential order -- or something close to it. In short, every single Rank, you will receive at least 1 new Perk, until you've unlocked them all. This should greatly benefit smaller friend groups (people who don't play on the public servers) and everyone else climbing through the ranks.

Monsters with Professions: A Lil' Rebalancing

We realized that Monster's were running *checks notes just the Doctor Profession because it's pretty dang good. We made some Monster-only changes to all the other Professions to bring them up to a better meta-viability level (that's a real thing we totally care about.)

Recruit: As Monster, you now gain Evolution Points slightly faster than normal.
Janitor: As Monster, airlocks will no longer trigger in Monster Form as well.
Soldier: As Monster, can not be shoved in Monster Form. Like other non-shoveable states, this also blocks damage from Brawny shoves. A specific Monster roar now triggers when a shove fails due to Soldier perk blocking the shove.
Cultist: As Monster, you receive no audio or visual debuffs from Space Milk. This means you can still use voice and text chat after Space Milking, and no particles will appear over your head.
Warden: As Monster, in Monster Form, your shove is 50% more powerful and causes victims to turn AWAY from you instead of towards you as a normal shove would.
Investigator: As Monster, can see Health Bars over Spacemen heads. (This trait was removed from Membrane.)
Membrane Perk: No longer shows Health Bars over Spacemen heads.

Railgun Nerf

Yeah. You knew it was coming. We love the high-octane all-blood no-mercy hip-fire insta-kill clips -- they're a real hoot -- but it turns out it's not very fun for your victims. The Railgun is no longer accurate when hipfired. You will need to typically aim through the scope, you know, like a sniper rifle. Because it's a sniper rifle.

Weapon Speed

As part of our efforts to slow down the aggression just a bit, we're pulling on the reigns just a smidge. We've reduced the Handgun and Auto-Shotty firerates, a wee little bit.

Spreading Out The Power

The total number of Generators has been reduced, and almost all of the Generators are further apart, primarily to stop solo or roaming bands of Spacemen from restoring power. The intent of Generators has always been to slow down and spread out the Spacemen, and this practice was defeating that. Problem solved (probably.)

Space Bar Rework

Everyone's favorite cinema pub in SPAAAAAAAACE has been overhauled to improve Monster viability primarily by improving routing, giving more ambush locations, and reducing total oxygenation in the central play spaces. We have also taken this time to improve the overall visual quality of the map.

Let's just let the pictures do the talking.

Also, we made Tidal Lock safer. Woops.

Cretinous Corporate Crap

The Company has distributed Lil' Jubby figurines to all facilities, the perfect pal for any bedside table, lounge decoration, or office workspace. Please treat them with the reverence and respect they deserve.

Doctor's Orders

Health Syringe Dispensers have been placed in one spot in every map. Doctors can use this to buy a Health Syringe with their Employee Points. A sign of things to come? Ah, who knows. Maybe after we'd had some coffee we could answer tha--

Makin' Moves

Several improvements have been made to animations. Here's a list of fun new actions to see in this update:

Welding now takes time to complete and has a new animation
All animations that zoom the camera out now allow free mouse rotation
Several of new animations when picking up (or failing to pick up) items
Keycard swipe animations (for lock and unlock)
New first-person deploy animation when placing turrets or throwing down traps or medkits
New first-person animations when pulling out weapons
New zombification animation for Corpse Lord zombies
Third-person overheat animations so you can see when another player has an overheated weapon

That Bellicose Blue

Security Bots now have a bit more humanity to them. That is to say, they can also shove you now. You know, just like your other fellow humans. Or whatever Spacemen are.

Also, The Company has repainted the robots, but you probably already read about that, because you like that deep space lore that's been strewn all over 1.5.

HUD Clutter and Proximity Text Chat

In an effort to reduce some of the HUD clutter, now only the closest 5 sealed Research Samples will show on your HUD. Additionally, error and warning messages will no longer be spammable, which should drastically reduce text visible at any given time.

This is all quite convenient, because local proximity text chat will now also show on your HUD -- if you're in range of it when it's spoken. The profanity filter has also been improved, blocking more specific words, and no longer accidentally blocking parts of words that are perfectly safe and wholesome.

Hearanoia

We've updated a lot of sounds, so in general the soundscape should feel a bit less cluttered, and several objects should sound unique, more meaningful, and less overpowering as a whole. Along with that, we've added unique pain and death sounds for Feminine and Robotic voice packs. In space, it turns out you can actually hear a lot of screaming.

Map List for Dedicated Servers

Not only does this update introduce proper Map Lists for dedicated servers, we've also added the ability to disable map voting (force an automatic map rotation) and the ability to hide moderators in lobby if you'd like to keep your moderators a bit more undercover.

We've updated the EXAMPLE_Game.ini that ships with the server files, and you can learn all about how to set up and manage a dedicated server (including these new features) in our Official Dedicated Server Guide.

Note: Please be aware that the player-facing map name may differ from the map filename! Read the guide carefully before telling us your map list is incorrect!

Message of the Day for Dedicated Servers

Due to popular demand...

You can now set up an motd.txt (next to your BanList.txt, AdminList.txt, and ModList.txt) in order to display a Message of the Day on your dedicated server. It's limited to 1000 characters and is seen (briefly) upon spawning, and (as long as the player wants) in the Escape menu during gameplay.

Have Your Space-Cake and Wear It Too

In celebration of our 1-year anniversary (which zoomed by during development of 1.5) we have a new Cake helmet available to anyone who owns/plays the game prior to August 31st, 2021. Make sure you grab this sweet helmet and celebrate Spacemen's epic journey from obscurity to slightly-less-Among-Us-adjacent obscurity. (Hey, if we don't laugh, we cry.)

New Cosmetics, New Achievements

We have several new achievements, which reward several new sprays and nameplates.

New Achievement: For The Homeworld: Win a game as an agent of BRIGADE. Must be alive and in a game with at least 4 players. (Grab this one to secure the BRIGADE Cell helmet!)
New Achievement: For The Greater Good: Win a game as an agent of BRIGADE, even though you died. Must be dead and in a game with at least 4 players.
New Achievement: Sower of Chaos: As an agent of BRIGADE, hack 20 different objects in a single match.
New Achievement: Missing The Point: Drink Space Milk as an agent of BRIGADE.
New Achievement: Hot On The Trail: As an Investigator, scan the Traitor's ship in order to locate additional clues.
2 New Hidden Achievements (The Most Convincing Con and Lunar Eclipse)

You can also pick up the new Necronaut Bundle, which comes with a nameplate, Cosmonaut Helmet, Cosmonaut Suit, Cosmos Visor, and the dreaded, tentacle-laden Necronaut Monster Skin!

There are also a few new visors to pick up, such as the Purple Lava Lamp visor, Iridescent visor bundle, and Cheese visor!

Cosmetics Sale

As a small bonus, all cosmetics prior to this update are 50% off during the Realms Deep event! Snag some cheap bling while you can!

The Future

A little note from Geoff "Zag" Keene, creator of Unfortunate Spacemen.

As many of you know, Unfortunate Spacemen has been a project of passion -- and a little bit more than that -- for myself, our Art Lead Connor, our 2D-shader-whatever-she-does Jenny, and all of the New Blood team (especially the QA team!) for many years, sometimes full-time, sometimes alongside other day jobs. Now more than 1 year out from our 1.0 release, we look fondly back on our craziest updates like Perkageddon, The Tribunal update, and Kema's release -- and now we look forward to the future.

As you might've seen on our Development Starmap, we've got a couple big updates in store featuring the return of a reworked Duress, an overhaul to tasks (adding a bunch more!) and updating the tutorials for all the new changes that have piled in over the last year. We hope you enjoy the new Traitor role, and be sure to drop in and say hi on our discord server!

Thank you for being part of this adventure, and we'll see you in space!

As with all updates, the Full Patch Notes will reveal the tiny details for those that like to go over every patch with a fine-toothed comb. Also, they're pretty funny sometimes.

Until next transmission, Operator.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/408900/Unfortunate_Spacemen/

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